Fatal Attraction

I was thinking of calling this one "I just boiled your bunny," but that's just so nasty. Nevertheless, that sentiment pretty much constituted the intended essence of this shot. Probably the hardest part of this shoot was getting the lovely, happy, sweet, real-life couple to look like theirs was more of a fatal attraction than the loving, enthusiastic and positive nicest-people-you-coud-ever-meet one that it actually is. Jason and Elizabeth own and run Artists' Play Dance studio in Leslieville. Their professionalism and energy was fantastic: after working all day running summer camp courses for young dancers, they spent a long night with us enduring my relentless direction to get just the expressions I wanted from them, which they managed with aplomb.

I had the help of a fabulous and dedicated team once again: Christine Cho of Cho Beauty (Hair and Make-up), Keva Legault of Plutino Group (Wardrobe), Marilyn Karamaritis (Art Director), Sara Shirley (Assistant), as well as my team driver and general helper my beautiful husband Ken, all of whom worked into the early morning hours to make this happen. A big thank-you again to super nice guy Tim who let us take over his funky loft for a whole night.

Dream Job

We had a super tight timeline and a small crew but we got the shot (as I knew we would) with the compliments of Richard Peddie, former head of "one of the most successful sports franchises in the world." (See the book description at harpercollins.ca.)

We were barely finished getting the first shot when skaters started moving onto the rink at the ACC. We were in such a hurry to get to the second set location before our time ran out we hardly realized that our rink time wasn't even technically up yet!

Thanks to planning the lighting and composition as completely as possible, well before we arrived, we got the shots as visualized, in lightning time, even without having been able to scout the location ahead of time. The rink seemed way smaller than I thought it would be once we were actually on it! But that was actually a good thing!

Blues

Thank-you Zenporium http://www.zenporium.com for allowing us to shoot in your lovely store. The whole team was fascinated with the Coffee Tree Sculptures (made from natural coffee bean trees salvaged from Japanese coffee plantations), Agnieska Tarnawska's Aga Azra line of dream catchers,  and all the fantastic salvaged wood furniture and art. I love my Cahaya Cubes!

 

Keva Legault (wardrobe), Iman (hair and make-up), and Ross (model and musician) all from Plutino Group www.plutinogroup.com, along with assistant Melanie Godecki made this shot possible. Tons of gratitude to a great team!

Robert Herjavec: The Will To Win

My second book cover with Robert Herjavec. One of the most fun photo shoots ever! Great team, great energy. My thanks to make-up artist extraordinaire Christine Cho and my super cool assistant Melanie Godecki. And of course, Lisa Bettencourt and the HarperCollins Canada team.

Cold, Hard Truth On Men, Women & Money

Had the pleasure of working with Terri Nimmo and the team from Random House Canada on Kevin O'Leary's latest book cover. We shot in my studio and had the added fun of hosting the CBC team who were filming a day-in-the-life-of piece on Kevin. Watched the season finale of Dragon's Den last night (Season 7) and there we were! And yes, the secret is out! Kevin O'Leary is a super guy to work with!

Tough Guy High Tech Equipment Shoot

Once again I had the most fun opportunity to photograph some high tech gear on a "tough guy" model/stuntman for Eomax, manufacturer of a world leading modular imaging system for military and homeland security applications. Armourer Charles Taylor, weapons specialist to the film industry supplied the uniforms and "extras." I can't wait to do the in situ shots!

2013 Mini-Calendar

For the fourth year in a row I was very fortunate to be able to collaborate with the team at Finesilver Design and Communications to produce a self-promotional mini-calendar. Based around the artistic theme of simplicity and the human body, the photography features images of a woman's body which I shot in studio using a hand held light source. One of my favourite lighting techniques, it is obviously more appropriate for some types of photography than others, but when it does work, it allows me to paint what I want to capture, which hopefully results in impressions that are just a little different from what could be achieved with traditional fixed lights.