Beauty and the Beast

I have very mixed feelings calling this shot Beauty and the Beast because Mark Prendergast, metallurgical artist and owner of Deity Metallurgy on Carlaw Ave., Toronto, is so not a "beast." Mark, whose hard-edged appearance belies his gentle, spiritual nature lives and works in my neighbourhood in Riverdale and over the years we have said hello many times, fellow redheads in the 'hood. So when I was conceiving this shot, the third in a series of three location creatives, I thought of him and set out to find him, without being able to remember his name, or knowing the name of his business. Turned out that he is pretty well known in this area having been here at least as long as I have. 

It also turned out that he created the metal art in House of Moments, the incredible art gallery/restaurant/event space I had chosen as the shoot location. Just up the street from my studio, House of Moments is a place I had walked past a hundred times without ever going in, until one day my husband and I went in the check it out as a possible spot to take out of town guests for dinner. We were so taken by the huge, moody, art-filled environment, that we made a reservation on the spot. The Japanese-Middle Eastern fusion food was original and delicious and our guests loved it.

Sherry Mahdavi, Sales and Events Manager was generous and supportive allowing us to come in and take over a portion of the space during what would normally have been a quiet time but turned out to be a busy facility tour day for prospective clients. Whoops. Thankfully, Sherry assured us that clients of HoM are very much the kinds of people who appreciate art in progress, so when Mark yelled at the top of his lungs to get into his part, apparently it was O.K. In fact, and I love this, on any given day, if you go into the space during off hours you will likely see talented artists right there working on huge original paintings which, when completed, add to the ongoing art exhibit. Thanks to owner Hamid Kouchak, too, for allowing us to incorporate his vision into ours. It really is a unique and fascinating space.

The other star in this piece was model and actress Vanessa Lai represented by Hero Artists. I had a shopping list of attributes I was looking for when casting the female character and Vanessa fit the bill exactly. Great attitude, total team player and a great actress she captured her part perfectly, hanging in there like a trooper while the wind machine brought tears to her eyes. She even brought her own fabulous dress which made the shot. (We had dresses for her, but not as great as hers!)

Karima Sumar make-up artist from Judy Inc. brought a similarly super enthusiastic and professional attitude along with her talent and created exactly the look I had envisioned. And thanks once again to Melanie Godecki for her tireless and dedicated assisting prowess.

Toiling Away in Obscurity

I recently had an opportunity to photograph another artist and colleague in his personal space, the latest in my series of creative people in their personal worlds. This is Ed Gatner who specializes in motorsports photography. He is busy enough working in this niche that he doesn't even have a website or I would direct you to it! But he can be reached at edgatner@sympatico.ca.

I have never seen Ed actually shooting....I'm not sure I have ever even been to a real race track! But he did allow me to see his private live/work space where he spends countless hours toiling away on his computer perfecting image after image of the one thing I really do not shoot: cars. Ed is yet another talented and experienced artist who may not be well known outside his field (thus my use of the word "obscurity" in the title of this post) but who is certainly known by the numerous publications he's worked with for the past twenty years. Unassuming and very private he kind of quietly flies under the radar toiling away, building his oeuvre, not unlike some of the other artists I have come to know, or the many others of whom neither you nor I are even aware, yet.

Another fascinating discovery for me even though I have known Ed for years! Call him if you need someone to shoot a race car or as he just explained to me, more specifically, anything with a motor... cars of all sorts including go-karts to Formula 1, as well as the latest car tests and motorcycles from motocross to superbikes...!

Kevin O'Leary's Cold Hard Truth on Family, Kids & Money

Hits shelves tomorrow just in time for Christmas!

Another Kevin O'Leary Cover Shoot

Ever the brilliant self-promoter I managed to get left out of the picture documenting my own shoot at Kevin O'Leary's fabulous cottage! The much smarter Kevin wanted to tweet about the cover shoot and I wanted to help! So I found a good position to stand and snapped the scene on Kevin's camera.

He tweeted about the surprising amount of time it took us to take, essentially, two pictures. I can usually set up and shoot fairly quickly, but it's amazing how many gorgeous sight lines and lush bits of landscape and architecture do not fit into a book cover layout with specific parameters regarding not just composition but content. And of course the sun kept moving! 

However, I'm proud to say we created two great options. After feeling like the first shot couldn't be topped, and trying numerous spots and set-ups around the property we actually did come up with a great second shot. I, myself, was voting for option 1, which did win in the end. Yay!  The book should be out any day and is the third in the Cold, Hard Truth series.

Can't wait to see the actual book!

Jay Onrait ~ Anchorboy

Just  a few days before sportscaster Jay Onrait flew off to LA to start his new career at Fox Sports 1 network hosting their flagship show Fox Sports Live we got to shoot him in my studio for his new book Anchorboy. I think we set a record for highest number of frames shot (by me) for one book cover, without even a wardrobe change. No coaxing or coaching required of this subject AT ALL. Not that I didn't try. But I probably could have just stood there and clicked the shutter and still got what we needed.

Christine Cho, my trusty make-up artist was a super sport and lent her arm, without hesitation, to the cover art. Serendipitously, there were so many great outtakes that Kristine Kwan, Jay's web designer decided to use (with permission, of course) some of them for his new site launched just last week. It's a very fun site which you can see at jayonrait.com.

Incredibly fun and stress-free shoot. Thanks to HarperCollins Canada! Look for the book in stores Nov. 5, 2013. And good luck Jay!

A tissue...

As a challenge for a personal still life project I wanted to take something inherently ordinary and uninteresting and make it look beautiful and interesting...kleenex! I bought a bunch of boxes of these boring little white squares and went to work. Unfortunately I did such a good job on the flowers (thanks to some instructions I found online and modified) that the one in this image almost looks real...maybe not if you see a larger version of the picture, which you can do at hollinrake.com in Portfolio 2, where you can see a few other kleenex transformations as well.

Even more in this case than with the Letters shoot mentioned in my previous post, I got to do what I love: create something really pretty out of not much.

Letters

Each year for the past few years I have worked with Martin Finesilver and Mark Smith of Finesilver Design, and Stewart Miller of Ideal Printing to produce a mini-calendar for self-promotional purposes. I am so excited about the images we have created for our 2014 edition that I couldn't wait to share one of my favourites. 

We had thought of using antique letter press wooden block type some time ago, and Martin and I finally found ourselves with just enough time to meet at The Prop Room and see what they had. Really, to use an old and so over-used cliché, we were like kids in a candy store. We hand-picked our own set of the pieces whose texture, coloration, and form stood out to us in particular: little pieces of art-in-waiting. I couldn't wait to get them back to the studio to compose them, and 'dramatize' them on some of my antique wooden surfaces.

The shoot was one of those experiences that really reminded me of why I chose this career in the first place. I love the art we got out of a pile of letters. Sometime in the next couple of months the design and printing will be completed, we'll do the assembly, and pop them into their little organza pouches and I'll get to give them out! Yeah!