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Chantal and I have worked together once before, on a Global TV commercial, and although it’s been a long time coming, we finally got back together for this speedy Calgary photo session. We chose a location on the south side of Calgary and when we arrived I saw they were doing some construction work. As soon as I saw the trucks there I thought, “Photo props!” The workers were knocking off for the day and they let Chantal clamber over the equipment in the name of photography, which was pretty cool of them. I suppose she’d have to try really, really hard to break one. I like the juxtaposition between the trucks, which are all dirty, imposing, and grungy-looking and Chantal, who . . . isn’t.

After doing some photos around the machinery for about forty minutes, I had one specific photo in mind that I really wanted to try out. It involved quite a bit of prep work, since we’d never actually done this before, so Chantal and I got to sit in the car with the heat pumping out while my assistant put it all together for us—thanks, Doug! I wanted to create a wall of fire effect behind Chantal and so I’d brought a pre-assembled wooden wall that Doug rebuilt and fixed in place. Then I set up my lights, called Chantal over from the warm car, and had two minutes to get the shot. And, yay, we got the shot!

I look forward to our next shoot, whenever that may be.

What can you do with a model in half an hour inside a small concrete room with a dirt floor?

Lisa had emailed me a while back to see if we could set up a shoot for when she was going to be in Calgary next time (she’s from Ontario) and after checking out the awesome work in her portfolio I was happy to make the time. Lisa was excellent to work with! Very professional and easy to get along with. We worked so fast in this little area and Lisa went through such a cool variety of poses. The grungy concrete box as the sun went down really lent itself to a dark kinda vibe in the photography and, even though that is a bit of a departure for me, I went along with the feel of the place and got the photos below. The last image is creepy, eh? It’s the shadow of one of my assistants holding a bit of wood we found on the ground, shaped like a knife. It’s a bit of a nod to a Joe McNally shot I liked. I’m only posting my seven favourites, but I actually got 29 photos in 32 minutes, with various lighting setups.

Coming Soon!