Salex Lighting Has a New Showroom

lightmonkeyphotography — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:24:00 +0000

Last week we were introduced to the team at Salex Lighting and on Thursday shot their new showroom (and office) located in Scarborough. The centre piece of the new location is the staffroom complete with a fireplace, oversized sofa, and a billiards table finished in orange felt. This is truly a room that was designed with the comfort and enjoyment of the Salex team in mind.

Our thanks to Paul, George, and Nick of Salex for all of their help. We certainly look forward to working with them again in the future.

A Good Use of Time

lightmonkeyphotography — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:07:01 +0000

So… every spring the condominium corporation that runs the building that houses the loft hires people to come and wash the underground. Today was the the day they did that this year. As you might know (if you have been following us) we have started to take on more commercial and promotional work this year, which has meant honing different skills and coming up with creative ways to shoot new material. It is a movement forward in our work that we have really enjoyed – and so with a day ‘off’ so to speak, forced because we had to remove both car and truck from the underground for the day, we chose to take the cameras out and shoot for ourselves (rather than clients) to test some methods that will come into play in the work that we will in fact be doing for clients in the upcoming days and months…

And I was a model – or my very small footwear was anyway.

Above, some of the results from an hour or so spent by the lake on one of the first warm days of spring… more to come… (photos AND warm spring days).

More From Our Loft 404 Creative Shoot

lightmonkeyphotography — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:01:22 +0000

Above, a selection from our recent creative shoot at Loft 404. Our thanks again to the team – Rebecca, Victoria, and Michelle – you were fantastic to work with.

Fashion Creative at Loft 404

lightmonkeyphotography — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 20:06:39 +0000

We were lucky enough yesterday to work with a new team in putting together a fashion creative, shot at Loft 404. The space at loft 404 has to be seen to be believed – one experiences a sort of sensory overload walking through the maze of rooms and hallways covered in eclectic scavenged goods from around the world. It is a space that truly inspires creativity.

Our model for the shoot was Rebecca Leung and she was a dream to work with, you will be seeing a lot of Rebecca in the future. Her makeup was expertly applied by Victoria Fedosoff who took each description of the look we wanted and made it a reality, Victoria also served as our hairstylist for the day. The shoot was styled by Michelle Price who did a great job in making sure nothing was overlooked. It was energizing to work with such a fun group of creative professionals and we look forward to working with this team again.

Below, a few shots from the start of the day – Rebecca in one of Loft 404′s vibrantly coloured rooms.

Last Week Was -22 Degrees Celsius. So This Week, Why Not Talk About Running Outdoors?

lightmonkeyphotography — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:21:28 +0000

As mentioned in our 2012 year end blog post, we’ve had the opportunity to work with some terrific people over the past few years – people who we’ve come to realize have inspired us in one way or another. Some have inspired us with their creativity, challenging us to think in new ways or to develop our own techniques in creating images that we have collaborated on together – still others have gone further, inspiring us because they do some things that are really pretty awesome. One of those people is Idea Workshop director Jo-anne Sheffield.

Last year Jo-anne ran her first marathon. She RAN a MARATHON. That’s a big deal. And not only did she finish in a very respectable time, but she posted consistent split times all the way to 35K before pushing through the final distance, strides that I can only imagine (and maybe entirely inaccurately) must have been simultaneously the most gruelling and exhilarating (and gruelling!) of the race. I followed her entire race on my iPhone, refreshing the feed as she crossed the finish line. Jo-anne RAN a MARATHON. That really is a big deal.

What was inspiring was not just the fact that after years of building up her distance, from five to thirty kilometre races, she accepted a challenge that would push her running to the most elite level – but also what her consistency and her results tell us about the way that she approached that challenge, both during the months of hard training and during the race itself.

So now, how does that relate to us (?) you might ask.

Well, I can’t explain it precisely – it’s more a process of thought than a phrase, but it relates to the long term goals that Mark and I have for our artistic development within the realm of commercial photography. As we work our way through projects that will, in the end, comprise our life’s work – we realize that as they say, it is very much a marathon - it isn’t a sprint. We have mastered new skills over time and in the application of those skills we are proud to say that we have become consistent – our clients know what they are going to get when they hire us – we have found our pace.

Increasingly though, we have also found ourselves hungry for new challenges and developing a strong desire to take our craft to the next level. We want to create more, collaborate with others, and produce new work that pushes our limits. Our goals for this year may not be as easy to define as 42.2 kilometres on any given Sunday – but we know what they are and we are pushing ourselves to meet them.

Our first priority this year is to assemble some work that fully demonstrates what we can do and the direction in which we would like to go. Of course we will also continue to actively seek new people to collaborate with; people who will inspire us to do our best work yet.

If you are here and reading this we hope it is because you have liked some of our past work and you’re interested in seeing what we do next. Indeed if that is the case then we thank you and we encourage you to keep visiting this blog, we will continue to excitedly show you what we have been working on.

For now, you will find some of our older work above – marathons and road races that we shot over this past year. We are including those photos with this post because I have the feeling that if we included a portrait of Jo-anne without asking, we might get in a lot of trouble.

A LOT of trouble. :)

Happy Holidays From Light Monkey Photography

lightmonkeyphotography — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 17:34:24 +0000

Once again we are winding down for the holidays and Mark and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the wonderful, creative people who we’ve had the pleasure of working with this year. It’s been another good year for us and we’ve enjoyed being involved in so many new projects, leading our photography into new genres and adding to our body of work. Many of the experiences we’ve shared with you, our clients, have inspired us and driven us forward – we thank you for that gift and we wish you all the best for the coming year.

Happiest holidays to you all.

Addrenaline Media’s President and Creative Director, Kyle Hosick

lightmonkeyphotography — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:15:46 +0000

Kyle Hosick, President and Creative Director of Addrenaline Media, came to us recently looking for a series of photos for a media kit he was putting together for a new venture that he will be launching in the coming year. We were excited to work with Kyle, having worked along side him a few years ago during the famous roof top champagne juggling shoot we did for Chuck Champers – Kyle shot the video and created Chuck’s website which of course features our photos.

We always look forward to working with other creatives – the ideas just flow and we love the freedom of trying different things and seeing what comes out of it all. In this case we were very happy with the results and we hope that Kyle was too.

Above, a sample of one of the profile photos… Kyle and his Great White tattoo.

LMP Launches A New Updated Website

lightmonkeyphotography — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:14:39 +0000

We are pleased to announce that we have a new updated website at www.lightmonkey.ca

ScotiaBank BuskerFest People’s Choice Award Winners, Dream State Circus

lightmonkeyphotography — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:10:17 +0000

The winners of this year’s People’s Choice Award at the ScotiaBank BuskerFest in Support of Epilepsy Toronto was Dream State Circus – the multitalented duo made up of Sophie and Jacob McGrath. We have shot several of Dream State Circus’ performances in past years – they were also People’s Choice Award winners in 2009 – and this year when they approached us to do a full on promo shoot for them in the week following the festival we jumped at the opportunity.

Apart from being a world renowned acrobalance, fire juggling, and highly synchronized circus act Sophie and Jacob are really wonderfully fun and honest people, they are very open minded and our shoot was a complete collaboration of creative ideas – the best kind of situation that we can hope for when shooting promo. We shot using a few different locations and were enjoying ourselves so much that it seemed the time just flew by (well, it flew by for US – we’re not sure about Sophie and Jacob who were responsible for doing all the acrobatics required and still had to make the trip to Niagara that night in preparation for another festival that weekend)!

At the end of the afternoon we felt we’d created some material worthy of these power performers – a couple of samples can be seen above.

We also should take a minute to thank Julie Pilkington and the staff at the Novotel Toronto Centre. We are becoming known for our fire photography and as I’ve mentioned before, when we shoot fire the fire is real – there is no photoshopping or post production to make it bigger, brighter, or more ‘fiery’ – it comes out of the camera just as you see it in the photos and Dream State Circus does BIG fire. With our assurance that all of the necessary precautions and safety measures were in place (Dream State is also very safety conscious) Julie allowed us a perfect location to shoot uninterrupted, so again – our thanks to Julie and of course to Sophie and Jacob of Dream State Circus. We had such a lot of fun.

Peter Rabbit and Snap Boogie as 2 on 1

lightmonkeyphotography — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:30:36 +0000

One of the most popular performance duos at ScotiaBank BuskerFest this year was 2 on 1, made up of Peter Rabbit an established drummer and all around entertainer (who we last shot in 2005) and Snap Boogie (aka Cjaiilon Andrade) a blindingly talented dancer who some might have recognized as a semi-finalist from Season 6 of America’s Got Talent. As 2 on 1, Peter drums on buckets demonstrating his incredible skill in percussion while Snap Boogie displays his talent and passion for dance in a routine that ends with him front flipping over a line of audience members – inevitably to wild applause.

While this duo puts on an energetic and masterful show for the audience, a part of their obvious fan appeal is in the way that they approach everyone who has come to see them perform. Peter Rabbit and Snap Boogie are two very open, friendly, and accommodating professionals and we can tell you first hand they are a real pleasure – and a lot of fun – to work with.

We grabbed each of them individually for a series of portraits in an alley on the grounds of BuskerFest – as you can see we also grabbed a few helpful chefs who came during a break from a nearby restaurant to see what we were up to and ended up standing in for some lighting tests. Both Peter and Snap collaborated fully with us bringing their own ideas, and though their schedules were busy and they had been performing all day they gave us as much time as we needed to bring the ideas to life.

Above a portrait of each.

After seeing the proofs Snap mentioned that he’d like to work with us again because we made him look ‘ripped’ and ‘sexy’… but that’s no trick. The talent, charisma, the positive attitude through adversity that he shares with Peter, and of course – the 8 pack abs – are very real, and combine to assure us that this young performer has a serious future.

And we would never turn down the opportunity to play a part in promoting it.