Indie Musician Brent Buffan

We recently shot some promotional photos for an independant musician named Brent Buffan – chances are you may see Brent this summer playing festivals around the GTA. If you can’t wait until then, you can listen to his tunes on his MySpace page.

Downsview Park’s Management Team

At the beginning of this week we had one very busy day during which we did three separate shoots covering a wide variety of subject matter.  The day started at Downsview Park – we were hired to shoot photos of the Senior Management Team for the Corporation’s Annual Report.  Downsview Park used to be a Canadian Forces air force base and as such, has some great old buildings that ooze character in every direction you look.  A few days before the shoot we were able to scout several locations within the park and finally settled on the loft area of the old de Havilland Tiger Moth building.  Areas of this same building were used in the filming of the motion pictures Cinderella Man and Chicago.  The jail house set from Chicago, complete with cells is still in place downstairs.  The management team arrived and within a few minutes we had knocked off a number of shots like the one above. No one is sure how long the building will remain standing – it’s future is in question – but one thing we do know for sure is that while it is there, it makes a great location for photography.

LMP Session with Tarik Armstrong

We went out for a couple of hours yesterday with Tarik Armstrong, the model we met at a shoot we did for Mapleview Mall last month. Tarik is an actor who has recently decided to pursue modeling on the side – a worthy pursuit as far as we’re concerned – our camera loves him.

James Paul – The Rogue Studios

 

Back in 2004 I was shooting a lot of bands and befriended a lot of musicians, one of whom introduced me to James Paul of The Rogue Studios.   The first time I visited The Rogue was in May 2004 when James and his associates had just moved into the space.  The move was a bit of a story – and you can read about it on the studios’ website.  This afternoon, 6 years later, we went back to The Rogue to take some shots of James in his place and found that not only does he have a vast collection of stories to draw from – but there is a story to almost every eclectic piece (of instrumental nature and otherwise) living in The Rogue.

Case in point, the guitar that he is holding in the shot above is a very temperamental early 1970’s Gibson Les Paul Custom, which as James puts it ‘has a mind of it’s own’ and does not allow everyone to play it with the same level of success.  After this shot was taken he pulled out a 1960’s Gibson accoustic guitar that was once owned by Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo.  

A talented musician who can play a number of instruments, James told us that the instrument that he is most comfortable playing is the piano – he in fact has the piano that once sat in the cove at the Montreal Bistro – the same piano that Oscar Peterson played his last concert on.

Almost as fascinating as the instruments themselves is the stories behind their acquisition. James is fantastic to talk to, and more so to listen to – in fact it would be easy to get caught up in the dialogue and forget to keep shooting as time went on – that happened a few times this afternoon.

The Rogue Studios is, in it’s own way, a museum of the history of music in Toronto.  And James, it’s captivating curator.

BOD Photos – Women at the Centre

Last Sunday we spent the day photographing some of the women who sit on the Board of Directors of Women at the Centre – a resource centre for women survivors of gender-based violence.  In the photos above is Nneka MacGregor, the Executive Director of Women at the Centre and the woman who took it upon herself to make sure everyone was happy and relaxed during the shoot.   She accomplished this easily with her brilliant personality – and with a constant supply of food – providing a spread of pastries and muffins in the morning, and pizza and wings in the afternoon.   I’m pretty sure the bottles of red wine drained over the course of the day helped a little too.