Underground Fashion Shoot in Oakville

Yesterday we shot some promotional material with Idea Workshop for one of their clients, Mapleview Centre. The Mapleview Centre is a mall in Burlington that recently underwent a major renovation. The  shoot took place in the Oakville GO station and we took a few minutes with Tarik (the sole male model at the shoot) to capture him in the belly of the station – the tunnel beneath the tracks.

Cherry Beach Sound Studios

We did a photo shoot this morning with Carman Guerrieri of Cherry Beach Sound Studios.  Cherry Beach Sound is a full service studio for music, audio post production, commercial production, CD mastering and audio enhancement – and the people we met there this morning are some of the nicest people you could hope to work with.  Its not hard to see how over the past 25+ years Cherry Beach Sound has become a highly regarded industry leader in sound recording.

New Project with Toronto’s Silver Elvis

This morning we met with Toronto’s Silver Elvis.  An exciting new project could be in the works and we hope to have more details on that to share with you soon.  

We collaborated with ‘Silver E’ a few times last year and always had a good time shooting and hanging out with him. Take for instance, the afternoon after the above photo was taken. We were leaving the Direct Energy Centre at Exhibition Place – with Silver E still in full costume – while across the street at the newly renovated Automotive Building Toronto’s better-heeled were arriving for a $10,000 a plate hospital charity dinner,  an event for which the organizers had ‘rented’ what appeared to be two large Indian elephants to great the gala-goers.  

So as they arrived through the Princes’ Gates in their very fancy cars, attendees were met not only with two mammoth Pachyderms wearing red satin hats, but also with a mirror-suited man painted entirely silver (who quite resembled Elvis) happily on his way back to his minivan.  

We kinda wished we still had at least one of our cameras out to capture some of the wild expressions that we saw behind the windows of those very fancy cars.

Some days our job is too fun.

The People at Big it Up Hats Have Really Big Hearts

The fine people at Big-it-Up Hats on Spadina Avenue in Toronto have just donated SEVEN new hats to our friend Jack Yeilding.  

Jack is 7 years old and during the week of January 18th he underwent 3 brain surgeries at the Hospital for Sick Children.  Over the past few years Jack and his family have held a huge lemonade stand/mini carnival at their Oakville home, and the proceeds (over $150,000.00 raised so far) have been donated to Sick Kids Hospital in the hope that more children just like Jack will continue to receive the treatment that they need.

Jack was lucky to have had access to this world class hospital and to surgeons with the expertise to help him get better, and now thanks to Big-it-Up Hats and their very generous gift Jack will FEEL better as he continues to GET better.

Our sincere thanks to Paulene and Dameion at Big-it-Up Hats for helping our friend.

Toronto Mike Last Night in -25 Degrees

On what might have been the coldest night of this decade (well – so far) we were shooting outside in Toronto’s Liberty Village with the very brave, very patient Toronto Mike.  We were able to capture the photo above before the wind knocked over our umbrella, the photographer’s fingers froze solid, and Mike possibly suffered mild frostbite… on our way to our second location I swear I heard him mention something about our liability for lost appendages…

Light Monkey Offers Photo Avatars – What’s a Photo Avatar?

Photo avatars are corporate headshots and portraits specifically designed to be used in social media profiles.  

For those who make use of social media or those who have made their profiles available on the web through their profession, a good profile photo is essential. After all, a lot is riding on that first visual impression – that little photo will be used by others to register an assessment in a fraction of a second.  

We think that if the first impression you’re going to make is through a small – often square – photo, you’ll probably want to make sure that photo is a good one.

To have an impact as well as to be flattering, a close up photo must be properly lit. It is not enough to simply crop a wider photo – especially one that may have been taken with (eeek!) a point and shoot camera.  Our photographers are experts at the art of lighting for effect, so you can be sure that your tiny square photo will still have a big impact, and will present you in the best possible light.

Its a guaranteed great first impression.  And in this market, who couldn’t use that?

If you are reading this on linkedin you can see samples in the slideshare presentation below.   If you are reading this on the web please click the link in the sidebar to see samples at http://www.lightmonkey.ca/photoavatars

We have offerings to fit any budget – contact us at:  info@lightmonkey.ca