Architectural & Interior Design Photography, Corporate Commercial Photography, Advertising & Portrait Photographer | Ottawa | 613-558-7585 | justin.vanleeuwen@gmail.com
A few weeks ago I got a call from my good friends at MediaStyle to come photograph in their newly opened “IdeaSpace”; a creative hub that is available for special events and as a location studio if necessary. Since I don’t have a studio of my own, the ability to have a big and beautiful space to work with my clients who, otherwise, may not have appropriately situated backdrops is a huge benefit and great value as a portrait photographer. The client, in this case, is Trevor Ryan, a personal fitness coach and model. He was coming off competition and wanted some new images that took some of the focus away from him as a hunky beefcake and more to “incredibly good looking rugged male,” which wasn’t a huge stretch.
We had about four hours in IdeaSpace to pump out as many looks as possible. With minimal budget, Trevor served as his own stylist and brought quite the wardrobe, including props from his native Nova Scotia. Starting with the big beautiful windows (above) on an overcast day was a perfect way to kick off our session.
Of course, working with a competitive fitness model I *had* to take advantage of his award winning physique. This treatment also gave us a chance to showcase his body type without drawing too much attention to his face. Not all modelling is about the face, after all, but about the subjects ability to add to a scene, wear clothes, or just have a certain “look” without distracting from the message of the image. Though, in this case, Trevor’s still producing a pretty strong message. You can also see we were able to get complete darkness in the room just by pulling out some blackout curtains IdeaSpace has installed. And, with the lead photo, you can see they even have some exposed brick.
We wrapped up the portrait shoot with some white backdrop (I had brought a seamless white paper, but they have a cleanly painted white wall, so I just used that) and some fun poses. I felt like we could have kept going but our time was up and we did have three flights of stairs to haul our gear down afterwards! We had a number of other shots but I’m not sure you could handle all of them. I’ll let them show up when Trevor’s new website goes live.