Architectural & Interior Design Photography, Corporate Commercial Photography, Advertising & Portrait Photographer | Ottawa | 613-558-7585 | justin.vanleeuwen@gmail.com
Part 4 of 6 Nancy is a successful Ottawa realtor, but her claim to fame nowadays is chairing “Women for Mental Health” at the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health. Struck by the closeness of a local teenage suicide in age to her two daughters, she took to fundraising to raise awareness. Nancy was a […]
Part 3 of 6 We worked with Darryl on the last day of shooting for this assignment – the first subject of two in that day. I had to switch up assistants on this gig because Dave went and got himself a real job. My good friend Chris stepped up for this day which was […]
Part 2 of 6 After a few too many drinks one night, Paige Cutland decided to start a brewery: Hogsback. The first subject of my series produced for Ottawa Magazine, we were to meet with Paige at the “Keggerator” which, unlike a home one, holds *all* the kegs for the market. This location was a […]
Part 1 of 6 This was my first project undertaken for Ottawa Magazine and I really wanted it to show as my best work to date. It would serve to impress my new client (hopefully), and challenge myself to push my work ahead. I had recently read on David Hobby’s Strobist blog about Gregory Heisler […]
The only thing better than return clients are ones who make you feel like part of the family. Lee and I hadn’t been back to see the Cole’s in a year, but that didn’t stop them from welcoming us into their home treating us like a member of the family (maybe that’s just because they […]
I’m proud to announce that I’ve partnered up with the much lauded website “Canon Rumors” in an ongoing series of reviews on Canon lenses, some bodies, and maybe other things as they come along. In some cases I’m reviewing lenses I already own, and have used for a while, others are new to me and […]
While I always try to shoot for the medium the images will be used in, sometimes I can’t help myself when a good portrait opportunity comes along. Ottawa Woman is newsprint, which means an excess of dark, or black, will smudge the paper (and fingers) around it. So it’s best to shoot lighter coloured, white, […]
First in, hopefully, a series of Best-Friend Forever (BFF) photographic series I’ll be producing… maybe someday. Ashley and Kristine have been BFF’s since they first met in grade 9 ten years ago (Kids!). Ashley is the General Manager at Free Form Fitness here in Ottawa, and Kristine is a stylist at The Hair Loft on […]
I was excited to be contacted by Ottawa’s Great River Media to do some editorial photography work on the lead story for their brand new Hockey magazine “Centre Ice” with The Ottawa Senators latest draft Cody Ceci. It was a tight schedule, figuring out when to shoot Cody only a few days before deadline… he […]
People who know me know I’m not a big “sports” guy. And while I do appreciate athleticism and love working with athletes on portrait projects, I’m rarely assigned to cover any sort of sporting event aside from the odd run. That said, I’ve been reviewing a brand new camera that is ideal for sports shooters […]
The latest issue of Ottawa Woman should be hitting your local free newspaper shelves around the city. The feature story was with Kathy Cameron, a wonderful hair stylist up in the Market. We had a fun time during the editorial shoot, taking care of some basic and necessary cover portraits before she opened up, and […]
I have a bunch of editorial photography in the backlog just waiting to go to print, I can’t wait to share it with you, but until that time you get to enjoy my adorable family just a little bit more. My parents came down for the beginning of this week to hang out with the […]
My weekend involved assignments that both involved water. The first one intentionally, a waterfight between two “competing” neighbourhoods Carlingwood and Hintonburg. Having seen it done in more extreme sports, I wanted to capture a before image of the combatants, calm, confident, with all their ammunition locked and loaded, then follow up with an after, wet, […]
Sometimes we can do bad work that gets published, and other times we can do good work that never sees print. This is the later. I was asked by iRun Magazine to produce some editorial product photography showing this years big running shoe releases from Adidas, Ecco, Merrell, Mizuno, North Face, and Salomon; with a […]
While much of what I photograph is editorial and portrait driven. I do have a good side-line on custom interior photography as well. This house (I didn’t shoot exterior, but know it looked like a typical suburban cookie-cutter house on the outside), was completely opened up by the addition of a glass central staircase. Where […]
Proud to say I have a lot of contributions to the most recent issue of iRun. I covered a few impromptu “fashion” shoots, with some very lovely ladies (hot mom’s really), and then the kids came out after. As expected, the women and little ladies were the easiest to shoot while the boys tried to […]
Saturday’s Photowalk has come and gone. I was pleasantly surprised to find over 30 folks turn out (and many of them I didn’t know yet!). It’s the first walk that the main group walked WAY ahead of me, so far I had to tweet them to slow down. It was a beautiful day, full of […]
My second cover assignment for Ottawa Woman, Carol Anne Chenard is a Fifa qualified referee on her way to the Olympics (marking my third Olympian photographed this year). Ottawa Woman prefers a more natural approach to the images they use, so I opt for soft light and locations on these editorial portraits with minimal post-processing […]
Hey there! Perhaps you’ve heard of photowalk I’ll be leading in Beechwood Village this Saturday July 21st. (if not, you can read about it on
The past few months have been the busiest of my relatively short career. This is good, it means I’m growing and building new things, finding new clients, and pleasing old ones as they return. The above photos are of my new bathroom. Nice, yes? We had the reno’s done by Ottawa’s RND Construction, who I […]
Actually, this was take one, but the previous image was the first to go to press – so I showed it first. Michael seems to be a natural model, along as a highly skilled athlete, he had no problem shooting off his own “blue steel” and rocking this shot. I would have loved to have […]
The latest issue of iRun magazine should be out today featuring some work I did for Canadian Olympians Dylan Wykes and Michael Tayler (Michael, you’ve seen before). Both were incredible subjects – there’s something about athletes that make them great for photography. Likely their fierce determination and resolve, but definitely their peak physical shape. While […]
I love it when a plan comes together. I worked with Nadine early last year, hers was my first planned composite family portrait outside of my own kids. This paved the way for an even more planned out shoot when she approached me to re-launch her blog “Adorkable Undies” to keep focused on her work […]
Rare is the time that I’m not assigned to take photographs of some sort of goings-on in the city. While some may take it as a sleight when iRun decided to go with their tried-and-true Ottawa Race Weekend Photographer Ian Murchison out of Toronto (fiend!), I took it as an opportunity to explore a personal […]
