Architectural & Interior Design Photography, Corporate Commercial Photography, Advertising & Portrait Photographer | Ottawa | 613-558-7585 | justin.vanleeuwen@gmail.com
I started the year taking commercial photography for Kettleman’s Bagel Co. Their new store, images of their staff at work, and even some food. The owner soon approached me with a really cool concept menu that he wanted to create. It was a highly visual in-store newspaper. Heavy on photography. LOVE. YES PLEASE. LET’S GO.
We knew we needed to create commercial images that would be visually appealing to get people to actually pickup and take the paper. We also doubled-up on our first shoot, creating images for a Spring issue before the snow fell, as well as fall/winter imagery for the publication. We booked a full-day on location and went from “food porn” overhead styled by the fabulous Debra Cowie.
After a short bagel-break we went into our outdoor fireside lifestyle shoot (Hashtag #BagelLife), which would put less of a focus on the food than it as an accessory to good friends having a good time.
As the sun dropped we rushed to capture the cool blue of dusk which is the shot that made it into the winter edition.
We also had Quinn of From The Wall Productions film the day, just for fun.
I can’t take credit for the meat photos, so I’ll only show them in layout here. I knew that the level of styling and food-prep knowledge was beyond my current capabilities, so we brought in Nick Ghattas to handle Kettleman’s in-house meat.
Directly after the meat shoot I ran over to Kettleman’s Bank street location to do our storefront interviews. Don Chow of FoodiePrints was the writer on the project and had the difficult task of interviewing real customers as I was shooting AS the sun was setting. Because I can’t help myself, I was also shooting the exterior as a horizontal panorama, meaning I’d need to take two photos side-by-side and stitch them later in post. If a customer didn’t want to be in the photo, I’d need to take the photo again, exclude them, and Don’s rush to get anyone else who entered the frame continued.
I really struggled to take the cover image. We had some scenario’s based on our creative meetings, but none of them directly appealed to me. I had tried sourcing people and kitchens and other dogs but eventually just pulled together my eldest son, our dog Lola, and an Uber Eats delivery of Kettleman’s Bagels. And we were done.
A huge thanks to everyone involved in this production. But particularly the client, Kettleman’s, for giving us the creative freedom to create some really cool commercial photography.
Client: Kettleman’s Bagel Co.
Photography: JVLphoto & Nick Ghattas Photography
Writer/Editor: Don Chow
Food Stylists: Debra Cowie & Nick Ghattas
Assistants: Alex Tetreault, Josh Hotz
Models: Chris Cormier, Brogan Van, Christian Lee, Suzy Kendrick, Darpan Ahluwalia