» Toronto Portrait Photography

Toronto Portrait Photographer: Portrait Session at High Park in Toronto

Juan — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:36:54 +0000

This past Thursday, I had the privilege of photographing Amber a for private portrait session. What seemed like a doomed photo shoot due to an impending thunderstorm warning, turned into a great session with quite a few great images. Best of all, the weather held off until we left the park. The part that was not so much fun was dragging around Kata Bag with two studio strobes, a battery, and enough accessories to setup a mini studio on location. Was it worth it? Oh yeah!

Toronto Portrait Photographer: Portrait Session at High Park in Toronto

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Toronto Street Photography: Fluid Movement at Yonge and Dundas

Juan — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:50:15 +0000

For me, street photography is all about capturing people interacting and or moving around their environment. After all, we give the city its character, its architecture, and everything else that defines it. This is fluid movement of people at its best, at Yonge and Dundas in downtown Toronto.

Toronto Street Photography: Fluid Movement at Yonge and Dundas

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Impromptu Family Photo Session

Juan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:46:46 +0000

What started as a book cover photo session, ended up with a few family portraits. Being a wedding and portrait photographer, you don’t have to twist my arm to photograph a couple, so that’s how I ended up capturing a few frames for Moses and Jennifer.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Impromptu Family Photo Session

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Book Cover Photo Session

Juan — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:51:18 +0000

I can’t divulge much about this particular shoot, as it was done for a book that hasn’t been published yet. While the frames look like they were taken using the fading light from a summer sunset, it was actually late February (last Saturday) in Toronto and it had been snowing for most of the day. The lighting technique was inspired by none other than Joe McNally. Lit with one (1) SB-900 on a stand with a full CTO gel , and triggered wirelessly via Nikon’s CLS.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Book Cover Photo Session

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Colombian Farmer Purchasing Groceries

Juan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:52:22 +0000

This image was captured in the mountains outside the town of Barbosa, province of Antioquia in Colombia. When you live that far out into the mountain, you better make sure you get everything you need on your trip to the grocery store.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Colombian Farmer Purchasing Groceries

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Dramatic Lighting at Toronto Waterfront

Juan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:47:08 +0000

This is another frame from that memorable session with Nyki Palmer, and Jared Wielfaert of Jared Wielfaert Photography. The ominous sky was a perfect backdrop for our model, and the cross lighting technique we used created the dramatic lighting you see here. However, the product would have not been complete without a little post-processing. This time I used one of Aperture 3′s Presets (Toy Camera) to achieve the final “dark” look I was looking for.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Dramatic Lighting at Toronto Waterfront

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Film Noir Session by The Waterfront

Juan — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:39:08 +0000

By definition, Film Noir is a term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas. The vast majority, if not all of these films had a visual style that was low key black and white. That’s the look we were going for in this particular shoot, although I also liked the color version as well, you be the judge. The lighting was fairly simple, we used a translucent umbrella fitted with an SB-800 positioned slightly higher than model just off camera left, and to add a little bit of light to the left side of her face (right side of your screen), we placed a reflective umbrella on the floor to camera right and shot another SB-800 into it.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Film Noir Session by The Waterfront

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Toronto Event Photography – Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

Juan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:35:55 +0000

Unfortunately, I skipped the festival in 2009, which I’m not going to do in 2010. In its 22nd year, the Beaches Jazz Festival is a musical festival that encompasses several genres vying for attention across a good stretch of Queen St. East. in Toronto. From Big Band tunes to hard hitting blues, and everything in between, you owe it to yourself to stop by (July 16-25) and enjoy the different acts. Best of all, it’s free! I literally spent four hours at the 2008 edition, as I wasn’t there on assignment but rather to enjoy the music, and occasionally take pictures. I ended up doing a little bit of both.

Actually, one of my images was bought to be included in the Tourism Toronto’s printed guide. Here’s that particular image:

Toronto Street Photography - Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

Here’s another couple of images from that same act. I was very diligent that evening writing down band names, so I could give them credit along with their pictures. Unfortunately, I was getting ready to go home when I photographed this band and the notepad stayed in my camera bag.

Toronto Street Photography - Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

This is the one and only Johnny Max of the Johnny Max Band. I’ve seen him quite a few times already, and is always a treat to watch him perform.

Toronto Street Photography - The Johnny Max Band

These are some of the guys from Caché, a local salsa band that will get you moving to their beat in no time.

Toronto Street Photography - Caché at The Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

This is Jeanine Mackie from the Jeanine Mackie Band. In this current music scene of teenaged pop sensations, whose voices are more often than not overly processed in Auto Tune, it’s quite refreshing to know that there are still musicians out there with real talent.

Toronto Street Photography - The Jeanine Mackie Band at The Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

One of the keyboardists playing alongside Quincy Bullen.

Toronto Street Photography - The Quincy Bullen Band playing at The Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

I was serious when I said you could find pretty much any genre playing at The Beaches Jazz Festival. This act is called Imbayakunas, and they don’t exactly fall under the Jazz music category.

Toronto Street Photography - The Imbayakunas at The Beaches Jazz Festival 2008

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Toronto Portrait Photographer – Playing with Light

Juan — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:27:51 +0000

I took this picture of my wife Miriam at a fundraiser for Teams in Training. After the event was over, I asked her to pose in front of the Christmas lights, and this was the result.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Playing with Light

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Toronto Fashion Photographer – Model Photo Session at High Park

Juan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:41:01 +0000

This particular photo shoot was done in High Park, Toronto during the fall. While the fall colors were pretty vibrant that day, I decided to go with a B&W post-processing for this image, as it almost blends the model with the foliage behind her.

Toronto Fashion Photographer - Model Photo Session at High Park

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