08/02/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Vancouver Professional Portrait Photographers
Two weeks ago Tom Wagner had asked if I could come out and help with some portrait photos of Christina and Rikki in North Vancouver. Christina and Rikki are friends of Jimmy who’s wedding you might have remembered we photographed a few months back. Check out the wedding video if you haven’t already.
Christina and Rikki were fun to work with, they were game for anything we threw at them which is very uncommon. Usually one person doesn’t like getting wet or dirty (and by dirty I mean sitting on GRASS, yes some couples don’t like green “clean” grass). But these two were prepared to get wet and dirty, the type of couple a photographer would love to have. Below are some of the photos I captured during the session (Tom did the editing) and a few that I help setup. The photos were captured in Dundarave park.
Here’s a tip for other photographers, keep your eyes open. The below set of photos I had my other eye open watching the waves. Christina and Rikki were concentrated on me so they didn’t really know what was coming, well Rikki should’ve known but I think he was looking out pretty far or was already getting ready for the those waves. Christina had no clue, haha.
Tom captured the below and I help picked the location and setting them up. Rikki’s shoes got totally soaked but he didn’t flinch! Most guys would’ve been pretty pissed. He just shrugged it off. Made for an awesome photo though 
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Having two photographers on a shoot helps since we can cover two different angles. This photograph below was taken while the two were walking towards me on the beach. Tom was beside them.
It also helps with directing. One can be talking to the couple while the other capturing the moments. Sometimes the photographer may be quite a distance away and it’s hard to shout over long distances.
07/14/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | 2 Comments »
Vancouver Portrait Photography
Back maybe a month ago I had the opportunity to photograph Tom and Betty in Vancouver. We decided to either shoot the photos at the Olympic Village or if it was rainy Granville Island. I like Granville Island because of the variety of photos us portrait photographers can achieve without having to move around a lot. I don’t like how there’s a lot of people there though. The day was a bit overcast so the couple opted for Granville Island.
Tom described themselves as weird or random. I’d say they were a bit quirky and cool. Right from the start Tom looked like he’d been in front of the camera before. Betty was a bit shy but as our session progressed she got much more comfortable and it seemed like Tom was getting stiffer. It was a great session and I tried some shots I hadn’t done before because of their quirky and weird factor. Btw, it’s not weird at all, it just shows how much fun they have with each other.
I asked if Betty could take some photos after she got them printed. I’m very happy with the way they turned out. Not sure where they printed them but the printer did a good job. I edit my photos on colour calibrated monitors for printing so people will see a bit of a difference when viewing the photos on the monitor vs. printed. The majority of people don’t have calibrated monitors. What I found interesting was that her favorite photos weren’t my favorite, rarely are they anyways. Her favorites didn’t have as much artistry in them as I would’ve liked.
Thanks to Brandon for coming out and helping as well. I got to test out his 5Dmk2 vs. my 5D. Can you tell the difference in the pics? Most likely not. Feel free to guess. The 5Dmk2 felt lighter than my 5D with the same lens attached. Love the LCD on that camera.
Aww matching outfits! Haha. Reminded me of all the couples I saw in China. 1/4 couples were wearing matching clothes 
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One of my new favorite spots. Why? Cause it doesn’t look like Vancouver but some place in Europe.
06/24/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Margarita’s Vancouver Head Shot
Margarita is a colleague of Katrina and also wanted some headshots for promotional materials. We took a few photos in Vancouver’s coal harbour in downtown. I usually prefer clean backgrounds but this shot out of the set appealed to her since it had some color in the background which would help offset her marketing material. I’m happy it works for her and can’t wait to see what it looks like when printed. If you need a Vancouver head shot photo drop me a line!
05/18/10 by Michael Lee | Personal, Portrait Photography | 2 Comments »
Katrina is a realtor in Vancouver and needed some head shots for business cards and for her website. We met up for a short photo session after work and decided to shoot a few with a plain background and some with the city in the background. We shot at the top of a downtown Vancouver apartment building for these photos. Below is our favorite of the two sets of headshots.
05/14/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
During my family session with Renee we found some time to do some individual portraits. Or rather at the end she said she wanted some photos of her on a bridge looking out. The closes thing to a bridge in the park we were at were these wooden “bridge” crossings over a very small river. It was surrounded by trees so shooting what she wanted (or what I had pictured her requesting) wasn’t going to work really. One because with the trees so close you’d see them in the background and two we weren’t high enough to have just a clean sky background. The type of shot I would’ve pictured was one where the bridge was at least high enough so the background would be clear and all you would see is her looking out to the distance and plain sky pretty much all around her.
Well I compromised and shot a nice portrait of her on the bridge. Not sure if this was what she had in mind but she liked it nonetheless! I shot another of her sister and sister’s husband in almost the same location (picked a different bridge). If there are particular shots you have in mind make sure you let your photographer know before the day of the shoot, it helps =). Sending a photo of something similar is great as well.
05/11/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Here’s some of my favorite shots photographed over this past weekend in Richmond of Renee’s family. She was visiting her family for the week and wanted a set of family photos of her, her sister and mom. We shot these around Minoru park on a very bright sunny Vancouver day, probably the second hottest day in Vancouver as well. I had a lot of fun with these and the entire family was fun to photograph. Thanks Renee for letting me capture some nice moments.
03/03/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Thought I would post up some of the behind the scenes photos from the JCI shoot I did in January. Here you can see the girls doing the make-up, hair, and wardrobe dressing. The make-up and hair took the longest but the job the girls did was fantastic! Parm Pandher did the make-up, Siobhan O’Brien the hair, and Sami Ward the wardrobe choices. Jenna Cunningham, the model, did a great job showcasing the students’ work. I also have to say Jenna did a great job modeling.
02/18/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Two weeks ago a friend of mine, Sam, asked if I could photograph a model for her and a friend who plan to get into make-up and nails. I said sure, no problem! And then she said it was the next evening! 
. Monday nights are for 24 and Heroes, lol. So after work I packed my gear together and headed down to her Richmond apartment with my buddy Wes. I was pretty tired already after work but that didn’t matter. They took a bit longer getting the model ready than we expected. It was suppose to be an in and out type thing but turned out to be a lot later. Thus I didn’t get as much time to shoot as I would’ve liked. I think we shot these off in 20 minutes all in one small room. The apartment complex had an clubhouse I really wanted to try but it was getting too late and we had work the next day and the model had class. We’ll have to try her clubhouse next time!
01/05/10 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | No Comments »
Alysha and her family has been good family friends for a long time. I remember when she and her brother were just lil tykes. She’ll be going out of province for her first university co-op experience and her mom wanted some portraits in Vancouver of the family. I gave her a call a week before she was about to leave and suggested that in addition to family portraits we do a set of photos in Yaletown and Gastown of just her. I had just about two hours to photograph Alysha including all the traveling. We spent about 30-40 mins just outside Urban Fare in Yaletown photographing the outdoor portraits. After freezing our butts off (ok it wasn’t that cold) I promised her we’d warm up inside and take a set indoors. We headed over to the new Woodwards apartment in Gastown where we spent the remainder of the time taking indoor shots. We produced a great set of photos given the time I had.
A word of advice for aspiring photographers, a good portrait photographer should be able to shoot in any location whether it be inside in a nice studio or out in the back alley.
