While my primary work is Portraiture, Weddings and Fine Art, I do end up shooting many other diverse types of work like products, sports, events, fashion, etc. I love this variety! It raises the bar by informing my other work as a result of new challenges in which I must try other techniques.

A talented graphic designer that I’ve hired several times over the years had me photograph some of her work for her portfolio. Photographing printed work sounds easier than it sometimes is. Marie-Claude Gosling of Blink Creative Design is a great designer,having done design work for success story companies, like Howe Sound Brewing, Galileo Coffee, Green Sapphire Imports, and Silverfoot. Our initial try with shooting the work on a white background just didn’t give us a result we were happy with. It came out looking kinda blah, too literal… so, back to the drawing board we went. We decided to take a break for dinner and try again. I thought that warming things up with wood would help and Marie brought several pieces back with her to the studio. In her truck, of course. And just the fact that she has wood laying around in her back yard is cool. Did I say Squamish women are Squawsome?!

After adjusting the lights, the next thing I realized was that to accent the artful feel of her pieces, it would help to use selective focus, just allowing specific areas of type and design to be clear and sharp. Aha! Now we were getting somewhere. Constantly asking ourselves how it could be better and asking “why isn’t it good like this?”, allowed us to switch things up and we got a good result in the end. Here are a few examples… do you like that only parts are in focus or do you think that detracts from the work?