I wanted to demonstrate, through this small collection of gritty images, that not all portraits have to be “fun and happy”.  Sometimes its the opposite that tells us more about who the person is.

Inspired by the work of Joel Grimes, a US photograph who has brought “grit” to a new level.

I wrote in my last blog post about how I think for certain types of photography, meeting with your client beforehand is essential to the process.  Maternity photography is a prime example of that, and I make it standard practice for all my maternity clients to meet with them before hand, get to know them, show them images from my portfolio, and discuss what it is they want to accomplish with a session.

Although learning about the style of photography a person wants is a big goal, for me, in having these meetings, more importantly they’re about making connections with people and essentially making them feel comfortable.  An uncomfortable subject shows in the photos, and that’s not going to help either of us. Many people are understandably nervous in front of a camera.  Maternity photography, doubly so.  Women aren’t in their “normal” bodies.  Despite some of my client’s thoughts to the contrary before the session, they’re, well, beautiful.  And it’s up to me to show it…working with them.

Make-up: Melissa Pettes

My first ever serious attempt at a gritty composite image.  The image of Geoff was photographed in my studio against a gray background, lit by an Elinchrom Rotalux DeepThroat softbox, model left.

The background was shot in a hangar here in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

Merged together using a variety of techniques and filters in PS4.

Inspired by the work of Joel Grimes.

Annie Leibovitz wrote in her recent book, At Work, that an important part of her process when photographing portraits of people, especially artists, was to get to know them a little before a shoot.  She wrote, “when you first meet someone you’re just trying to be nice and picking up clues for a picture.  You get ideas when you’re with them that you wouldn’t get simply by reading about them or studying their work”.  Or ideas that you wouldn’t get just by showing up for a shoot, for that matter.

As I met with and sat in Pat Braden’s house in Yellowknife’s “Old Town” – which he affectionately refers to as “The Shack” – and took in the wealth of character that his place contained, Annie’s book ran through my mind.  I had never met Pat before, and only knew of him as a sort of local legend.  Everyone, it seems, knows of Pat Braden, and he’s got to be one of the North’s most highly regarded musician/songwriters.  I’ve photographed him before, probably 4 or 5 five different times, but only as a piece of a bigger puzzle:  he was at events I was hired to cover, and was an “incidental” photo for me, not the key subject.

When he contacted me about photographing the art for his upcoming album, and we initially discussed ideas via email, I knew I had to meet him, first, and take in the location…it’s character….and see how that would translate to a concept.  Pat wanted to stay away from posed, and wanted an intimacy in his images that would tell potential audiences a little more about him as a performer than simply a man with an instrument.  I loved the sentiment, and loved the challenge.   The first images that came to my mind when I saw the location, and started to know a little more about Pat, were those of southern blues musicians.  Old black and white images of, well,  characters.  I wanted to try to get some of the “old time feel” into my portraits of Pat.

These images below represent many “real” moments; for example, I clicked away as Pat started looking through old images that mean a great deal to him, including ones of his mother.  The expressions on his face, and the shine in his eyes, couldn’t come from me saying “now Pat…smile at the camera”.  And when Pat plays his instrument, he doesn’t try to strike rockstar poses.  He simply feels it.  It’s evident.

I loved this assignment, and I’m happy to share a few portraits….

For those interested in more of the technical details of the photos, the location was perfect, and had a beautiful natural light feel to it that I didn’t want to lose.  But at the same time, a really cloudy day just didn’t provide the light I needed to be able to shoot these at a low ISO (and increase the detail and quality of the shots).  What to do?  Set up a portable sun.  I brought down one of my studio lights with a softbox and positioned it outside his house, shining down into the window.  The diffusion provided by the softbox, filtered through the window, allowed it to still feel completely like natural light in his house – while still providing the lighting power I needed to get crisp, non-blurry shots.

Aurora Borealis, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, 2009.

The show, which filmed its first season on the Tibbett to Contwoyto ice road at the end of the Ingraham Trail outside of Yellowknife, brought a relatively foreign thing into the living rooms of people around North America, and the globe.  When I flew to Nepal back in March to start my journey to Mount Everest, I flew Qatar Airways, a beautiful airline based out of the Middle East.  As I flipped through the hundreds of shows available on its high-tech in-flight entertainment system there was – lo and behold – about seven different episodes of Ice Road Truckers available to me.  Talk about a small world.

Much has been said about how the show perhaps took a few liberties in over-emphasizing the dangers of the road; but that, I suppose should be expected:  it’s a television show meant to be entertaining.  And entertaining it is.  But I don’t watch it thinking its images and storylines are “gospel”.  On the contrary, the construction and maintenance of this particular ice road is an amazing operation centered around one thing:  safety.  I don’t think twice about driving on it when it’s open for truck traffic.  These are professionals monitoring the road, and they do a fantastic job, in my opinion.

Over the past couple of weeks ice roads have formed the basis of a lot of my work on behalf of a couple of different clients.  The first, BHP Billiton, a global resource company, is one of the partners in the construction and maintenance of the Tibbett to Contwoyto ice road (as it services their Ekati diamond mine, amongst other mines).  I love working with BHP, because rather than most commercial clients, which seem to have little vision for the images they want, BHP always looks for as creative images as possible, and base my assignments around that creative spirit, which is a rare thing indeed.  This specific series of assignments was no exception, with them specifically requesting that I not only photograph the road during the day, but by evening as well so that I could capture some night photography of the road, something that there hasn’t been too much of.  Those who’ve followed my work for a while know that I am passionate about night photography, so I loved the challenge.

Ice roads are just that:  roads made out of ice.  Although this is unique compared with the thousands of paved and gravel roads that we’re used to traveling every day, they’re not made out of diamonds, and with any subject, they can look boring (snow and ice, snow and ice, snow and ice – all day long – can lose its “wow” factor pretty quickly).  My goal through these assignments, then, was to try to capture as many interesting images as possible – both documentary-style and creative – given the subject.  I aimed for capturing the contrasts in the scene, the colours, the movement, and the “winter wonderland” sense of the Northwest Territories.  I hope you like.

Although the weather gods smiled upon us today, giving us one of the nicest winter days of the year, I still had to hand it to the couple, Cailin and Andrew, as they braved the whims of a photographer bundled in long johns and a down-filled parka, ordering them (politely, mind you) to trek through snow and to lie down on the ice road, all in the name of photo fun.  Check out Cailin’s shoes.  Seriously tough.  But I did take pity on them after a while, and suggested some studio shots to finish our time together.

In short, it was a perfect day, and I felt honoured to be part of their elopement.  Best of luck to you both…..!

PS – If you’re wondering about the “sock” picture near the end…it’s because I made fun of Andrew and his fashion sense.  Not that I can talk.  My idea of fashion is a bi-annual trip to Mark’s Work Wearhouse.

Make-up:  Melissa Pettes