What does a photographer do for their own Business Headshot?

February 7, 2020

For the past number of years, a large portion of our commercial business at Left of Centre Photography Services has been Corporate Business Headshots. Increasingly, when speaking to these customers, the trend we've noticed is that their prime intended usage of these portraits has been for their LinkedIn profiles - for a variety of reasons and purposes, but all verbalize recognition of the fact that their online presence could use a more polished, professional look.

As specialists in creating these images, we always start with a simple question for a Business Headshot - what business are you in?

While we are all about breaking the rules, sometimes it’s better to slightly bend them. A great headshot will help you stand out in your field of expertise without looking like you are in a different industry! Someone in the financial field should probably not look like an artist...

So, for our business photos, we think we can get away with being a bit different...a little Left of Centre, if you will!

These photos were taken in our comfortable home-based studio as a quick brand-refresh, to be used on our various social channels. Our brand has always been about the two of us - the team we provide in all aspects of image creation, and the fun we have doing it!

A Yearly Tradition

October 10, 2019

Over the past #15years we have had the honour and pleasure of photographing many, many people in our community. One of our biggest thrills is our repeat clients - seeing families grow, watching kids grow up and documenting the evolution of our clients. And while we have many examples of doing multiple sessions for folks (and plan on documenting a lot of them through this #locpstories process), it’s only fitting that we show here the kids that set the record for the most sessions with us as a #TBT...

The first session was booked by Mom with specific directions....well, one direction, actually. She wanted to do photos of her two girls on a white background. Simple enough! The first session was booked on a PA day in November. Little did we know at that point that we would see them every year thereafter for a total of eleven sessions!

Of course, being “a creative”, I tried for a few years to offer different colour backgrounds...variety is the spice of life, no? Well, after a while I gave up on trying to offer a different look and just focused on the white. And something interesting happened that is now really only visible with hindsight....

The variety was achieved by capturing the girls at the age that they were in November of every year. We watched them grow from very young children to high school age kids. We saw each of their personalities change and shift and grow; we saw the years that they were full of confidence, and saw the times that maybe they weren’t so comfortable in their own skin. Looking through these photos now with the benefit of hindsight, I can very clearly see where each of them were on their journey.

The variety was also achieved by the different poses we did through the years. With each additional session, the girls came in with a stronger idea of what they wanted to do and what they liked. A teenager certainly has more opinions on what looks good than a five year old does! The sessions progressed to the point where I simply put them on the background and let them work it out together!

These are a just a few of the photos we captured from 2004 through 2014. Unfortunately, our archives for ‘06, ‘07 and ‘08 are stored offsite, and we’ve not had the chance to track them down (one of those sessions was with their “American Girl” dolls they treasured so much!!!). Hopefully we’ll get the chance soon and we’ll add them when we do.

We hope that you enjoy this retrospective look back at the evolution of these two girls as much as we have!!!

They Grow Up SO Fast!

October 3, 2019

How many times have you heard the phrase “They grow up SO fast"!!!”?

Probably so often that it’s a bit of a cliche. But the thing about cliches is that they’re usually very, very true!

Case in point - earlier this year, we were contacted by a new mother to take photos of her baby boy. There was no reference to our past dealings, no “you might remember me”…nothing specific to remind us that we’ve met before. But her name name sounded so familiar…

A quick search of our client records confirmed that we indeed had photographed her before! We had, in fact, taken Kiera’s First Communion portraits in early 2005 when we were on Mill Street, as well as her brother’s Communion photos a bit later…and now she was bringing her child to us for photos.

Talk about making one feel old!

When mom and dad brought in baby MJ for his photos, we were immediately struck by his eyes…it was like we had seen them before! Kiera, her brother Maxwell and MJ all have the same big, mischievous “smiling” eyes. When we did Kiera’s photos for her communion, I forced Max to have his photo taken, too, even though his mom Antonia wasn’t planning on it. He wasn’t dressed for photos, but I didn’t care about that - I wanted to do a close up of that face!

We will always owe Antonia a huge debt of gratitude for helping to propel our business forward. See, just around the time when we did Kiera’s communion portraits, we had decided that it was time to leave our Mill Street location. Every client we had was told - if you don’t see our sign here, we’re not out of business…we’ve moved! We knew it was a situation that would involve a quick reaction…because there was NOTHING available in terms of a storefront!

So when she walked into our door one day and said it looked like the flower shop at 124 Main Street was preparing to close, we jumped into action! We closed our store, walked over and asked what was happening. They kindly let us wander around and gave us the number to the landlords…who were very shocked to hear that someone knew what was happening, as it was literally just told to them. We met, negotiated our rent on the driveway…and prepared to move…

Isn’t that the way things work in Georgetown? It’s not what you know…it’s who you know!

Here’s some more photos from both sessions, from 2005 and 2019…proving that they do, indeed, grow up so fast!!!