Montreal Artists: Amelie Legault

Amélie Legault is the 7th artist whose work I'm documenting as part of my Montreal Artists series. Through her illustrations, Amélie has created a beautiful, whimsical, and absurd world where flamingos ride tandem bicycles, lobsters dress up for winter with cozy mitts, and pigeons go skateboarding. (The last one could totally happen in real life though. Pigeons are fearless.)

She starts by sketching drafts of her animals, experimentally bending their limbs around bicycles, while remaining (loosely) within the bounds of physics.

Once she’s satisfied, she inks the outline of the animals.

On a new piece of paper that she overlays over her inked sketch, she’ll take out her arsenal of markers and start creating her signature look with bright, vibrant gradients of colour.

The only thing left is to scan and print them. Amélie creates calendars, prints, and all sorts of cards.

When seeing her work for the first time I didn’t realize that it was all done by hand. I thought that some of the colours were added on the computer, or the colours retouched somehow. But the originals are just as clean, bright and vibrant as her finished products. Despite the impossible scenarios Amélie creates, she draws her animals in a realistic and surprisingly anatomically plausible manner. I’ve never seen a giraffe riding a bicycle before, but I’m pretty sure it would look like that. I love the frivolous details and ironies she adds, like the tiny bike helmet on the massive shark, the ear-muffs on the fish, or the wood in the beaver’s picnic basket.

Unfortunately for Amélie, she can only surround herself with imaginary animals, since she’s allergic to pretty much all of them. :(

Check out Amélie's full portfolio here or go straight to her Etsy store to see what products she has. And keep an eye out for the different fairs across Montreal and beyond! There’s a good chance you’ll see Amélie and her unmistakable illustrations! If you're interested in reading the stories of other Montreal Artists, check out the page here.

Indoor Natural Light Portraits | Reyhanne

I don’t know if you’re aware or not, but only a third of the photographs in my portrait and headshot portfolio are natural light portraits; the rest are all shot with flash. People are generally surprised when I tell them this, probably because we’re so used to seeing really bad flash pictures, where the use of flash is extremely harsh and not subtle. We don’t instinctively think that flash can create natural-looking light, but light is light, and with the proper light modifiers, you can make artificial light look like natural light. I’m a huge advocate for proper artificial light use, but of course when it isn’t necessary, I leave my lights in my bags. In the case of this recent shoot with Reyhanne, we had a room flooded with beautiful natural light and we took advantage of it.

Reyhanne comes from a business management, administration, and human resources background at HEC. I love that her focus is on the ethical and sustainable side of businesses, and she worked as a consultant for different organizations over the years. Now, Reyhanne is starting her own line of natural eco-friendly beauty products, where she’ll be sourcing her ingredients from different parts of the world and collaborating closely with the producers (in a way similar to Ten Thousand Villages). And on the side, she’s also an aspiring yoga instructor (a studio with big windows and beautiful natural light is something we’d both love to have).

For her portraits, we were aiming for photographs that represented her and that conveyed a sense of calmness, tranquility, and peacefulness. I wanted a natural light look (whether I used natural light or artificial light to achieve it is irrelevant). In the end, we were both very happy with the results. Here's what Reyhanne had to say about me (en Français!):

Consciencieux et attentif, Alex a une approche de la séance de photo que je qualifierai d’holistique: de son écoute des besoins, de la saisie de toute la complexité de la personnalité, de l’offre d’un cadre agréable, à la réalisation même des photos. That's pretty awesome to hear as a photographer. You can read her full testimonial here.

I’m glad to say we’ll be staying in touch - Reyhanne will be joining my Montreal mastermind group! I’m hosting our first dinner tomorrow with the 6 other members, and everyone will be meeting for the first time. I’m excited!

Acting Headshots in my Home Studio | Alina Gotcherian

Alina’s back and you might recognize her! She was in my portrait and headshot portfolio for almost a year after I photographed her as Ernestine for Chocolate Moose’s Theatre Company’s play. This time, she came as herself for some acting headshots. Whether I’m taking portraits or a person who has never been photographed before or taking acting headshots, I don’t assume that the person is familiar or comfortable with being photographed so I start from zero. But because I had photographed Alina before, I knew how comfortable and natural she was in front of the camera (despite the maybe intimidating-looking lighting setup), and we picked up right where we left off last time.

Read what Alina had to say about working with me: Getting photographed by Alex is a wonderful experience. He genuinely cares about getting your best shots and will gently direct and coach you between snaps to ensure you'll look your best, yes, but also look relaxed, natural, and like YOU. He is professional, prompt, and courteous. You'll feel at ease and guided through the whole process - never left in the dark about what's going on. […] On top of everything else, he is an interesting and sincere person. Thanks Alex! - Alina (Read her full testimonial at my client testimonials page!)

Aww, thanks Alina! It was nice working with you too!

I want to return the favour and talk about projects she’s currently working on. Alina has a fun upcoming show in the works called Stage M - it’ll be a show about the behind-the-scenes of the entertainment industry in Montreal. But if you want to see her before that, she’ll be co-producing and acting in a play in next year’s Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal. Lastly, I also want to thank tattoo artist Marie Mallouh for hair & make-up!

If you're interested in seeing more acting headshots and portraits, check out my portrait and headshot portfolio. Keep up with me by following my public Facebook page or Instagram page, and feel free to jump down the rabbit hole of related blog posts below. Thanks for reading!

Casual Corporate Headshot and Portrait Session | Le Butler Marketing

My latest portrait session features Simon Bédard who contacted me for some casual corporate portraits and headshots. The shots he wanted were more lifestyle than corporate really, which fits his style and vibe much more. Currently, he works as a freelancing marketing/branding consultant under Le Butler Marketing, but he’s cooking up some other projects as well.

Look at him rock that turtleneck.

I met Simon waaaaay way back in high school. Collège Durocher Saint-Lambert, just South of the Jacques-Cartier bridge, in the good old Montreal suburbs. Longueuil Beach and beyond. We had only met a few times, and I think our first real conversation was a few months ago. After nine years, I barely recognized Simon with his beard. We ran into each other at the launch of a collaborative art project by our mutual friend Aquil. We kept in touch and eventually he contacted me for these corporate portraits and headshots.

As a marketing and brand consultant, he of course knew the type of headshots he wanted. He even sent me a Powerpoint presentation with the photos of stuff he didn’t want. Now that’s dedication. But don’t worry Simon, I wasn’t planning on lighting you with those nightclub-like green and purple lights ;) He’s the business-type of guy, but he didn’t want those cringey stiff corporate headshots. You know the ones I’m talking about.

Right now, Simon is out in Thailand. Riding elephants. But I’ll be seeing more of him soon! You might have seen my blog post about creating my own mastermind group with freelancers in Montreal a few weeks ago. Well the recruiting is finally done and I've found a lovely mix of artists and entrepreneurs, including this guy here. We’ll see what kind of concoction our brains will create.

Thanks for reading! This week I’m releasing my 10th Postcard from Alex, so make sure you check it out if you aren’t already subscribed!

Need a Great Photoshoot Location in Montreal? Try Breather!

There are tons of interesting photoshoot locations in Montreal. I’m constantly on the lookout for discovering new places to shoot, and every time I come across an interesting spot, I take note of the intersection on my phone. Occasionally, however, I come across a shooting assignment that doesn’t quite fit any of my saved locations, either aesthetically or logistically. Paul Carter reached out to me for promotional portraits for his upcoming website. He’s a musician who plays the bassoon, clarinet, saxophone among other things, so we needed a photoshoot location where he could bring all his instruments. He had a general idea of the mood and look of his portraits - relatively minimal portraits with few distractions or clutter.

Enter Breather! My resourceful friend Ariel introduced me to this great startup. Think of it as an Air BnB for offices and living rooms. Luckily for us, Montreal was one of the first cities to adopt Breather. These curated minimal rooms are quite affordable (10-20$/h) and have lots of natural light. I could see lots of uses for them: meeting clients coming from out of town, working on a large group project, hosting a small event, and of course, photographing a musician.

I used my Sherlock skills to pick the optimal time of day for the photoshoot; I inspected the photos of the room on Breather, looked at the visible buildings through the windows in the photos, and then matched it with Google Street View to find the orientation of the windows of the room. I always have external lights ready to go, but if you’re going in a room that is essentially a beautiful natural light studio, you need to take advantage of it! I'm excited to see how Breather will be doing in the future, hopefully there will be more photogenic locations popping up around Montreal.

Thanks for reading!

Corporate Lifestyle Photos for BMO

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the Bank of Montreal to take some corporate lifestyle photos. The description of the assignment was simple: take photos of Nagui Hallal, an employee of a BMO locale on Cote-Vertu. Nagui had recently won an award because of his excellent job as the branch manager, and they wanted a portrait of him working, interacting with co-workers, as well as a regular headshot. When you get sent in corporate offices and are asked to take pictures of people interacting together and working, the last thing you want to do is to create photos that look like stock photos. You know which ones I’m talking about. “Man in suit smiling while pointing at presentation.” “Woman behind counter smiling while greeting customer”. Oh god, those are the worst. They’re so bad and awkward that they’re also the best. For me, lifestyle photos need to be authentic and natural - whether they're in a lifestyle corporate setting or in a lifestyle family photo setting. That's why I cringe so much when I see those cheesy staged stock images. So at this point, my number one goal is to deliver the requested images to client. My second very close goal is to do so without creating cheesy stock-like photos. I’m happy to say it was easier than expected! And it was all thanks to my awesome subject. Nagui put everyone at ease, could make everyone laugh in a second (he did my job, really). The minute I met him, I could already see why he was an award-winning manager. He had just come back from vacation, and all employees seemed genuinely happy to see him in the office again. When their staff meeting started, he finally announced why I was there and that he had won the award, and everyone was ecstatic.

Is his infectious energy coming across in these photographs? He looks like the best manager one could have!

Quest of the Dragon King | AIN Conference in Mont Tremblant

I just got back from photographing the 4-day Applied Improv Network conference in the Laurentians near Mont Tremblant. This is the first of three posts highlighting the amazing things I saw during the conference. (Part 2 and Part 3 are out!)

While browsing through the Thank You section of the conference program, I came across familiar names: Katie Pagnucco, Meags Fitzgerald, Vinny François, and Brad Kane. Individually, they’re all amazing people, but together they form the formidable improv troupe Quest of the Dragon King. They describe themselves as “Four jesters who act out improvised stories of high fantasy, fairy tales, and medieval legends. Heroes & villains, monsters & magic, love & madness.”

They were invited to come perform in front of an intimidating 200+ person crowd of fellow improvisers, and what a show it was. Starting off with a single suggestion from the crowd (“geologist”), they improvised their way through a world of magic crystals, verbose elves and immortal demons. And a snow leopard, seen here:

With their great performance, they were rewarded with a long standing ovation. When the evening was over, we drove back to the Blueberry Lake resort (barely avoiding death while driving through super sinister fog that was probably full of skeletons/zombies). And before my work shift started the next day, we had time for a 10-min impromptu photoshoot deep in the Laurentian forests. We were able to work quickly since they were already used to working with me. I had photographed Katie during my shoot with Girl Talk (my first improv photography assignment ever). I then photographed Brad in my Faces of Improv project at Montreal Improv. And Meags was part of my Montreal Artists series. Only Vinny was an Alex Tran Photography virgin. He did well.

Go Like the Quest of the Dragon King Facebook page to keep track of their performances in Montreal Improv and around! And come back to see my next posts about the amazing AIN conference. Part 2 is here.

Montreal Artists: Marc-André Cyr

This is Marc-André Cyr, the Baker on the Go / Boulanger Itinérant. Hopping from house to house, teaching private baking workshops in Montreal, he leaves behind a trail of breadcrumbs, along with the smell of freshly baked bread in your home and a passion for breadmaking. His baking CV includes Olive & Gourmando, MELK Bar à Café, and Le Pain dans les Voiles. My first encounter with Marc-André was at the Mezzaluna cooking school, where he teaches some of the baking courses. Claudia had bought me a gift certificate for a class and I chose the Special Breads class (CHEESE BREAD!!!). He’s a funny down-to-earth guy and kept us entertained while teaching us and answering our questions. Some of us were scribbling notes frantically as there was a useful tip or trick in each sentence he was saying.

As he finished mixing the ingredients together and started the kneading process, everyone got quiet for a moment and those in the back stood up from their chairs to see better. All workshop attendees were mesmerized, staring at his deft hands to try and pick up his technique. He moved the sticky dough around quickly yet delicately, stretching the sides, folding it over itself, picking it up and laying it down at another angle, rolling it around, tucking creases, occasionally tossing a light layer of flour on the counter. The questions started flowing in and he answered all of them while his hands and arms continued the automated process. Soon enough, the sticky dough had transformed into a nice and smooth elastic ball.

OK. For my Montreal Artists series, I had always been interested in the creative process behind people’s different lines of work. I hadn’t intended in adding a BAKER to my list until I saw Marc-André making bread and as he started talking about breadmaking in a tongue-in-cheek way, saying things like bread is POETRY and this elastic ball of dough is so full of hope. I think what really fascinates me in the creative process of artists is the effortless familiarity in their movements and the connection they have with their tools.

When I eventually contacted Marc-André, he was friendly and enthusiastic about the collaboration. I showed up at his house, we started chatting. He happened to be making bread while I happened to be taking pictures. Since Jacques and his hammer, I’ve been curious about which object these creatives feel most connected to. Can you guess what Marc’s favourite baking tool is? You can see it in this picture:

It’s neither of the dough scrapers, it’s not the massive rolled up bag of flour, it’s not the funny-looking whisk thing (although he does love it). It’s the solid maple wood table he’s working on. He had a woodworker custom-build it 20 years ago and it’s still going strong.

So let’s leave Marc at his table as he waits for the dough to rise (I like to think that this is what all bakers look like while they wait for the dough to rise, staring in the distance, pondering the meaning of life and yeast).

If you know someone who loves to bake and whose birthday is coming up, get a group of people together and have the Baker on the Go come teach a private workshop as a gift. I think it's a nice, different and creative gift, and everyone would have a really fun experience. Aaaand... you might also hear more about Marc-André as there's a special project in the works being cooked up!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned by subscribing to Postcards from Alex for more!

Freelance Photography for McGill News

Five years ago, during my biology field course in Mont St-Hilaire, I was hiking with Alice and Sophie when we came across a little stream and decided to look for red back salamanders. We found a few, I took some pictures. That moment would lead to five years of freelance photography for the alumni magazine McGill News! A funny thing about this picture by the way is that I didn’t own a macro lens at that time, so to get close to the salamander, I used this weird technique where I took the lens off of my camera and took a picture while holding the lens in the air backwards.

When McGill News contacted my biology professor for pictures from his classes, my pictures were brought up, and I started a conversation with Daniel McCabe, the editor. He used that salamander picture in an article about field courses at McGill University and ever since, he’s been hiring me for occasional freelance photography assignments. They vary from pictures of the campus to portraits of professors. There was even an article where they interviewed me about my biology research and featured my photography at the same time (Out of the classroom and into the rainforest).

What I love most about these assignments is that I get to photograph interesting people. Here are a few shots I took this year on assignment.

I was sent to photograph Allan Downey, a new professor in the indigenous studies department and member of the Nak’azdli First Nation. He researches (and plays) lacrosse and studies its history and role in indigenous culture.

Then I met Kevin Petrecca, the chief of neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He was featured in the magazine after having developed a probe that can precisely detect cancer cells in the brain.

And my favourite assignment so far - I got to join one of the Iberian food tours of Mélissa Simard, a McGill alumni. You may have read my previous post about Mélissa here.

Something I didn't expect to happen is that this work for McGill News led to other freelance photography jobs within McGill. I’ll share more in the future, but I want to highlight one particular exciting project that I may photograph. It’s essentially what I did for the Santropol Roulant portraits, but for the ~100 staff members and professors of McGill's Macdonald Campus. I really hope it works out as I’d love to take on the challenge!

Stay tuned for more! Also, did you know that for every email you receive when you sign up for Postcards from Alex, a war is prevented? Think about doing good for this world. Think about it.

MONGREL UNLEASHED: Montreal Improv's Newest House Team

Brace yourselves. Montreal Improv’s newest house team is here. According to their Facebook page, the Mongrel improv comedy troupe is here to tap into our souls and steal our hearts. The pack is made up of six loveable mutts: D.J., Paul, Jaymie, Mark, Taylor, and Alex (not me unfortunately). And they’re coached by this guy:  

With a coach that glorious you know they’re producing quality performances. (That shot was taken during my Faces of Improv project).

We had a photo shoot in the Mile End. The gritty part of the Mile End that is, and with their regular clothes and makeup they fit right in with the environment. Our initial plans for the shoot included fire, but logistics (and maybe legality) got in the way. Like they do on stage Mongrel were pros and brought the fire in their performance in front of the camera.

In case you’re not familiar with the house teams in Montreal Improv, each member is selected into the troupe following auditions. According to the rumours, the gruelling audition process lasts 48 straight hours and involves starvation, a hot coal walk, vaseline, and it's what inspired Suzanne Collins when writing the Hunger Games trilogy. These are just rumours I heard though, so it’s probably all true.

Now don’t be fooled. Despite their recent union, Mongrel already has the chemistry to produce hilarious energy-packed performances. Your face hurts walking out of the show because of your smiling and laughing. So there you go. Mongrel joins Room Service, Helmut, and Doreen, three other wonderful house teams who haven't had a photoshoot yet (wink wink wink, hi there). They’re featured during the House Team nights at the theatre (among other performances). Their next show is Sunday August 2nd, 6:30 at Montreal Improv.

And in other news, I’ve just sent out my first Postcard from my email newsletter Postcards from Alex! I’m really excited to share more stories and photos, you should sign up and join the fun!

See you next time!