Celebrate Your City with an On-Location Portrait Photograph in Vancouver
The perfect setting can add an emotional touch to that special picture, Julia Pelish tells author Adrian Brijbassi

In a city endowed with as much natural beauty as Vancouver, it would be an artistic demerit if photographers did not offer on-location shoots for their clients. While studio sessions have benefits, they often lack two key elements of the contemporary portrait: originality and scenery. An on-location shoot, on the other hand, is not only more fun, it’s dramatic, unique and can be exponentially more intimate than a photograph taken before a backdrop yanked down for the umpteenth time.

The key to an on-location shoot starts with the client, says Julia Pelish, who favours on-location shoots for her family, heirloom, corporate and engagement portraits in Vancouver. She aims to add a personal touch to her photos, giving her clients a setting with special meaning to them.

“We all have places that evoke memories or that are simply comfortable for us because we feel familiar there,” she says. “What I want is to place my portrait clients in a picturesque location where they feel emotionally connected.”

Although Ms. Pelish, who relocated from New York in 2005, also utilizes studio space for her work, she feels Vancouver offers unique opportunities for on-location portrait photography that other cities may not.
 		“The world truly can be your backdrop here,” she says. “A key reason for that is because so much of the waterfront remains public space. Plus, there’s an abundance of park land and no highway that cuts through the city. Vancouver is a photographer’s dream.”

Julia Pelish Photography Offers a Range of Portrait Products and Services

Ms. Pelish says she discusses possible locations with her portrait photography clients then narrows it down to two choices in the Vancouver area: the ideal spot for the client and a backup location that serves as a fail safe against inclement weather, as well as a potential second setting if the portrait session allows time for it.

She photographs using film and digital camera bodies, optimizing her unique soft-focus filter and her expert lighting techniques to capture her models and portrait subjects in the most glamorous and flattering fashion.

 With her 35-millimetre Nikon and Fuji camera bodies, and medium-format Hasselblad camera with Zeiss lenses, she offers her Vancouver portrait clients a wide selection of styles, poses and potential print sizes. Once the shoot is complete, she processes the digital images herself, employing her advanced knowledge of Adobe Photoshop to guarantee her clients the quality photographs they expected when they hired her.

Her film processing is outsourced to a Vancouver lab that has “given me proven, top-notch results every time,” Ms. Pelish says. Her portrait clients are then given proofs of the photographs to select the prints they are entitled to, according to their contract with Julia Pelish Photography.

“Although studio shoots have their advantages—namely controlled lighting and predictable outcomes—I have always found the on-location shoot to be exhilarating. For families, couples and the corporate executive who wants to make a statement about herself, the perfect setting can add so much to a photograph,” says Ms. Pelish, whose work has been exhibited in New York and Vancouver, as well as published in newspapers and magazines. “The way I think Vancouverites should think of it is, the studio shoot is for models—people whose image needs to stand out from a background. For the rest of us, this is our city and the our photographs should celebrate it and serve to document it as it changes before our eyes.”

The top places for an on-location portrait photograph shoot in Vancouver

Here are the top five places for an on-location portrait photograph shoot in Vancouver, according to Yaletown photographer and image specialist Julia Pelish:

1. Spanish Banks — This stunning locale is less populated than Kits Beach and Sunset Beach, offering both space and arguably Vancouver’s most beautiful sunsets.

2. Prospect Point — Yeah, it’s touristy, but on a clear day with clouds drifting over the mountains of West Vancouver and boats cruising through English Bay and the Lions Gate sparkling and the sun dipping down like a parachute, who wouldn’t want their portrait professionally taken at this Stanley Park favourite?

And while you're there, it's not too far to the lush, tranquil gardens nestled within Stanley Park ripe with gorgeous colour and shady nooks ready for a beautiful family portrait to be taken.

3. Queen Elizabeth Park — It’s free, it’s accessible, its gardens are gorgeous, and it has mountain views. All the makings of a beautiful Vancouver photograph.

4. Canada Place Promenade — Really, anywhere along the north-facing seawall is exquisite. The promenade offers the best view of Grouse and Seymour mountains, plus all the water traffic—luxury liners, sea buses, the bevy of seaplanes—is unique to Vancouver.

 Surprisingly, this area of Canada Place isn’t usually crushed with people, probably because the cruise ship passengers don’t hang out on what is essentially the dock for their boats.

5. Your Home — The comfort level of the portrait subject has a significant effect on the outcome of the photograph. For children, especially, the best place to be photographed often can be in the home. Down the road, an in-house portrait can also have the most value. We take photographs for the memories, after all, and what we most cherish as the years pass are our recollections of family and familiar surroundings.
Adrian Brijbassi has won multiple awards for his writing - which has been published in literary journals, newspapers and anthologies - and was named one of the “35 Greatest Rock Writers of Generation X” in 2004. He writes books, too.

Julia Pelish Photography, based in Vancouver, specializes in portrait, wedding, commercial and fine art photography. Digital imaging and web-site services - including content building - are also offered.

Copyright Julia Pelish Photography of Vancouver, 2006. close window