On Location

Country Music: Aaron Allen

As you may have seen, most of my photography ventures this year, well.. over the past year, I’ve been returning to my photography roots. My passion for photography started back in high school and quickly became a big part of my life shortly after high school when I started photographing concerts. I’ve always been drawn to music, especially live music and for years it was all about that Punk Rock which then led to EMO and now I’m all about that Country. I love all kinds of music but there’s something about Country.. specifically country rock, I love it. Country music fans are some of the nicest people I’ve met, and I have made many new friends just from going to concerts.
So over the past year I’ve been slowly getting back into the concert photography, it’s a very tough world from what it use to be. I remember you could walk into any show with your camera and start taking pictures, the only worry was having a mosh pit fire up and you get tossed around holding onto the camera you had to save up to buy with a part time job. Now, you have to spend days writing emails … emails to bands, managers, promotors, labels, venues… anything to try and get Approved for media accreditation. It’s a grind, and I get it, everyone has a camera, everyone wants to be a photographer, everyone wants to be the ones up close to the bands in “the photo pit” so the market is flooded, but it’s flooded in every market. Let me tell you though, you put in the work, you send those emails, you make those connections and things start to flow.

Aaron Allen is a musician who has been in the industry for 20 years. After 20 years of the grind, he is finally making some big waves in Country Music. His first big single ‘ Where Music Comes from ‘ was received well and played on country radio (Country 104 - London On & Woodstock On.) Spotify picked it up as well as AppleMusic. Aaron was part of Juno FanFest in London, as the Juno’s were in London Ontario, and that’s where I first got to photograph him. It was a very late night performance.. I could be wrong but I think it was lie 1am… at The Bull & Barrel downtown London. I was very tired after photographing bands all day, but I really wanted to stick it out and see Aaron’s set, it was my last shoot for the night before the 50 min drive home. Of course, Aaron put on a great show, the shoot was tough as the lighting was dim but I made it work. Next day I posted the images, tagged Aaron in them and he saw them and reached out to let me know he loved them. I’ll fast forward this story so I don’t write a book here but, months later Aaron was releasing a new song, that song was titled ‘GOOD TATTOO’. Along with a new song release artists need a new image to go with it so there’s something to see when people look for it on streaming sites such as Spotify & Apple Music, so Aaron remembered me and the shots from the Juno’s, he then decided to give me a shot. We sent some emails back and fourth, found a date that worked with both our schedules, met up here and Woodstock and spent a couple hours hitting a few locations around town, chatting about the music business and creating some album art. Next thing I know, the images we created were being used for lyric video’s, teaser images on social media leading up to the release of ‘GOOD TATTOO’ and the grand finale …. the face of ‘GOOD TATTOO’ … an image of Aaron on a sunny day standing with his guitar on a dirt road which is now published on Spotify & Apple Music!

Huge thanks goes out to Aaron for trusting me with his album artwork, it was a fantastic opportunity and I think it all worked out quite well. Now I will be photographing him in St.Thomas Ontario, Live at the IRON HORSE Festival this coming Saturday!

Check Out Aaron’s Socials for updates. Give “GOOD TATTOO” a listen on Spotify or Apple Music and don’t forget to call your local country music radio stations and request this new song from Aaron Allen!

- Cheers

GOOD TATTOO - Aaron Allen

Cover Photo:
- Kevin Vyse
- Kevin Vyse Photography
- Stage Pass Media

Maddy & Diesel: A Girl and her Pup!

Maddy and Diesel were something a little different for me as I haven't really photographed portraits for someone and their dog, but it was a lot of fun! We were originally going to do this shoot back in the fall with all the leaves on the trees, but due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to change the date which led us into winter .... pre-snow winter. 

This time of year the "lake" where I live gets drained out, not completely but quite a bit gets sucked out through the damn which leaves a nice, sandy beach look. Later in the day as the sun set we headed on down to utilize the park area and of course out on to the sand. Diesel was having a ton of fun running around and finding sticks to bring a long for the walk, which ended up in a few of the shots because getting that stick away was near impossible lol. Over all, with the sun set, the beach vibe, the lake and a great person and dog, it was a fantastic shoot! 

- Shutter Click.   

Cassidy, Ben & LUCA!

    Luca turned 1 ! ... unfortunately, I was unable to make it to the little man's birthday, so we decided to do a family portrait session. 

    6pm, the sun was out and getting lower in the sky, it was nice and warm with a small breeze.. perfect conditions to get out and shoot. If you follow my work you've seen Cassidy many times through out my portfolio, she has been a HUGE help to me and my photography. You may have even seen her Maternity photos.. in fact, I KNOW you have seen at least one of those images because it's the first image to see when you come to my website. Well little Luca is here! .. he's actually been here for a year, as he just had his birthday, so we wanted to get together and photograph them as a family.  Our session started at Cassidy and Ben's home in London Ontario as they have a big backyard that always has some nice light. Luca had just woken up from his nap and he is teething so he was a little unhappy at the start, which is a bit unusual for him because he's always so happy, but who wouldn't be upset when you have big bits of calcium busting through your gums?!

    Our photographic adventure took us to a part of Western University, where there are some trails and a forest with a river, which always makes for great light and over all amazing images. Hiking through the forest as the sun dropped the light was glowing from everywhere, and in a field not far from the path we were on there was a herd of dear grazing in the shade. With their small velvet antlers looking all innocent and cute, we immediately dropped everything (accept the camera's of course), and started to shoot with the deer in the background.
    Getting deeper into the woods we reached a point where the path drops down into a gully, surrounded by tall trees and this amazing orange/yellowish light beaming in from in front of us. There was a small patch of light with this green moss growing in the light, and I knew we had to put Luca down in this light and get a shot. 
    From here we made it down to the river where we had some shots of Cassidy feeding Luca and Cassidy, Luca and Ben all sitting on the edge of the water in some tall grass cuddled up with one another. I had Cassidy take Luca out into the shallow parts of the water (ankle deep) so we could get some nice shots of them in the river with the amazing filtered light shining down on them. 

Over all this was a fantastic shoot, great way to spend the day/evening and make some phenomenal imagery for some amazing people! 

-Shutter Click!
 
 

Cody & Carly | Maternity

   With a nice little waterfall, a small river and a park in the woods, Cody & Carly's session was fantastic! As with all things photography, the shoot was based around light... evening sunlight but as the shoot began  the clouds rolled in putting a damper on the original plan. Was this something to worry about? not at all. Very rarely do things go to plan in the photography world, so what do you do? roll with the punches and thats exactly how we did this. 

   Off to the waterfall we went for our first bit of the session. These two are pretty natural when it comes to posing, ask them to stand near one another and the cuddling begins naturally. With a glowing mom to be and an excited father to be this shoot was the bees knees. 
   We had some pretty nice filtered light from the clouds, great locations to play with and create a personal collection. Once the waterfall was looking amazing with these two we then went back over to the open space near the river to take advantage of the grassy space and the river backdrop. I'm not going to lie.. the water was very sulpherous (is that a word? it is now ) ... but we had to put up with the amazing smell of eggs lol.. it was doable though and these two handled it perfectly! 
   We then decided to head on over to a last minute locations that Cody had just thought of, the park. It was pretty neat to see this park kind of hidden in a forest.. there was a ball diamond, swimming pool, small splash pad and long walking bridge over the water to get there and some walking trails. Mosquito's were in full force in the woods, of course, and boy did they get a feast out of us... lets just say the wooded are was a quick portion... very quick shots because none of us could stay still for to long. On the way out of the woods we came across a Ginseng field.. you know, those ones with the black mesh tent over the field.. at this point the sun was setting. Colour in the sky and the lines of the field and tent made me stop in my tracks, just knowing there was a shot there. 

Over all this shoot was fantastic, couldn't have asked for a better day/evening, it was warm out and Cody & Carly were very easy to work with. Thank you two for being awesome and I can't wait to meet the little one! 

-Shutter Click. 

Cassidy & Ben | Maternity

Welcome Cassidy ( Mother to be ) & Ben ( Father to be). 

You may have seen Cassidy in some of my other collections, as we have worked together on many different occasions. This session was quite a bit different as this is Cassidy's first time being a mother also, I never really shoot maternity sessions, and Ben ( Cassidy's man ) is in this shoot! 
    What a fantastic day for a shoot, we had nice overcast skies, it was warm out.. a bit windy but that was fine, puts some movement into dress' and hair, conditions were perfect. This shoot took place in London Ontario around the Western University Campus. 
With paths through a forest, A river and a wide open field this location offered many different looks, which is what I'm always looking for. I have to give a big thank you to Ben, he was a champ, not only in the pics, but when we were shooting images of Cassidy solo, Ben jumped right in as my assistant holding reflectors and scrims and offering to help carry my gear which was awesome of him!