1 Personal work: portrait of my barber Mario. Shot with Hasselblad and 60mm lens with available light, through the big front window. Shot on Kodak's incredible E100VS film.

2 Portrait of Mississauga high school basketball star Ryan Wright, for Slam magazine in 2004. I'm laying on the court with a 40mm Hassy, Profoto beauty dish as a main light and Dyna-lite in a versatile Photek Illuminata as rim light and a bare Lumedyne lighting the stands. Shot on E100VS.

3 Badger's industrial post hole digging equipment, for trade magazine story. Same glass and film, with a bare Lumedyne in back, balanced to the main light of the sun. I shot low, so the equipment frames the worker. The portrait is shot with available light and a 120mm lens.

4 The Weather Network's owner Pierre Morrisette, in one of his studios. Big Photek Illuminata to the right, Nikon's amazing little SB-800 speedlight (set on slave mode) on the floor in the background lighting up the back wall and giving definition to the camera and monitors, and a slow shutter speed to take advantage of the daylight balanced studio lights providing rim light. Nikon D2X and 17-35 mm lens.

5 Portrait of construction engineer Brent Julian at a garbage dump. Corporate photography is glamorous. A big Photek Sunbuster kept the somewhat harsh 9:30 a.m. light off the subject and a battery powered Dyna-lite Uni-400 bounced in some soft fill. The Sunbuster is like a patio umbrella, but with the same white fabric of a softbox. The client wanted the background soft, so I zoomed my Nikkor 80-200 to its longest. Shot on a D2X. In an ideal world, portraits are shot at the "magic hours" just after sunrise and before sunset. With corporate photography, you have to be able to create the magic light at any time of day.

6 TD Canada Trust executive Tim Hockey sits in the company's iconic green chair. A Photek Illuminata to the left, a bare Dyna-lite head bounced off a white wall providing a highlight to the chair and hair and an 18-inch Dyna-lite beauty dish at eye-level providing some snap – and a highlight on the burnished wood office wall. Nikon D2X and a 17-35mm lens set at 24mm.

7 Editorial portrait of Terry O'Reilly, a radio commercial writer, director, and producer for a Marketing magazine cover. Profoto ring light and bare Dyna-lite head to the right, Hassy 120mm lens and VS100.

8 EnRoute magazine sent me to a farm just outside of Sarnia to make a portrait of this young guy who won a sports car in a milk contest. But a) His parents had traded in the cool prize for a green mini-van. And b) the little guy's pet goat died that morning. Fortunately, after plying my young subject with a liter of chocolate milk, I managed to coax a grin out of him. Hasselblad 60 mm lens (Irving Penn's favorite portrait lens) and E100VS. Dyna-lite strobe and a 60" umbrella and a roll of seamless. Don't leave home without it.

9 When Golf Canada wanted me to illustrate writer IJ Schecter's wry article on keeping your emotions in check, my mind was full of ideas. Fortunatelty, IJ helped me pull them all off. The shot on the right was taken within an hour of sunrise, on a slightly overcast day, using becklight, a reflector and Nikkon's 12-24 lens. Crazy wide. While IJ pulled on a wet suit for the pond shot, the clouds rolled on, so my assistant and I set up a couple lights to give the same feeling as before. A Dyna-lite Uni400 in a dish was to the right and a Nikon SB-800 to the back right, both firing off a radio slave. I stood on a ladder with my 17-35, praying I wouldn't join IJ in the drink.

10 Mohawk College student Robin and son are shot low on seamless. To the left, the Photek Illuminata with a Dyna-lite beauty dish providing a touch of fill. D2X set to the wide end of a 17-35 mm lens.

11 Portrait of Vancouver lawyer Diane Tupper, a victim of Canada's occasionally flawed health care system, for AARP magazine. Shot low to emphasize the hands on her cane with Fuji S2 digital, 24 mm Nikkor and Profoto 7B strobe in a 52" Photek softbox. The Fuji gives great professional quality files, but the body has the feel of a Holga and isn't as fast. The trick here is metering the background to match the output of the strobe.

12 I scratched my head a bit trying to figure out an interesting way of photographing this opthalmogists's portrait for The Medical Post. Then it came to me, inspired by a photo shot by Magnum's Larry Towell. I clamped an old pair of my glasses to a light stand using a Manfrotto Super Clamp, placed a 60" umbrella 90 degrees from the subject and a fluroscent-lit eye chart just to the doctor's left side. It looks nothing like the photo that inspired it – but this shot wouldn't exist if I hadn't taken an afternoon off to wander some galleries.

13 Michael Needham's Simex company makes small theatres that shake and shimmy like an amusement park ride. Here he is in the company's Ontario Place location. Profoto ring light powered by a Bron battery pack in front and a bare Dyna-lite back light, 40mm Hassy, and a room full of fun-loving Simex staffers

14 Personal work: Oscar and Daisy. Take one utterly beautiful sunrise, a Lumedyne flash and Dyna-lite beauty dish, Nikon 17-35 and a D2X and add some great subject matter. I met kilt-enthusiast Oscar and his puppy as they left my local grocery store one day and had to make a portrait of them.

15 MoneySense magazine sent me to the suburbs to do a portrait of a family for a story on building your own home. I brought along hair and make-up artist Andrea Claire Walmsley, who in addition to being one of the finest stylists in Toronto, is also great at getting the attention of youngsters. Hasselblad with a 60mm lens, E100S with warming filter and well-diffused Dyna-lite head to the right. Again, I'm laying on the floor.

16 Good photography is often a group effort. For my 2005 Christmas promo, it took one good natured elf, Santa Bernie J. Sharpe and a highly skilled, and non-too squeemish make-up artist, Artist Group's Tasleema Nigh to pull together my goofy shot. No Saints were harmed in the making of this image. Two lights and a bit of photoshop completed the effort.

17 It seemed like a great background to photograph Toronto Zoo's security boss: but the pachyderms had a different idea. I set Derrick Stein up in the same spot the elephant keepers use to feed the big animals. Derrick didn't have food to hand out, so the elephants tossed rocks at him in protest. Fortunately, they didn't have great aim. Hasselblad with Profoto dish on Derrick and bare Dyna-lite head on the elephants.

18 I photographed this doctor and her assistant as part of an annual report for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. A Photek Illuminata was high behind me, aimed slightly towards the ceiling and a second Dyna-lite head bounced off a medium umbrella then through a silk, adding rim light to the doctor from her left. D2X and 17-35 lens.

19 Portrait of college students, for Mohawk College recruitment campaign in 2005. Canon 1DS and Nikon D2X, with 7' Octobox to the left and a Photek box to the right providing a hint of fill. All the seamless shots were done on location, in the staff lunch room. The images were blown up for billboards, bus shelter ads and life-size posters and looked incredible. After the campaign wrapped, I sold my Hassy and became 100% digital.

20 Sheridan College hired me to capture the interiors and tenants of their new residences, for a college brochure. Great spaces and photogenic people, made for bright images. Kodak VS100 and Hasselblad.

21 Personal portrait of volunteer firefighters Tim and Chuck, of the Grand Valley, Ontario fire department. Kodak VC100 color negative film. A 60" umbrella to the left and soft light coming in the open firehall door.

22 Advisor's Edge magazine sent me to a north Toronto office tower to photograph their financial advisor of the year. We did the standard boardroom shot, then went into the hall for a variation. I shot low, which adds a sense of power to the subject. Dyna-lite head into a 60" umbrella right of the camera and a Nikon SB-800 in a small umbrella further to the right and against the wall, for a touch of rim light.

23 One day. Five locations. Eight hours of shooting. My assistant Michael Grills and I spent a day photographing the four main programs at Mohawk McMaster's Health Sciences school, in Hamilton. All shot on a Nikon D70 digital camera.

24 If you want to make good location portraits, you need more than a camera and lights – you need a good alarm clock. My assistant and I arrived on location at sunrise on a frosty cold fall morning figured out where to shoot and set up the lights. At 7:30, when pro Dave Woods arrived we were ready to take advantage of the beautifully illuminated sky. Dyna-lite Uni-400 in a beauty dish for main light, powered off a Tronix battery. D2X with an 80-200 lens.

TOOLS

In my career, have used almost every brand of camera and strobe. During the last few years, I've managed to pull together a kit that is fairly small and dependable – perfect for my style of location photography, and easy on my back.

On a usual editorial or corporate assignment, I'll bring:

• Nikon kit (D2X, D70, 12-24, 17-35, 35-70, 85 and 80-200 2.8 and SB800) in a 1520 Pelican case

• two Dyna-lite packs(M1000 and M500) and three heads crammed into a 1550 Pelican case. A newly purchased 4040 head is in a second case.

• Dyna-lite Uni-400 monohead and some smaller on-camera strobes and a radio slave in a 1520 Pelican (often my only lighting for lower budget editorial jobs.)

• Tronix explorer battery, to power the Uni-400, laptop and battery chargers. Cheaper than a Dyna-lite Jackrabbit battery, gives 400 w/s of power with a four second recycle at full power. I used it at dawn, on a brisk November morning, and after 200 flashes, it still had a lot of juice left. And at 15 lbs, I always attach it to the stand with a Superclamp, for extra ballast.

• Dyna-lite 18" beauty dish (especially great outside when the wind is blowing)

•a big stand bag with three big Manfrotto stands, two crossbars, my Photek Illuminata "52 softbox and a 60" umbrella

• a Calumet case(that measures 2" less than average doors) containing smaller stands, light modifiers (including my often used "silk" a 10x8 sheet of white fabric I bought on sale at a fabric store for under $20 ), AC extensions;

• a Lowepro bag bursting with Manfrotto grip equipment including super clamps, light tite, grip heads and A-clamps

• Pelican case holding an Apple 14" ibook (software including Photomechanic and Photoshop CS2) and a back-up hard drive.

• a sand bag

Oh, and the aluminum ladder featured in my portrait of the Designer Guys.

It all fits easily in the back of my station wagon and on two carts for running from parking lot to location.

WHY THESE BRANDS?

CAMERA: The D2X puts out a file that continually pleases art directors, it writes to card blisteringly fast and the battery lasts for days. The D70 creates a great looking file and is light in weight and on the wallet. Nikon's lenses are expensive, but worth the price. My favorite lenses are the 17-35 (usually zoomed to 24mm to emulate the feel of a 60mm Hassy) and the super-sharp and light 85mm f 1.8 for tighter or more formal portraits.

I've used Canon, and it is great too – I just prefer Nikon's ergonomics and glass.

STROBES

For my purposes, there is nothing like a Dyna-lite, for big, reliable power in a tiny package. The Uni-400 is lighter than a Profoto Acute head. The 2040 heads are like bullet-proof steel cans that throw really even light. The 4040 head's light quality rivals the legendary sweet light of a Profoto head. Dyna-lite packs sport the quickest recycle I've seen, never blows fuses, and they don't make Dave Morris, my strobe repair guy, a whole lot of money. Nikon's SB800 system is superb (once you've read and understood the novel-length manual)

I just started using a MicroSync radio slave, that is a perfect match for my strobes. Tinest transmitter in the world, very powerful, goes on and off automatically and uses next to no battery power.

And Manfrotto stands and grip equipment. Light, but built to last.

FINAL TIPS:

1) When you are shooting a portrait, the tools matter much less than your interaction with your subject. If you want to photograph someone who looks relaxed, you have to be relaxed. Talk to the person and try to make the process enjoyable. Also, become so familiar with your equipment that you can put most of your attention on your subject.

2) Play the angles. 99% of amateur photography is taken at eye-level. Probably 9% of my work is shot at eye level. Find an angle of view that plays to the psychology of the viewer. If you shoot from a low angle, it gives the subject an illusion of power. It also makes the sky more of an element in the shot. Look down on someone, and psychologically, you are looking down on them. You are also making the ground a dominant element in the photograph. Honestly, I'd sooner leave the lights at home than my stepladder.

3) Foreground. Middle ground. Background. Your photograph has these elements – and all can add or detract from the portrait. Pay attention to them all. I usually try to keep the background clean - or I'll use interesting elements in the background to frame the subject.

4) Break rules. They say a short telephoto lens is a portrait lens – and it is if you are shooting straight executive portraits (or beauty shots or Sear's portraits). The shots you just looked at were made with everything from a 17 to a 200 mm lens. Most were shot with a moderately wide lens. I find a focal length equivalent to 35 mm on 35 mm film to be perfect for editorial portraits.

5) Go to galleries. Read magazines. Check out other photographer's websites: especially folks whose style is different from yours. Play. And keep it fun.

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