Walking On the Clouds

This beautiful condo offers panoramic views of Mount Royal, ideally located in the heart of Montreal. Designed by Yves Lefebvre and Martina Pribyslavska.
Shot for the Summer Issue of Montreal Home Magazine.


 

Photography: Drew Hadley
Styling: Jean Monet

Summer Heat

It's been a busy summer, and we have been blessed with beautiful weather! Here are a few sneak peeks of assignments shot for Montreal Home Magazine.

Heritage Condo Building - Vieux-Port Montreal

Ever wondered what the penthouse of the Heritage Building on 1000 de la Commune looks like?

We shot this Old Port penthouse for the Spring Issue of Montreal Home Magazine, be sure to check it out.

Here is a glimpse....

New Billboard Campaign – Oxygen Collections SS2012

Oxygen Collections has just launched their new billboard campaign.

We shot this back in November on a very busy day at Candi Bar.

Credits:

Photographer: Drew Hadley

1^st Assistant: Christopher Morrison

Stylist: Karin Portugal

Hair & Make-up Sylvie Léveillé

Models: Isla (Next)

Albert (Next)

Montreal Home Cover Fall 2011

I have been working with a great new magazine in Montreal. Montreal Home Magazine is a design and architecture publication showcasing the 'finer' side of Montreal living.

The production crew is great, and we always have a lot of fun on the shoots.
A big shout out to the team behind the scenes, they do an awesome job of laying it all out and getting it distributed on time.

Be sure to check out the latest issue in stores now.
If you are in the Toronto area be sure to pick-up a copy of the inaugural issue of Toronto Home Magazine

Oxygen Fall/Winter Collection

Here's a little behind the scenes video depicting the creative process of our latest fashion campaign for Oxygen Collections Fall/Winter 2011

We shot this in the sweltering heat of a summer day in Montreal. See previous post for shooting on the streets.

Campaign:

LookBook:

.

For more check-out Oxygen Collections

Credits:

Photographer: Drew Hadley

Photo Assistant: Christopher Morrision

Designer/ Stylist: Karin Portugal

Stylist: Geneviève D. Thibault

Hair & Make-up: Sylvie Leveille

Model I: Albert (Next)

Model II: Lilly (Next)

Special Thanks to Jac: 63 Buick

Shooting on the Streets, by the book.

When shooting in public areas and on city streets for commercial production the question of permits and insurance need to be addressed.

I recently shot on the streets of Montreal for a fashion client and thought I’d put out some helpful info which was given to me by a friend and producer Jubs. Thx Jubs!!

This post relates to small stills production where no roads were closed or other hindrances incurred due to the production.

Essentially if you are taking your production to the street you need to make contact with Valerie at Montreal Film & TV Commission, or like organization depending on your city.

In Montreal you can obtain a Fast-Track Filming Permit, which allows you to shoot on sidewalks, street alleys, parks and public places. There is no fee for the permit but processing is a minimum of 48hr turn around.

What you will need is to make sure you have proof of Civil Liability Insurance naming

City of Montreal as an additional insured for a minimum of 1Million. This can be added to you Commercial General Liability Insurance contract for a nominal fee.

I hope this info proves useful...

Recent Work

After having had the opportunity to shoot Chef Ricardo in his kitchen for the Kitchen Issue,

I am happy to have shot both French & English covers for the 2011 Spring Issue of

Montreal Home Magazine.

The magazine is available on news stands and showcases the finer side of Montreal's design and architecture.

La Studio Blanche

A quick self portrait...

La Studio Blanche by Barry Harris Studio now available for rent

Sans Script

I shot this story a while ago, before winter could tighten it's grip on Montreal.

I wanted to keep things fairly simple, using only natural daylight. The best source available.

For the full story see www.drewhadley.com

Photographer: Drew Hadley

Assistant: Mark Cadiz

Stylist: Izabel Soucy

Hair & Make-up: Charlotte Flannery (Montage)

Model: Jessica Jolin (Montage)

Rare & Untold...Editorial Shoot Naked Eye Magazine

Rare & Untold…

Finally I can share the fruits of labor.

A few months back I spoke about the challenges of setting up a shoot and the frustrations of pre-production (post Roll with the Punches) . Well, problems are a wake-up call for creativity. Here is a behind the scenes look at my editorial shoot be sure to see the full spread in the latest Naked Eye Magazine Vol 1

Credits:

Photographer: Drew Hadley

Photo assistant: Maxime Juneau-Hotte

Stylist: Geneviève D. Thibault

Assistant stylist: Afua Rida

Hair & Make-up: Charlotte Flannery (Montage)

Assistant HMU: Sabrina Giacommini

Models: Elisabeth (Montage)

Alex B (Montage)

Peter (montage)

Invisible Children

Being African and all, this movement caught my attention and I wanted to put it out.

If you don't all ready know the story take some time out of your day and create awareness.

Invisible Children was founded by 3 young guys all in there 20's here's their story...

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/about/ourStory

TBF…or not to TBF,WTF!

Back-up twice and store them separately.

Never run the Lacie Set-up Assistant, format a new hard

drive through the Disc Utillity.

This happened to me a few months ago & I wanted to put it out so others can avoid it at all costs.

We had returned from a 10-day shoot in Charleston. With this particular client we always back-up our shoot and give them a full back up too.

While editing, the client experienced a power surge

in their building and fried the hard drive, thus requested that we send them another back up of the shoot. No problem.

Not wanting to release the original back up I attempted to make an additional copy for the client, here’s what happened:

The 10-day shoot was on our original back up a Lacie 1TB hard drive all 750 gigs. I took a brand new Lacie d2 Quadra 1TB and as prompted, ran the Lacie Set-Up Assistant to prepare and format the new drive. I have done this numerous times and never had a problem.

Upon running the Lacie Set-up Assistant I noticed that the original HD with the clients shoot was no longer on the desktop and I now only had an icon called ‘Lacie’.

This was a moment when I literally lost my breath. I double-checked and remounted the clients HD; she came up as ‘Lacie’ with 950gigs available….not good!

It’s not what happens in life that’s important, it’s how you deal with what happens that counts.

Plan A:

Upon realizing that I had just erased a full 10 day shoot, my 1^st question of how the hell did that happen, was quickly replaced with lets fix and find a solution to this major problem.

We set-up a San Disc Rescue Pro scan and were very relieved to see the files come in. The file numbers did not correspond but we were getting the files nonetheless.

The mountain of data to scan, all 750gigs soon became our next concern. The client was waiting for the HD, they had a deadline to meet and we were getting 100 files a day, which dwindled to 30 files / day as the computer began to loose RAM.

Plan B:

A quick search online and I found DTI Data who were quoting reasonable prices and no payment if data was not recoverable.

These guys, with their expedited service were able to recover and ship the HD, with original file names in tact to our client within 5 business days.

I definitely recommend their services. When you’re in a pinch like this you want to be dealing with a Pro Team!

DTI Data

Phone: 866-438-6932

I contacted Lacie regarding this matter see their response below.

Posted: May 6, 2010 @ 1:33 PM

Good afternoon Drew,

I attempted to call you today, but unfortunately I was not able to reach you. The bug in the Setup Assistant that you described has been addressed, but a few drives did get shipped out without the patch that fixed the issue.

There are a few options open to you. The quickest would be to run a software utility called Data Rescue that we recommend to recover lost files. It is a third-party application that may be purchased here: http://www.prosofteng.com/lacie/. There is a free demo of Data Rescue, available here, that you may try before you decide to purchase the full version. This demo will allow you to scan the disk and assess the likelihood of being able to recover your data with this program.

Another option is to send the drive to us so that we may attempt to recover your data ourselves. I would like to point out that we would be using the exact same software, Data Rescue, that I recommended previously. The downside to this option is that we are located in the United States, so shipping could be expensive.

The third option is to send the drive to a professional data recovery company. We recommend DriveSavers. This is going to be the most expensive option open to you, but also the safest. If your data is critical to you, I highly recommend contacting DriveSavers for advice or an assessment of your situation.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed with us. Although I am happy to assist, you may also try to resolve this matter with LaCie Canada if you wish: http://www.lacie.com/ca/contact/.

Best regards, Alex

Countdown is on...

New web site going live in 24hrs...

Roll with the Punches

I recently read a blog post titled ‘Why I respect professional photographers’ and it pushed me to put this out there.

As a photographer one is always shooting and improving ones portfolio. This is a very good practice to exercise. Being creative and having lots of ideas is great but little will come from it if you don’t put those ideas and creative concepts into action.

Being spring here Montreal, I have been planning a few creative shoots to exercise those creative muscles. When it comes to fashion creative’s it’s not a question of: ‘ I’ve got a great idea, lets shoot it’

With fashion there is a whole team of people to coordinate with and accommodate. Finding a good stylist is often one of the biggest challenge, due to the heavy workload that goes into a successful fashion shoot. Made all the more elusive when there is no budget or big client paying the bill. Creative’s are collaborating with like-minded people to achieve a common goal. I.e.: strong fresh images for your book.

I am currently working on a very cool concept; I had the production almost all set. A lot of planning goes into a successful shoot. I started scouting locations about 2 months ago. Found an amazing location. We have a great team, set-up creative meeting to let everyone involved discuss the direction and focus of the shoot. Cast models, models are available, hair & make-up is set. Hair and make-up got booked for a half-day paid gig on the date of our shoot, it’s a hic-up, let shuffle the shoot so we use more the afternoon light, that way hair & make-up will be able to work with us, because she’s good! Almost there.

48 hours before the shoot, the location, which is very unique and a very intricate part of the shoot, calls and informs me that we can’t shoot on the scheduled day, as something has come-up. I’m pretty sure the long weekend had something to do with it.

Unfortunately we can’t control what happens to us, however we can control how we deal with what happens to us.

Needless to say after some frantic phone calls and reorganization we have bumped our creative shoot to a new date. Here’s hoping that soon I’ll be able to post the fruits of our labor.

Sullivan's Island

Today we spent the afternoon shooting around a boat house in beautiful Sullivan's Island SC.

Although the shoot is fashion, here are some graphic elements of the location taken with my iphone.

All images ©drewhadley.com

A few Wise Words

I just received these wise words from my Dad, and wanted to put them out there as I feel they are worthy of the 5 min to read them.

Original text by comedian George Carlin.

Isn't it amazing that George Carlin - comedian of the 70's and 80's - could write something so very eloquent...and so very appropriate.

A Message by George Carlin:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, and now we have mobile ‘phones.........but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, ' I love you ' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don't send this to at least 8 people.....Who cares? George Carlin

Charleston SC

I've been working in Charleston for the past 7 days on a fashion catalogue. It's my first visit here and I must say that the city is growing on me. It's a wonderful city with historic charm.

The area has grown through some turbulent days, some inflicted by mother nature and some by man himself. There is a dark past here; however we can learn from history if we know our history.

All image shot on my iPhone.

all images ©drewhadley.com

Sullivans Beach, Charleston SC

This morning I took a walk on Sullivans Beach, just outside of Charleston. It was a moody overcast morning, conditions screamed for black & white.

©drewhadley.com

Time Is more Valuable than Money

How many of you spend at least 1 hour a day driving in your car, or traveling to and from work? That time adds up very quickly and by the end of the week it could be close to a full business day or more.

I have been doing this for a while now and just wanted to put it out there because it’s amazing how productive you can be in those hours when you hands are busy but your mind is free.

You can listen to the radio, but you could also put your mind to work and absorb a new language, or listen to compelling e-books and expand your mind.

Think about it.

Now I’m sure there are many out there who do this because it’s so easy to do. However I know all too well that the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do.

We can always make more money, but we can never produce more time.

Use it wisely!