This is a process post, and can I just scream out loud I love seeing process?

It feels so secret, so intimate, like you’re peeking behind the curtain that is off limits.

Alright first of all Westside Studio is a collective of photographers based in Toronto, and within that Tyler Gray shared his process for a Red Baron Beer ad. Excellent!

From the Westside blog:

I received a call from Jason Goncalves at Play Advertising back in April to shoot a summer ad campaign for Red Baron Beer. The agency’s layout called for a shot of two people standing on a dock on a hot summer day:

I considered shooting the ad on location near Aurora, Ontario. But the weather isn’t always great in April. And I wasn’t keen on having to stand in a cold lake behind a camera for 4 hours. Plus the water would restrict my lighting set-up and the talent would freeze.

I started looking through pictures from canoe trips I had taken in the past and came across a shot of the perfect dock! This photograph became the foundation for the final ad. All camera angles, focal lengths and lighting direction had to match this shot:

I pulled more images of trees, water and skies from various other trips and mocked up a few background options for the team at Play Advertising:

Then I shot the talent in Westside Studio’s parking lot. I had them stand on plywood so that I could easily blend the shot into the dock:

Other small elements were then added to increase the summer atmosphere:

All of these layers were then combined to create the final image:

All images © Tyler Gray