Boise Branding Photographer | Adele Van Der Lecq

As Adele and I worked on planning out a location for her photoshoot she told me about her work helping people with emotional trauma (which is work that I so deeply believe in), we talked about wanting to make her photos very approachable. People come to her to do deep emotional work, so when she's marketing her business online her photos need to represent the presence and safety that she brings to that work.She also talked about loving neutral colors, and how she needs photos with room for copy for marketing her business. As she told me all of these things the first location that came to mind was Boise Urban Studio in downtown Boise, so I sent her the website and she loved it. She also told me she loved the interior of á cafe, so we decided to use that as a location as well (huge thank you to á cafe for letting us use their beautiful space).If you missed my last blog post about Spencer Marks photoshoot, take a look at it here. Spencer is her partner and we ended up combining their photoshoots together into a beautiful Saturday in May in Boise.Adele was so much fun to photograph, she was super easy to work with and had a very clear vision on what she wanted from her branding photos. Here are the results...

Boise Branding Photographer | Spencer Mark.

From the moment I saw Spencer's contact form from my website, I knew this was going to be an amazing photoshoot."Transform your life into a masterpiece of purpose, beauty, and authenticity." These are the words that Spencer uses to describe his coaching work with men. For more than a decade now, I've been focused on my own personal growth and health and mens work has been a huge part of that work, so this is why I was so excited when Spencer reached out, I knew working with him would align perfectly with what's meaningful and important to me.We worked together on a half day photoshoot on a beautiful Saturday in Boise, and we focused it around getting Spencer the images he needs for his website, and producing a large variation of content for him to use for marketing his business. As always I focus my work around authenticity, story telling, lighting and emotions, I always hope people feel things when they look at my photos.In our time together we visited eight different awesome locations in Boise that we had carefully planned out and focused around matching Spencer's brand and giving us tons of variation.  Thank you to all of our locations who allowed us to photograph in their spaces, Kate's Place, á cafe boise, Neckar Coffee (outdoor wall), The Gym Eighth and Main, and Boise Urban Studio, Downtown Boise, Camelsback Park plus a few more that don't have links.I truly enjoyed my time with Spencer and his partner Adele, it was so much more like spending time together with friends and creating artwork together than being some kind of "work" (which is a four letter word I just noticed). The light was spectacular for us and I was so grateful for the weather cooperating, in the spring time in Boise, you just never know. It was an inspiring day and I'm grateful to now know Spencer and Adele.I also took some photos for Adele which I'll share in another post too, and thanks to Adele on her help with styling and doing random stuff that helped me :).

Saltbrush Boise Greek Wine Producer Event | Boise Idaho Lifestyle Photographer

I felt a bit of my worlds colliding on this two day photoshoot in downtown Boise.Before we moved to Boise in 2017, we lived in the heart of Oregon Wine Country, just outside of Portland, Oregon. We spent a decade there in the Willamette Valley and when you live in Oregon Wine Country, the wine producers and industry is always swirling around you. Most prominently I remember harvest in the fall, when we could always smell the crushed grapes fermenting.This two day photoshoot was an event by Great Gatherings for Greek Wine Producers who are working on bringing their wines into the United States wine market and get their wines on tables and shelves here. The event took place at Saltbrush in downtown Boise and included two days of private dinners and a rooftop wine tasting PR event. I always love the challenge of photographing the feel of an event, capturing the people, the details, the food, the locations, the weather, the whatever else inspires me, that all combines together to make an event what it is. The event was put on by Predhomme Strategic Marketing out of Ontario Canada, and I can say they did an excellent job and were great for me to work with.Huge thank you to Natalie Plummer with Hello Meridian, Cait Montoya with Boise Socialite, Heidi Wight with Wight House Creative and Jesse Larsen with Jesse and Friends Real Estate, for saving me a place at their table and shared their meal with me when I had a few moments to sit down between photos. I love the community in Boise, if you follow along you'll hear me ramble about it all the time, and people like this are an example of why I love it.One other note on these photos, these are all done with natural light, the client requested this, and then the restaurant also had someone with epilepsy, so using bright flashing lights was not an option, but I personally love taking photos with natural light, and love using it in unique ways to tell stories and highlight certain things.Here's the photos, which will tell the story of the event, better than I ever could. Thank you to Predhomme Strategic Marketing for trusting me with this project.

Boise Bicycle Project | Boise Idaho Photographer

For as long as I can remember, I've loved bikes.I can remember pushing myself to learn to ride without training wheels when I was only four years old.I can remember begging my mom to let me ride my bike to elementary schoolI can remember spending every day after school riding bikes in the Western Colorado desert with my friends (a little "ghost riding" down some hills mixed in there iykyk :)).And still to this day I love riding bikes. Every year I set the goal to ride a minimum of 1000 miles and I typically ride more like 1500 miles (unless I shatter my collarbone of course, RIP 2024 goals 🤣). The majority of those miles are on my mountain bike in the Boise Foothills, ducking out of my work as a photographer to crank out some hard miles.Needless to say bikes have always been, and will always be a big part of my life. I've always said that I see the world better from a bike, and it's really true.I can't remember when or how I first heard about Boise Bicycle Project, but BBP, is this beautiful merging of so many things I love, and best of all it's all for a good cause. Boise Bicycle Project has given away over 35,000 bikes (yes three zeros) since 2007, and they teach people how to repair bikes and run programs to connect our beautiful community.BBP hired me in March to photograph their event Bike Prom, their annual fundraising gala. It was hosted at The Linen Building in downtown Boise, and I was honored to be the photographer for the event, and I even had my photobooth, Boothshakalaka, there for the evening as well. I left this photoshoot feeling really inspired about Boise Bicycle Project and the work they do in our community. BBP is a place that is truly working to do good, to be a safe place, and to bring the community of Boise together. I loved seeing all of the amazing outfits (look for the dumb and dumber dresses in these photos, and the bike shorts on the bottom and suit jacket on the top 🤣), loved seeing the bikes parked all around the Linen Building and loved seeing a group of people coming together to connect and support something beautiful.As a photographer I get a unique vantage point at any event, being an outsider who gets to show up present as a witness to all of the things, both big and small that happen. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story, but what a fun and inspiring evening.

Boise Mid-Century Homes | Boise Idaho Photographer

I'm sincerely so excited for TJ Pierce and the Boise Mid-Century Homes team. The recently moved their office into literally the most perfect building that I can imagine for them in Boise...the Design VIM building off of State Street in Boise.If nothing came to mind when I said "Design VIM Building" then you've never been on State Street, or you don't know the name of the building, because if you've driven by it before, you've noticed it, because it's such a unique and cool building (I personally had several ideas for the building already in my head 🤣).It's also a mid-century building, which is part of what makes it so perfect for TJ and his team, since they specialize in mid-century architecture.I've been honored to do projects for TJ and his team for several years now, and I always look forward to working with them. I originally met TJ in 2017 after we first moved to Boise and I was doing some contracting work for the Idaho Business Review and working as a photojournalist. My assignment was to photograph TJ in a rad mid-century home up on the bench that was for sale. In the short time I spent with TJ, probably 20-30 minutes, I could tell two things, 1). he was a truly caring person and 2). He was very passionate about Mid-Century homes. After all these years I can say whole heartedly that both of these things are true.AND... both of these things are true for his entire team as well.TJ asked me to photograph the grand opening of their new office and I was really honored to do it. It was a beautiful evening of celebration, connection and honoring the history of this unique building. I can tell you, with having an insider scoop, that if you want to buy a mid-century home in Boise, TJ and his team are the people to help you.I'm looking forward to seeing all of the ways that Boise Mid-Century Homes uses their new office for our city, and I know that they'll put it to good use. I'll stop rambling now, these photos will tell a better story then my words could.

Stanley Idaho Photographer | Sun Valley Magazine Feature

I just received the latest issue of Sun Valley Magazine in the mail, and my client the Stanley Sawtooth Chamber of Commerce ran a beautiful full spread advertisement using one of the photographs I took last February for them of Lisa Granden, a Ski Doo ambassador riding her snowmobile with the beautiful Sawtooths in the background.I love seeing clients put the work I've done for them to good use. 

It's one thing to create some photo or video work that you think is beautiful, and it's another thing to see how it actually gets used and put into the world.I love that this image worked so well for this Ad. 

It was in a lot of ways a complicated shot to take, it was so cold out (I even had problems with my drone batteries), and the snow combined with the sun was SO BRIGHT!  It actually made my cameras live exposure simulation completely worthless, when I put my camera up to my eye to take this shot at first the viewfinder was nearly completely black and I could only make out faint moving shapes, the snow was so bright that the camera was reading the light incorrectly, so I had to turn that feature off, and go to work on making sure I pulled off this shot.

I'm very happy with the end result, and so happy that it ended up being a really useful image for the Stanley Sawtooth Chamber of Commerce. I've included the cover image of Sun Valley Magazine, as well as the original photo that I took for Stanley.  You can see that Sun Valley Magazine's editors did some photoshopping and photoshopped out the second rider to make the text pop, but they did a great job on it, I was very impressed.I'm headed back to Stanley again next month for another photoshoot and b-roll video shoot, it'll be my fourth shoot for them and it's such a fun project for me, already I cannot wait to get back.

Thank you Stanley for trusting me with these photoshoots, they have been so much fun for me to combine my love for adventure with my love for photography.

Bryan

Boise Drone Photographer | Midtown

Drones are so much fun and such an inspiring and unique way to create content.  I find myself really motivated by the ability to capture basically any angle I want (including straight down!), it's enabled me to create some truly unique photo and video content and it's changed the way I go through the process of envisioning photo and video shoots, because now I can not only use my cameras from the ground, but also from the sky.

I do quarterly photoshoots for my client Midtown, and part of my work for them is photo and video work with my drone, which since Midtown is a certain section of Boise, getting drone shots make so much sense, it really showcases the area of Midtown, which includes the Boise River, the Greenbelt, and really close proximity to downtown and also the Boise foothills.  Midtown is in class c controlled airspace, so I am required to get air traffic control approval and to submit flight plans for my work for Midtown, but thankfully technology and apps have made that really easy.  When I got my FAA 107 certification the test said I had to apply for approval 90 days in advance (which is ridiculous and completely unreasonable), so once I got to actually working commercially with my drone, I was thankful that I found a much easier and faster way to get air traffic control approval.

Here's my most recent drone work for Midtown, we squeezed this shoot in at the last minute before winter hit and the leaves fell.

Thanks for taking the time to read and for being here.

Bryan

Boise Videographer | Flashpoint Building Systems

I'm so excited for my clients Pat and Nick, owners of Flashpoint Building Systems.  They entered into Boise State's Hacking for Homebuilding challenge and we're awarded first place last week.  They have an incredibly unique product for the construction industry and I've worked together with them this year to create a promotional video that explains what their product is.  This win got Flashpoint published in an article on Forbes, they had a story on KTVB (which used footage from the video we made), and they had several posts featuring Flashpoint on the Boise Venture College Facebook Page. 

Click those links to see the articles/stories, and the awesome thing for Flashpoint is that all of this exposure links back to their website which features the video we made.When I first met up with Pat and Nick at their shop in Garden City and they explained their product to me I was super excited.  I love innovation and creativity, and Pat and Nick had created something no one else had ever done, and even better yet it involved lasers :).  They've created a way to laser engrave the blueprint of a home or multi-family unit onto the subfloor, what this does is sets the foundation for the framers, electricians, plumbers and other contractors to come in and clearly see the layout of the home.  This removes the margin of error of contractors doing their own measurements, which can save a lot of money and time on unnecessary mistakes, and it also saves contractors time, because they can walk into a home and see the exact layout and placement for their work.

Nick and Pat mentioned that it was difficult for them to explain their product in a way that made sense to the people listening, so it was crucial for the video to be extremely clear and concise, so I brought in Parker Nash to help write a script for the video to make sure that it spoke to Flashpoints target market and got the message across.I filmed this video both at Flashpoint's shop as well as on a home project that was being built using Flashpoint's product.  I was really grateful to the framers who were so kind and really worked with me when I needed to get a specific shot, and put up with my drone hovering overhead while they worked.  I'm a really curious person and my dad was an electrician so I enjoyed being on the jobsite and watching and documenting the process. Nick and Pat, thanks for trusting me and working with me on this project and congrats again on the big win, so excited for Flashpoint and to see your guys' technology and innovation getting put out into the world.

Bryan 

Boise Content Marketer | The Management Essentials

I'm trying to get in the habit of showing more of the work I've been doing, it's easy for that to go to the wayside because of being busy getting the work actually done and serving clients, so I've got a backlog of projects I need to post.  I was grateful to work on another project with Abbey Louie this summer.  We've collaborated on several projects over the last couple of years and I always really enjoy working with her, she's kind and professional and I think her work is really interesting and profound.  One fun thing for me about my work is that I get to learn so much about what my clients do and get a bit of an inside look at their work.  Abbey is a leadership trainer, coach and speaker and she is extremely knowledgable in her field which is training and equipping leaders.   Throughout the projects we've done together I've gotten to witness her working with leadership teams in a live setting and I've filmed lots of testimonials for her and listened to her clients talk about how her work has changed their lives as leaders, and I can clearly see how good she is at what she does.

This most recent project was filming a program video for The Management Essentials a twelve-week live online program that she's created specifically for new managers.  In addition to creating a main program overview video for her to use on her website and online platforms I also filmed three testimonials from her program graduates (who each raved about how awesome Abbey and her program are).  We filmed the videos at Studio Boise up on the bench in Boise (which BTW is a great studio in Boise, it's close to downtown, has easy parking and is run by great people).

The Management Essentials registration closes tomorrow October 19th, if you're new to leadership take a look at this program and the difference it's made for others.

Here's a screenshot from each of the videos, click here to view the videos in use on The Management Essentials website:

Thank you for trusting me on this project Abbey and so great working with you as always!

Bryan

Boise Photographer | Krista Doubleday Counseling

The thing that gives my work meaning is the people. It's always been that way, and if I had to guess, I bet it'll always be that way. Relationships are at the very top of my list of values, and naturally when I picked up a camera and started clicking away, my work naturally focused on people. My hope is always that people can be themselves when I'm taking their picture and that they can see their own beauty. I want the work I create to show people for who they truly are. This is more important than ever in this day and age, we're all online, making snap judgements based on very little context (i.e. a simple photo), so the message we portray in our photos online is extremely important.

Maybe it's my own high value on relationships, but I always find myself photographing people full of heart who are bringing such beautiful work into the world. Krista Doubleday is a therapist in Meridian. Other than the exchange of a few emails, my shoot with Krista was my first time meeting her and I experienced her as so kind and caring. I can see why she has found success as a therapist and experienced how comfortable she can make people feel very quickly. The focus of her photo shoot was to take photos of her for her website and online platforms, and also to show her office in Meridian where she meets with clients. Click here to see Krista's website with these photos in action.

Krista thank you for your kindness and for trusting me to take your photos!

Bryan

Boise Business Photographer | Lamb Wolf Shack

I met Brandi and Matt a couple of years ago, not too long after I had moved to Boise. I've always enjoyed them both, they're kind and down to earth and both such encouraging and loving people. They own two magazines in town, and I always enjoyed meeting up with them to talk and hearing about what was happening in their businesses and their lives. Then they told me about Lamb Wolf Shack, and asked me if I could do a photoshoot and an e-commerce website for them. I was all in and excited to partner on a project with them.

The tagline of Lamb Wolf Shack is Building a Lifestyle of Love. This fits Brandi and Matt so well, as soon as they told me that I thought it was perfect. Since they're running an e-commerce store, we went with Shopify for the platform to build their site on. They're also using Eagle Ridge Apparel a local printer for all of their printing, and Shopify gave us the ability to connect directly to them to send orders over for printing from the site.

For their photoshoot they gathered up 20-ish friends and we went out to the Boise River in Eagle and did a quick and fun shoot, taking photos of the full group of people as well as each person and family group individually. I've found businesses more and more liking to do these shoots where we're able to grab a bunch of content in a short period of time, so Brandi and Matt will have months worth of content to post on their social feeds and we were also able to flesh out the website with custom photos as well. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking, but here's a link to their new site.

I'm so grateful to work with clients that live out of their hearts, and use their businesses to bring their visions into the world, and Brandi and Matt are doing this beautifully with Lamb Wolf Shack.

Boise Business Photographer | ā café

I'm always so excited to see new cafe's open in Boise. Before I started my business I worked in a cafe in the Portland area, and now (well, pre-covid) I basically use a few different cafe's in Boise as my office (so I still "work in cafe's, so needless to say, a good cafe feels like home in all kinds of ways.

I heard about ā café from Robyn Salathe of MA Architect Studio, Robyn is the architect that the cafe owners worked with. Robyn and I met for coffee at the ā café and I was blown away by how beautiful the space was. Simple minimalist design, a garage door open to the street, food and drinks made with quality ingredients and care. I knew I'd be back here a lot.

Robyn also introduced me to Ashley the owner and she felt like someone I've always known, she was fun and easy to talk to and was always so kind every time I came in. Fast forward awhile, a lot of cups of coffee, and 3/4ths of a year in a global pandemic, and Ashley mentioned she needed to do a photoshoot, of course I was already all in on that. We did a shoot late in 2020, and after that shoot I designed them a new website, (which we launched today!!! ), and helped implement to-go ordering (using square for restaurants, which I now have mixed reviews of). Two of my highest values are relationships and creating things, so I loved creating and collaborating with the ā café crew to create something beautiful that helps meet their goals. Below is a screen shot of the new website, as well as a collection of the images from our shoot. Thank you Ashley and team for trusting me with this project! Also a shoutout to Broadcast Coffee, the coffee ā café serves, who is about to open a brand new shop in Boise, can't wait for it to open!

Boise Video Course Videographer | Abbey Louie

One of my favorite things about my work is all of the awesome people and businesses that I get to meet, work with and get to know. I'm a really curious person and I'm fascinated by and really enjoy people. Talking to them, hearing about their lives, what they care about and how they spend their days. Even if I didn't have to work to earn a living, you'd still find me wandering around with a camera, talking with people, and documenting the things that are happening (in this case in the Boise community, and wherever else I end up.)

I worked with Abbey Louie on a big content/branding project last year. We actually started right before the pandemic began, and our project schedule got really thrown off by Covid, but together we created a variety of videos for her website including, testimonials, a brand story video, as well as specific product videos.

Abbey is a leadership coach, she has dedicated her career to working with leaders and teams in the workplace. In our project last year I got to document one of Abbey's sessions with a local Boise business, and it was really fun to watch her work with a team, to see the dynamic of her leading and teaching them and to see her passion for her work. It's that thing where it's always fun to watch an expert do what they do.

Abbey contacted me earlier this year about shooting a video course for her business, a five video series dedicated to "The Five Most Common New Manager Mistakes - and How to Avoid Them." One video is dedicated to each of the five mistakes and I believe this is really valuable material for anyone who is in leadership in the workplace and especially anyone who is new to being a manager. Huge thanks to Talent Spark for letting us film in their beautiful space in Bodo in downtown Boise. Click the link above to get the video series, or click on the image below.

Boise Videographer, Boise Idaho Video Lead Magnet, Meridian Idaho Lead Magnet, Idaho Photographer, Idaho Videographer, Boise Photographer, Boise Videographer

https://www.themanagementessentials.com/five

Abbey thanks for another fun project and trusting me to create these videos with you and congrats on the launching of your new brand, The Management Essentials!

Bryan

Boise Brand Photographer | Courtney Feider

I met Courtney through a mutual friend in Boise and I've really enjoyed getting to know her through our photoshoots. She is a professional coach with a lot of varied skills, she also has an amazing skin care line called Sloane Marley (we did a shoot for Sloane Marley in late summer), and she's starting the brand Lemon Riot.

Most importantly Courtney is just a super caring person. I always enjoy talking with her and really feel supported by her, I can see why she does such a great job for her clients as

I had a lot of fun brainstorming with Courtney for her brand photoshoot. We needed the images to portray a certain feel and we needed them to also work for all of her different brands. I love talking about this stuff and I'm really happy with the concepts that we came up with and the final results from the shoot. We also worked up a custom color profile, and I recently learned that I can deliver lightroom mobile presets to clients, so I'm going to give Courtney this profile to use on the images she takes with her phone for brand consistency.

We started the shoot at Push & Pour in Garden City (I love Push and Pour and the owners, I've spent A LOT of hours there talking with friends and pushing keys on my laptop). The light was beautiful in the space, if you scroll down I loved the window light coming in through the garage door and the lens flare and haze I got on some of these shots when I scooted further back into the shop. I like the shot of Courtney through the glass as well.

Next we moved to 8th street behind Camelsback, Hulls Gulch area for the second half of the shoot. I love the colors of the desert during winter, they're so muted, yet beautiful. I was grateful the sun was out, which gave us some awesome lighting options and thankfully Courtney was up for all things including sitting on the wet ground. Ok, enough rambling, I'll let the photos do the talking. Huge thanks to Sophie too for her help on this shoot.

Thanks for all of your kindness Courtney and for trusting me to take these photos for you!

Bryan

My First Post From Boise | The Beginning

It's funny to start over again, after years and years of my last blog, posting multiple times per week for literally years, to start from nothing, is, well, a mixture of things. Mostly I'm excited about it, and also asking myself, "dear goodness why didn't I start this three years ago when we first moved to Boise and I started to transition my business?" There's lots of good answers for that, but the biggest one was because I was trying to arrive in a new place, and to understand what that meant. Of course I know that moving is a huge deal in life, but everytime I do it, I'm never prepared for how off things feel, or for how long they feel off.

By now I've certainly arrived in Boise, and I love it so much here. Mountain biking from my house, miles upon miles of dirt trails, and I love watching the dramatic light of the high desert as it spotlights it's way through the Treasure Valley. I've come to love the community, it's a beautiful mix of a city with so much to offer, and yet it's a small enough city that everyone knows each other.

The reason I'm writing this post is for it to be some sort of foundation or marker. I want to write out what I've learned and what my business is about, make a declaration about what I'm offering to the world through my business.

First and foremost, I believe business is simply about service. It is about how you show up in the world and serve others, and that's really it. Talking "business" can get really complicated, but at the end of the day, it just comes down to what are you offering to people, and is that something people need? If so, you've got yourself a business.

Here's one of my favorite images from my career so far, everything lined up perfectly for this. It was shot on assignment for Oregon Wine Press and was featured on the cover of one of their episodes about the transfer of ownership of Vista Balloon Adventures. I shot this when we lived in Oregon, but built a relationship with the new owner of Vista Balloon Adventures, who was an awesome and fun guy who left his successful corporate banking job for adventure businesses. once I moved to Boise I realized that he had moved to Oregon from here.

My next big commitment is to being myself in business, living with an open heart, and responding from that open heart. I've been in business since 2006, and the basis of me becoming self-employed was freedom. That's what I wanted, and what I still want more than anything else. However, I've been through phases, short and long, where my business defined and consumed me. I'm lucky to have an amazing family, that has helped to keep me balanced, but I still have lost and sacrificed myself for my business. It's not ever worth it. Here's a photo from Americana Pizza, locally owned and locally awesome. This was photographed for Rivershore Development for their Midtown project.

I want my business to offer something to this wonderful city and it's people, be an expression of the love and beauty that I experience in this life, and to take amazing care of my family. To me relationships are the best thing in this life, and that's part of why my work is full of people, being themselves and doing their thing. It has given me so much joy to document people in both photo and video and allow them to be seen and heard. I know from so many years of self-employment, it can be very lonely, people don't really know what you do all day everyday, and I love that my work can help people be seen, heard and understood. I still love being on shoots and having employees of my clients ask me how they can see the photos and videos, and I can see that they're excited about them, for them it means something to be documented. Here's a photo of Chef Jesse from Red Hills Market, using a baguette as a baseball bat and absolutely crushing a sandwich ball out of the park.

For me business is all about collaboration too. Due to the pandemic, I think it's been said even more than normal, but we are all in this together, and we're on the same team, even those of us who offer the same services and solve the same problems for our clients, we are stronger together.

Here's a few more of my favorite pictures from over the years of my career...

Welp, that's all for now, now I can start doing other posts on top of this. Here's to living with an open heart in this amazing, wild world. Much love.

Bryan