Jonathan Bielaski is a Toronto-based commercial photographer who specialises in environmental portraiture and sports photography.

Environmental portraiture captures the essence of a subject in its natural habitat. Every one of Jonathan’s photos tells a story of a person’s journey. The focus is greater than the person – it’s the reality of who they are at this time in their life, the background reflecting their personality.

Sometimes all you have is one shot to tell a story. It develops before your eyes in Jonathan’s photos.

Welcome to Showcase Canada, brought to you by Production Paradise. This edition features some of the top photo and film production and service companies, photographers, retouchers, stylists, hair and make-up artists, photographers' and illustrators' agents, photographers' associations, studio and equipment rental companies based in Canada.

Companies and editorials such as McDonald's, Huawei, Chanel, Coca-Cola, Flaunt Magazine, Audi, BBC, Essential Magazine, Sky TV, Hollywood Reporter, Olay, and 20th Century Fox Studios, among others, have trusted these professionals with their latest advertising campaigns and editorial shoots.

More creative professionals and facilities for photographic and film production can be found in our Toronto Photo and Film directories, as well as in Vancouver, Montreal and other destinations in Canada. 

Be sure to check out our featured events:

• Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay, from 2nd to 27th November.
• 34th Japan Film Festival  - from 4th to 5th November in Ottawa.
• World Press Photo 2016 - until 25th October in Toronto and from 3rd to 27th November in Chicoutimi.
• Capture - photography festival, from 1st to 28th of April 2017 in Vancouver. 

Our cover story was shot by Pooya Nabei. 

Based in beautiful Montreal, Canada, Jupiter Artists celebrated it’s 20th anniversary as an international agency of illustrators and photographers.

Agencies such as Sid Lee, Cossette, Marketel McCann Ericson and JWT have hired the company to produce billboards, ads and more.

Clients such as L’Oreal, Marvel, DC Comics, DreamWorks, Lise Watier, Hasbro, National Geographic, McGraw-Hill and Kraft USA have all worked with Jupiter Artists on their specialised projects.

''Known to always produce on time and on budget,  we have created numerous unique and marketable  images, characters and concepts. We’re always at the ready for the next challenge. Lets make your ideas reality today!''

Launched in 2004 and based out of Toronto, ONWHITE.CA has worked with some of the biggest brands and ad agencies around the world. With all of the new image mediums and demand for web-based work, it’s becoming more common for the team to produce entire projects from start to finish.

"We take on assignments ranging from photography, image manipulation, retouching and video. When given the challenge of creating the impossible this is where we do our best work. We pride ourselves on collaborating with our clients to create the best imagery possible".

THEY Produce is a photo and motion production and art buying services company, based in Vancouver, Canada. As a boutique-size company, THEY make hands-on personalized production a priority and offer the entire spectrum of creative services for Film & TV Gallery promotions, Advertising, Lifestyle, Fashion, Celebrity and Editorial print & motion shoots.

THEY's client list includes productions for 20th Century Fox (X-Men), BBC America (Dirks Gently), GQ, Interview, In Style, TV Guide, Molson Canadian, Huawei, Huggies, Humira, Jane Iredale Cosmetics, MEC, P&G and Ralph Lauren.

Contact Producer and Art Buyer Gina Hole to discuss shooting your next project in beautiful BC, where she can show you savings with their competitive dollar, Canada's world famous locations, the mild climate all year round and A-level photographers & crews that make the famous "Hollywood North".

Darina Kopcok is a freelance photographer and stylist based in Vancouver. With a Master of Fine Arts degree, Darina draws on her fine art training to create evocative images with a distinct sense of mood and place.

Over the years she has developed a recognisable style consisting of saturated colours and high contrast, creating stunning images that evoke the emotions.

Darina finds inspiration in a variety of sources, from the textures of nature to the light in the paintings of the Old Masters, but is most drawn to the chiaroscuro technique of creating heavy shadows and using light to draw the viewer's eye to the significant elements within the frame.

David Wile is a Toronto-based award-winning photographer who specialises in lifestyle advertising, portraits and travel landscapes. He has worked on a variety of campaigns over the past decade and continues to push the boundaries of creating inspirational images.

David has garnered international attention including his 'Pucker' series of babies tasting lemons and his 'Splash' series of water splashing on people and animals.

He recently had an art exhibit in New York City at Agora gallery during the month of May, in which he showed a collection of his travel landscapes. This summer he will be working on a few new creative projects and some upcoming campaigns.

Clinton Hussey is an award-winning commercial photographer specialising in conceptual, food, still-life photography and, recently, motion. Since 1995, he has been creating distinctive editorial and advertising imagery for brand and magazine clients in his hometown of Vancouver and abroad.

Originally a design student at Vancouver’s Emily Carr College of Art & Design, Clinton stumbled into photography at first accidentally and then with conviction as he fell for its demanding mix of creativity and technical grasp — an intense relationship he recognised from watching his father, a musician, repairing his instruments with surgical skill. Though not a musician himself, Clinton has earned both Grammy and Juno nominations for his album cover designs; his photography has won multiple National Magazine Awards, as well honours from Lotus, Applied Arts, D&AD, City & Regional Magazine Association, the Printing Industry of America, Communication Arts, PDN/Nikon, and many others.

Today, Clinton is expanding into video, creating ad campaigns for clients such as Method, Panago, and the Children of the Street Society. When he’s not making pictures, he’s building things and spending time on the ocean and in the mountains with his wife, Amanda — also a photographer — and their two children.

Alastair Bird was born and raised in Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada. His parents bought him a camera for Christmas when he was a young boy and he hasn’t looked back since.  

In the ensuing years, Alastair has built up a considerable roster of clients including Air Canada, Vancity, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, and Telus, among others. He has also been recognized for his photography in Applied Arts, The Lotus Awards as well as other awards.

Although he is fully comfortable with digital imaging, Alastair loves to shoot film. From his grandfather’s Leica to an old large-format camera he received from a friend, Alastair shoots as much film as he can, but generally only for personal work. He finds the slow pace of film is a great counter-point to the immediacy of digital imaging.

When he isn’t in the studio, Alastair spends as much time as he can in the mountains surrounding Vancouver, with his wife and his two daughters - his muses - who both factor greatly in his work.

Shoot Studio is one of the largest photo and video production houses in Quebec. Transforming ideas into images is the specialty of the studio. The company offers in-house talents as well as complete production services for talents from abroad.

The in-house talents are represented by photographers and artists. Each of the photogtaphers working for Shoot Studio has a characteristic style, a specific know-how, an established reputation, and talent that has been recognized at home and abroad. Skilled artists allow the company to cover a broad spectrum of possibilities and easily navigate between print, television, and web formats, when the vast network of talented collaborators (artistic director, makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists, etc.) guarantees success in the most daring projets. 

Since 2003, the team has completed over 7000 highly varied projects for clients at both national and international levels. Now the company offers full-spectrum production services, from budget planning and casting to production and postproduction. Whether it is for an advertising concept that strikes the imagination, a portrait that captures a particular mood, a baffling landscape, a spellbinding fashion shot, or an innovative video, Shoot Studio puts all of the creativity to work in order to stick to the client's strategies and meet the objectives.