Sometimes all it takes is being in the right place at the right time.  That’s pretty much what happened to Andrew Rowe MacPherson. Angus went from being a hobby photographer to glamorous career in advertising and design.  His interest in photography began at an early age. While other 11 year old kids were building model airplanes, he was building his own darkroom.  Despite the practical degree he had got from college his true desire was to be a photographer.

He started off in London looking for work as an assistant but soon found it difficult to break into the business.  So he headed for Japan where he began photographing rock bands for magazines. He spent two years in Japan building his portfolio.  Now that was pretty clever.  He found his own niche and used that niche to build his portfolio.

Then he went back to his hometown of Toronto Canada where his career began to take off in advertising and design photography.  He landed a job assisting one of the big advertising photographers, Chris Gordaneer.  Chris showed him the ropes on how to shoot small jobs to high profile jobs, which later led him to Westside studio.  12 photographers from Westside studio took him under their wing and mentored him. And this all paid off for him. He landed a contract with Sugarmama Productions so he now has a good agent.  So why do you think this fellow got this opportunity?  By the time he connected with Chris Gordaneer he had already established his own technique, and he had already got his feet wet in this business.

Angus says that agencies are using more text-based ads during these economic hardships.  They just don’t have the money to spend on photography.

He is now one of the finalists in the Hasselblad Master competition.  He shot a one minute piece with the new Hasselblad, red video camera and his favorite Canon 1Ds MKIII.  Interesting that he owns only one camera, a Canon.

He is well known for his natural lighting techniques.  Although his shoots go through post-production he does very little tweaking of color and contrast.  Before he shoots he will draft a plan to set up all the points of natural lighting then he uses mirrors and reflectors to move the light around.  Only artificial light he uses is a flash.  Hopefully this will give you some ideas about how to break into commercial photography.

Visit Angus website at http://www.armimages.com/

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