A Montréal Fleuriste Shoot
Sometimes the best photograph is just the subject, stripped back to texture, colour and substance.
That was the starting point for my fall shoot with Art et Fleurs, a family-run florist and plant shop in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. I spent thirteen years as a senior creative producer and visuals director, working on shoots for The New York Times Magazine and Magnolia Journal, before coming back to my own camera. Now I photograph florists, makers, chefs and the small businesses behind them, and I still build every shoot the way I would for a magazine: from the story out.
It starts with a conversation
Before I think about a shot list, I want to know what your shop feels like when you walk in. Who comes through the door, what they buy, what this season means to the business. For Art et Fleurs, fall is when people start bringing flowers home again, for the table and for dinners. That gave us the idea for the whole series: show the arrangements on their own, then show where they’re going to live.
You bring the work. I take care of the rest.
I’ve spent most of my career art directing and prop styling, so you don’t need to plan a set or source a single prop. I build the backdrop, choose the surfaces and textiles, and shape the light around what you make. Every piece is there to make your work look better, never to compete with it.
Why a setting, not just a white background
A white background shows what you sell. A setting shows what you’re trying to say.
You’ll always get clean images too, but I love taking time to build a set that focuses on colour, or texture or the light. I felt really drawn to this simple gingham fabric. I think because gingham is such a humble print and it is a kitchen fabric, it brings up nostalgic feelings, old farm tables and long lunches, and it tells a customer where these flowers are headed. I also really loved the juxtaposition of the flowers against the raw plaster, the orange of the dahlias looked warmer and more real and I left the creases in to feel more unstaged.
What you come away with
I make images to be used, not just admired. From this one shoot, Art et Fleurs has:
Clean studio images of individual arrangements for their website and product pages.
Styled scenes for social media and newsletters, the kind that make someone want to host a dinner.
In-between moments, like a hand reaching in or someone passing the table, that show there are people behind the shop.
It’s enough for a whole season of posting, and every image looks like it belongs to the same brand.
Each story is unique and how we shoot is too
The look comes from who you are as a creator and how you want to tell your story. What stays the same in how I work is the approach: understand your story, build a set that serves it, and photograph the decisions that make your work yours. For a ceramicist that might be a workshop bench and raw clay. For a candle maker, a bookshelf at dusk. For a florist in fall, it was paper, linen and gingham.
What I’m really photographing
A florist makes dozens of small choices: which stem leans left, where the empty space goes, which blooms are more abundant and which ones are support characters. This shoot was about exploring all those choices and really letting them shine.
See the full Art et Fleurs series → · Product & maker photography → · Start a project →
