Toronto Portrait Photographer | Heather Bays

Photography has never just been my job.

It’s how I see the world.

It has been since I picked up my first camera at 14.

My path since then has been anything but straight. I’ve studied fine art photography, photographed births and families, built a portrait business, worked as a Creative Director at a branding agency, helped entrepreneurs shape their businesses and brands, and spent a lot of time figuring out my own.

For a while, those things felt like separate chapters.

Now I realize they weren’t.

They all taught me how to look at something, understand what it’s trying to say, and figure out how to communicate it.

That’s really what I do.

Sometimes we do that with photographs.

With Editorial Portraits, we start with you — your personality, your ideas, what you're drawn to and how you want to be photographed — and build the creative direction from there.

With Brand Storytelling, we look at your business — what you do, who you serve and what you want people to understand about you — and create photographs that help tell that story.

And sometimes the photographs aren't actually the first thing you need.

That's where workFLO came from.

After years of working with small business owners — and rebuilding my own business more than once — I realized how often people aren't short on ideas. They have too many of them.

They need someone to talk things through with. Someone who can ask good questions, see the bigger picture and help them figure out what actually makes sense to do next.

Apparently, that's something I really like doing too.

However we work together, my approach is pretty much the same.

We start with a conversation.

We figure out what you're trying to do.

We find the direction.

Then we make it happen.

I’ll guide you when you need it, ask questions when they're useful, offer ideas and leave plenty of room for you to still be you.

Because whether we're creating a portrait, telling the story of your business or untangling seventeen ideas you've been carrying around in your head, I'm not interested in making you look or sound like everybody else.

I'm interested in figuring out what makes sense for you.

FLO is about movement.

About trying things. Changing things. Growing into something new while keeping the parts that still belong.

And, apparently, figuring out what comes next.