I’m a freelance Photographer/Videographer. I’m based in Montreal, Québec in Canada and have lived here all my life. Most of my contract work has me traveling quite a lot however these shots are all from Montreal from the short moments I’m actually home.

Place your Instagrams were taken? Montreal, Québec in Canada

Can you sum up Montreal? Montreal is a small condensed city that most certainly represents a slightly european aesthetic compared to the other Canadian cities… It’s a great place by my criteria since it has water surrounding it and a high mountain view top central to the city. It’s also a short drive from some really great countryside spots.

How long have you been using Instagram? I’ll go on record to say that when a friend of mine mentioned I should check out Instagram, my first reaction (publicly in a tweet I wish I could find) was “I’ll never use filters on my iPhone and post photos on that, ever!”

Cut to a few short months later sometime in 2010, my first post and I was hooked.

What phone camera do you use to shoot with? I’ve used just about all of them including the Nokia Lumia 1020, Samsung Galaxy S3 but the only one that’s really ever stuck has been the iPhone. Can’t say that it will always be the phone camera i use, but it’s the one i keep coming back to.

What is your editing process? I shoot with an iPhone 5s and my editing process is quite simple, as most of my photographs on Instagram are taken and posted while I’m there… I typically use Instagram and push my photos to Foursquare as a “where I am” location aware tool. It’s just how I’ve used the service, to tag and post right in the moment. That means my editing is usually pretty quick. A few quick adjustments in Snapseed and then typically end in VSCOcam to give it the mood and tone that I like.

Do you create images outside of Instagram? I’m a freelance photographer and videographer so I’m constantly shooting either images or video on all kinds of equipment ranging from DSLRs to 4k Red cameras, so creating images outside of Instagram is my livelihood. That being said, it’s incredible how often I end up pulling out my iPhone to shoot something compared to say my DSLR, there’s something magic about being able to pull out a phone, shoot, edit and post within a minute. Very freeing!

Has Instagram/phoneography affected how you shoot? It certainly has… I’d like to think it’s let me become a bit sharper with my framing and given that it’s on me (phone) regardless of if I was planning on shooting, it’s become a daily / hourly exercise in creativity!

Can you give a couple tips to aspiring Instagram photographers? The best tip I can give to anyone is to think about your frame… square isn’t necessarily obvious but using a grid overlay on your camera app (most have one) can really help for lining up or dividing your frame as you shoot.

Otherwise, shoot as much as you can but be selective about what you post. Curate your work and only show your best!

Who are your three favorite Instagrammers? I follow a lot of people on Instagram and it sometimes makes it hard to keep up with all of them but @kafwin and @celestemakow are great examples of Instagrammers who didn’t start out as photographers but you can clearly see the creativity and skill improving as they shoot.

I’m also quite a fan of @robertpaul’s work

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