In the terrible, terrible… TERRIBLE!! heat and humidity of July this summer, I went to the southwest section of Toronto to do portraits of Andrew for his upcoming website. The site will showcase his talents for teaching and passing his love for percussion on to his young students, and marketing his passion for performance to other bands as a freelance beatmaster.

And the building was air conditioned!!

I did contrasty black and white images for two reasons – to represent the fact he’s a ‘blank canvas’ and not set in one particular musical style, and to pay homage to Michael Bloom, a photographer who ended up influencing me more than I could possibly understand at the time. Years ago, when I played drums, I’d see his images in Modern Drummer magazine and thought they were spectacular. I just didn’t realize he did all of my favourites until I was researching ideas for Andrew.

My favourite image of his is that of Ed Thigpen, which is what I based this shoot on.