What do you want to know?
In the mid-1980s, weekly newspapers in the Toronto area started relying on me to produce all sorts of interesting pictures for their readers.
After a couple of years, the editor at one of those weeklies took me aside and told me that I was wasting my time working at her newspaper! She said I should work for one of the large, downtown Toronto dailies. So I did. For about 16 years.
Over the past two decades, every daily newspaper in Toronto, as well as a large number of papers around the world, have published my pictures.
My photography has been featured on two or three record album covers (back in the days of vinyl music), a few book covers, a couple of video jackets (when movies came on videotape), a few large posters, a half-dozen calendars, a few magazine covers, a half-dozen billboards, several newspaper and magazine ads, on the side of a truck, and probably in a few other places, too.
A half-hour TV infomercial featured me – “Warren Toda, Professional Sports Photographer” – photographing an athlete working out on the latest elliptical trainer. I wish I had a copy of my four seconds of fame.
And if you must know, I appeared on a TV variety show when I was nine years old. Three years later, I was in a National Film Board of Canada movie.
Two international wire services depended on my photography experience for news, sports and entertainment coverage in Toronto and throughout Ontario for 19 years.
The primary focus of my business is business. That is, I do business or corporate photography. While this may not seem as exciting as covering the final round of the playoffs, it still requires me to use my number one newspaper skill: being able to consistently make a good picture of anything, anytime, anywhere.
Smart businesses have learned the secret power of editorial photos. Authentic pictures of real people doing real things.
Editorial photography is absolutely required for public relations and press handouts. This type of photography is more trusted and more effective for marketing than any cliché photo of men-in-suits or woman-holding-product.
Over the past few years, photo retouching has become a large portion of my business. It’s common for companies to have me repair and polish their business headshots. Properly photographed and retouched portraits will make you look professional and accomplished, which, in turn, will make you appear more competent and likeable.
So that’s where things stand. By night, a mild-manner blogger. But by day, an experienced Toronto editorial and corporate photographer trying to use his super photo powers to save the economy, one business at a time :-)
If your business needs saving by having some new photography done or you need retouching to help your current photos, send me an e-mail.
Thanks for reading.
– Warren
