ABOUT
Award-winning Toronto based photographer, Jan Kalish has carved a niche for herself at the point where art and technology intersect. A commercial photographer specialising in food photography; still life, advertising and editorial imaging, Jan utilises her keen visual problem solving skills in studio and on location, both locally and internationally , also travelling extensively to Europe to shoot.
Past photographic clients include national publications, annual reports and glossy magazines such as House and Home, Style and Cosmopolitan magazine; annual reports for mining and engineering conglomerates and shoots for organisations such as The Ontario Science Centre and Samsung have benefitted from her dynamic photographic solutions.
Jan has always marched to the beat of a different drum. From playing hide and seek in her father’s dark room, to exploring the bushes of her homeland, Jan became captivated by the sensuality of light, the nuances of shadow and shape. It was in this setting that she became a master of capturing the unseen; transforming landscapes began to train her eye to visualise past the ordinary and provided a storehouse of microscopic images that enhance her interpretations in the studio today.
Having completed a diploma in advertising and commercial photography, Jan went on to become a full-time commercial photographic lecturer while completing a honours thesis in specialist food photography. Simply The Best of Cooking in South Africa was the best selling cookbook that propelled her into a career that saw her managing the regional photographic division of South Africa’s leading public relations firm. From then on, Jan’s career has afforded her photographic adventures on different continents such as hanging out of helicopters, capturing images of ocean rescues, to photographing underground goldmines in the subarctic.
Her international assignments found her photographing political heads, and celebrities, singularly and collectively… Canadian First Nations Chiefs, on an ongoing basis for Provincial Queens Park. South Africa’s, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, Britian’s, Sir Cliff Richard, Lord Litchfield and Joanna Lumley have all found themselves of the other end of Jan’s lens.
Jan consistently provides meticulous attention in all aspects of shooting and production. Her photographic skills reflect years of experience, masterful lighting and timely visual solutions. Jan creates tangible images that are simultaneously artistic and practical, otherworldly and real …a narrative within a single image --- these are the hallmarks of her expertise. In-between shooting client assignments, Jan can be found shooting editorial and street photography.
“… capturing the unintended interaction people have with their own environments – texture, colour and time, suspended in an instant – images that reveal we live in a world as much seen, as unseen.”