I started my photography career in the photojournalism industry working my way up from the University of Manitoba’s student newspaper, The Manitoban, to being published in numerous international & prestigious media, including: The New York Times, USA Today, Macleans, The Globe And Mail, ABC World News, CNN, The National Post, Sporting News, Canadian Business, as well as in most of Canada’s daily newspapers.

I am a full-time independent (freelance) photographer, and have worked with the major wire services including Reuters, The Canadian Press, and The Associated Press.

I have been concentrating my energy on portrait, commercial and communications/PR work recently for clients including: The Bay, Boeing, CFL, Crown Royal, Nikon, United Way, Wal-Mart, and various branches of the Canadian Government. I am also available for events, family portraits, as well as for wedding photography.


In addition to commissioned work, I am a firm believer in creating high quality artistic/personal work, and I am currently in the final stretch of a long term project, entitled 'a portrait a day: 2013'.
 

By the end of 2012, I had already won a few awards for my portrait work, but I was not getting as many jobs to shoot editorial style portraits as I would have liked, so I decided to do something about it. I gave myself the challenge to make one portrait every single day during 2013. I've had a passion for portraiture for some time, and I figured that at the very least, I would create some portraits that I am proud of by attempting this challenge.


The portrait a day project started off as essentially a New Year's resolution for the goal of personal growth as a portrait photographer.

I had no idea in the days leading up to the first portrait, how difficult it would be to keep it going, and to keep the quality up to my standard. However, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it, and it would not be unique.

There are not a lot of rules for this project, but the main rule (that I have not broken) is that I must go out every single day and create one portrait, I will never shoot several on one day and stockpile images. Each portrait was made on that day.


I've made some portraits of which I am extremely proud, and have met some incredible people along the way.

I journal each day in words as well, and try to share something about each person I photograph. It has been a big surprise to me that people I have just met often open up to me, and tell me about their lives.

I have photographed everyone from celebrities (Astronaut Cmdr. Chris Hadfield) to homeless people, to high profile athletes (Toronto Blue Jays Jose Bautista), to leaders of national political parties (NDP's Thomas Mulcair) specifically for this project.

The portraits are mostly made here in Winnipeg, but I have made them across the globe while traveling on assignment. During the month of July I was overseas covering Le Tour De France. In addition I spent one week in Montreal and shot portraits there as well.


The project is updated almost daily, and can be viewed on my website: www.davidlipnowski.com/365