Congratulations go out to the winner, Cristina, from Montréal. First runner up was Alex from Winnipeg. Second runner up was Alexandra from Downtown Toronto.

I’ve picked out the best photo of each girl to display below, but if you want to see the complete 70 photo set, you can check it out on my Flickr.

Competitors:

1. Flavy from Montréal
2. Luna from Edmonton
3. Kayleigh from Whitby
4. Cristina from Montréal (winner)
5. Andrea from Hamilton
6. Paulina from Downtown Toronto
7. Vanessa from Montréal
8. Samantha from Whitby
9. Alexandra from Downtown Toronto (2nd runner up)
10. Emily from Montréal
11. Elissa from Barrie
12. Ashley from Downtown Toronto
13. Alexandria from Hamilton
14. Alex from Winnipeg (1st runner up)
15. Melissa from Toronto Airport
16. Meaghan from Edmonton
17. Olivia from Montréal

1. New pictures
2. New video
3. New, uh, “enhancements”

One caveat, though — the new pictures are in the new video. So you’ll have to watch it to see them. But don’t worry, real static versions are coming to the blog soon.

Without further ado, here’s a little video I put together of Sam, made from stills and video of our latest beach shoot, as she competes for Miss Hooters of Canada 2010:

[RSS users, please click through to see video in your browser]

You might notice that Sammy looks a bit different since the last time you saw her… that’s what #3 above was referring to.

If you like what you see, do Sam a favour and vote for her from your mobile phone. Like the video says, text the name SAM to 747474 once per day, and you’ll be entered to win a trip to Hollywood, Florida for the Miss Hooters International Pageant.

She’s also on Twitter and has a Facebook Group too!

Fast forward to July. I’m driving back from Nova Scotia and had planned a one day detour to Ottawa so I could shoot with Adriana. There’s no easy way to get to Ottawa without going through Montreal first. Montreal driving being what it is, combined with summer travellers and construction meant a three hour delay getting to Ottawa, which meant I had to cancel our shoot.

Fast forward to December. Adriana planned a one day there-and-back trip to Toronto just to shoot with me. One of the very few snow storms we had all season decided to put the brakes on that plan and made travelling too treacherous.

Fast forward to March. Adriana planned another weekend Toronto trip to shoot with a bunch of people and made sure I was first in line, given our previous failures. It just wasn’t meant to be, however, as I was booked solid doing a trade show for the entire time she was here. We somehow managed to squeeze in a dinner at the Green Eggplant, though.

Being fed up at this point, I immediately booked a hotel in Ottawa for Easter weekend because I was determined to shoot Adriana. And this time we were successful!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather, as it was sunny and mid-20s all weekend long. On Saturday we headed out on an adventure to find a good beach, because swimwear photoshoots in early April (in Canada no less) are rare indeed. We ended up here:

How we ended up there is more of a story than I have the patience to type, but involved a lot of driving and this was the fourth place we scouted before giving up because it was getting too late in the day. Unfortunately by the time we had arrived here, the weather had cooled slightly and the sky had taken on a hazy, overcast look. All that beautiful sunshine was hidden behind some rather dull cloud cover. We pressed on and got some great shots:

Above: natural light.

Above: Alien Bees monolight in a small umbrella.

One thing you’ll notice about this location is a lack of the thing that usually goes hand in hand with swimwear — sand. The shore that the Ottawa River was lapping against was basically concrete or slate or something; flat and hard with some jagged edges. There were, however, these giant rocks that we used as much as we could.

Because the light was so flat and lifeless, these two photos were shot with the addition of my Nikon SB-900 and Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible. I also had the Amberdome accessory attached to it to warm up the light. Despite being plagued with exposure issues when I use the Lightsphere indoors, it was perfect outside, and I’m very pleased with the results.

Coming soon: photos from the rest of our shoot, at my hotel in Ottawa.

Isn’t it cute?

Enjoy RSQUARED (Ryan + Randall)!

Purple one-piece swimsuit and pink cashmere sweater by H&M. Bikini bottoms by Wicked Temptations. All from my collection.

This is a previously unseen photo from my September 24, 2008 photoshoot with Brandi Latimer. This was three days after Brandi’s first fitness competition. Much like this September, the weather was amazingly hot when we shot — I somehow think this is Mother Nature’s way of rewarding us for our hideous winters.

Swimwear: Mayra Collection.

And then two new photos from our recent lingerie shoot on Labour Day weekend:

This last shot on the bed was particularly amusing, as Samantha’s top was about two sizes too small and provided some interesting post-production challenges in Photoshop.

All shots done with natural light except the first, which was with an Alien Bees 1600 in a shoot-through umbrella. All shots done using my 85mm f/1.8 lens.

Last year, Randall was a part of a small promo for the fashion label DSQUARED², and there was some hope early on that I would photograph it. That fell through, but it prompted Randall to note that had we worked together on that, we could have called ourselves RSQUARED. Ryan + Randall! We’ve used it as an affectionate nickname for our shoots since then, even though they have nothing to do with DSQUARED².

Randall is wearing a purple one-piece swimsuit from my collection of H&M items.

Tech details: Nikon D200, f/10, 1/200 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens set to 90mm. Sunrise in the back, Alien Bees 1600 with standard reflector in the front.

Shannon is a hideously awkward jumper and happy to admit it. It took a good 50 or 60 jumps to get this one, which looks pretty good. Next time with Shannon: a different wig (she has a collection).