Our Team

Royce Howland, Owner

Pursuing photography seriously starting in 2005, Royce was drawn immediately to the potential of digital equipment and the creative control possible with the digital darkroom. The ability to share photographs far and wide electronically via the Internet was also a new way to reach viewers. However, looking at photographs and other art strictly on computer screens (later, also on mobile devices) quickly developed a feeling of being shallow, dissatisfying and soulless for him.

While living and working in Colorado for a time, Royce took advantage of travelling in the US Southwest. Visiting galleries and museums, he was able to see incredible original prints from the hands of master photographers dating back decades and longer. What he saw, he loved. This convinced him that even in the supposed digital age, print was still the best way to present important images. So he began to master the tools, workflow and materials of digital print in order to recover for himself the wonderful expressiveness of putting pigment on paper.

Fast forward 10 years, and Royce ended his original career in IT to take up professional digital print-making alongside his own personal fine art photography work. He spent 4 intense, productive years in senior roles at a prominent Calgary-based fine art print service. During this time he worked with clients ranging from regular folks with important photo memories to photography enthusiasts; from commercial photographers to visual artists, both emerging and well-established. A myriad of projects crystallized his love of print making.

In 2019 Royce founded RHPS to continue working in inspiring collaborations with clients across the gamut of print making. Each day that he can work with someone for whom the print matters, is a good day!

Julia Borden, Studio Assistant

A self-professed adrenaline junkie, Julia has been bringing a camera on her adventures since childhood. Originally trained as a painter, she started exploring photography more seriously as a way to bring her favourite landscapes home to the studio. Printing came later, during her time at the Alberta University of the Arts. By the time of graduating with her Bachelor of Design in Photography, she had spent a year as both the IOLab Student Studio Assistant and the student director of the Creig Gallery, been the photo editor for the first ever AUArtsSA Show And Sale PhotoDoc Team, and thoroughly confused all of her classmates by being the one person in the whole department who actually liked troubleshooting the student self-serve printers.

A musician as well as a photographer, Julia is living proof that ‘gear acquisition syndrome’ does not only apply to cameras. She can be found anywhere that there is live music, often contributing her photography skills to Calgary’s wide variety of amazing up-and-coming musicians or holding down the low end as the bassist for Calgary-based metal band Neon Detour. In service to her quest to have fingers in as many local music pies as possible, she designs all of the Detour merch and promotional materials, dabbles in studio recording and production, photographs her friends’ bands whenever she has the chance, and is always on hand to put together an album cover or tune up an artist bio.

In her role as the Print Studio Assistant with RHPS Julia does a bit of everything, and this suits her just fine. She is at her best when she has something new to experiment with, and she is always excited to take on a new and interesting project.