real moments.

happy new year, again!

2012-01-23T09:22:00.001-07:00

We love our Chinese astrological signs over here in our family. I was born the year of the pig. My partner and my daughter are both year of the monkey. Welcome to the year of the dragon, everybody! Lucky babies to be born this year! (Dragon sounds so much cooler than pig, doesn't it?)
We took some time to make a cool dragon puppet this weekend! Cute, right?

feel beautiful

2012-01-19T15:58:00.002-07:00

my good friend had a "feel beautiful" session a few months ago... she's sharing, so i'm sharing too. think about feeling beautiful for valentine's day... or just because...

Rome!

2012-01-06T08:24:00.001-07:00

I am working on a wonderful photo book of my family's trip to Italy. Our travel companion, Risa, passed along her photos to me to include in the book. I just came across this little gem of my daughter at the coliseum. I love it because, well, my daughter is being a little cutiepants in the shot, but also because she is climbing on my favourite bit of trivia about the coliseum that I learned while we were there: the coliseum is made of pumice stone! I guess it's really strong and hard, but also very porous, and therefore light. Fascinating!

happy new year!

2012-01-03T08:08:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year to you all! This is a busy season for my family, as all our birthdays are rolled into Christmas and New Year's! We're tired. But guess what? Valentine's day is right around the corner. Want something special for your sweetheart? Book now! It'll be fun!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Holidays everyone!!! Just a goofy shot of us this afternoon.

wedding special offer

2011-12-15T14:17:00.001-07:00

I love weddings. I love shooting weddings. I've had the privilege of shooting many different kinds of weddings. There are traditional, formal weddings at the Hotel MacDonald or in a majestic old Catholic church.

Lucky me, I get to be a part of less traditional weddings, like winter weddings, lesbian weddings, multicultural weddings, weddings in the woods!

I've also had the pleasure of offbeat events such as gorgeous outdoor weddings in parks, historic railway stations, Devonian Gardens, even one held in an aviation museum - who gets married in an historic hangar?! I loved it.

There are so many unique wedding ideas. I love to be invited to your tropical destination wedding too. This amazing resort called Brahma Blue in Belize was a treat! (I'm off to Bahamas in March, I'll definitely keep you in the loop!)

It's holiday time right now, but I know many of you are planning your wedding. Book your wedding by January 31, 2012, you'll receive a free canvas print of your choice from your wedding collection.* This is a $250 value!
(*Must book deluxe wedding package with paid deposit.)

wintery!

2011-12-06T11:42:00.001-07:00

i really like snowy shoots! this day in particular was bitterly cold though and we had to pack it in early. ah, winter.

A favourite site - offbeat bride

2011-11-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

I love this website called Offbeat Bride. They feature articles that might actually apply to clients that I know, for instance: How to tell your family about your transgender groom, or How to find conflict-free diamond rings and ethically-sourced sapphires.
There is a section called "Real Weddings" featuring real, unusual weddings... well, you can imagine I'm a fan of all things "real"! (This section even has a Canada page.) As a photographer, of course, I'm particularly in love with this post, called The unplugged wedding: couples tell guests to put down their devices. It's a wonderful point of view. If you're planning a wedding, please give it a read!

venetian glass

2011-11-29T16:50:00.001-07:00

the windows in venice are amazing. these old handmade glass windows are so precious that apparently when people sell the house they take the windows with them. i love that.

More from Italia: Venice

2011-11-18T14:58:00.001-07:00

venice was the highlight of our grand tour of italy for me. it is everything you imagine it to be. everything i imagined anyway. SO beautiful, just fascinating. so utterly foreign especially for a prairie girl. a city built on a lagoon, where the streets are canals. they have some high-tech stuff going on to try and solve the whole sinking problem i'm sure you've heard of. but in the meantime, certain times of the month when the tide comes in, it floods. so while we were there, it flooded. which was rather inconvenient, but totally awesome to have seen. it sounds crazy, right; the first floor of their homes flood most every day, they are used to draining and mopping. the square where we had hot chocolate last night? yeah, it's under two feet of water this morning, so we'll just throw out these little fold-up walkways everywhere and people just keep doing what they're doing. (i was thinking that while this sounds nuts to us, perhaps it's like how the americans from the south view us and snow - they always seem amazed like "what? it's snowing?! then why are you driving?!" where we know that if we worried about the snow like that, we'd never get anything done. same thing in venice with the water?)
here's my daughter in front of the flood waters coming in...

ancient ruins!

2011-11-16T12:30:00.001-07:00

bear with me, i may post about Italy several times. my family and i just returned home from a wonderful trip to Italy. it was an amazing trip - our first stop was rome. saw the coliseum, the pantheon, the vatican, the roman forum, all that jazz. it is truly spectacular. mind-blowing that these people not only had the engineering knowledge to design this stuff, but the ability to construct it all without machinery, cranes and so on. amazed me. and this stuff is thousands of years old and still standing. still structurally sound. i mean, in the west (i mean western Canada) we just don't have a concept for this. we have buildings built in 1920 that are designated historical buildings. we don't have any concept of the timeline this culture has. they build things to last. for. ever. and the artistry! i mean, not only are these places structurally mind-blowing, they are ornate and beautiful. they have an appreciation for that. i just... loved it.
realmoments.ca

fall photos

2011-11-16T11:52:00.001-07:00

my precious girl in the fall. do you get school photos every fall? i have to admit, i usually find them detestable. i don't mean to criticize the companies that do school photos, because it's impossible, really, to take a photograph that is special, when the photographer gets to spend about 30 seconds with each kid on the assembly line, and the school expects the photographer to come up with something great or else.
so i buy a couple of shots too. just because. i grew up with these terrible "school photos" too. i have a memory book with the photos pasted in from kindergarten to grade 12. i get it.
but, i also make sure to get some wonderful photos of my daughter every season. it means the world to me. i'm lucky, yes, because i can do it myself. but can i encourage you to do it too? hire a professional photographer to spend an hour or more with your kid. because you'll spend hundreds on toys, games, dinner - right? things that are decidedly un-special. but photos of your kid as they grow will be something you will treasure forever.
that's all i'm saying...

Saskatchewan weddings...

2011-11-16T11:36:00.001-07:00

i had the pleasure of shooting two weddings in saskatchewan this summer, both were my cousins. it was a blast!

newborn Leni

2011-11-16T11:33:00.001-07:00

i love newborn babies! and this little girl (with the great name) was a darling. may the sun shine on her face forever.

arizona

2011-11-16T11:27:00.001-07:00

in the spring we took a family vacation to arizona. it doesn't sound terribly exotic, but arizona was actually amazing. my favourite things by far were monument valley, and what's pictured here: lower antelope canyon. lower antelope canyon is what they call a slot canyon. it's carved by flood waters. it's absolutely amazing. i love this because you can see my daughter in the corner, attempting to get her own shot of the amazing sight of the sandstone shapes surrounding us.

self-portrait

2011-11-16T10:56:00.001-07:00

you know, i hate being photographed. sound familiar? i can probably count on my fingers the people i know who LIKE being photographed.
why is this? well, for me, it's mostly about insecurity. i'm getting too old, too chubby, too much rosacea... etc. right? here's where the professional photography thing comes in handy! i can help a person make photographs of themselves where they are so happy! it's about lighting (and yes i'm talking about natural light), angles, positioning, and most importantly, comfort. i coached my partner to take this shot of me - i determined the angles, the light, and the pose. and i got comfortable with my photographer.
then there's the post-processing. i retouched just a hint, lessened the circles under my eyes, made sure my hair colour looks even, and highlighted the sparkle in my eyes. and the result is a photo of me that i actually LOVE.
i can do this for you too, if you want! i don't know, for me having these photos that make me feel good go a long way to helping me remember to feel better about myself. remember to be kind to myself. you know, remember that we are all beautiful in our own way.

Back in May...

2011-11-16T10:48:00.001-07:00

i really miss crab apple trees. they make me happy.

i love crab apple trees. they are really pretty trees. the blossoms are just gorgeous, rivalling sakura (japanese cherry blossoms), especially for me since i'm brutally allergic to cherry blossoms. ohanami was a tough time for me in japan. i really wanted to take pics of the blossoms and ohanami is practically a religion in japan, but if i spent too long among the trees i would wake up the next day with my eyes crusted shut.
anyway. i digress. crab apple trees. beautiful flowers. beautifully shaped branches perfect for children to scramble up. gorgeous when the red apples fill the tree. i don't even mind when the rotten apples lay all over. my mom makes crab apple jelly and crab apple juice and crab apple wine. i have no such talents, but that i guess also makes it obvious why these trees are so nostalgic for me, it's not just aesthetics. my granny (who lived across the field from us growing up) had a crab apple tree beside her bedroom window. us kids spent formative years dangling from its branches.
the first home i owned had a lovely pink blossomed crab apple in the backyard, right outside ella's baby room window. and the home i just recently left had one in the backyard too. i'm thinking i'm going to need to import one in our new yard. then it will really, really feel like home.
*by the way, i originally posted this back in May 2011; I'm just doing a little blog re-organization, please bear with me...*

Ruby's graduation photos - preview

2011-11-16T10:37:00.001-07:00

Sneak peek!

2011-11-16T10:33:00.001-07:00

Revolutionizing the classroom photo!

2011-11-16T10:26:00.001-07:00

inspiration

2011-11-16T09:56:00.001-07:00

the inspiration for my new logo: gorgeous, ever-so-pink lotuses..