Ray, Jaya & Aria - Mini Sessions

One of the best times I have ever had at a wedding was Ray and Jaya’s quite a few years ago. My husband (boyfriend at the time) and I headed over to Saltspring for their wedding in the summer and I remember it being smoking hot. I think it was the first time I had ever been to Saltspring Island and was totally blown away by the beauty of the place. It was like a little piece of Island paradise.  Their wedding on a piece of property overlooking the water and the backdrop was stunning. They even had a hookah lounge set up in one area by a dock. The part of the ceremony I remember the most was them letting caged doves free – what??!!  It was like something out of a fairy tale. After the wedding we all boarded an old school bus (party bus if you will) and went to continue the party in an old barn that was set up with amazing DJ’s.  We danced until our feet hurt and then some. 

We hadn't seen each other for quite a while so when they contacted me about doing one of my mini portrait sessions I was stoked not only to see them but to meet little Aria! She is such a doll….look at those eyes!  I’m pretty certain this family could be contracted to do some JCrew ads or something – they are such a perfect little family!

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. Happy Hump Day

Alycia in a Frame.

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls” ~ Nietzsche

The Winter Family's Mini Session

Never have I ever met a family with kids as sweet, adorable and well behaved as this one.  As any photographer (or mother, father, pretty much anyone with a camera) can attest to, it’s usually not easy to get a good picture of a 2 year old nor is it easy to get them to do anything you want them to do.  Little Neveah blew apart any stereotypes that exist about the “terrible two’s” because she was such an angel.   She would do anything – pose, smile, hang out with her sister while her parents were getting photos, anything!  And Emma, the older daughter was just as angelic looking after her sister when need be and doing anything that was asked of her.  What a testament to these two parents - they must have a household full of love and patience. My time with this family flew by and I hope that we get a chance to do more photos together in the future because it really was a pleasure. Thanks for letting me document your amazing family. 

Friday Humor

Who is excited for the weekend????!!!  The forecast is sunshine for the weekend and me and my hubby have the whole weekend to ourselves kid free! Not that we are doing anything exciting but it's still nice to have a little adult time once in a while.  We have this "golden rule" that if we don't have our kid then we won't hang out with any other kids. Ever. The rule can't be broken. If any of our friends with kids invite us for a BBQ we can't come if there are kids there. Don't get me wrong - we love kids. We just also love peace and quiet when we can get it. 

It's been a while since I posted some random Friday humor so without further adieu.....hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Totally legit. 

Last weekend I made my other half go to the store before he made breakfast to pick up some bacon – what can I say? I love BACON!

Is it just me or is anyone else approaching 30 finding it borderline awkward when shopping at Forever 21?

I have to admit, I'm guilty. It was one of the first things I did. Oh how the world has changed.

And last but not least, awkward pregnancy photos anyone?

Take That Betty Crocker.

Soooo I'm kinda ashamed to admit it but I had never made a pie up until two weeks ago. I mean I've always been a HUGE fan of pie but was always lucky enough to have my Grandmother around until fairly recently. When she made the best pies in the world what was the point of me trying to measure up?  Her lemon merengue pies were perfectly crafted and sooooo mouth wateringly delicious beyond belief. Her apple pies?  They were in a whole different category.  Somehow she always added the right amount of cinnamon without even measuring it out. That woman could bake like you wouldn't believe. Lucky for us kids, during the summer there were always fresh made pies hanging around in her kitchen made from ingredients hand picked from her own yard.   Now that she's gone and I'm really missing the pies (and her of course) I thought I had better do something about it.

And that brings me to my first pie making experience. My husband and I were at the farmers market a couple weekends ago eying up the perfectly ripe rhubarb and strawberries.  Feeling brave, we decided to try to make a pie ourselves. I have to say it was probably one of the best pies I have ever had! I was seriously impressed!  Granted, we didn't make the crust (who has time for that anyways?) but give me a break. We are easing into this baking thing veryyyyy slowly.   

Here is the recipe we use in case you feel inspired: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/rhubarb-and-strawberry-pie/

Ps I highly recommend a pie making date - it was very romantic :)  

The Cuell Family - Mini Session Portrait Photography

Ok it’s official. I am obsessed with this gorgeous girl and her freckles.  I could photograph her ALL DAY.  Every once in a while there is someone that gets in front of my camera and inspires me in the deepest way and for me this was Samantha, a 13 year old beauty.  Originally this mini photo session was meant for all 5 members of the Cuell family but it turned out 3 of them had other plans so I was left with this lovely momma and her youngest daughter which was totally fine with me.  I’m not picking favorites but some of these pictures from my mini session day I am very proud of – that face! Those lips!  Thank you for inspiring me and helping me to create beautiful pictures so easily with your original beauty.

Guess who got married?

So I have a bit of very exciting news I’m ready to share with the internet. On Sunday April 28th I GOT MARRIED!  Wooot woot!  After 8 years of dating I finally took the plunge and married my best friend.  We got engaged last May and planned to get married in the summer of 2014. In January this year I started looking at venues and tallying up the amount of people we would have attending. Because we have so many friends and big families the number was getting up around 150 and just thinking about planning a wedding of this size was stressing me out. Being a wedding photographer I see a lot of the stress, worrying and planning that goes into weddings and I’m just not cut out for it with respect to my own wedding.  Not even to mention the money required for a large wedding. For this reason we decided to have a “top secret” wedding this year.  Honestly I can’t believe we pulled it off!  We told our immediate family only about two months before the big day and were thrilled that everyone was on board and able to make it. Keeping the truth from our friends was the hard part….and not being able to talk to my girlfriends about girly details like the dress and shoes was pure torture!   I had to avoid friends for the two weeks before because I was pretty sure I was going to develop a mild case of Tourette Syndrome and blurt out that I was getting married.  

Everyone has been asking me who photographed our wedding, being I’m in the industry. In fact our good friends from Vancouver offered to do our wedding photos for us as a wedding present. Pretty amazing and generous of them!!!!  In fact neither of them really do wedding photography so that made me appreciate their offer that much more. Photographing a wedding can be really stressful – believe me, I know!  Robin and Lulu did an AMAZING job especially since they were thrown a few curve balls. The weather was sooo cold and it was super windy.  Not only were we freezing but hair was whipping around in our faces…trying to get a decent picture during the wedding must have been tough. It was so cold that they had about 5 minutes with my husband and myself afterwards to do some bride and groom portraits. By that time being outside in the freezing cold in just my wedding dress was starting to really get to me and I had had enough.  Within that 5 minutes they got some really great shots of us and I don’t even look like I’m about to pass out from the cold!  Overall they did such a great job capturing heartfelt candid moments and I am so thankful they were there to document our wedding day.

I will post some of their photos of the wedding as soon as they are available to me to stay tuned!

In the meantime, of course I couldn’t help but doing a few detail shots of my own (heheh)….

Mini Sessions are Back!

I'm happy to announce that I am bringing my mini session photo shoots back this coming weekend!  I did my first day of mini sessions over the Easter long weekend and had such a blast that I have decided to do it again.

The cost is $100 for up to 5 people. The photo session will take place in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC and will be about 25 minutes. Included in the cost is 10-15 high resolution edited photos which will be available for download within two weeks.  If you have any questions or want to book please shoot me an email or give me a call.  Looking forward to it! 

Katie & Kaya's Mini Session

I held my first “mini session” day at Beacon Hill Park on the Easter Monday this year and pretty much had the best time ever!  Katie and Kaya were my first session of the day and were such dolls. I know the girls a bit since they are my friend Laura’s nieces (you may remember her from her photo session here) and we always get my step son and the girls together to play when they are in town because they are all around the same age.   Photographing these girls makes me wish more than ever that I had a sister – there is just something about sisterly love that is special and unique.  I did used to dress my brother up in my dresses and makeup – I guess that will have to suffice.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures of their mini session.

Published on Style Me Pretty!

As I'm writing this I am literally squealing like a 5 year old girl! I am so happy to say I was published on Style Me Pretty today! What a dream come true!  Caley and Sean's  garden wedding was absolutely stunning and full of gorgeous detail so when we decided to submit it to SMP we were very hopeful that we would be chosen. After two months of checking my emails obsessively I finally heard back yesterday and am so happy that the news was good news.  Amazing!  You can check out my post of this wedding here but also please check out the Style Me Pretty version - facebook,  Pin, tweet, comment and share pretty please.  Thank you for your support and you can see a little sneak preview of what it looks like here: 

Natasha

We met up in downtown Victoria to take some pictures for her theatre portfolio. When I say it was freezing I’m not even kidding. It may have been above 0 but the wind was absolutely howling and I thought my limbs may actually fall off. Ok maybe I’m being a bit of a drama queen but it was COLD. Natasha was a trooper and didn’t complain once, even while wearing only a cute little bomber jacket.

I have to send a huge shout out to Liz (Natasha's mom) who was with us during the shoot and was sweet enough to take some pictures of me working which allowed me to write this blog. Thanks Liz! 

I had such a great time photographing this girl and I think she is an absolute stunner. Also I’m SOO JEALOUS of her eyebrows. I really really love them.  I could photograph this girl all day.  Here are a few of my faves from this session:

My new website!!

So what’s new with me?? Welll…..ummmm I HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!! What what??!! Can you tell I’m excited? After following along with all of the other reStarters from Jasmine Star’s creative live course, I was completely inspired to update my website. After all I haven’t really done anything with it since I started in 2010!  Now I have to say that I pretty much had nothing to do with the technical side of making this site happen – I owe it all to my amazing partner in crime. I’m not a very tech savy person when it comes to web stuff and he is so generous that he basically did this whole thing himself. I guess he’s a keeper J  Let’s just say I was the creative mind in this twosome. After pouring over templates for a month or so I finally decided on something simple yet modern. For any photogs out there that are curious about what I’m using – it’s called the Ishimoto template from Squarespace. You can see some other examples of their templates here: http://www.squarespace.com/templates. I feel that even though I’m using the same pictures my website comes across as much more professional.  I’m not quite finished yet and have a few tweaks to make but done is better than perfect right??!!  Its crazy what a confidence boost a new look can give you. I feel like I’m on cloud 9 right now and am totally inspired to get out there and shoot to add some more pictures to my portfolio.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback and critiques on the new site. What do you think?? Have you had experience in updating your website lately? I’d love to hear all about it. Thanks for reading!

Ink Stories.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am in love with tattoos. And anyone that has a tattoo knows how addictive they are. Seriously!! What's up with that? (Insert SNL skit here - please tell me someone knows what I'm talking about).  It's like Lays potato chips - I dare you to just get one. Here is my tattoo history:

1997- I got my first tattoo. It was a butterfly on my ankle. How can you tell I was 14? My mom got one with me (she's an awesome mom, what can I say?). 

1999 - My second tattoo went onto my ribs on my back and I almost fainted. The tattoo artist told me to lie down because you can't faint when you are lying down (I know now this is a lie but it did help at the time).  The pain of this was more than I can explain. All of this for a two inch crescent moon that turns into a horse head. Yep, that's right.  I would never get the same thing now but I was really into horses at the time and minus the near fainting moment this was my favorite tattoo experience. Myself, my mom, my grandma and my great Aunt all got tattoos together. I will always treasure this one because of that reason.  Now that my grandma has passed it's one more thing that reminds me of good times wtih her.

2001 - I had the Eye of Horus tatooed on the back of my neck. In Egyptian culture the Eye of Horus symbolizes protection and good health. I kind of love Egyptian culture. I'm not sure why but maybe it has something to do with a past life? I loved this tattoo then and I still love it now. 

2008 - Yeah, you know that butterfly tattoo I got when I was 14? I got it covered up by a peacock feather. It's much better now and so much more my style. 

2009 - The sanskrit word for "Karma" was tattooed on my left wrist. I had a few struggles along the way (hey, who hasn't?) but I do believe that if you do things from a good place it will come back to you. I let it serve as a daily reminder to be a do-gooder. 

2012 - I had the words "I've known you before, I will know you again, our bond is eternal" written in a really beautiful script on my back/rib cage. After the last rib cage experience I swore I would never get another tattoo there but it's funny how time can erase the memory of pain. I originally planned to get this much smaller but the tattoo artist explained to me that I don't want the words bleeding into each other as I get older so I needed to get it a bit bigger. It's pretty large. My fiance asked me the first night after I got it to flip over so he could read me a bedtime story before bed (what a comedian). It's large and in charge but I love it.  

2012 - Picture a macro shot of a green leaf. I had that tattooed in a box on my right forearm. It's gorgeous and oh so me. Love love love! 

2013 - TBA. My mom is coming into town soon and it's kind of a tradition we get tattoos together. I have a bunch of ideas floating around right now so stay tuned! 

I'm completely crushing on watercolor tattoos as of lately. I just can't get enough of them!  I love how tattoos have evolved from celtic signs and disney characters intricate and detailed pieces of art on the body.  Here are some inspirations for my next tattoo:

Gorgeous right?? I would love to hear from you - what are you thoughts/ideas on tattoos? Do you have any? Any you love, any you regret? 

Thanks for reading and happy Tuesday! 

Behind the Scenes...

I was perusing another photographer's blog a couple of months ago and they had shown some photos of them working on a photo shoot followed by the final picture resulting from the angle they were shooting at. I thought it was an amazing idea for a blog but then quickly realized I don't have any photos of myself working.  And then a couple weeks later it was like the Universe delivered. One of my client's moms was at our portrait session and unbeknownst (<---doesn't that word look strange or is it just me?) to me took some pictures of me in action and emailed them to me. Ta da!  And this blog was born. 

Here is a little behind the scenes action of me myself and I followed by the edited picture. I will be blogging about this session next so stay tuned for many more pictures of this gorgeous gal. 

Just you wait....

I couldn't count the number of times that I have felt like a hot mess if I tried.  Sometimes I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I feel stuck, I'm not fashionable enough, I don't have enough money, I'm getting wrinkles, I don't work out enough, I don't have enough time in the day, my house is a mess, I suck at keeping in touch with people I want to stay in touch with, I'm running out of time to follow my dreams, and it goes on....

We've all been there. Picking ourselves apart and freaking ourselves out with the things we haven't yet done or feel that we can't do.  Sometimes we just need to stop. And breathe. And remember that we are ok and we are going to be ok. 

And that's why I love this quote. Happy Friday! 

Keith & Linda Ramsay

I met with Linda and Keith at their beautiful condo in Sidney on the sunniest afternoon of 2013 so far. We decided to take a walk around the property of their condo and snap some photos since they live near the water. It’s sooo beautiful out there!  I don’t get a chance to spend much time in Sidney but I should – it’s unbelievable! Within the hour we saw two swans, seals and a blue heron – pretty awesome.  Linda and Keith have been married for 48 years (!) and they are still going strong.  I found them both so interesting and we shared such great conversation that I didn’t want to leave!  They have this map up in their house with pins in every place they have traveled to (there are a lot of pins in there) and I love hearing people’s experiences traveling.  I can only hope to have a marriage as happy and long as this one – thank you both for opening up your home to me, sharing your stories and letting me document your everlasting love. Here’s to 48 more happy years to come!

Happy Easter!

I remember waking up on Easter morning as a kid and being sooo excited to start the hunt for the eggs. Our house was pretty small so I knew the usual spots where eggs would be hidden but then there were always those spots that the Easter Bunny REALLY went out of her (yes her) way to hide the eggs away in. Some of these spots were so good that even the Easter Bunny forgot about them and we would find the eggs months later. Best surprise ever! Wherever your Easter egg hunt takes you this year I hope that you are with friends and family and that you are surrounded by love. Happy Easter everyone!

Taylor & Ashley - Twinsies!

To say that I am a little nervous around babies would be an understatement (refer to this picture of me holding one of the babies) BUT I was EXTREMELY excited to meet these two little ones. I photographed Rachel and Colin’s maternity session and honestly couldn’t believe she was having twins. The day I found out I almost had a panic attack for her – I told her it’s something people joke about like “oh hahah I bet there are twins in there” but to find out you are the one actually having twins is crazy!  She did such an amazing job and there is no doubt in my mind she will be an even more amazing mom to these two sweet girls.

 Grandma was in town from Ontario so we planned to take some photos while she was still here and if my memory serves me correctly it was my last shoot of 2012. Thank all for letting me capture your new family and I look forward to getting to know the girls as they grow older and documenting your family along the way. All my love!

The Cartwright Family

Two days after Christmas we met in Beacon Hill Park to do a family photo shoot and I immediately knew who the star was going to be (no offence to anyone else!)….little Skyler looks like a doll!  She’s not only precious but she is very strong willed – she’s a girl who knows what she wants!!  I loved hanging out with this family and we had such a good time walking around the park and taking pictures.  I loved their sense of humor and how you can just tell they are such a close knit family. It reminds me of my own family and makes me wish that we all lived in the same town. Here are a few of my faves from their session.

Easter Mini Sessions

I'm holding some mini portrait sessions in Beacon Hill Park on Monday April 1st, 2013. Here's the lowdown:

-the cost is $100 for up to 5 people (each additional person is $25 per head)

-the cost includes a 30 minute "mini" session 

-15 high resolution and edited pictures from your session are included in the cost 

-this can be used for families, children, couples, etc. 

That's it!  I only have a couple of slots left so please either email me for more info or to book.