Ottawa Wedding + Newborn Photographers who know what's it like to be awkward in front of the camera
When I give my clients their images, they receive all photos in both colour and black & white (they also get them in both high and low resolution, but that isn’t really important for this post). I can often be heard saying that not every photo works in black & white, but this way my clients have the option and can choose for themselves which setting they prefer for each image.
Continue reading “Colour vs. Black & White”
Most of the posts from our UK + Ireland trip so far have been about specific attractions or sites encountered during our trip and haven’t included everything we saw in one city or town. The reason for this is twofold. The first reason is because we take a lot of photos. Between the two of us, we took 7,478 photos, and we didn’t have both cameras running each and every day. So if I included all the site from one city, the posts would be even longer than they already are (they would be enormously long if I included all the photos from one entire day of our trip). The second reason is because we didn’t spend too much time in actual cities or towns. Most of our stops were at attractions located in the countryside. So with all of that said, I believe this is the first post about an actual city – the city of Bath, UK.
I love proposals. The romance, the anticipation and of course, the love. One of my favourite parts of getting to know my bride + grooms is hearing how they met, and how the proposal happened.
All of that being said, I realized a little while ago that I never shared my proposal story on this blog. So let me rectify that by sharing it now, 3 years later.
On Thursday, December 30, 2010, Dave and I went to Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg to take night photos of the Alight at Night Festival. Before we had left, Dave was scurrying around the house doing this and that and to be honest, I really wasn’t paying attention as I was trying to get my camera gear ready to go. You see, I had always wanted to visit the village during this event, but somehow we has always missed it.
During our 2-3 hours there we walked around and took many, many photos of the night lights and even enjoyed delicious, fresh gingerbread (so yummy). After taking in the lights and watching the show synchronized with some Christmas music, we headed back to the car. During his earlier scurrying, Dave had apparently made and quietly packed a thermos full of hot chocolate. It was a nice treat and what I thought was a nice end to the evening. We headed back to Ottawa listening to the Glee soundtrack that he had so nicely downloaded on his new Google phone. When we got back to the city, he drove us towards downtown. At first I questioned where we were going, but when he didn’t want to answer me I let it go. I figured he was heading to Parliament Hill as I had also wanted to take photos of the lights on the Parliament buildings, but had chosen Upper Canada Village over them for this particular evening.
As we approached downtown Ottawa, Dave turned onto Sussex and headed away from the Parliament buildings. He parked overlooking the Ottawa River and told me to stay put for a couple minutes. Dave went to the back of the car and then came to get me. He had music playing on his phone and had packed blankets and pillows(more things he had packed during his earlier scurrying) for sitting in the back of the car – it was very nice. We shared the rest of the hot chocolate and he of course proposed. After adamantly nodding in agreement, I said yes. The evening was great and because it was so cold out, the ring actually fit me.
The next day, I of course called me friends and family to give them to great news. We also sent the ring to the jeweler’s to be re-sized. Dave had used his iron ring as a reference (clever), but that ring apparently fits my right hand ring finger, but not my left.
Three years later are we are now happily married and though are lives are not fundamentally different from when we were engaged, or even dating, I love being married to this wonderful man. I know I am very lucky to have found him and very thankful that he asked me to marry him.
I’ve got the itch — the traveling itch. I have been spending so much of my ‘free-time’ planning various trips whether they be upcoming or merely dreams and now I can’t sit still while I wait for the time and finances to take another trip.
Our last trip was to Seattle and Alaska (and Victoria), and it was truly amazing!! I was so relaxed and happy during the entire vacation, not to mention, extremely well fed – it was a cruise afterall. And ever since I got home I have been wanting to go back out and see more of the world.
We have a trip to California coming up to attend a gaming conference – yes you read correctly, a gaming convention. I am apparently a gigantic nerd as I love gaming and have been looking forward to this trip for the sheer gaming factor since I heard about the convention. And though I am super stoked for the trip, it is pretty short, only a few days long, and we won’t be seeing very much while we are there due to the short timeframe.
Originally we were supposed to go to Hawaii and Vegas this year, but for budgeting purposes, Vegas was replaced with California and Hawaii is sadly being postponed as well for both timing and financial reasons but also due to some other super cool, but secret future plans we are working on. In hindsight, not going to Hawaii wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. We were supposed to go last month for our one year anniversary, and while we would have been away, I received tons of wedding inquiries and booked a record number of weddings!! I barely even noticed I wasn’t in Hawaii — mostly. So while I wait for our trip to California, I am planning dream trips.
I am currently playing with the idea of a UK & Ireland trip. I visited London (and the Salisbury area) when I graduated from university with my best friend and we had an absolutely great time, but I have always wanted to go back and see more. If you have any suggestions for things to see or do in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Britain, let me know.
Just as an FYI, the first set of photos were taken in Skagway, Alaska while the second set were taken in Victoria, British Columbia. I am working on the full blog posts for these two cities and will hopefully be able to share all of the photos with you in the future.
Below is the screenshot from Bridge showing the Before and After of today’s SOOC feature.
This was a shot I took of a “ferris wheel” (it is actually called the Skyview) in Niagara Falls. It is a long exposure shot done at night (f18.0, 6.0 seconds, ISO 200) that I was actually quite happy with straight of the camera. I cropped it down to 16”x20” as that is the size of print I wanted, but it wasn’t actually necessary as the original composition worked quite well. I converted the image to black and white. This was something I struggled with for a little while as I actually found the slight blue colours around the edges of the image very interesting, but the crisp whites when converted to black and white won over in the end.
The print now hangs in our main floor powder room.
Ottawa, Canada Wedding + Family Milestone Photographers who know what it's like to be awkward in front of the camera
(and better yet, we know how to make you feel comfortable while being you!)
