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This year we were fortunate enough to be able to have some of my family from Australia come to visit us here in Lethbridge. Actually, they came right before Christmas, but close enough that we celebrated together while they were here. Last year my mum and dad came over at the end of autumn. This year my mum, sister, and my sister’s kids visited us. Lucky them, they came right at the beginning of the cold snap we had where the temperatures plunged to down to -50℃, with the wind chill. Considering that when they flew out from Australia the temperature there was around 28℃ that’s a bit of a difference! So we stayed inside a lot. It was simply too cold to spend more than a couple of minutes outside at a time, so most of the photos I took were fairly candid ones inside with natural light, though I won’t post those, because mostly they’re just people eating and playing games and stuff. And they’re fun images, but they’re more personal-type stuff for our own memories. I did get a few quick posed images inside though, just to have them. On the warmest day, when it got up to around -24℃ we took the kids tobogganing for a couple of hours at the Sugar Bowl. I’ll put a few of those images up.

So, happy Christmas to everyone! And, starting with just one image from when my parents came last year, here are a handful of personal snapshots from this year.

Bride.ca has just released the Honourable Mentions of their 2009 contest and we placed there, too. In fact, out of the 35 images six of them are ours! Yay us!

Since I didn’t submit any of our photos myself, it is interesting to see the images of ours that their judges chose. A big criteria for them was whether or not an image looked like it was distinctly wedding-y.

Their website says: “What we ultimately looked for was . . . is this a great photo or a great wedding photo? Unfortunately this meant that some incredible photographs did not make the cut, because they could have been anywhere, not necessarily at a wedding.”

This is kind of funny for me to read—and I don’t mean that sarcastically!—because I often deliberately distance myself from creating images that look wedding-y. This is especially true with the more fashion-based ideas that I come up with. I sometimes get inspiration from music photography and movie posters and I try to create a similar sort of commercial or cinematic vibe to my wedding photography—something that looks larger than life and out of the ordinary.

Anyways, I thought I’d comment on the images they chose to give a bit of a story behind each photo. So, for the first time on the blog I present to you: Captions!

This image was tricky to capture! It was taken on a small yacht on Okanagan Lake in Kelowna and the poor girl was sea-sick from the rocking of the boat. I was crouched up the very front of the boat holding a flash in one hand and my camera in the other, trying to frame the shot without getting any clutter in the background, or going blind from having the sun in the viewfinder, or falling over the side. I have two images of this setup and this is one of them. It pays to get it right the first time.

Yay for us!

Our studio recently won the Canadian Bridal Network’s Best Wedding Photographs contest of this year, beating nearly 500 other entries. Actually, after the contest results went live I heard that the judges had short-listed a dozen of our photos for the winning spots, but in the end they decided to just use the one image below to represent our studio.

I met the couple in the winning image when I was looking for a wedding dress. Not for myself; for a bridal fashion shoot in B.C. The bride, Caitlin, works in Ten Fashions Bridal Boutique and when one of my models didn’t show I asked her to fill in. She brought along her fianceé, Kelowna DJ Dan Freeman, and so my fashion shoot turned into a real engagement session for them. Because they are an actual couple they brought great energy and true emotional connection to the shoot. Their wedding is in 2010 and will be awesome.

Thanks very much also to Trent from Eye For Detail Photography! I actually found out about this contest after receiving an email from Bride.ca saying that Trent had contacted them and told them to check out my work for the contest. Thanks, Trent!

I had Mandy, Craig and their two kids booked in for a family portrait session, but when the day came it turned out to be one of those very windy Lethbridge days. The wind was howling! So we went into an empty barn/storage area kind of place in Coaldale for most of the session. Actually, I’m really happy that the weather let us down, because I loved it in there and I’m always happiest when I get to explore something new—new places, new ideas, or whatever. The space really lent itself to a modern, grungy sort of look, though with my lights I was able to control the existing light for almost any kind of look I wanted. I went with a low-key feel for most of them, just because it felt right.

When we came outside I spotted a wrecked old truck, with peeling paint and rusted metal and we used that as a prop for some quick, fun images. Mandy and Craig were very easy to work with and their son was especially happy when he got to play around in the leaves outside and throw them at me. Ah well. Whatever it takes, right? Here are some of my favourite images from their session.

I don’t usually blog family portrait sessions, but I’m going to add a couple of sessions from this year, starting with Jill and Jeff’s family portraits.

We did their session on a beautiful property just outside of Lethbridge owned by friends of Jill. It was an awesome place for family portraits, with a couple of areas where the kids could mess around as well as a great little stream at the bottom of the hill. We also raided a chicken coop, with their dog watching excitedly through the fence at us. As you will see from their photos we shot this at the end of fall and the leaves had a bit of colour, which is always nice. This was a relaxed and fun photo session with only really one set up for posed images. And even then they were quick to play around and have fun.

The river where their dog is swimming in to fetch thrown sticks was really cold! I waded out to get a few photos of them skimming stones in the water and, man, my feet froze! Ah well. Anything for the shot, right?

Hot on the heals of the Banff wedding we did for Jordan and Leanne is a Banff engagement with fun couple Samson and Donna. Kudos to them for braving the cold for the outside photos! That wind was a killer!

We started out in the Bow Falls area before heading to the Fairmont Banff Springs to shelter from the wind and also get some indoor portraits. Samson and Donna are great dancers and we were able to get the Mount Stephen Ballroom totally to ourselves. (I’ve never seen that before!) So Samson got to twirl Donna all around around whole the floor—a private moment in a normally very public place. It was pretty cool, actually.

We only had a limited time for this engagement session, so we made the best use of the nearby areas around the Mount Stephen Ballroom for the whole time we were there. Donna and Samson were a great, open couple and I really look forward to their wedding day.

For those of you who are not pro photographers, WPPI stands for Wedding and Portrait Photographers International and is the largest such organisation in the world. Every year they hold print and album contests, with entrants from everywhere having their prints judged by some of the most respected photographers in the industry. This time I finally got around to entering some images! I wish I had had the time to prepare more images, but I’m happy with the scores these received. Three of my images were awarded Accolades of Excellence and I have put those images below.

Thanks to Leanne and Jordan for having us at your wedding! Jordan is actually an accomplished photographer himself and it is always an honour to be chosen to photograph the wedding of another photographer. Their wedding was in beautiful Banff and they flew up from their home in San Francisco to get married here. Aside from the ceremony itself their wedding was a bit of a break from the more typical, traditional schedule, with a reception lunch right after the ceremony and then a casual dinner in the evening. I think that this is the best of both worlds for a wedding, where you can still have all of those heartfelt moments during the ceremony and reception speeches and then later you can freely mingle with your family and friends and enjoy their company without having to sit through a set list of things to do.

Their wedding ceremony was held in the Banff Park Lodge’s Castle Room, with their reception and evening after-party at the Glacier Salon. Both rooms are very nice, with lots of polished wood in them and a decorative wall of molded glass showing a mountain landscape in the Glacier Salon.

Leanne had the biggest smile ever! She smiled so much, especially during their ceremony. Everyone else smiled too when she slipped up during her vows to her “awful wedded husband”. Poor Jordan. Lol! Jordan and Leanne had asked that I get photos of all of their guests as they entered the reception, so I set up a little area and quickly had them pose as they came through. I always get candid images of people laughing during speeches and that sort of thing as part of the day’s coverage anyway, but this makes sure that there is a professional photo of everyone who was there.

After lunch they had speeches and a slideshow, which alternatively had everyone laughing or wiping tears. Actually, I’m going to interrupt myself a bit and say how much I like weddings where the speeches are after the meal. That way all your guests are happy and relaxed and can pay full attention and you don’t end up with photos of them laughing with food in their mouths. As a matter of fact, although there was definitely a very relaxed and easy-going attitude at the wedding, I have to say that this was also one of the best-scheduled weddings I’ve been to. We never felt like we were rushed for time. From what I heard during the speeches, this was probably due to Jordan’s preternatural spreadsheeting abilities.

For our photo time we visited a few locations around Banff, capturing the gorgeous scenery of the mountains and the river. We also visited the Fairmont Banff Springs, which is an wonderfully elegant location for photography. I love it in there and it was a welcome break from the cold wind outside! After their photos we headed back to Melissa’s Missteak across from the Banff Park Lodge where the two met with their families for an intimate dinner before crossing the road to meet back up with the rest of their guests for the evening. We stayed to catch some candid photography of everyone having a great time there.

Congrats, guys! Here are a few of your images.

(P.S. Thanks to photographer Trent Ernst for assisting me again).

Welcome to our new-look blog! After about 18 months of working with various designers we finally found a great team who were able to come up with a branding concept that really conveys our business well. After all, photography is so personal, so we wanted our branding to represent who we are as much as possible. The main logo is the graphic rendering of the letters ‘U’ and ‘i’ and there is also a matching typeface spelling out Unique Images Photography that appears elsewhere on our sites and stationary. The really cool, deeper meaning in the concept for our new logo was that it is based on our philosophy in how we work with our clients. We really get inspired by our clients’ personalities and so our weddings and portraits are a collaborative effort to make our clients look as good as possible, but in ways that really reflect who they are. So the U + i represents “you” + “I”.

Congrats to Cameron and Bobbi, who were married in Lethbridge down among all the trees in the river valley. I just photographed their engagement session only one week before their wedding and that was a really cold day. Oh, actually, it was more of a family session, since they brought along their son Laylin, whom I accidentally called Lilly, the poor guy. Hopefully he’ll forgive me one day. Fortunately, on their wedding day the weather was so much nicer! It wasn’t even windy!

We were there for the whole day for this wedding, from the time the dresses went on for the bride and groom, to the dancing. (Sorry, bad kilt joke). I loved the colours in their house! Check out the red! When I first started I noticed that one of Bobbi’s bridesmaids was really avoiding the camera. So I said, “Trust me! It’s my job to make you look good.” And then I took the overlapped-face image (third down) and showed it to them. I don’t think she trusted me for the rest of the day after that. Lol! But it was too cool a shot to pass up. But everyone was very easy to get along with. Cameron and Bobbi were definitely one of our most laid-back couples we’ve ever had—not stressing about anything and just trusting me to do whatever I liked for the portraits. The one thing they asked for was a photo with the VW Beetle, which was a good idea anyways.

The sun was starting to set when we went into the family portraits, but just after we finished it popped out of the clouds for a spectacular last show of golden light and I jumped at the chance to get a few romantic portraits of Cameron and Bobbi before it dropped behind the horizon.

Their reception was held in Coalhurst and after several moving speeches and the formal dances the kids rushed out onto the dance floor and we there for the rest of the night. I love weddings where people get up and dance. Oh, and check out the photo of Bobbi teaching her bridesmaids how to do the YMCA.

Enjoy your blog preview, guys. All the best.

P.S. Thanks to Trent Ernst for being my second photographer! Three of the below images are his. You’ll have to guess which ones.