Unique Images Photography | Weddings | Portraits | Fashion » Wedding, Portrait, and Fashion Photography Blog

Here are some more sneak-previews for the blog from 2011. I’ll be properly updating the blog soonish, with some major announcements thrown in for good measure.

Shawna and Ryan, Kelowna Wedding:

Bahar and Atta, Banff Wedding:

Maureen and Dave, Emerald Lake Wedding:

Margaret and Pat, Waterton Wedding:

Megan and Evan, Canmore Wedding:

Lyndsay and Simon, Calgary Engagement:

Lyndsay and Simon, Jasper Wedding:

Karen and Darren, Calgary Wedding:

Jodi and Jordon are a really sweet Rocky Mountain House couple drove down to meet me for their engagement session in Banff. They were both so easy-going and just great to work with. I often tell my couples that it doesn’t matter if you’re not into being photographed, so long as you are into each other and these guys very clearly were. And they were really up for anything! They even stepped into freezing cold water! I’ve been in some cold water for various shoots and this was as cold as any I can ever think of—really icy!

We visited three main areas of Banff for these photos, staying outside of town the whole time. There is such beautiful scenery all around Banff—just add in one happy couple and you can’t go wrong.

Jessica and I photographed Andrea and Matt’s engagement session in Calgary just a short time before their wedding day and as soon as we met them I knew that their wedding would be a day filled with great moments and love—and it certainly was.

You know, as I write my blog posts I glance through the wedding photos and different images inspire me to write about the day. But with Andrea and Matt’s photos I am finding it really hard to add anything to what the photos already say pretty clearly. However, that won’t stop me from rambling for bit.

This was one of those days where things came together really well for a great wedding—the bride and groom open with their emotions, a happy wedding party, nice weather, and surrounded by great scenery and supportive friends.

Their wedding was held at the Rimrock Resort in Banff, which is a favourite place of mine for weddings. I really love Banff and the Rimrock is in such a gorgeous location, nestled right into the side of a mountain. Matt and Andrea had treated themselves to a suite with fantastic views all around—you can see a glimpse through one of their windows in the first photo of the dress hanging up. They also wrote their own vows and the vows were so moving that the officiant actually asked for a copy so that he could use them for inspiration when he wrote vows for other weddings! How cool is that?

After the ceremony we did all of their wedding portraits in one main area just outside of Banff town before coming back to the Rimrock Resort for their reception. The reception was a blast, with very real speeches that were both moving and funny, which you’ll get a feeling for as you look through their photos.

We are excited to be featured on the Wedding Obsession blog! We had one of our Banff weddings feature there earlier this year, which was very cool, and this time we have a very small mix of some our images from a handful of weddings around Canada—Kelowna, Toronto, Banff, Taber, and Crows Nest Pass.

If you are planning your wedding, make sure to take a look around the Wedding Obsession blog! There are so many awesome ideas for couples to draw from, whether you’re after a cool retro vibe or something modern and different.

Thanks for having us on your blog again, Melissa!

For their Romantic Fashion Session (aka Trash The Dress, Day After Session, Bridal Session, etc.), Guannan said he really wanted photos that would show some of the Albertan landscape, so that their relatives overseas could get a picture of the place they have made their home. We both agreed that Banff was a must! It’s such a beautiful location, with the Rockies and lakes and forests.

We started our day with some photos of Renee getting ready in the hair salon, just like I would for a wedding. Renee had a very cool birdcage veil that looked awesome with her dress. Guannan had asked for some photos with his car, so we did those as soon as everyone was ready, because the weather looked a bit iffy and I didn’t want the car to get rained on or muddy—it was so shiny! The sky was very overcast, so I went with it and created dramatic-looking images with the dark clouds.

Since stylish imagery was a big priority for Guannan and Renee, we mainly did posed photos, so this blog post is almost like a Unique Images Photography guide to posing couples! The goals for our session, apart from getting great images, were that the photos have a stylish and somewhat romantic feel, that the time be relaxing and not rushed, and that the photos show off the Banff area.

Thanks to Guannan and Renee for being such a wonderful and hospitable couple!

Mountains! Forests! Caves! Dragons! Goats!

And the most important thing: a happy couple in love.

From my very first lengthy and chatty phone call with Ngan, in response to her enquiry email, I knew this was a wedding that I wanted to photograph. I book most of my couples without meeting up first and I’m used to getting right into the swing of things on the wedding day itself, so it’s such a good thing when you can click so well and have such a cool connection right away.

John and Ngan were married at the Juniper Hotel in Banff, which is a stylish, modern-rustic venue away from the main town. The place has an eco-friendly focus and is entirely wind-powered, which is pretty cool. Ngan and John were ably assisted in many things throughout their day by wedding planner Sonia and her assistant from Cornerstone Events. They did a fantastically amazing job and I highly recommend them.

The first event of the day was John and Ngan’s Vietnamese tea ceremony. We’ve photographed a number of Asian tea ceremonies (Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, etc.) and they have to be some of the most challenging things we photograph. So much happens so fast! And it’s all important! Lol! If you’ve never seen one, imagine a western ceremony where the first kiss happens in the blink of an eye every few seconds for half an hour and that will give you some idea of the timing of it all. Of course, there aren’t actual kisses happening constantly in the tea ceremony; they exchange gifts and greetings and have other traditions.

At the end of their tea ceremony they had a surprise for their guests: traditional dragon dancers! That was so cool! There were eight of them and there was so much sound, colour and energy in the dancing! Then John and Ngan snuck off with us for some quick portraits in their traditional Vietnamese dress.

Their western wedding ceremony was outside on the Juniper’s terrace area and, although the weather had been threatening snow, the sun popped out just for their wedding. After that we visited a few locations around Banff for their portraits. They were so easy to take photos of. In fact, their whole wedding party was very easy-going. And John has to be one of the smiliest grooms we’ve ever seen! He basically didn’t stop smiling all day!

Their reception was full of laughs and there was a touching moment when Ngan gave a speech to her family in Vietnamese. I have no idea what she said, but there was so much emotion in the room that I nearly cried, too!

Thanks for having us at your wedding. Here are some of your photos.

Stephanie and Kyle are an active couple who love the outdoors and asked to have their engagement session in the Kananaskis mountains, which I was happy to do. Of course, I didn’t know when I agreed to it that I’d end up halfway up a mountain in a blizzard.

The Kananskis is a beautiful, peaceful area in the Rocky Mountains about forty minutes from Banff. During ski season there are people on the slopes, but this day we had the mountains almost totally to ourselves. Kyle and Stephanie had brought their skis and we started off with photos of them around the lift and on the hill, skiing. Then we went to a second location that Kyle had picked out. We parked our cars and talked about where he wanted to go. “There’s a ledge just up there that I think would be cool”, he said, waving his hand towards a flat, rocky area about ten metres up. “Oh, that would be no problem”, I replied. “I can even bring a load of photo gear”. So we started climbing up. It began to snow. After a minute we passed the ledge and kept going. I look at the ledge. I look at Kyle. “Yeah, there’s the ledge, up there”, he says, pointing out a speck of rocks through the pine trees, halfway up the mountain.

Kyle and Stephanie were kind enough to help me carry some of my gear, which they did with ease. As soon as we got to the ledge—which was really more of a scattering of rocks—we saw some darker clouds blowing in. I had time for about three photos before it hit us, knocking my light stand over and pelting us with snow. We retreated back down the mountain and spent the rest of the session around the river and the forest at the bottom. Stephanie and Kyle were awesome to take photos of—really easy-going and obviously in love. Here are some of my favourite photos from the day:

One of our recent Banff weddings was recently featured on the Wedding Obsession blog in their Real Weddings area. Melissa, who runs the place, has a great site that features the talents of local Albertan photographers and I’m really happy to have one of our weddings up there. You can see our entry HERE. Thanks for having us, Melissa!

Happy New Year!

Thanks to all our clients from 2009! I have put together a very quick little slideshow of some of my favourite wedding and bridal session images of 2009. I tried to keep it down to only three images per wedding—which was really hard!—but this is meant to be just a glimpse. More images from each wedding can be found on the blog under the weddings category. The one exception is the very last set of wedding photos, because this is a recent wedding that I haven’t even blogged yet, so I thought I’d give them a few more photos in the slideshow. I’ll be blogging the whole wedding soon.

There are three photos from Jessica and three from James Day and the rest are from me. I also need to thank Sherri, Trent, and Doug for assisting and shooting with me this year as well; their help was invaluable to me. There are a lot of portraits in this mix, because I put so much work into them that it’s hard to not choose them as my favourites. And there aren’t really any detail photos in here, either, because this is all about the people!

Click on the play arrow below to start the slideshow. Have a great 2010.

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.