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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?

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.

Last night I had the pleasure of experiencing a fantastic concert! Well, two of them, really. The concert was held at the Yates in Lethbridge with proceeds going to support the charity organisation Bridges of Hope, a very dedicated organisation of people who raise funds for the care of people in need in Africa, especially in Burkina Faso.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to this concert. I had arranged to take photos for the concert on a professional level, but I thought the music would bore me. I know, I know, how could I be such a cultural Philistine? But my main prior exposure to world music was listening to a friend’s new age music CD. And the music sounded like whales farting. So, armed with this utterly inaccurate view, I slunk off to the Yates Memorial theatre with my cameras.

Noumoufassa was supported by Joshua Reuben, along with vocalist Bridget Yarwood and percussionist Kurt Langrud. These guys opened the night and they played both original compositions and cool reworkings of recognisable tunes. They were a great start to the evening, blending virtuoso performances with a light, fun mood. They were joined near the end of their set by keyboardist and percussionist, Rex, from Noumoufassa, who added some funky bass to their songs. Then, after the intermission, Noumoufassa exploded onto the stage with highly energetic playing and acrobatic performances. I have to say that this was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to in my life, and as a lapsed musician, I’ve seen my fair share. These guys put everything they have into their show and it really comes alive in the most incredible-sounding and visually-entertaining way.

Twice during the evening Daniel Zopoula, the founder of Bridges of Hope, came and spoke quite briefly about the organisation and their goals. He is a passionate and well-educated man, but not someone who rants or bludgeons you with emotionally manipulative speeches. One thing he said really struck home to me and that was this: when the 2004 tsunami struck the nations around the Indian Ocean, around 200,000 people died and many people in the world rallied to provide aid. Yet approximately 150,000 people die in Africa every month. To learn more, please head over to the Bridges of Hope website.

You can still catch the show at two more locations in Alberta, in Red Deer and LeDuc. For more information check out this link. There is also a little YouTube video you can watch there to give you a bit of an idea of the music. However, with no offense to the people who made the video, it really doesn’t come close to capturing the energy of the actual performance. You really have to see them live to appreciate the show. If you’re anywhere in the area, go. You’ll have a whale of a time.

These images are not really edited, because I haven’t had the time, but I wanted to get something up on the blog right away. Most of them are shot at around ISO 6400, with some at ISO 8000.

Congrats to Rick and Keely! They were married at The Norland Bed and Breakfast, which is a beautiful place for weddings in Lethbridge. It’s so green there in the summer! Their ceremony was outdoors with chairs set up on the lawn and a little pagoda for the wedding party to stand around. Rick and Keely had their dog there as part of the wedding party and I later asked a really stupid question when Rick requested some photos with the dog. I said, “Oh, that’s your dog, eh?” Uh, no, Mark, one of the groomsmen just felt like bringing his dog to the wedding. At the end of the wedding ceremony Keely’s dad played them a song on the guitar. I love her expression as she watches him play.

We stayed at the Norland for the photos, since it’s such an attractive and diverse location. Keely specifically asked for a huge group shot of everyone, so we did that first, with the help of her dad getting everyone organised. The whole wedding party was so easy to get photos of! And Keely was such a stunning bride I couldn’t go wrong. For one of the images below—the one of Keely and Rick with the reflection—there was a brief moment of confusion where I was saying to Rick, “Ok, serious shot now; no smiles” and he kept smiling bigger and bigger. He just heard the word ‘smile’ and thought I had been telling him to smile more! I ended up getting some serious shots, but I actually prefer the photo of him smiling.

Their reception was held at the Lethbridge Sandman Inn. The speeches for the evening turned out to be a bit of a roast Rick night, but he was laughing along. These are the best weddings, the ones with lots of fun, tears and laughing. I would be happy to shoot weddings like this every week.

Kevin and Jen are a wonderful couple who are just so positive and in love. They were married in Coaldale in a moving ceremony with lots of tears, smiles and laughs. We did the main portraits at a canola field in Lethbridge that I happened to drive past a few days before the ceremony and thought would make for a nice location. Don’t you love how the yellow of the flowers and the blue of the sky goes so well together? I love colour.

We also did some quick photos in the Henotic restaurant in Lethbridge and nearby there, too.

These guys could hardly keep their hands off each other and it was really sweet. They were so obviously in love. We have so many images of them laughing, smiling, and just gazing into each others’ eyes. I love it when we have couples like that! It makes it so easy to get wonderful moments of them together. We were only with them for their ceremony and then their wedding portraits afterward, but I wish we’d had more time, just to hang out and get those moments that were happening so naturally and spontaneously.

All the best, guys.

Congrats to Brad and Danielle, who were recently married at Lethbridge’s Galt museum. After their ceremony we did a bit of a tour of Lethbridge for their photos, starting with their family group portraits at the river bottom near the Helen Schuler Coulee Centre, then we were off to Henderson Lake Park, which we have only ever gone to once before for wedding portraits, and then to an alleyway in town. Finally, we finished off at the new-ish Abyssinian restaurant for some more intimate portraits of the bride and groom. This is one of my favourite restaurants in Lethbridge and I knew that the colourful walls and wooden furnishings would make for cool photography backgrounds.

Brad and Danielle’s reception was back at the Galt museum, where we enjoyed a home-style dinner and listened to some heartfelt and funny speeches. And kudos to Danielle’s dad for picking one of the very coolest and most original songs for the father-daughter dance that we’ve ever heard! As the sun set over the coulees we finished up with some more portraits of the married couple in and around the Galt museum, ending our day with them nicely.

Here are some images.

We first met Brad and Ashley when we did their engagement session here in Lethbridge last fall. They are a fun couple and we flew through their session, getting some great photos with lovely fall colours. Although Brad and Ashley live in Airdrie, near Calgary, their wedding was down in Coaldale, next door to Lethbridge. Ashley asked for us to take photos at the river bottom, so we took them to a place near the Helen Schuler Coulee Centre. It’s a really nice location down there, though we hardly ever go there for our wedding photos. I think we only went there once all last year! But it was really lush and green and, although the clouds looked threatening later in the day, we escaped getting rained on.

We took some photos of the girls before the ceremony, then headed off to the church before coming back to Lethbridge for more photo time. I loved the huge stained glass windows in the Coaldale church. It was like photographing inside a big tie-dye shirt. Lol! Their reception was at the Lethbridge University and we finished our photo time there, though we weren’t at the reception itself and got to go home early for a change.

Here are some of their images.

I arrived at Mary’s grandparents’ farm for her grad photo session and her grandfather showed me around. He pointed out a bunch of trees out the back and said, “This is where photographers usually like to take our photos”. Then he took me inside to where there were some photos hanging on their wall. “Here are the photos we’ve had in the past”. I replied, “Yeah, today’s photos won’t look anything like that”. We started out with some photos of Marys’ date’s family and then, when Mary was ready, we did a few of the two of them as well as Mary on her own.

It’s funny how it worked out with the hay bale. When I was driving in I saw a few and thought, “Hmm. I wonder if we could use any of those?” Then I saw that they’d put one aside specially for the shoot. The car is the same car that Mary’s grandfather and mother had both used to attend their grads. Mary rode to her graduation in a limousine with her friends, but we had to include the car in the photos!

Mary was really fun to shoot with and here are some of her images.

We did Sarah and Matt’s engagement session last August and we had a blast, so I was really looking forward to their wedding.  

On their wedding day we started out with the guys and they were joking around and great for candid moments. As soon as they were ready we dashed down to the Lethbridge Lodge, where the girls were to catch some quick portraits of them there. As we were walking back from the room I noticed a beam of light coming down from the skylights that lit Sarah beautifully as she walked through it, so I asked her to stand there for a moment and just ignore me while she played with her veil and laughed with her parents. I love how the light just made her glow. She looked stunning!

Their ceremony was at St. Patrick’s church in Lethbridge, which we’ve been to several times lately and it’s definitely one of the nicest looking churches in the city.    After the ceremony we took some quick family shots in the area and then went up to Lethbridge University, where their reception was going to be, for the rest of their photos. It was very windy that day and we were very limited in time, so it was a challenge to get great looking shots of the enormous bridal party—but we did it!    The girls asked to do a photo of them picking up Matt, which he resisted at first, but it ended up being a fun moment.

Their reception was at the student union ballrooms, nicknamed The Zoo, which we’ve done quite a few receptions at. It’s one of the more tricky venues in town to work at, with a black ceiling and mostly black walls. Well, it’s difficult for other photographers.       Anyway, there were funny and touching speeches with lots of laughter and tears and a really well put-together slideshow. We left them as the dancing was getting going and everyone was starting to party. Check out some of their images.  

Grace is a local model and a really fun person to have on a shoot.  Take a look at the photos and you’ll see what I mean!    I did this shoot with Jessica, whom I will be introducing on this blog very soon.  Grace was awesome to work with!  She was really naturally talented and hard-working, too.  I love how she was able to add her own flair to create something that really suited the clothes and environment.  It was more like she took on the role of a character and acted it out than just simply posed.  Very cool.  Check out the crazy clothing she wore when we hit the alley downtown!  It was so funny; she turned so many heads when we were setting up and shooting that scene.    One car actually drove past us, then stopped and reversed so the people in it could stare at her.  Lol!  That’s the first time I’ve had that on a shoot.  Hmm.  Perhaps if I dressed like that I’d get it more often.  What do you think—should I borrow that outfit for my next wedding?