Some portraits of my sweet and talented Ryan. She is a fellow photographer network contributor, and one of my most inspiring friends.

So much to blog about from this summer, but first a little follow up shot after my ‘birth’ post. One month later I joined Cat and baby Marcus on a trip to Vancouver. This is from us waiting for the ferry on the ride home. Love you both!  Also posted over at the photographer network blog.

Later in October, I headed back to Vancouver for a trash the dress session with Lauren and Dennis. They were married on the east coast and wanted to bring out the dress one more time for a few more pictures now that they are here on the west coast. They have the most beautiful chemistry and are so obviously perfect for each other. They are both some of the sweetest people I have ever met and every minute of this shoot was so much fun. We hung out in Stanley Park and it was a perfect day. Walking the sea wall is my most favourite thing to do in Vancouver and so doing that with a beautiful couple in a dress that can go swimming? I just about died. Even cooler is that Lauren and Dennis came to me with a project in mind. We blew up 5 photos onto large canvases (printed beautifully by loupe imaging) that are now hanging in their living room. I love when couples decide to print their photos and I love big canvases even more, so it was awesome to work with them on this. For those of you who are thinking about trashing your dress, Lauren told me that she was able to get all the stains out of the dress because she just had it washed that night. As well, Susie from my last trash session got her stains out too. Dress: 2 Stains: 0. I am just over the moon that Lauren and Dennis were able to find my site, and am so happy I got to hang out with them and work together on creating these photos.

Today I spent the morning with the ladies of Verbena Floral Design, the best darn floral company on the island. I’ve taken their pictures lots before, so today I took pictures of their daughters! Verbena’s babies I call them. Of course neither one is actually a baby. But they are both cute as hell anyways. Kelly and Lily prove in our 10 minute photoshoot, that they are equally as entertaining as their mothers. And that says a lot. 

p.s. you might recognize Lily, she was the flower girl from Jessie and Ben’s wedding last summer on salt spring island.

Near the end of our Ontario trip this summer, we headed over to Peterborough to photograph beautiful Susie and Aaron again, but this time it was a Trash the Dress session! Their wedding was on such a muddy day that Sus’s dress was already covered in stains so she wasn’t exactly worried about getting it dirty. The funny part is that after our day of mud soil and baseball fields, Susie said that the only stains on her dress were the ones from the original wedding day! I personally don’t think that you need to toss your dress out after a Trash the Dress session like you might think. I think the stains add more character and the pictures give them a story. I am pretty sure in my post about Susie and Aarons wedding I mentioned how much I loved this dress….  I was so happy to get to photograph her in it again, this time for much longer and no crazy storms (not that a storm would have mattered for this shoot!). And obviously my gorgeous Susie was picture perfect in every photo, not to mention Aaron! ANTM? I love them and I loved this day. I wish I could do this with everyone!

There are already some photos on my canadian wedding photography website, but these are some more from our session.

The pictures you’re looking at in this post are of one of my closest friends Deb and her dad, Poppa Junks as I like to call him ( i.e. Jim Junkin). Deb is a friend that I could call at 3am for no reason at all. Jim? Is not. I called once at 11:30 and he answered as such: “What the hell are you calling this late for?” He never sugar coated anything for me, and I never did for him. Often Jim and I would yell at one another, fighting over some random moral disagreement… but in the end we would kiss and hug goodbye just like I was apart of his family. Jimmy J is one of the most loving fathers i’ve ever met. He may have been stubborn but he was a teddy bear too, full of love and pride for both his girls. It doesn’t take an expert to know this. Jim was proud of me too… he was very supportive of my work from very early on. He always took the time to tell me how he felt about my photos. He was a little bias though, because at that time all my photos were of his daughter. Jim himself isn’t exactly the easiest person to photograph at first. He certainly won’t smile at you for any extended period of time. So I had to yell at him a lot during this session. It worked of course, and we got some beautiful traditional photos of them together because when Jim actually does smile, its enough to warm your heart for days.

This February, Jim passed away after a long battle with colon cancer. It is impossible to write in this blog all there is to say about him. I will say this (again), he loved his girls. The biggest testiment to Jim is the people he left behind and I can’t say enough about them either. I have so much admiration for each member of the Junkin family, for so many various reasons… most of which boil down to the fact that I just can’t resist being around each one of them. I was able to fly back home for his funeral which was bitter sweet. The service had you laughing through your tears, and you really felt like it did Jim justice. I could talk forever about what my experience was like on this trip home but I don’t think I will at this time. Instead i’m going to get to the point of this blog.

Deb is going to be running for her dad on May 31st in the Colon Cancer Canada 10k marathon in Ontario. Because I live here (Victoria) and it is in the midst of wedding season, I am going to take that day to walk 10k (lets be honest I can’t run 2 minutes let alone 10k) around the island with Tristan instead. If you’d like to support our fake walk, or Deb’s real run here is the link to do so : http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=614295

Deb’s donation goal has been met I believe but it was a small one and i’d like to give her the opportunity for more support. If you can’t donate thats ok too. I’m just putting it out there for those who might have a similar story, and to give the walk/run some more attention. My love to all the Junkins.

JUST when you think i’m done posting about the Luehofs, you’re wrong. One more! A couple days after Danielle and Jeremy’s wedding I met up with their cousins Sarah and Troy in the beautiful Forks of the Credit. You might recognize them from my older posts of Danielle and Alicia’s weddings. So anyhow, they are an adorable couple who just wanted photos for sake of getting photos done! At the end of the session they said it was really cool to go through the process as a married couple… and I agreed from my end as well. The intimacy between a married couple is of a different level. And lets be honest, look at these two. They are so flippin’ cute it was impossible to take a bad picture of them. Seriously. I had already spent time with them this summer with all the wedding events, but it was really sweet to hang out with them one on one. Both Sarah and Troy are so genuine and sweet, and just so charming. When Troy gets excited you’re left clutching your heart for dear life. I’m so happy we had the chance to hang out and do photos before the year ended!

After Andrew and Alicia’s wedding, the Luehof’s invited us to their place Sunday morning as guests for the gift opening and brunch. It was really cool to be apart of the day AFTER the wedding, and be apart of reminiscing about the night before. But I will be honest with you, the best part was being able to sit with Alicia’s baby nephew, Daniel, who was 3 months at the time. He slept on me for 4 hours, and it was the best 4 hours ever! I could just run away with this baby. At the end of the day we photographed their family portrait. Their house backs onto a little pond and we waiting until the sun started to come down. This family could not be easier to photograph, they are just so happy to have you around you feel so welcomed. It was such a relaxing day, a perfect way to start off a portrait session.