Sneak Peaks: Sasha and Loman's wedding

I never realized how much I miss blogging until I didn't post anything for a few days - I've been super busy with a couple of projects (I will post photos as soon as they're done!), and then I shot a wedding over the weekend and did a family session the next day - lotsa photos to go through! :) I still want you to know I love ya and thanks for checking out my work! Remember I can never say no to some comment love..:)) For those of you photogs that are interested I process my photos with Totally Rad Actions, they simply ROCK.

anywho for now I'll post a couple of detail photos from the wedding and will follow up with a bigger post and the most romantic story to go with the next set of photos! Sasha and Loman's love and relationship is special in many ways and I can't wait to tell you why!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

You're probably thinking what?? the Christmas is like a month away! well yes, it's just we had our kids' Christmas party from work today! Honestly, I can't wait for real Christmas now, I love all the anticipation, decorations and FUN associated with this beautiful time of the year. :) /humming Jingle Bells/....Oh that reminds me to put up a tree with Tim..:)) That will be our next weekend's project! :D



Of course Tim had to be a Batman! :)


He seems to like the result. :)


Lol...some serious conversation with Santa!


Ah kids and crayons! We know everything is just right!

A photo shoot for Calgary realtor.

Cody Battershill and I got together a couple of weeks ago to take photos of him for his new website. He's an award winning realtor in Calgary and I wish him even greater success in his career! He's got an awesome personality and knows what he's doing better than anyone else. We did some shots with the view of downtown and some inside a gorgeous condo building in the north east side of downtown Calgary. I just loved it! It would have been really nice to live there for sure! ;))

Flowers and Smiles

So I couldn't wait till today when [b] becker was going to post some of the photos from the workshop! /I'm a weebit impatient most of the time hehe/ :) Chris took headshots of 90 people in less than 15 minutes!! I was blown away by the speed at which this guy shoots, fo real! I have a LOT to learn. :)

Here's a photo of me taken by Chris that I gave a little bit of processing love. :)


My husband surprised me today with flowers...awww! Well actually he went grocery shopping and I asked him to get me a diamond ring while he's there and he got me flowers instead. :)) He's so cute, I love him! :)

This was shot with my brand new Canon 7D and a Canon 50 1.8 aka nifty-fifty(which I almost sold but decided to keep until I upgrade to a better glass in this range, I looove this little lens, it's so perfect!).

[b]ecker's rocking photography workshop in Calgary!

So...as many of you had known from my previous posts Chris Becker came to the wonderful and welcoming city of Calgary to share his knowledge with other photogs. And let me tell ya he was AWESOME!! We had a great turn around of about 160-170 people in total on both days! My head is still spinning from all the info [b]ecker poured on us, I mean wow!

How it all started...Well it actually started pretty simple. Since I go on his blog almost daily (as you can see I have it under my favourite links on the right hand side - yep, I am his blog stalker and not afraid to admit it! :D) I read about how great his workshop went in one of the cities (I think it even was Toronto) and I commented on his blog post asking when he's thinking about coming to Calgary. [b] is a busy guy, he shoots weddings all over the world, so you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from him the same day saying he'd love to come host a workshop here! I remember staring at my computer screen not believing what I saw. Chris requested that a local photo organization would handle all the details and here is when Patrick Kornak from Calgary Institute for Photography came into play. The only thing Patrick required from me was to prove photographers would be interested so I created a group on Facebook and had over 40 people sign up for it in the first week!! That was a success already! Right then Patrick and I knew we'd have enough people for at least one day. :) Heehee...wrong! We ended up with 165 registered and attending and a 2-day workshop! Patrick was able to get a killer deal on the pricing for the workshop which, trust me, made a lot of people happy and they were able to afford to come listen to Chris speak.

After hours of mind-blowing information we enjoyed great get-togethers in local pubs where photographers could share their ideas and takes on what we just learnt. (umm...side note...Kilkeney totally rocked! such an awesome place to hang out).

A real Cowboy Becker:





Becker in action! He actually shot everybody's headshots (165 people) in less that 1/2 hour!


One of the couple that models for us: gorgeous Polina and Stas. Becker has an amazing ability to make his couple laugh and smile at his jokes and that's how he gets his famous relaxed portraits.


One of the shots I was able to get: they look stunning!


Our other beautiful couple from day #1. Loved the veil cage!




What a great guy! He didn't hold abck anything, we could ask him any question on the business side of photography and he was very helpful!


My good photo friend Nancy Hana and I (I'm in red). As you can see we're REALLY enjoying the time at the workshop lol :))))


Q&A time: lots of interesting questions were asked. Photogs were wondering about pricing, albums, workflow, software, etc...

Love this pic of Becker, I think it shows his sparkling personality quite well. ;)))


Soooo...what did I get out of this workshop?

-Believe in YOURSELF! You're capable of more than you think you are!

-You need to balance your photos and your life (I seem to be having a problem with that but I'll be working on it :)) - Chris was talking a lot about the ways to do that and I'm hoping to implement some of them.

-Give your clients the experience! (I've been striving to do it before and know my clients are having a blast with me and I will do my best to better and better with every shoot!)

-I met a LOT of new potographers in the area and made new friends! I love photographer's community, they are so helpful and FUN! :))

- oh and I lost 2 lb in 2 days , lol...:)) - what? it's important, too. :))

Becker, thanks so much for your honesty and an amazing attitude! You're so much fun to be around and lucky are those brides who can afford you! :) You're worth every penny. Thanks for sharing the info about your workflow and pricing, I'm sure this will help me along the way. Oh and your wedding slideshow gives me goosebumps! It's so powerful! And thank you for being YOU! As I told you what struck me most was how real you are - you're exactly the same as you appear on the blog and I'm sure most people felt like they've known you for ages.

Thank you!!

And what did YOU learn from Becker? Post your comments below, I'd love to hear about your experience at the workshop!

Becker rocks Cowtown!

I'm still in my little dream world after listening to the [b]ecker today! Chris flew in for two days of crash kick ass course on wedding photography, marketing, branding, pricing - the information I longed for! We had almost 90 (ninety!!! wow!) photographers from all over Alberta and BC for the first day and we're expecting practically the same amount of people tomorrow. I met sooo many wonderful people and had a time of  my life today. I will do a complete detailed post about both days pretty soon (with photos heehee!) and here is this photo for now:



Chris, you are amazing! I wanted  to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so honest and open about your business and helping us learn from you!

Night scene shooting in Calgary

Last night me and a few of my friends tried our hands in night photography. Was it ever fun! The 4 of us even got Calgary police interested in what we're doing when they came over to chat. :)) I'm sure the girls with cameras on tripods aimed at downtown looked really suspicious at 7 o'clock at night. They were quite nice though wishing us happy shooting and took off. :)

Here're some of the results of our outing:




The Bow is glowing at night. I think they can illuminate the whole city! :)


A closer look. I am actually so excited for the Bow to be built so I can have a portrait session there with someone. :) Anybody willing to do that? :)))




Overlooking west:


10th Street Bridge:


Centre Street Bridge, Telus and the Bow:




Da GANG! :))) I mean seriously, how scary are we?? :))


My kid is sick today, and no it's not H1N1 it's just a regular cold, just a bad one. :( I got a bit worried at first but noticed no troubles breathing, etc. I was up all night as he was tossing and turning, caughing and sighing. My poor baby! He got a lot of sleep today and though he still hasn't eaten (and it's now over 5 pm) he's feeling a bit better. My heart just melted when he came over for a hug when I stepped away from his bed for a few minutes. I love him so much and hope he'll be his old self tomorrow - active and playful because it's so weird to see him so inert.

Then I read this article in the Calgary Herald and was shocked to read that the crash happened at 8:15 am literally a block away from our house - that's exactly when my Mom and Tim are on that intersection on their way to school in the morning which they skipped today because Tim was sick. Talk about Fate! I won't be discussing whose fault it was that the bus crashed, I'm just hoping all the kids are fine and safe.

Maria and Mike: Engaged!

Maria and Mike are both students (Mike is at University of Calgary and Maria studies in the Calgary campus of the University of Lethbridge). I gotta tell ya I'm blessed with good looking couples! I love it! :) We met at the UofC on a cold Sunday and had a ton of fun walking through various halls taking photos. I'm looking forward to their wedding next year! I'm sure it'll be beautiful! On to the photos now, feel free to leave me some love after and comment.:)

One of my absolute faves from the session!












Yes it was coooold. :)


I had to advantage of the reflection, it doesn't rain here in Calgary too often so puddle reflections are rare.:)


Maria looks so beautiful here!


For some reason I love this one (maybe it's Maria's curl? :))


Calgary contruction workers are amazing! They let us use their equipment for our photos! Thanks guys!


Adding some Calgary style to the session! :)