This was my third shoot with Brooke. We got to spend a couple hours in Mundy Park in Coquitlam for her photo shoot and she was such a little darling the whole time. I learned this time around that Brooke has a sweet tooth and loves sour keys. Ironic. Obviously it’s the cutest thing ever to watch a kid eat something sour so we set her up on a log and gave her the sour key and I snapped away as her face pursed up, her tongue came out, and her eyes squinted with delight. So cute, right?

Their family is growing too! Brooke will soon have a little brother or sister. Mom is leaning toward a brother; it just feels different this time. It’s pretty neat that the first time I took Brooke’s picture she was only able to crawl and coo. Now we can ask her questions and she can answer them. She can run to where her next picture will be taken and she can chew on a sour candy with her teeth. I hope I get to document this little one as she grows up even more.

When I was editing the photos I thought I’d try adding some textures to a few of the pics so there are some before & afters. It took me forever to get the hang of it but I think they turned out all right! I also am rolling out my watermark. Little mini me and mini Punky to match my logo. Finally!

Anyways, here’s the always cute Brooke.

Say hi to Millie. The happiest, most fun loving baby I have ever met in my life. Not to mention absolutely beautiful! Everything made this girl smile, which made me smile. When Millie’s mother Lori let me in to their apartment, Millie was just finishing up lunch. I took one look at that round little face with food all over her chin and knew this was going to be an awesome shoot. She felt the good vibes too, because she gave me the biggest, messiest, most food drenched smile ever. She got cleaned up pretty fast and on went the Santa hat and matching shorts. A couple wardrobe changes and some nudie shots later and I had a set of photos I was in love with. Millie gave me perfect smiles, perfect expressions and perfect poses.

She even posed with the cat and when I saw Millie grabbing a fist full of fur and pull it out…with a smile and a squeal…I was a bit squeamish. Apparantly, the cat LOVES it and they do this fur pulling bit all the time. Cats are weird.

She may slightly disagree in a few years but we think her bare butt shots are just priceless. Millie, until you are old enough to say otherwise, your mother and I agree that they’re too sweet to hide away. Millie, I’m lookin’ forward to our next shoot in the Spring!

Introducing Hannah and Cole. They’re the two kiddos of a co-worker of mine and they’re rad. Good kids from a good family. Hannah has a heart of gold just like her mother and she pours her soul into her relationships with friends and family. During the shoot, one of her friends was having a bad day and Hannah was utterly distracted trying to make sure he would be all right. It melted my heart! I could tell she’s got a fun streak in her — she had these awesome lace up boots that reminded me of a Bratz doll. I shoot a lot of kids with cool footwear. I just love shoes…of all types.

Cole has that little boy charm that gets me every time. He has a movie-star raspy voice that the girls in our office adore. Every time he comes in it’s: “Heeeey Cole!” He coyly replies “Hi.” and runs to his mom’s office with a smile. He knows he’s gonna be a lady killer — he’s dark and handsome. All he needs is the height and he’ll be all set.

At the end of the shoot the kids wanted to get in my car for a couple last shots. At the end of the set you’ll see Cole: Italian Job style.

These two beauties are sisters. They have the same mom and the same dad, though it doesn’t look like it. Genetics worked in mysterious and wonderful ways with these two. Not only are they both stunning, they are characters! Hamming (Really, did I say that?) it up for the camera the whole session. They could go from hanging upside down on the playground, to posing like they were in a magazine. I only had to get them warmed up for one, maybe two shots before they started directing me. “Mandy! Take my picture now!” “Mandy! How about this?” “Mandy! Now! Like This!” It made my job REALLY easy.

Jasmine is the older one and is a little acrobat. She could leap and climb and jump and literally had no fear. She’s such a talented little thing and she’s only 10. She’s also a great older sister: calm, patient and caring. (Disclosure: I’m the oldest sister of two sisters. COMPLETELY unbaised statement there. Just a scientific observation, I swear). When her little sister needed the spotlight, Jasmine let her have it. When her little sister wanted to get high up in the tree too, Jasmine lifted her up. And when her little sister made jokes, Jasmine laughed along with everyone else. Wholeheartedly.

I loved the part when the 7 year old Mikayla, said “Come on, son!” when I was too slow on the trigger. She also called me a “foo” at one point, and laughed along with me, as I almost peed my pants. Yeah, I ALMOST did. I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt. I was a mess! It is very difficult to take pictures with tears of laughter in your eyes. But I recommend it anyways because the pictures always turn out better.

I just want to thank these two for being so beautiful and charasmatic. I booked several sessions after others saw their photos. Booya!

I remember taking field trips to the pumpkin patch every year as a child in elementary school. They’d load us on the bus, we’d sing songs together and then off we went to spend the morning picking out which pumpkin we’d like to take home with us. I of course wanted the perfect pumpkin. The one that wasn’t too heavy for me. The one that didn’t have too much dirt stuck to it. The one that had a stem big enough to grab, that wasn’t too straight or too bent. The symmetric one. I wanted the one that was styled by nature to be a picturesque pumpkin. They were surprisingly hard to find, like a four leaf clover. But when I did find it, I knew it was the one. And for the record, there isn’t any hidden meaning in this post! Just a fond memory of childhood in the Lower Mainland.

Brooke may be too young to remember this trip to the pumpkin patch first hand, but when she is old enough to look back at the pictures, she may faintly remember running around in her super cute lady bug boots. She may also remember almost losing her balance with every step because the boots were a little awkward to run in. She held it together wonderfully, as toddlers tend to do. She may also remember the wardrobe changes: the angel outfit her neighbour bought for her, the bumble bee costume her mom put her in and the little country girl shirt and jeans. Adorable.

Here’s some photos from my second photo shoot with Brooke at Laity Pumpkin Patch.

Anyone who has taken an Intro to Marketing class knows about the Innovation Adoption Curve. Let’s jog your memory: Innovator; Early Adopter; Early Majority; Late Majority; Laggard.

“Do go on!” you say? Allrighty!

I am of the late majority in adopting social networking. Didn’t do MySpace. When it came to Facebook, I purposely dug my heels in and said I was never going to get a Facebook account. What was the point? It seemed stalkerish. And if I wanted to talk to my friends, I’d call them. This was when Vancouver was ranked the third biggest friend network on Facebook. I was one of the dozen people in the city who didn’t have an account. Go figure. Then I saw the value in sharing pictures so I signed up under my dogs name. This way, I didn’t get weirdos from my past looking for me.

And now (have mercy) I’m on Twitter. I said the same things about Twitter that I said about Facebook: Why would anyone care what I’m doing??! Then I got serious about moving forward with my photography business and I TOTALLY GET IT NOW! I understand why people use it. The NECESSITY of it. The greatness of it. The ability to connect with people whom you would otherwise not communicate with. In a week I’ve got more followers than people I’m following. And the best part: I don’t even know what that means! Is it good? Average? No big deal? Sure, some of my followers are mortgage brokers or salsa dance teachers but hey, that’s the beauty of online networking. Maybe one day they’ll need a photographer and before you know it, my next gig is booked!

Next up is Kobe. His parents are some wonderful people and their expecting their second child in the spring. Mom is 1/2 Japanese and his dad is Scottish but looks Greek. That mix equals one hell of a beautiful boy. And he’s a good kid too. The kind of kid you could leave alone with your dog and know that A) the dog will still be left with all its senses when you get back; B) the dog wont have had to play “let’s see how hard we can squeeze your rib cage”; and C) the dog will not have an irrational fear of anyone smaller than me afterward. In fact, that’s my dog, Punky in a couple of the pictures. Told you she’s awesome!

And in case you’re wondering what that is on his arm, it’s a tattoo. Kobe’s rough, rugged and raw like that.

This next set of pictures is where I really started to fall in love with tweaking and editing and actions and filters and all the good stuff that makes a picture look much better (or much worse) than it does OOC (Out Of the Camera…sorry for the jargon). From what I’ve learned, there’s two schools of thought on PP (More jargon. Stands for Post Processing. Duh.):

1. Do it. Burn those creative calories!
2. Don’t do it. What, do you call yourself a photographer or a Photoshopper?

Since I’ve started actually getting paid to take pictures of people, I have really started to enjoy playing around with the pictures afterward in Photoshop. For me, it’s almost my favorite part. I love seeing how I can change a picture and make it one of those that evokes a “WOW!”. Yep, I’m addicted to the wow factor. Though I have taken it too far at times, I think there really is a balance between “WOW!” and “EW!”. Let’s not talk about my ew photos, mm-kay?

This is Logan. He loves Thomas the Train and even dressed up as Thomas for Halloween. I kind of took a liking to the train too because wherever the train went, so did Logan. It was like a picture magnet.

Logan’s blue eyes are amazing. It’s funny that neither of his parents have blue eyes or even a fair complexion so that got me thinking about genetics and genomes and chromosomes and…Just kidding. Jokes aside, his mom and dad are good friends of mine that I have known for about 6 years. Trish and Bill, ya got a cute kid right there!

So I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now: a full time job, a business management degree in progress, professional exam coming up next month, photography, my boyfriend, my dog, family, etc. Did I mention photography? That’s why this blog is here isn’t it!? If I really loved group insurance more I might have started a blog for it but…well I don’t think I need to say much more. I could however, start one for my dog, Punky. She’s adorable. You’d love her! Pics to come soon, I promise.

Lately I’ve been spending a LOT of time on the photography aspect of my life. I’m in love with it, what can I say? Every minute I spend admiring other photographers’ work or setting up my blog or researching what lens to buy next or imagining what my logo will look like seems to have a much more personally satisfying result than say, studying group insurance benefits. Hm.

Anyways, as promised, I am posting more of my past work. These two little darlings are Sebastian and Sasha, cousins of almost the same age. This set was shot in Rocky Point Park in Port Moody, British Columbia. For those of you out of the know, it’s suburb of Vancouver.

The kids had a blast in the waterpark and I had a blast running around getting soaked at times trying to capture the perfect moment. My camera got a little wet when a spray gun was aimed at me by a peculiar little child but I suppose that’s what I get for invading their territory.

When you try something that’s really difficult and it just doesn’t seem to work for you, what do you do? Do you give up after the first couple shots, do you flip out and throw a hissy fit, do you persist and keep trying till the wee hours of the morning (coffee helps), or do you get someone else to do it? I guess a true test of character is what happens when no one is around… Guess which one of the above I did? Well I did them all, except give up. My boyfriend is quite aware of my temper tantrums when I try, try, try and can’t get it right and he’s always right there to console me. Gotta love that stand-by-you attitude!

So here’s the new WordPress theme I grabbed from Add New Themes. Someone else made it and I’m greatful they did.

And now here’s Brooke who was around 10 months old when these were taken. Her mother, Hannah has an aura of motherness about her that I envy. It was a great photography session. One of my favorite pictures was impromptu: the reluctant Hannah who barely agreed to get in front of the camera and her now happier than ever daughter sitting on her lap. Priceless!

Allright so this is me and my blog, having a blast, messing up CSS code (I thought I knew it — guess I don’t). Well you know what? I’m not being graded on this assignment but I do want to get it right eventually. So, thank you for your patience while I work out the kinks.

While I work ever so diligently on fixing the layout and the general styling of the blog, I’m going to post some pictures from past sessions in chronological order. These are the sessions that have turned my hobby into my passion, my love and my dream come true.

My first “job” as a photographer happened earlier this year when I was asked to take photos of my sister’s childhood friend, Ashley’s baby daugher (follow me?). Her name is Hailey. This gorgeous little chunk of delightfulness was so good throughout the entire shoot. She let her mom put her on the hot fibreglass slide (ouch!), lift her up in the air until I worked out the focus (woooo!), sit on a bench by herself (don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere!), and stand by a tree, almost naked save for her diaper (it’s not THAT hot out…is it?). All this madness turned into some pretty darn cute pictures. Those eyes! That darling little face! She will melt some hearts.

Enjoy little Hailey’s photos and thank you Ashley for starting something.