Dragon Hare Studios

Angie contacted me for family portraits after finding me through a
fundraiser for an Edmonton preschool. We met up this past weekend in
Emily Murphy Park in Edmonton to capture Angie’s family. Grandma and
Grandpa joined us too so we included them in the fun! The girls loved
this big tree so we made sure to capture a few portraits around “their
tree”!

We enjoyed meeting you Angie and I had fun playing with the girls around
their tree!!! Oh, and Alex, I found your smile too!

Donna asked me to take some family portraits of her, her husband and their
two dogs. Ron has just retired from CN so it was important to them to
have some images on the tracks. We headed out on a beautiful fall day to
Spruce Park in Mannville to capture Donna and Ron.

Donna, it was nice to finally meet you in person after chatting on the
phone so much and look Ron - I found your smile!

My children are extremely fortunate in that they have four grandparents,
one “step” grandma, and six - yes that’s right SIX great grandparents! My
kids love spending time with their Grandma’s and Poppa’s and have
identified each grandparent by the special things they get to do with them
like “Poppa on the farm” or “the grandma that does the crafts with us”. I
feel my children are truly blessed to have these people play an important
part in their lives.

I enjoy celebrating the bond between grandparents and their grand children
and what better way to hold on to those memories than to capture them with
a portrait? I had the honour of photographing “Heather and her boys” in
Spruce Park in Mannville. Young Cameron is a happy go lucky man and Mr.
Brady just preferred to keep a serious eye on us! The lady bugs were out
in full force that day and Brian gave each of the boys a lady bug to look
at. The boys were so captivated with the bugs!

Unfortunately, it was cold and windy out so the session did not last very
long but it lasted long enough to make some new memories and capture them
forever in a portrait!

Growing up in rural Alberta (big sky country), I discovered at a young age
that there is nothing more incredible or beautiful than the sky on a cold
winter’s night. The stars shine more brilliantly in the middle of winter
than any other time of the year. I remember my parents pointing out the
milky way, the north star, the dippers and my personal favorite, the
northern lights. If I stood still long enough, I could hear their dancing
across the sky. I wanted to be an astronaut growing up so that I could
fly up among the stars and touch the northern lights. Roberta Bondar was
my childhood hero - she was Canada’s first female astronaut to fly into
space aboard the shuttle.

Because of my interest in the night sky, I’ve always been fascinated by
night photography. Images of star trails, and the northern lights take my
breath away. One of my dream trips is to travel north towards the arctic
circle to photograph the northern lights.

The image below was photographed in Old Deerfield, MA. We were out
looking at Christmas lights one night with the kids. There was a
beautiful full moon out, a strong wind and light sketchy clouds. I had my
camera with me to capture some of the lights, but as always, I became more
fascinated with what was above me. I got lost in the night sky with my
camera. This exposure was 30 seconds - long enough for the stars to
appear as elongated dots and the wind to blow the clouds across the full
moon.

Breath taking isn’t it? Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me!

Brian and I absolutely love being parents. It’s the greatest job in the
world. Yes, sure its challenging, but nothing can compare to a little one
running up to you for a spontaneous hug and kiss, or hearing “I love you
Mommy”. It doesn’t matter what my day has been like, those two things can
cheer me instantly. Our house is in a constant motion with three children
running about, but when they are not here, we miss the noise and chaos
immensely.

We are extraordinarily blessed with our current crew of three, but in the
past four years, we have felt that some one was still missing from our
family circle. Our other children are all two years apart in age, and so
after four years, we’d given up hope that we’d be blessed one more
time….that is until this past February when we found out we were
fortunate enough to be blessed with another child. We were surprised,
shocked and so incredibly happy!

Our newest little addition is expected in late October and our three older
children cannot wait for him/her to arrive (and no, we really do not know
what we are having, Bri and I love the surprise of finding out “who” our
baby is on his/her’s birth day).

As the reality of being pregnant for the fourth time sets in, we will not
be scheduling any sessions in the month of October (well, except for this
little one’s newborn session!). I’m pretty active in sessions and its
getting more and more difficult for me to be jumping up and down!! I hope
to be back at it in November because I love photographing portraits way
too much to be away for too long!

Since this is a pregnancy related post, I thought I’d share a favorite
from a recent maternity session.

When I graduated from Hallmark, I was still hungry for more photography
information and challenges, I can’t seem to get enough of this passion of
mine. I decided to pursue my masters of photographic arts from the PPOC
so that I would continue to challenge myself as a photographer. One of
the requirements is that I achieve accreditations in various types of
photography. There are numerous categories - some from very specific and
some very broad. Currently, I am seeking accreditation in the portrait
and commercial categories.

As I did in Hallmark, I never stop photographing for an assignment until I
absolutely have to. I find new subjects and try again hoping to get a
stronger technical image each time. This time, I was unhappy with a few
technicalities in one of my entries. Where do you find subjects to
photograph on a rainy, cold Sunday afternoon? In their bedroom playing of
course! I convinced Kadin and Kalla to pose for me and loved this image
enough that it became an entry into my portrait accreditation. I wanted a
more serious look as I felt it suited the sepia tones of the images
better. Since I love to play, I also took some individual portraits as
well. I really love how these ones turned out.

What better way is there to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon than playing
with my family and making portraits?

I had to share two more images from Brandy’s session at the Mannville Historical Telephone Exchange Museum. I absolutely love these two images and they may have to bump Kalla from the image of the moment! Brandy, you have the most gorgeous eyes!!!! Enjoy!

We spent yesterday afternoon exploring Riley Park in Calgary with some new friends: John, Jennifer, Lola and Saffron. Riley Park is full of these amazing trees and we had fun discovering “the perfect tree” for portraits. It was a very enjoyable afternoon getting to know our new friends!

Jennifer mentioned that she loves antiques so I had fun giving these a vintage feel. Thank you John and Jennifer for allowing us to photograph your family, you have a very beautiful family!

One of the benefits of working as a commercial photographer for the past year, is that I’ve had to get really familiar, fast and creative with photoshop. One of the reasons I wanted to go to Hallmark is because this program terrified me and I knew it was essential in this digital age that I know how to use it. My job has re-enforced the skills I gained at Hallmark. I photographed this gentleman at Hallmark. He is a teacher to special needs children and he wanted to improve his health. He was overweight and had high blood pressure so he started working out to improve his health. He ended up entering a body building contest and won! His fiance was so proud of him that she called and asked me if I’d take some portraits of him. He was a really shy model but I asked him to show me some of the poses he had to do for competition and out came his game face! He looked so fierce but he was a big teddy bear! I captured this image during the session and have held on to it for over a year because I didn’t know how to process it. This weekend I experimented yet again with the image and this time, I was able to finish the image! I had this vision in my mind of what this image should look like and now I am finally able to make it work!!

I have wanted to photograph Brandy for awhile and finally got my chance last weekend. Brandy mentioned that she had some vintage clothing and I jumped at the chance to have some fun with that. My Mom suggested the perfect location - the Mannville Telephone Exchange museum that was recently renovated and brought to life by the Mannville Historical Society. The society has done an amazing job on completing the museum with authentic pieces that belonged to the woman who was the operator and lived in the building. I’d like to thank Mrs Konieczy for opening the door to the musuem for us and helping me set up the scenes! Brandy is a natural in front of the camera so it was so easy to get incredible images! We had a blast exploring the museum and photographing Brandy. Afterwards, we went across the street and used some of the exteriors of stores in Mannville to photograph Brandy in more current clothing! Thanks Brandy, we had a great time! I absolutely love your energy!