Summit of Wedding Photography - Monday

Here are some of the best from Monday's session. The models - Shawna, Rob and Karyn - were fantastic.

Exhausting Week

For the pst eek all I've been doing is living and breathing photography, with a lot of travel mixed in.

Starting last weekend I travelled down to Banff, Alberta, to attend a wedding photography workshop put on by two wonderful photographers - Edward Ross and Bill Marsh. Edward and I belong to an online photography forum together, while Bill and I encountered each other at the Calgary Stampede a number of years ago.
Bill is the official photographer for the Stampede, while I was shooting photos for a newspaper I used to work for in Meadow Lake, Sask. A number of the chuckwagon drivers in the Rangeland Derby are from that corner of Saskatchewan.

It was a great time spent with inspiring people mainly from the Calgary area, but we did have one photographer from the U.S. as well as photographer/model Karyn Kimberley from Saskatoon.

It was three intense days of shooting.
Bill's wife Shawna stood in as a model as well, along with Edward's assistant Rob and Karyn's boyfriend Preston. On Wednesday, we were also joined by the talented René Michaud from Bliss Photographic in Calgary and his cousin, Carmen. They were good sports.

Then I drove through a blizzard on Wednesday night to Edmonton to catch a flight to Dallas on Thursday morning. It was a little hair raising at times but I made it.
For the past three days I've been shooting with a lot of wonderful photographers from Texas and the very talented photographers from TriCoast Photography - Mike Fulton, Cody Clinton and Jordan Chan.
Mainly we were working on wireless off camera flash techniques and I'm excited to incorporate this into my shooting style. Plus, I love how they all kept calling me "Miss Canada" in their Texas drawls.... made me feel as though I was in a beauty pageant.

I'm going to break this post up in several parts so I can fit lots of images on. I was hoping to do a slideshow and that still might happen... Enjoy!

Natasha & Andrew's Engagement Session

Natasha and Andrew are planning a July wedding, so when we were talking about doing their engagement photos it was decided that it would be nice to have some winter pictures. Of course, the weather in Fort McMurray can be a little unpredictable at time, but usually you can count on it being cold.
However, Natasha really wanted to put a photo on their invitation so we got together back in December for a very quick shoot. The image above was taken during that session at about -14C.

Luckily it was much warmer when we got together in March for more of a full session. They were great and brough out their snowmobile so we could get to some areas that might have been a little more inacessible.

Thanks for a great afternoon and I'm looking forward to the wedding in July!

Ann-Marie & Shane Maternity Session

Ann-Marie and Shane were a wonderful couple who are expecting a double blessing with the arrival of their twins - a boy and a girl. Ann-Marie was seven months pregnant and wanted to be sure to get some maternity photos done to capture this special time.

I won't be posting as many photos as I might usually in a blog post because they happened to do quite a few that I would consider "for their eyes only." This is a popular theme among many of my clients who want to celebrate how beautiful they feel while pregnant. As an extension of my boudoir photography, I love how women are willing to celebrate the beauty they have both inside and out.

Congratulations to you both and good luck with your future little ones.

Playing catchup

It's been a while since I posted to the blog and I've been meaning to be more diligent, but it's almost the end of the semester and school work seems to be occupying a lot of my time lately.
Luckily I'll be finished this week with my semester being capped off by the 2nd Year Art Student's Exhibit at the Keyano Art Gallery. Using a randomizer we came up with the unusual name Art Elixir and the Smell of the Crystal.

So... if you're in Fort McMurray and not doing anything on April 17 around 7 p.m. drop by the gallery, below Keyano Theatre, for some free beverages (alcoholic and non) as well as some munchies and then check out some of our art.

On top of that, I'm trying to get as much stuff wrapped up as I can before next weekend because then my learning starts all over again.
I'm hitting the road on April 18 on my way down south to attend a wedding photography workshop in Banff on April 19-23. It's being put on by two fantastic wedding photographers from the Calgary area, Edward Ross and Bill Marsh.
Although, I'm skipping out the morning of the 23 to jet off to Dallas, Texas, where I'm going to be attending another workshop with the talented photographers from Tri-Coast Photography, who are inarguably some of the most talented fellows when it comes to off-camera flash techniques.

I'll be returning to Fort McMurray in early May - just in time for the Fort McMurray Trade Show.
Come visit me at the Trade Show on May 8-10 at the Syncrude Sports & Wellness Centre.

And, now on with the show.