Category Archives: Uncategorized

Last year marked our first ever real family vacation. Yes, we’ve taken holidays before together, but usually just to my hometown, or maybe a 2 day getaway.  We had such a great time in Savannah, Georgia last year, that we are going to try to make this an annual thing. This Easter break, we headed for the San Francisco bay area. We only spent a few days in San Francisco, and the rest was all over the place. Sonoma and Napa, the west coast driving up Mount Tamalpais and down the coastal highway, the Muir woods (home to those huge, old redwoods,) Berkeley and of course Alcatraz.  We had a great time, but with the crazy traffic (we rented a car), it was nice to get back to the quiet Saskatchewan highways.  Rather than dealing with 6 or more lanes of traffic, and having to listen to our annoying GPS lady,  we were welcomed back into Regina, where there was barely another vehicle on the road on our way home.

On the gallery below, you can click on an image, and it will pop up and you can flip through them larger. I realize most people already know that, but I hadn’t done any of these galleries on the blog yet, so I figured I’d mention it

If you’ve been following this blog on a regular basis, you might remember me mentioning the movement Live58.  Every month they pick a country and a project to donate funds to.  This past month the goal was to raise $15, 000 to build or fix wells in Haiti. I had committed to donating $5 from every session I shot in month, and then I matched that amount. I had 17 sessions in march, so in total, $175.00 was donated. I forgot to tell people when they came that I was doing this, so if you came for a session in march, you helped out some Haitians in need!  Thank you so much   My friend had visited Haiti a few months ago, and he said the poverty there was unfathomable.  He said that without seeing if firsthand, you just can’t imagine the state of the country. He said the people were very hard workers, but that they just had so little resources to work with. Fixing wells and building new ones is just one step being taken to try and restore the country and it’s people.

Here’s a little write up about Haiti taken from the Live58 site.

Haiti

Safe Drinking Water

Everything begins with water. Safe drinking water is the foundation for all forms of development. It is essential for good health and child survival. A local source of safe drinking water prevents women and children from walking long distances to fetch water and allows them to attend school and devote time to family and economic activity.

Helping communities acquire safe drinking water is the best first intervention anywhere it is lacking, but Living Water International would not be satisfied to stop at that. The reason we do what we do is to demonstrate God’s love and help others experience “living water”—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

884 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water. The problem can seem insurmountable, but 7 in 8 of us do have safe water to drink and together we can end this crisis. We have 884 million chances to offer someone safe, clean drinking water in Jesus’ name. Join us.

A fellow photographer had this sizing chart posted on their facebook page, and I thought I’d share it. Some people have a hard time trying to figure out what size they want when ordering prints. There’s a misconception that a 16 x 20 is really big. Not so. They’re actually fairly small once you put them on a wall. The other thing people sometimes worry about it putting a larger family image on the wall. I’ve heard the comment that it’s only going to have to be replaced in a few years, so why get a big print? To me that’s exactly why you SHOULD get a big one! Your family is only going to be at this stage once, so capture it and display it!  I used to have the same mentality, but after getting a 40 x 36 canvas of my boys three years ago, I would say it’s a great investment. Yes, I’ll eventually take it down, but I love seeing it as the focal point in my kitchen, every time I walk in.  I know lots of people who buy really large pieces of art from Home Sense and don’t think twice about the size. And those images will eventually go out of style and be replaced, but your family print, even once it comes down, will be something that you will cherish for your entire lifetime. It will get dated as well, but it will always carry more fond memories than something you picked up at a department store to fill an empty spot on the wall.

Yes, I have an ugly kitchen table. Please don’t judge me!  If anyone knows where I can get a really cool, rugged, dark wood table that would go with my antique bureau, let me know!

Every year I attend the Ft. Qu’appelle Job Fair for the grade 11 students in our school division. I speak about the life of a photographer, and I always make a short slideshow to start off the presentation.  Here’s this year’s Sorry it’s just a link, but with this new blog, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post the actual visual link to the youtube clip. Just click on the picture to link to youtube.

2011 Paper Moon Photography Highlights

Shanelle is another one of those grad students that I’ve been photographing for years, through school, dance, etc.  We had a great time last week experimenting a little bit, getting a little crazy in the big puddles, and just generally goofing around. Thanks for letting me play around a bit!

I really love shooting in the winter. I don’t always get a ton of time to do it though, since before Christmas is so crazy with editing and orders, and January I always take off for catching up on stuff I don’t get to any other time during the year. February is mosty sports teams and cap & gown pictures, but now that March has hit, I have a number of grad sessions lined up. Here was the first one