Summer Evening Light :: Kitchener Family Photographer

There is nothing more gorgeous than evening light in the dying days of summer. Rich, warm and bright, it is every photographer's ideal.  As the nights become cooler and the leaves prepare to turn, that beautiful light reminds me that summer is not yet ready to let go of her magic. I headed out on a beautiful, though slightly windy evening to take some family portraits for my dear friend, Jaime, and her beautiful family.  I have known Jaime since Grade 3 and we made it all the way through high school together.  Needless to say, we have plenty of great times to reminisce about every time we ge together, which is usually one evening a week for a rousing game of Boggle (yes, Boggle is exciting for us!).

I am lucky to have such great friends.

This charmer is little Miss Rachel, who recently celebrated her first birthday!  We took some time to get a few extra shots in honour of her big milestone.

Her big sister Sophie also celebrated her birthday a couple of weeks ago, turning three!  She is exceptionally bright and inquisitive for her age and certainly keeps her parents on their toes!

One Hour Photo #3 :: Kitchener Children's Photographer

Hair is my nemesis.  This may sound a bit extreme, but I can assure you, it is true.  Cursed (or blessed, according to everyone else) with extremely curly hair, I have battled my hair for the last twenty-five years in a desperate struggle for manageability.  It corkscrews, tangles, poofs, frizzes and requires frequent attacks with the stylist's thinning shears.  When I had my girls, I worried that they might face the same trials, especially when their little toddler curls appeared. Fortunately, they both have straight-ish hair with some minor curling and waving.  My oldest, Brielle, has extremely thick hair, with a straight layer on the surface and a curly  layer underneath, forcing me to now do battle twice daily, once with my own hair and once with hers.  She is not exactly cooperative, yet another reason that hair is my nemesis.

My youngest, Emery, somehow ended up with fairly thin, easy-to-brush hair.  Since my husband comes from a long line of bristle-haired heads, we are not sure what happened to give her such fine hair.  Don't worry, she does have a reason to make her hair my nemesis too.  I like to call it the rat tail, the low hawk, or the undercover mullet.  Basically, the hair in back of her head grows at three times the rate of the sides, so she always ends up with this long straggly bit at the back.  I can brush it out beautifully, and it looks okay, but within five minutes it has sort of clumped together to reform the hideous rat tail that looks like it belongs on a street urchin.  Are there really street urchins anymore?  Hmm, that is a whole other post...

School is just around the corner, and usually I take the girls for a fresh haircut at the end of the summer.  But last night, after brushing Emery's hair for the millionth time in a pointless attack against the low hawk, I decided I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore.  I bathed her, sat on her on the kitchen counter and cut off the offending hair.  Ahh, that looks so much better.

Sort of.  Maybe I should have waited for the pros to handle it?  I think I left enough to work with?  Oh well, it will grow back, right?

This morning, is the glaring light of day, it seems my trim was perhaps a bit hasty, not entirely even and frankly a bit of a hack job.  But Emery thinks she looks fab and even offered to pose for a picture (without a bribe!!).  So here it is, not from the back because I wouldn't want to offend any hairstylists out there, but from the front, where her beautiful face can distract the viewer!  LOL

This image took 32 minutes, including processing.  She ran away after a couple of snaps or it would have been longer!

Mandy

Family Love : : Kitchener Family Photographer

I met this lovely little family on a hot, humid Sunday evening for a session at a nearby walking trail.   Mike and Nikki are actually one of my bridal couples for this August and instead of a traditional engagement shoot they opted for a family session.  Their adorable daughter and their pup joined us and we headed out to brave the heat and the bugs! They were so great to work with, so relaxed and easy-going and willing to help lug around my gear.  I know that their wedding in Niagara-on-the-Lake will be absolutely fantastic.  Thanks Nikki, Mike, Maddy Lou and Jersey for being such great sports and for being such a beautiful family, inside and out!

10+ Comments will earn this family a special gift!

Summer Day : : Kitchener Family Photographer

Yesterday we spent the day at a local tourist getaway, Valens Conservation Area.  Located between Hamilton and Cambridge, it has a small beach, lots of camping sites, barbeque pits and hiking trails galore.  The perfect place to spend a gorgeous summer day. We were invited by my best friend, who was camping with her godson and friends, to come out for the day to enjoy the conservation area's natural beauty.  So we packed a lunch, grabbed our swimsuits, bug spray and sunscreen and jumped into Vannicus Maximus (my name for our minivan).  Needless to say, we had a fantastic day swimming, hiking, fishing and enjoying camping life.  A campfire and S'mores rounded out the day and we climbed back into the van for the voyage back to reality, sunburned, dirty and gleefully bone-tired.

One Hour Photo # 2 : : Kitchener Children's Photographer

I really loved the challenge of One Hour Photo the last time I tried it out.  It is a great way to force myself be creative and organized in a short span of time.  This time around, I had a bit of extra time, so I decided that I would attempt to imclude my post-processing time in the hour! My girls had been at the sitter's and were running through the sprinkler nearly all day long.  They were soaked, in their undies (because I forgot to send swimsuits), covered in grass and other undetermined debris,  and I sent them straight to the bathtub when they stepped through the door.  I decided it was the perfect chance to get some images, since usually they are in the tub at night and the light is atrocious.  Every time I try to get pictures of them in the tub they are too grainy and blurry to even try to process.  This is because we have an older home and our tub is not a lovely reflective white.  Oh no, it is urine yellow with black accents, as are the walls, counter, toilet, sink.  It even has a lovely tropical flamingo mural to enjoy while you are sudsing-up!  Not the easiest environment to get nice images.  But that is a whole other post...

I really wanted to get a candid shot of the girls together in the tub, but my little darlings, who I can't usually convince to look directly at the camera, insisted on posing and mugging like crazy.  Sigh.  Finally I decided I was going to have to take what I could get and just let them look at me.  The resulting image was my favourite of the whole shoot.  I just love the angle, the framing and their expressions.  I think I might even enlarge it and put it in the hall outside the bathroom (because the bathroom walls are covered in huge, impenetrable,  formica tiles).

Here is the image, entitled Tub Time.

After I got the girls out of the tub, dried and into fresh clothes.  I went to let out the water in the tub.  They had left their toys  behind and I couldn't resist snapping a shot.  I have entitled this image Secret Synchro Practice.

Just for the record, I completed this round of One Hour Photo in exactly 53 minutes and 13 seconds, including processing for both images! Ta-da!!!

Canada Day at the Cottage : : Tobermory Family Photographer

My family is the kind of family who actually like to vacation together.  Weird, right?  We enjoy each other's company, we love to play games and cards and we cherish every moment we spend creating new memories. Tobermory, on the tip of the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, has long been our destination of choice for a summer getaway.  In fact, my mom has been going since she was a child and my parents honeymooned there!  About 14 years ago my parents invested in a cottage and we have spent countless summer hours enjoying the peace and breathtaking beauty of our little log cabin.  Purchased from a retired school marm, it was sold to us fillled to the brim with furniture, dishes, decor and various oddities and art.  We kept much of the kitsch, just to maintain the cottage atmosphere...we are firm believers that a cottage should be the bare essentials and tacky decor , not a second home!

As the years have passed, we have made it a family tradition for everybody to load into the car for the three hour drive up Highway 6 to our little haven to celebrate Canada Day.  Some years we had up to 21 people and 4 dogs, all crammed into a cottage (with a separate "bunkie") that sleeps a maximum of 7 at best!  It was not unusual to have to step over numerous bodies on the way to the bathroom in the morning.

However, now that my parents are getting older and the family is growing as more babies are born, there is an unspoken understanding that the Canada Day weekend is now reserved for only my parents, me, my girls and hubby and my brother.  Sometimes my Grandma joins us too.  It feels so good to have our little group together, enjoying books, swimming (if you are crazy enough to jump in when it's only 56 degrees Fahrenheit!) and eating.  We love watching from our front deck as fireworks explode in the sky, holding our collective breath as my girls scramble over the rocks with expert balance and coordination, the dog swimming and chasing ducks that stray too close, breakfast cooked solely on the BBQ and talking and reading late into the night, with a sure promise of an afternoon nap the next day.  Cottage life is the best!

Here is a collection of images from this past Canada weekend that represent my family and our cottage.  Here's to many happy memories yet to be made!

1.  Wildflower bouquet  2. Kitschy lamps  3.  My girlies  4.  Mom  5. Dad  6.  Fire for roasting marshmallows  7.  Nightly rituals  8. Ben  9.  Old School doors  10.  Photos of the cottage from the '70s  11. Carl and Brielle  12. Fireworks!  13.  My favourite seagull mobile (they are two!)  14. Rustic chairs with well-used cushions  15. Games cupboard  16. My favourite painting, love the mood  17. Bathroom sign...classy  18.  Cottage clutter creates atmosphere  19. The official name of our cottage  20. The bunkie  21. Grandma 22. Emery making pancakes  23. Me!  24.  My favourite view when reading  25.  Happy Canada Day!

One Hour Photo

One of my favourite photographers to check out for inspiration and new ideas is Brandy Anderson of Fresh Sugar Photography.   She is based in Calgary and creates stunning child and family portraits.  She recently posted on her blog that she was going to attempt to complete an image (including brainstorming, model-rangling, light-finding and image-snapping) in just one hour and included her first attempts, which are some gorgeous images of her girls. I thought it would be fun to try this little challenge, if for no other reason than my only willing (well, mostly willing but mainly bribed) subjects are my own girls, and getting an hour of shoot time out of them is a miracle!  Not straying too far from Brandy's idea, I headed out to the backyard with my girls and gave myself an hour from start to finish.  As usual, the first five minutes were fine, and then chaos began to reign.

My oldest, Brielle is usually pretty good at taking some direction and listening, but she had a case of the giggles, so I just kept snapping away, hoping for something where her face wasn't completely goofy.  I was standing awkwardly on the top of the playcentre, which she found hysterical and kept asking if I was going to slide down the fireman's pole to get down (the answer is NO.)

Meanwhile, my youngest, Emery managed to strip herself naked and was careening around the driveway at a pace that would surely result in the eventual need for several Band-Aids.  I had to abandon my giggle girl to get control of my little exhibitionist before my hour ended in tears or a hospital visit.

I managed to corral her in the garage (Brandy was right, great light in there) where she got her underwear back on (backwards, of course) and let me brush the grass out of her hair (not sure where it came from) and we got situated.  I'm not gonna lie, the idea for the image of Emery is exactly the same concept as Brandy used, but I used a different angle for a new perspective, and to try to get a shot of her great lashes (they must be from my hubby, my eyelids are practically bald!).

So, here is my first attempt at One Hour Photo.  Thanks again Brandy for the great idea!

52 Weeks - Week 22

Here are a couple of images from this week that I took of my girls.  They only cooperate for so long and rewards don't seem to be working as well as they used to...I guess they have finally wised up to my games.  Oh well, at least they will never be able to say that there are no pictures them when they grow up!

Sophia

This little miss was very cooperative during her session, sleeping the whole time and never fussing as I positioned and repositioned her.  Her only form of protest was to poop on every backdrop blanket I brought!  Oh well, just add it to the other piles of laundry at my house! Thanks to Don, Kathy and Nathalie for letting me photograph your precious angel.

Little Miss Paula

There has been a spring baby boom around here!  I love seeing all these new little babes born in the spring, as the world blossoms around them. My session with Miss Paula was an eventful one, with lots of stubborn eye-opening and squirming, peeing and nursing, but I managed to get a few precious shots of her, and even a couple of her proud new big brother (though not together, unfortunately!). 

Thanks Julia, Gerry and Declan for letting me capture (and snuggle) your new little princess.

52 Weeks - Week 17

This week I put together a little collage of one of my favourite activites with my girls - pedicure night.  About once a month I set up a mini-pedicure at home, where I soak and massage their feet and then trim and paint their nails.  They love it (of course) and it gives me a reason and chance to do some  nail care without any argument.  Sometime I do their fingernails too, but with one nail-biter and one who sucks her fingers occasionally, I prefer to keep the nail polish out of their bellies! This time, I went a step further, with a mini-studio set-up, including a book rack with a selection of their faves, lemonade (sugar-free) to sip, and new Webkinz puppies waiting to be their spa companions.  I just felt like after a long winter, they needed a little extra special pampering in readiness for spring and flip-flop season!

As you can imagine, it is pretty trick to get shots while massaging, polishing and keeping them still,  but I snapped a couple and put them together for this week's post.  Here is the image, entitled Pampered Princesses.

Now, if only I could get them to do this for me! LOL

 

Mr. Roan

Here are few of my favourites from a recent newborn session.  Mr. Roan is nearly three weeks old and absolutely squishable!  His mom is a friend of a friend and was kind enough to let me come over and snap some shots of Roan for my newborn portfolio.  This little guy was so great, wide awake for the whole  two hours I was there, and totally relaxed while I swaddled, posed and snuggled him.  It was nice to get some wide-eyed shots, since they can be a rare commodity with newborns.  He was great at making eye contact (already!) which made for some really cute images.  Of course, he fell sound asleep five minutes before I walked out the door, but such is the life of a newborn!   

Thanks again Dawn (and Mahesh) for letting me capture some beautiful images of your little man!

52 Weeks - Week 16

This week , rather than a self-portrait, I decided to take some images that represented the part of my day that is my favourite - supper time.  When I was growing up, my dad worked long hours, but my mom was always home to serve us supper and to sit at the table with us each night.  It was the time of the day when we talked about what was going on, in our individual lives and as a family.  I have very fond memories of these conversations, and of course, the food that was at the centre of them.  I come from a long line of fantastic cooks, and my own recipe box is overflowing with handwritten recipes from my grandmas.  I love to cook and I love to prepare meals for my family every night. 

However, I realized a while ago that the tradition of the family meal had gotten lost in our home.  With my husband and I working, the girls' after-school activites and just life in general, our mealtime had become totallydisjointed,  with the kids eating in front of the TV, me scarfing down my meal alone, after the kids were done and my hubby eating whenever he got home.  I made the decision that this had to change!

So now we make the effort to sit down every night and having our meal TOGETHER!  I ask the girls about their day, talk about the food we are eating and just generally have a nice family meal.  It is amazing how many more stories I hear about their day when I am listening (LOL)!  My girls also love to help prepare the meal and I let them get in on the action whenever I can...but I stay well clear of my 6-year-old when she is wielding a paring knife!

So here is my image for the week , of a meal that we had earlier this week.  I got the corn on the cob as a treat, since it is not yet in season and we added ice cream to the strawberries for dessert!  Yum.... 

Manulife Family Day at KWAG

Manulife is currently sponsoring an exhibit at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, and to encourage more culture among its employees (whom they force to sit in grey cubicles in a grey building staring at grey computers all day, and thus are going slowly colour blind), they offered a free family day at the gallery.  My hubby got the invite at work and we signed up to take the girls for an art adventure. We had a fantastic time, making clay bugs, painting portraits (well, the girls were more abstract, but fun nonetheless), designing buttons and creating finger puppets.  In the end, we had a large collection of colourful art and lots of great memories.  I took some shots as we made our way through the different galleries and activities, though not as many as usual, since I was busy feeding another creative outlet with art! 

Here is a collage of images from the day.  I realized, as I put it together, that I once again managed to forget put myself  in the photos, but as I said, I was too busy having fun and making art!

Family Photos (or "The best we can get while my kids are standing still").

So yesterday, with the advent of some lovely warm weather and four fresh haricuts, I decided to attempt some family portraits.  Big mistake.  Firstly, I chose the wrong type of light.  The sun was too high for backlight, and was mostly in our eyes.  I just got so excited that there was sun, I just didn't take the time to plan timing, location, lighting conditions, etc.  I know, I know, what a rookie mistake!  Thanks goodness they are only for me!  Secondly, I chose the wrong location.  It is a forest near our house that I have had good succes with for some previuous shoots (as well as great hikes).  However, I didn't anticipate how muddy and slippery our adventure would be.  Well, actually, I did anticipate it, but shooting fever swept me into deep denial.  Not to  mention, there was no open shade in this lovely forest, just a deadly combination of a million tree branches and low sun.  This equals a bazillion shadows on our faces and  it forced us to duck, dodge and squat to avoid some of the worst shadows,  especially me!  Needless to say, moving is painful today.

Thirdly, I had two little girls, who love mud, traipsing around in white shirts and new ballet flats.  Enough said, I am clearly insane.

So after begging, bribing, swearing in my head, running to beat the self-timer (at least ten times), misplacing my tripod, a toad scare ( the damn thing jumped right on my foot!  I love toads but not by surprise) and a treacherous hike in and out of the woods, I ended up with a few nice shots of the girls and ONE of the family.  That's right, ONE.  Sigh.  I guess we will have to do this all over again...but not anytime soon.

(Please excuse the inconstent editing styles.  They are just for me so I had some fun playing!)

Okay, This last one is unedited, right-out-of-the-camera,  but I think it captures the essence of what we went through to get these images.   

Our Newest Family Member

This adorable little miss is the daughter of my husband's cousin and his wife, who happens to be my long-time friend.  She is a very welcome addition to the Blake family and I was in my glory being able to squish and kiss her throughout our session and visit.  Here is a sneak peek for the family.  Thank you Ricki, Kevin and Rubylynn for letting me capture your little princess.  Love you baby Vanessa!

Adorable Cousins

The winter blahs are in full swing over here at MBP and I am going stir-crazy!  I need to get out and shoot, but really, who wants pictures in a landscape that is comprised of grey-brown snowbanks and yellow grass and naked trees?  Nonetheless, I put the call out on Facebook to see if anyone would be kind enough to indulge my need for shutter speed and thankfully, I got a response! My friend Lara and her twin sister Tara have been kind enough in the past to let me photograph their little duts and were up for the challenge again.  We all headed to our local city hall for an impromptu session, me armed with my camera and a package of Skittles and they with armloads of adorable clothes.

Little Miss Ava and Mister Nate were absolutely fantastic (as usual) and we got some great images!  Here is a sneak peek for you, ladies, since I know you are anxious to see what we got!

Summer Dreams

I just thought I would share this image of my daughter Brielle enjoying some "inside sunshine".  It was -9 degrees outside but the sun was shining bright.  The next thing I knew there was a towel spread, a bikini and sunglasses donned and a plate of snacks being nibbled.  Nothing like a indoor winter picnic to make your summer dreams come true!

Baby Samuel

This absolutely gorgeous baby boy is only 9 days old, my youngest newborn so far!  His parents are wonderful, long time friends of mine and were kind enough to invite me to take some shots of this cutie.  The youngest of four boys, he is well loved and already very used to noise and commotion.  He was such a little trooper through the whole session, despite my insistence on trying to untangled his limbs, forcing him to be naked and several breaks for snuggles (from me, of course!).  On top of it all, I was talking shop with his Dad, who is learning photography as well,  so the session lasted a little longer than usual.  Such is the life of an adorable baby. 

Thanks Sarah and Jason for allowing me to capture these images of your precious little man.

And yes, I know I have two different watermarks on these images! Just trying things out to see whatIi like the best.

Winter Mini Sessions

Brave the cold for some beautiful images in a snowy, winter wonderland!  Take advantage of these glorious winter days with a 30 minute mini session.  A limited number of sessions will be available on weekends between January 22 and March 5, 2011 (dependent upon weather and previously booked sessions).  Contact me at info@mandyblakephotography.com to book your session now!