2008!!!

2007 has overall been an incredible year. I've always been very lucky in that I've had so many amazing couples that I've worked with (and not a single bridezilla :) Between all of you, your wedding parties, and your families, I've met some wonderful people and I can't wait to see what 2008 will bring!!

One of my many goals for the new year is to be much more 'green', both in my personal life and with my business. We've always been pretty conscious about our impact on the environment, but I would really like to increase my efforts for 2008. One of the books I bought to read on our trip next month (that's another of my resolutions, to find more time to read!) is the "Hundred Mile Diet", which from what I've heard is about only buying food that was grown within a 100 mile radius to reduce impacts from importing and to support local businesses, etc. So hopefully that will also give me more ideas about what I can do!

I wish everyone all the best in the new year..

Holiday Project

My project for the holidays is a new fine art site.. here's a Christmassy preview:

Happy Holidays!

We went ice skating last night, for a fun winter activity.. I admit I took a good fall while goofing off and trying to do a 'spin' :P I think the last time I went skating was back in high school when I'd go to the 'teen skate' with all my friends and they would turn down the lights, the disco ball would be on and they'd play loud music while everyone skated.. so fun..

another thing I would love to try this winter is snowshoeing, I've never done it but have always wanted to....

I hope everyone has a wonderful holidays.. family, friends, tasty food.. enjoy it all!

-Alana

new toys!

I just picked up a couple new lenses today, the 50mm 1.4 and the 28mm 2.8.. I can't wait to use them! In the meantime I took some photos around here just for fun..

I love prime lenses because they're SO fast and sharp and they really let me move around and be creative.. Also I'm going to Asia soon and I know that wandering around with my big zoom lenses will just scream 'rob me'!..

Brayden

I just LOVE photographing babies! Brayden has just started to discover his toes and kept himself quite happy playing with them throughout our session!

Dekker

my sweet puppy :)

BIG!!

of course I wait till the end of the wedding season to figure out how to make photos bigger on the blog.. lol.. next year they will ALL be big like this :)

Get-together

Last night there was a get-together at Blue Olive for wedding photographers from all over the city which was a blast! Lots of drinks, tasty food, and I met a ton of great people!! I get together with other wedding photographers fairly often and always love talking shop and just getting out to socialize, so this was especially fun as there were so many of us..

Ryan, Madalyn, and Emma

What good-looking kids! Ryan, Madalyn, and Emma are also very active kids and they kept me running all over the playground throughout our session... but somehow I managed to keep up!

Joyriding..

It's time for me to get a new car. We've been looking online over the different models for a while, and whenever we're out taking Dekker for a walk we always watch out for the ones I'm interested in.. So today we went around to a few dealerships to do some test driving! It was very fun but exhausting! I'm still not completely decided but it's come down to the Honda Civic and the Honda Fit. I enjoyed driving them both and they both seem like great cars that I would be happy with, but now it's just making the decision of which....

I'm so lucky...

I would have to say that one of my MOST favourite things about being a photographer is afterwards once all the photos have already been taken and seeing just how happy I have made people! I always get giddy after meeting with a client and seeing how excited they were over their prints/albums/whatever.. Or having a mother tell me she was bawling while going through the photos of her child.. How much more fulfilling could this possibly get?!

Corinne & Bernie

We had gorgeous weather today for Corinne and Bernie's engagement session and managed to just catch the tail end of fall. We also included Bernie's sons David and Joseph and their dog Phoebe in part of the session who I thought were all quite well-behaved!





Corinne has the most incredibly blue eyes..

Alana at work!

Casey's dad, Ken, emailed me these photos yesterday from our photo session in June. Every once in a while someone will send me 'Alana at work' photos and they're always fun to see!

Hollie, Jeff & Ella

Yesterday afternoon I set out with my friend Hollie, her husband Jeff and their daughter Ella to take some family portraits and had such a great time with them. Boy did Ella kept me on my toes!



I love this little sequence of the three of them!

Dekker's Spot

Dekker has adjusted well to the move and has already found his favourite spot.. He loves to lay at the edge of the loft and watch everything that goes on downstairs!



I was talking to him while I took this last picture. I love it when he tilts his head like this as if to say "I don't understand you"

Lara & Alyssa

Generally 'destination' weddings have fewer guests in attendance since it can be difficult for many friends and family to travel for a wedding. I was amazed by how many people travelled to Lara and Alyssa's wedding. From Bellingham to Australia, every single one of Lara & Alyssa's 60 or so guests were from out of town. Lara & Alyssa themselves are from New York. But it didn't surprise me, they seem to be just the type of people that everyone would want to be friends with. You could just see the love between these two..