Jeff's Blog

Wedding - Amy & Adam - Calgary Wedding Photographer

2010-08-25T07:32:27Z

On August 7th, I was lucky enough to be asked to be second shooter once again for Kinga Dyrda of Images By Frost. Kinga and I drove down to Calgary on the morning of the wedding with her husband Rafal. After quickly checking into the hotel, we headed over to where Amy was preparing for the wedding.

Amy looked amazing in her dress and even though I hadn't met her up until that morning, I knew that this was going to be a fun family to be around for the whole day.

Amy's father was a funny, sweet man who was very upfront about his ability (inability) to keep his emotions in check on the day he was giving his daughter away to another man. I've met a lot of fathers of the bride over the past several years but I really felt a strong connection to Amy's Dad as I am pretty sure that, when the time comes for my own girls to get married, I will similarly be an emotional wreck too! It was obvious throughout the day that he was very proud and happy for Amy. Here are a couple of shots I caught of him trying to keep it together during the ceremony just prior to Amy and Adam being pronounced husband and wife.

I love the look Amy is giving Adam as they walk back down the aisle after just becoming husband and wife!

The reception was held at The Barn in Calgary. Amy and Adam chose everything at their reception to reflect themselves and how they met. The meal was a yummy Thai-based buffet! I LOVE Thai food! By the end of the night, everyone was having a great time on the dance floor including these two slick dancers!

Again, being the father of two young girls, the Father/Daughter dances always get to me and these two were really enjoying their dance together!

Thanks, Amy and Adam, for including me in your awesome day and especially to Kinga for asking me to come down to Calgary and shoot with her. It was a wonderful day all around!

They Made Us Proud Once Again!

2010-06-07T06:36:42Z

Yesterday, Bryna and Kailyn had their year-end dance recital with their dance studio, Dance On. The performance was held at the Dow Centre in Fort Saskatchewan and my girls treated their parents, uncles, aunt, and grandmother (as well as one of Bryna's best friends, Camryn) to a great night of dance!

The girls have put in a lot of hard work over the past several weeks to get ready for their dances and our family room has been rocking out to Pat Benatar ("Hit Me with your Best Shot"), Gia Farrell ("Hit Me Up"), Disney's "Hercules", and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow"). Over and over. And over and over again.

And I loved it! (Plus I have a new appreciation for Gia Farrell's strong voice)

The girls looked so pretty in their costumes and we loved their big smiles throughout their performances! On the way home, I just had to stop and take this shot of the girls in their costumes in a farmer's field with the sun quickly setting in the background.

And here is one with Bryna and Camryn!

GOYA Images

2010-05-31T22:22:06Z

So I notice I've been very bad at updating this blog with photography related things and so I'm going to start posting some of my favourite images from recent times.

For starters, I've been attending the Get Off Your A$$ (GOYA) shoots wth other PPOC-Alberta pro photographers for the past couple of years and they are a blast! Usually organized by Duane Franklin and Gord Scade, we hire several models and meet at a pre-determined location that offers multiple shooting opportunities. We split off into smaller groups and grab a model and head out to start shooting. This is the perfect time to try new techniques or creative ideas that you don't want to try on actual paying customers yet.

Here are a few of my fave shots from GOYAs past:

WPPI 2010: New Beginnings

2010-04-03T19:04:34Z

I wanted to blog about my trip to Las Vegas as soon as I got back from the WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) Convention but it has been so busy for me that I am only now getting the chance to sit down and do so.

As most of you know, WPPI is the largest photography convention in the world and this year it expanded even more in popularity as 14,000 photographers, including my brother Brad and I, descended on the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas for the opportunity to learn from the best in the business.

For my part, I chose to concentrate this year's learning on lighting. I went to a great masterclass (limit of 32 students) with Neil van Niekerk talking about using on-camera flash in new ways to get better lighting on the fly during a hectic wedding day.

I also had a masterclass with one of my favourite photographers, Kevin Jairaj, and he didn't disappoint with his hands-on workshop of using PocketWizards or other triggers to shoot with off-camera flash in creating more dramatic lighting in your images.

I had one more masterclass and this was with Khara Plicanic talking about the advantages of using InDesign over Photoshop (and other applications) for designing your albums and other studio materials. She has such a great energy for the subject and has been helpful to me via email whenever I have questions.

One of the highlights for sure was attending the Scott Robert Lim party at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. We had been lucky enough to see Scott in Edmonton for our PPOC-Alberta annual convention the week before Vegas and he was very inspiring. We were then able to make some great connections with Scott at his party and with a number of photographers from around the U.S. and Canada. We ended up closing down the party and heading back to the MGM at 5:45am!

This year I decided to take in at least one show and saw the Cirque du Soleil show, Ka. It was truly amazing and I was so thankful I decided to spend the money and see it. The rotating stage was breathtaking as were most of the stunts that were performed on it! I highly recommend this show!

We also took the drive over to see the Hoover Dam and marvel and the grandeur of this man-made wonder. I love a bunch of the shots I took there! We went on the mini-tour down into the bowels of the Dam but I wasn't thrilled with that so much. But overall, I am also glad we decided to take it in the Hoover Dam as well.

But the ultimate best thing that happened in Vegas (and won't stay in Vegas) is the amazing connection I made with the only other Edmonton photographer I knew of at WPPI this year. Kinga Dyrda, and her husband Rafal, have proven to be a couple of the nicest down to earth persons I have ever met. I instantly felt like I've known them for years. We ended up spending most of our waking hours together the entire trip and I had a blast. Kinga has an infectious drive to better herself as a photographer and I feel so lucky to have met her, to be able to call her a friend, and to share in our learning experiences!

Definitely one of my favourite weeks as a photographer so far! I can't wait to see where events take me from here!

Nikki & Scott's Wedding Album

2009-12-08T20:17:36Z

I really got to know my friendly neighbourhood FedEx delivery man as it was a whirlwind of courier deliveries over the past couple of weeks. I received 4 Graphistudio wedding albums back to back to back over about 8 days. Once I got the orders into Graphistudio's system, it really did not take long to get them created and then shipped to my door in Canada. Great turnaround times, even at their Christmas rush deadline!

Graphistudio, as I mentioned in a previous post, is an album design and print company based in Italy and their handcrafted Wedding Books are simply wonderful for their quality and style. I could not be happier with choosing to go with Graphistudio as my album supplier.

You can check out Nikki & Scott's album design below. I am really excited how this album turned out and the final printed product looks even more amazing!

Fun Wedding Video

2009-12-08T05:25:57Z

Arlene and I got a huge chuckle when we watched this video tonight. I saw it on the site of another Edmonton wedding photographer's blog, Bruce Clarke. I found his blog after listening to my fave podcast, "This Week in Photography" (TWIP), where he was the guest host a couple of weeks ago. You can listen to the TWIP podcast free on iTunes.

As he mentions in his blog entry, this must have be a blast of a wedding to attend! Enjoy!

Brian & Eileen's Wedding Music Video. from LOCKDOWN projects on Vimeo.

Wedding - Scott & Nikki

2009-09-24T07:20:05Z

This wedding has to rank up there with one of the best weddings I've ever had the pleasure of photographing, for many reasons. Scott and Nikki have got to be two of the most genuine, kind, and wonderful people in the world. I loved hanging out with them the entire day, as did my second shooters that day, Jackie Hutchinson and my brother Brad. This was the first wedding I have been able to shoot with my brother so that was a great experience as well.

Scott is my wife Arlene's cousin so there is the family connection. I got to enjoy the day from both sides...as a shooter and as family. It was pretty cool to be snapping away and look over and see my two daughters smiling from their table as Daddy did his work!

After the girls and guys finished getting ready in the morning, Scott and Nikki chose to see each other before the ceremony and we arranged for Nikki to "sneak up" on Scott in a beautiful pathway that had a great canopy of trees covering the path. We battled the rain a little bit then and for most of the day but it never dampened the fun we all had.

After the ceremony at the Derrick Golf and Winter Club, we got to visit a wonderful downtown restaurant called Characters for drinks and pics. The staff there were very kind in letting us hang out for a little while, even though they were between the lunch and dinner service and not really open for business. They even went so far as to open up their downstairs rooms so we could take some awesome images of Scott and Nikki while the bridal party relaxed upstairs.

Good luck with law school and living in Calgary, Scott and Nikki!

Sports-Delwood Strength Challenge

2009-09-13T05:02:16Z

This afternoon, I was asked to take photos of the Delwood Strength Challenge strongman competition at the Delwood Community 3rd Annual Fall Festival. These guys are tough! I can't imagine putting the body through such feats of strength for just one of those events, let alone five events on a hot (29 Celcius!) day on black ashphalt.

One of the things that was really noticeable to me was the great camaraderie among the competitors. Time and again you would see a competitor jump up, no matter how tired from their own attempts, to push on their competitor, to help will them to complete the event. There was no hoping someone would fail so that they could finish higher in the rankings, only pushing one another to help be the best they could be. Very impressive!

First up...the Max Viking Press.

Then came the Car Deadlifts. Most competitors could only manage one or two but a couple banged out over ten lifts.

Next was the Hand Over Hand (truck) pull.

For me, I was really amazed watching the next event, the Stone Lifts. These things weighted something like 225 pounds up to around 300 pounds. They had to lift these round objects off the ground and then place them up on top of a table. Some of the guys were able to get through 3 of the 4 stones, which was incredible!

The last event I think was called the Fireman Relay. The competitors had to first carry two very heavy tanks over a set distance, carry an incredibly heavy (and apparently akward) yoke the same distance, and end with 3 flips of a huge tire. Oh, and you had to do it within a set time. I sure felt their pain as they completed this one!

The guy in the last three photos turned about to be the overall winner for the day. Congratulations, Chris!

And one last image which is probably one of my favourites from the entire day. These guys are definitely not too big to share a tender moment....

Iona and Ryan's Wedding

2008-10-14T09:45:31Z

Iona and Ryan are two friends I've worked with for the past several years. I had lots of fun chatting with Iona over the past year, discussing her wedding plans and the trials and tribulations that come along as well. It all worked out in the end and it turned out to be a beautiful wedding all around!

Thanks for including me in your day, guys!

Iona and Ryan chose to have their pictures done before the ceremony. We arranged for Iona to be standing at the top of their staircase when Ryan came into the front hallway for his first look at his bride-to-be.

We then headed over to Iona's family farm...what a great location for shooting wedding formals!

The farm has a number of old rusted cars that we used in the photos for great backgrounds.

The ceremony was held at Country Lodge just on the outskirts of the city to the north of Edmonton.

We then headed outside for family and bridal party shots.

Five Headed Ryan!!!

After dinner, Iona's father gave an unexpectedly funny and very well-received speech, explaining the origin of Iona's name.

The wedding cake was made by one of the bridesmaids and turned out awesome! One of my favourite cakes this wedding season!

Christine and Brent's Wedding

2008-04-29T09:17:02Z

I had a great time photographing Christine and Brent for their wedding April 26th. I've worked with Christine for close to 20 years and I've also worked many years with a couple of her bridesmaids. These are just a couple images from the wedding held at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and the reception at the Shaw Convention Centre.

Thanks, Christine and Brent, for letting me take your pics and hang out with you!