So far I’ve had the great pleasure of photographing not one, not two but three sets of twins for family portraits — but I have to tell you, I was particularly excited to meet this family when I heard they had five-year-old TRIPLETS. How fun is that?

Funny, though I was expecting a bit (okay, quite a bit) of chaos, these guys — and a girl! — were great! And did I mention adorable? Lookit those eyelashes!

While we spend a lot of time focusing on (pardon the pun!) the kids during a family session, it’s always nice to get a picture of just mom and dad, too. (Also, it’s much easier to focus on someone who stands still for more than three seconds.)

We tried to get a picture with the whole family and Monty, their 13 year old dog. Oh, so THIS is where that old adage comes from, “never work with dogs AND kids.” The kids were great, but the dog really was a challenge! This one never quite worked out, so it’s not exactly frameworthy — but it is a good example of why you should schedule shots like this at the beginning of a session instead of at the end. And I think it’s a very, um, real portrait.

This, on the other hand, worked out much better. See that lovely purple flowered dress that daughter C is wearing? Her mom MADE that. Mom to preschool triplets (and a dog) and she makes clothes like that. Aren’t you impressed? I am!

Thank you, M-C family, for coming out for porch portraits on a lovely day in early spring. The kids were adorable and it was lovely to work with all of you!

My openings for porch portraits this summer are already more than half full now (!!) so if you’re thinking about booking a porch portrait for your family, please contact me soon!

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I realized just the other day that every single one of my pictures last week featured flowers somehow. This week, I very nearly did it again. Hungry for colour much? The colour of the week seems to be pink, inspired largely by the lilacs and apple blossoms that my camera (and my nose!) simply can’t resist.

And of course, these two lovely girls who came for porch portraits last weekend are also pretty in pink.

I bought myself a Mother’s Day present with some of my Getty earnings and it finally arrived this week even though I’d bought it on eBay weeks before. (Argh, now I know why I don’t buy stuff from eBay more often. What a convoluted, annoying process!) I have a few favourite prime lenses, notably a 50mm f1.4 that I use almost all the time. As I found myself occasionally tripping over branches or running out of space in a room trying to “zoom with my feet”, I began to covet a decent zoom lens to upgrade the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my Nikon D40 back in the day.

Everyone seems to love and recommend the 24-70 mm f2.8 lens, but the price tag near $2K put it way out of my reach. Way. After quite a bit of searching and researching, I found a used 35-70 mm f2.8 for sale on eBay. Nikon stopped making these back in 2007 or 2008, but all the reviews I read said it was nearly equivalent to the 24-70 mm at about 1/5 the price (and it weighs less, too.) I was very leery of buying camera gear via eBay, but I lucked out. The lens arrived in perfect condition, and I love it. It’s a beast compared to my tiny little nifty fifty, but it’s a sweet lens and it has something I’ve never had before – a macro feature. So now I can get up close and personal with my lilacs!

I liked that one so much, I went back for more later in the week, and stacked on a texture, too.

(You wish Flickr had smell-o-vision for these ones. Heavenly!)

Speaking of Mother’s Day, this is how our Mother’s Day adventure in Almonte looked. (There is a blog post to be written with much more detail. Consider this a teaser.)

This is me in the grass. I spent a while thinking about how to do this one, but I’m still not sure about the self-portraits.

The caption on Flickr says it all for this one. I called it “happy”. Because I am. (And that’s a good place to be.)

Tristan is taking a few extra guitar lessons to make up for ones that had been cancelled earlier, so last night I walked him over to the music school after dinner. On the way home, I put the new lens through its paces, and came up with this – “an evening walk in Manotick.” It’s a kind of a companion piece to the collage I made almost exactly a year ago.

Here’s to wishing you a picture-perfect long weekend to launch the summer season!

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When J got in touch for porch portraits, it was early February and deep in the cold heart of winter. How could we been so lucky to have chosen from there the single most lovely day of the spring so far for portraits on the porch?

This may have been one of my easiest photography sessions ever – perfect weather, sweet and agreeable girls, and just about perfect light.

The girls are having portraits done as a gift for Father’s Day. How sweet is that? And they’ve kept the secret since February, so if you recognize them — shhhh, don’t tell Dad! (That’s why I’m blogging these out of order, because we need to get these off to the lab to make sure we make the Father’s Day deadline, but I still haven’t posted the pictures from another fun family session I did last weekend. It’s coming!)

A week or so before the session, J sent me an e-mail asking my opinion on something that I really struggle with myself: what to wear to the session. Asking my fashion advice is like taking boxing lessons from Gandhi. But, I have learned a few tricks over the years, which I shared with her – avoid big, noisy patterns, especially if they clash with each other. Complimentary colours or similar colours usually come off better than matchy-matchy. Bright white can be tough in the sunshine, especially paired with a contrasty black. It’s great if everyone has one bit of the same colour on them somewhere – maybe blue in dad’s jeans, in the piping on junior’s shirt and on mom’s scarf, for example.

J had mentioned dresses in her e-mail, but the kids showed up in t-shirts and capri pants. “You can see we didn’t bother with the dresses,” she said. “I figured this is them how they really are.” I love that! Sure, it’s fun to dress up for portraits and have those special occasions preserved, but don’t forget to capture pictures of the less formal, every-day looks too!

Aren’t they lovely? Thank you so much, girls, for a perfectly lovely day on the porch. I hope Dad loves his Father’s Day gift!

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It’s been one of those weeks when I look at the pictures from earlier in week and think, “No way, that wasn’t this week. Surely that has to have been longer ago than just a few days!”

It’s been so crazy that I have two full blog posts to write about photographic fun, one about a great porch session with a fun family of five-year-old triplets and one about a fantastic walk I want to tell you about – but I haven’t had a chance to write either one yet. And then there was stuff that I didn’t take any pictures of (gasp, scandalous!), like the fabulous Kym Shumsky’s Les Nôtres vernissage, the stuff we did and I will probably never get around to blogging, like the seasonal opening of Watson’s Mill, and the pictures I can’t show you, like an amazing Grade 4 class trip to the National Gallery, the Ottawa School of Art and Sugar Mountain. Phew, what a week!

Here’s a teaser of the pending blog post about a capital walk that you simply must take. I promise I’ll pony up the details next week. This is, in my humble opinion, the best view of the Parliament Buildings, especially in tulip season. I’m standing on the Quebec side, near the Museum of Civilization.

Okay, here’s another teaser, also from the Quebec side a little further down. (These are both iPhone photos.)

When you’re out enjoying the sunshine on a perfect spring day, you might just run into other families out for a walk on the riverbank as well. I am particularly partial to families of five.

Closer to home, the crab apple tree in our front yard has been putting on a spectacular show of its own this week. For some reason, it did not flower like this last year — maybe it was the rainy, wet spring we had? — but this year it has been insane with blossoms. While I was taking this photo, I could hear a low-level buzz like a beehive. I looked around and realized that it wasn’t a hive, but an entire hive worth of bees buzzing from blossom to blossom; there must have been 50 or even 100 honey bees flitting about the tree. It was really something!

I was playing with the Lensbaby and the blossoms, and stopped to sit on the porch while I checked a few of the shots. And that’s how I ended up with this shot of my feet up on the porch rail with a riot of apple blossoms behind them. Wild, eh?

But then when I added the star aperture to my Lensbaby it made this crazy shot. I’m still not entirely sure I like it, but it is definitely, um, unique. This is all done without digital manipulation; the star aperture on the Lensbaby turns the light and dark area into the star shapes.

Of course, the Lensbaby effects can be more, um, subtle, and less like, ahem, animé foot p0rn. I bought these antique medicine bottles at the Bytown Bottle Collector Club (no really!) annual show and sale a few days ago, and got the vintage crate there as well.

As you might guess, with three boys, a dog and a cat, setting up a still life is not always easy. I called this one, “This is why we can’t have nice still lifes.” (I struggled with the plural on that one. “Still lives” really does change the sense a little too much, doesn’t it?)

I really do have a flower thing going on this week, don’t I? Here’s more – Simon picking a dandelion bouquet for me. And no, that’s not our lawn — but it could be!

I had originally called this last one “naked” and I when I took it I was thinking that it conceptualized the end of things, about expended effort and seeds and renewal. I changed the title to the quote that follows for a couple of reasons. First, it perfectly encapsulates the idea that I was trying to express. Second, I love that it’s from Erma Bombeck, an author who has had a huge inspiration on me as a writer and even as a mother.

Third, it’s so true it ought to be a motto: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” ~Erma Bombeck

Amen to that.

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Spring is a photographer’s dream. Everywhere there is colour, contrast, interesting shapes – and it is SO welcome after months of winter’s monochromatic greys and dirty whites.

Even the dandelions are beautiful!

I like this one of the orange tulips in my garden because I think the orange pops against the green and I like the painterly look of the bokeh (the out of focus parts in the background.) The repeating shapes of the tulip are evocative of an echo, don’t you think?

And then in rained. For days, which seemed like weeks. (And my grass grew about two inches this week!) I love the colour in these tulips I found in a bed downtown, with that weird streak of purple against the orange.

I’d gone looking for a foggy picture early one morning, but the fog wasn’t dense enough to make the dramatic picture I was looking for. It was, however, wet enough to make these amazing, jewel-like dew-drops on a spider web. I took this with my iPhone because I wanted to get as close as possible (my 50mm lens’s minimum focus distance is something like 30 cm or more) and because I like the black and white film look from the app I was using. But, I was trying to hunker down and balance on my toes while holding the camera steady, and a breeze kept making the web dance. All that to say, it’s not nearly as sharp as I wanted it to be — but I love the refraction in the drops. It’s 80% of where it could have been, but still not bad for something I almost walked right past!

This is not what I set out to do with the sea glass. It’s part (a pretty small part, actually) of our collection from Nova Scotia. I don’t know exactly what I was intending to do, but by the time I’d finished this I’d run out of time for playing with the camera, so this ended up as the photo of the day. I heart sea glass!

Sometimes, I just can’t resist the light. Don’t you wish your breakfast tasted this good?

And finally, a bit of a cheat. I was looking for something to submit to a photo challenge on Flickr, and it had to be something I took after April 2. I started playing with the photos from the red balloon session and ended up liking this out-take a lot more than I liked the photos I posted at the time. And then, in classic fashion, I again found I’d run out of my allotment of daily photo time, so this month-old (but admittedly adorable!) picture is yesterday’s photo of the day.

And speaking of re-runs, remember I mentioned a while back that a Flickr contact had seen the use of my infamous puddle jumping picture on a flyer in a grocery store in Scotland? Look what arrived in my mail box from over the puddle, erm, I mean ocean, this week!

How funny is it to know that this picture is in grocery stores all over the UK?

I’ve got two families coming out for porch portraits this week, so it should be a fantastically photogenic week. Hope yours is filled with beauty, too!

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I seem to be feeling inspired early in the day this week. The majority of this week’s pictures were taken within the first hour or so, some before I’ve even had my first coffee. Early bird gets the photo?

It seems like ages ago now, but it was only Monday that we woke up to heavy, wet snow in Ottawa. The tulips fared better than the daffs. They’ve got strong necks!

I’d actually forgotten I had taken another picture with my camera instead of my iPhone and was pleasantly surprised to find this one a couple of days later. Pleasantly surprised because it’s a much better picture, but also because the snow had completely disappeared by the time I found it.

I kinda thought I’d have another couple of years before I started taking pictures like this of my baby. Sigh. (I loved the window light in this one. Look at the catch-lights in his eyes!)

I was taking pictures of raindrops dripping off a branch with my Lensbaby when Simon walked by on the porch and I snapped this portrait of him. I’ll take smiling boy over drippy branches any day! (You see the faint stars in the background? That’s the star shape in the Lensbaby creative aperture that does that. So hokey, but I love it!)

This isn’t an official “photo of the day” but I’m still bragging about it so I thought I’d slip it in! That’s my pictures of the skaters down there, published in an advertorial in the current issue of Macleans.

It’s been a miserable week weather-wise, but the sunrises have been pretty amazing. I actually doubled back on my way over the way over the Rideau River to take this one. I kept those branches in the foreground intentionally thinking I’d give the shot some depth, but I find they clutter up the shot now that I see it. Oh well, the colours are still pretty, no?

I like this one much better, taken a few minutes down the road at the Long Island Lock a couple of days later. Can I just say that running into a really big flock of geese and sending them honking and panicking into the water is an awesomely fun way to start the day?

And hey, I saw yesterday that they’re officially filling up the Rideau Canal now. There’s no more sure sign of impending summer in Ottawa than that!

I snapped this one with my iPhone. I really like the composition, but didn’t expect it to be so noisy. Not guitar-noisy but photographic noise: that speckly grain, caused by excessively low light. Oh well. I’ll do it in a brighter room next time.

One of the many odd theme groups to which I belong on Flickr is Fenced Fridays. I am drawn to fences, and especially the miles and miles and miles of rural fencing I see out here. I’ve thought of doing a shot like this for a while, and finally got around to it.

The funny part is that last night while I was processing it, Lucas was bouncing around with his “guitar” (not the one I snapped above) and so I asked him to sing me a cow song to go with my picture. Beloved recorded this surefire hit on his iPhone:

You’re welcome!

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When I got my royalty statement from Getty Images last week, I was pretty excited. Not only was it my highest-grossing month to date with 10 sales, but it had some pretty interesting-sounding buyers: a couple of European ad agencies, Microsoft (!), and Macleans magazine. I was particularly curious about the Macleans one, not only because it paid a pretty penny. Not in my wildest dreams could I picture a more awesome use than this!

See that bottom-centre photograph of the skaters? I took that one on my lunch break on a freezing but brilliant day back in January!

Talk about proud Canadian moments!

And I found this one, too, which isn’t nearly as awesome but interesting nonetheless:

That’s my picture of a caiman, snapped at the boys’ school Halloween party featuring Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo, masquerading as a crocodile on the website for NBC Miami, channel 6.

I tell you, between having a picture of Lucas and Willie used to support the concept of “cutest kid/pet picture ever” and Macleans using this one to define the ultimate Canadian moment, Getty has been doing as much to boost my ego as line my pocketbook!

So you think this qualifies to enter as a “Proudest Canadian” moment?

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Funny, I’m just now realizing why I am so much more prolific with my photo taking in spring, summer and fall than I am in winter – many of my favourite pictures are taken outside. Just like eating outdoors makes any meal taste a little better, fresh air seems to add something to my photography mojo as well. I suppose that explains why I decided to set up a photo studio on my porch, eh?

This week’s pictures were almost entirely a love song to spring, and what says spring more than silly yellow daffodils bobbing in the breeze?

I love how they grow in banks like that. The ones above were in the park across from Manotick’s Mill, but this guy is growing in my own garden. I slid my iPhone underneath him pointing up to get the yellow to pop against the blue sky.

Speaking of gardens, Lucas and I had a most delightful afternoon examining each dandelion and pansy that have popped up in the grass in front of the house this week. The next day, I had a bit of a surprise when i reached my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the damp, wilted lot of them!

Despite the scowly forehead, I can assure you that Tristan was having a great time during our first backyard marshmallow roast last weekend!

This one I’m not sure about. I tinkered with it for quite a while and still couldn’t get it quite where I wanted, but it’s close – and I kinda had to make dinner for the kids, so that also dictated its degree of doneness.

I didn’t realize until just now that apparently hand-holding is also a bit of a theme this week. This one is Lucas and Beloved on a family walk.

And I saved the cutest for last. This is Lucas and the daughter of one of my oldest, dearest friends, who also happens to be a raw food chef and culinary teacher. We were walking from the coffee shop to the park one beautiful spring morning when Catalina spontaneously grabbed Lucas’s hand.

Does it get any cuter than preschoolers holding hands?

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It was a year ago this week that I took one of my favourite pictures of all time, Lucas jumping in the puddle.

We were on our way back to the house, having just walked the big boys to school. Remember how wet and rainy last April was? And I was going to try to keep Lucas out of the puddle as we walked by, but I had my camera with me (as always) and so I figured, what the heck, we’re not going anywhere but home. Let him have at it. And did he ever! I knew the second I clicked the shutter that it was a winner. Sometimes you just *know* when you’ve nailed the shot.

This photo is the closest I’ve ever come to going “viral”. It’s all over Pinterest and Tumblr, largely without my credit. Every now and then I do a google search on it, and recently found a Tumblr post where it has nearly 600 likes and reblogs. Oy! When I posted a comment on another blog that (mis)credited the Tumblr blog as the source, I wrote that in fact I was the original photographer, and the image is not only copyright but for license on Getty, and would she mind please removing it from her blog. To my surprise and utter delight, she asked my permission to buy the rights to the Web size, so she could keep the image in her blog post. How awesome is that?

This was photo was among the first set of images invited for license from Getty Images, and among my first sales, too. It’s sold four times now, as a matter of fact, earning me well over $100 in royalties. In fact, a fellow Getty Images contributor posted this comment on the Flickr photo just yesterday:

I’ve been looking at this image for months every time I’m at the checkout at my local sainsbury’s supermarket in the UK. I knew I’d seen the image on flickr somewhere and only realised it was yours when you posted in this months sales. It’s on a leaflet for some service they are offering. Have you seen the sainsbury’s use? If you haven’t i’ll pick up a leaflet next time I’m in and take a photo of it for you.

How fun is that? He’s just outside of Glasgow, Scotland (where my mom was born) and he’s kindly offered to send me a few copies of the pamplet next time he’s out doing his groceries. Edited to add: And here it is!

But that’s not the most awesome thing that has come out of this silly, happy picture. Check THIS out! Last autumn, I received an e-mail from Brian Seed, a local painter and member of the Manotick Art Association. He had come across the picture I don’t even know how, and wrote me a lovely e-mail asking my permission to create a watercolour painting from it. Really, awesome or what?

But, I wasn’t sure if I could give him that permission. By licensing the picture through Getty, I gave them the right to decide who could or could not create a derivative work. I wrote a very apologetic e-mail, saying I wish I could have given the rights, and explaining the situation. To my delight, he replied that the fee was entirely reasonable and the next month there was the sale on my royalty statement.

Fast forward to today: Mr Seed sent me a quick note to let me know the painting is done, and will be featured in the Ottawa Watercolour Society juried show next week at St Brigids, and in next month’s Manotick Art Association annual show next month, if it doesn’t sell first. And he sent me a photo of the finished painting:

Is that not the most awesomest thing ever? I can’t even begin to express how delightful this is – such an honour, and such a lovely painting!

I have to admit, even though I’m annoyed at the unsourced use of this picture all over Pinterest and Tumblr and the rest of the Internet, I do love that the joyous abandon of the picture has so resonated with people. My lesson from all this? Take your camera with you EVERYWHERE, even on a rainy grey day on a route you’ve walked dozens of times before, because you never know where beauty and joy (and potential royalties!) might be waiting to leap out.

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Did you know it’s just over three weeks until Mother’s Day? And you know what would make a really terrific Mother’s Day gift? Family portraits!

I’m absolutely delighted and really quite excited to offer another year of perfect porch mini-sessions at our home in Manotick. These were a huge success last year, and I’ve got some great new ideas for this year.

So what’s a mini-session? Here’s what you can expect:

• a 30-minute session on my porch and in the yard and gardens
• 10 – 15 custom edited proofs to choose from
• one 8 x 10 or two 5 x 7 prints
• high-resolution digital negatives to match the prints you choose
• Cost is $125
• Gift certificates are available

This is a great package for families, kids, teens, grads, or even engagement photos – and of course, it makes a wonderful Mother’s Day gift. Sessions are available by appointment evenings and weekends, with very limited weekday availability – and it’s first come-first served! Contact me or send an e-mail to danicanada(@)gmail(dot)com to book your appointment today!

Here’s just a few of my favourite Perfect Porch Mini-Session photos from 2011:

Here’s what some of last year’s clients had to say:

“We really had a great time with you, and we just love the photos. Thanks again!”
~ S., October 2011

“Thank you so much!!! We loved working with you and looking forward to working with you again soon!”
~ J., September 2011

“LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!! [We] just looked at the pictures together [...] They are absolutely gorgeous. You did such a great job! I can’t believe how well the family shots turned out…thanks for making us all so comfortable!!”
~ J., July 2011

“Words cannot describe how much we love the pictures. They are amazing! [...] Thank you so, so much. Seriously, we were all blown away by how great a job you did (far exceeding my admittedly high expectations).”
~E., July 2011

Don’t wait, book your Mothership Photography Perfect Porch Mini-Session in Manotick today!

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When I knew I would have to buy new tires, I thought it would be fun to keep the bald ones and paint them bright colours and then use them in my porch portraits. Fun idea, eh? Not entirely sure if it’s a GOOD idea, but definitely a FUN idea.

So I learned a LOT about spray paint today. Like, it does not really listen when you tell it where you want it to go. (How those taggers get it to behave is beyond me. Clearly not my calling.)(Although I did show enough plumber crack when bending over painting these that I could have been a gangsta.)(Sorry neighbours.) And it is much messier than I expected. And OMFG, my hand is still cramped up into a claw from trying to hold the nozzle down.

***

I had to explain to the Canadian Tire guys twice that I wanted to keep the bald tires when I bought the new ones last month. And they looked at me really funny when I said I was going to spray paint them. But that was nothing compared to the look I got from Beloved when I explained to him why there were now two sets of tires in the garage. He was a lot more understanding when he figured out that I didn’t plan to put them back on the car after I painted them. Actually, I think he was mostly relieved.

***

But wouldn’t that be awesome? I really want to, now.

***

And if you’re wondering? One can of spray paint entirely covers one tire. Except for the yellow. It’s a little wimpy.

***

If my hand weren’t completely incapacitated by the nozzle cramp, I’d seriously be heading back to the hardware store so I could paint the car tires like this…

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It’s weekends like this that make me glad I’m not shooting on film anymore – I’d have filled up dozens of rolls of film with all the shots I took this week!

The week started off with my sweet parents-in-law paying a brief but sunny visit. Normally, the highlight of my Easter weekend photos is the colouring of eggs, but there were so many other things to photograph these pictures didn’t even make it to the blog! Anyway, here’s our Easter fun on Flickr if you’d like to see them. And here’s my favourite shot of that day:

I know, it’s a repeat from last week. And so is this one! But they’re cute enough to repeat, right? This cute duo came out for porch portraits with their adorable little brother last weekend. What a fun family!

I blogged these ones already, too!

Every week on my way to my French class, I walk past these flags near the National Arts Centre. I’ve tried to take a picture of them a few times, but I could never make the composition work for me. This week, I walked by on the Canal side for a change of pace, and the low perspective was just the trick!

(Can you match all 13 flags with their province/territory? And bonus question – why are they in this order? )

We found this beauty on a recent campfire outing with Simon’s Beaverscout troupe. Isn’t it gorgeous, in a vintage-abandoned sort of way?

And last but not least, Willie in high key.

Don’t tell him, but I’ve grown quite fond of the silly orange beast.

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On the weekend, I had the great pleasure of playing with the delightful kids of the S family as we did a special Easter porch portrait mini-session. You might remember the S family from last summer, when I captured this great portrait of M swinging from the rope in our back yard tree house. (How come I never got around to blogging so many of my sessions last summer? I need to catch up and post a whole bunch of them!)

The kids were such fun to work with, and I was truly delighted when their mom contacted me when it was still cold and snowy to arrange a spring session, perhaps in time for Easter if the weather would cooperate. And did it ever!

It was bright and sunny, if not a little breezy, and the kids looked adorable in their Easter finery.

I caught a couple of good shots of M playing her violin last summer, and now her brother C has joined in the weekly lessons – although I think he might have been trying to poke me with his bow on this one.

You can’t make this kind of cuteness, you just have to be ready to capture it when it happens.

And I love this one because it features my new favourite prop, the fabulous free frame!

Really, it’s hard to go wrong with a family as playful and fun and full of energy as these kids are. I think this one is my favourite of the day because it still makes me smile back at them when I look at it. Those bottoms are packed pretty tightly onto that tiny wicker settee!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be back in porch portrait season again! I’ll have another post up later this week with details about how you can book your session for this year!

Thank you S family for coming back to play in the spring sunshine. It was an honour to share a part of your Easter weekend with all of you!

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This is a story about trying, and failing, and ultimately succeeding. More importantly, it’s a story about how my menfolk love me enough to tolerate my cockamamie ideas, indulge my silly whims, and play along with humour and good grace.

“I have an idea!” I announced to Beloved. He eyeballed the bunch of red balloons I was clutching with a look somewhere between curiousity and dismay. “I need your help, though,” I continued, and the look shifted to something closer to resignation. “And a ladder.” And the look coalesced into dread.

A couple of the groups I follow on Flickr offered a theme recently based on balloons, and in considering balloons, I came up with a concept. I’d wanted to try a “flying” shot for some time, where you balance on something like a chair or ladder and then clone out whatever you’re perched on in Photoshop. What if, I wondered… what if I perched the boys up on a ladder, clutching a handful of red balloons. I could get down low, with a wide-angle lens, and shoot up against the sky. Then I’d clone out the ladder, and it would look like they’re floating away with the balloons. How fun would that be?

I sketched it out for Beloved, and to his everlasting credit, he neither laughed nor balked. He even helped me load the load the ladder into the car. The boys also went along willingly enough when I explained the idea to them, although I’m pretty sure Lucas thought he might actually be floating away.

And then we got to the big open field I’d scouted out a few days before, and the faint breeze condensed into a gale force wind that made the balloons blow out horizontally instead of floating gracefully skyward. And the kids started shoving each other when I tried to stack them up on the ladder. And someone decided he was afraid of heights. And they started bickering about who would hold the balloons. And it looked nowhere near what I had imagined.

This? Is not what I had in mind.

And so instead of shooting what I had imagined, I started shooting what was in front of me.

This just makes me laugh. “Okay, now RUN! RUN! Okay, wait, run the other way!!!”

In the end, I turned this:

Into this:

Totally not what I had in mind. And yet, totally wonderful.

As I said to Tristan, every time you try something and it doesn’t go according to your plans, at least you learn something for the next time. What I learned? That my menfolk love me very much, and are willing to put up with a whole lot of silliness on my behalf.

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I started picking up my camera again instead of just snapping pictures with my iPhone this week. The iPhone is great for stuff, colours and shapes and contrasts and whatnot, but only the Nikon does justice to people, and taking pictures of people is truly what I love about photography. (Photographing stuff comes in really handy, though, when the people in my life see the camera pointed at them for the 100th time in a week and tell me to stuff it!)

I love this little farm. It’s not too far from the house and I drive past it every day. I love how it’s up on the bluff like that, standing up against the sky and offering that iconic silhouette that I simply can’t resist. I liked how the big sky seemed to be looming on it when I was driving past as the gloaming crept out to swallow the last of the daylight one evening last week.

I love this picture. LOVE it! Tristan and I went for a walk one night after dinner, and one of the neighbours had left a small pile of junk at curb, so we happily rooted through it looking for treasure. I think I might have whooped with glee when I found this frame. Tristan was equally excited and volunteered to carry a few other less savoury, more garbagey pieces home, too, but we satisfied ourselves with the frame. He was giddy the rest of the walk home, keen to tell Beloved that “crazy garbage picking wife” was at it again — with his help. And then when we got home, he was not only happy to pose a few times to take the new frame for a test run, but even suggested this pose of him “bursting out of the frame.” I can’t believe my good fortune with this one, and can’t wait to use it during porch portraits this year! (If you’re reading on Sunday, you can even look up at the “picture of the day” box at the top of the right sidebar and see that I’m already making good use of it!)

I’ve lost count of the number of pictures I have of Lucas engaged in various crafty endeavours. His intense concentration — and the fact that he’s sitting more or less perfectly still for a change! — make this pose one of the “low hanging fruit” pictures in my repertoire.

Speaking of photographing Lucas while he’s engaged in favourite activities, puzzles is another easy one. There’s an Instagram/mobile meme called “From Where I Stand” that I like a lot. I’ve played along a few times, and this is my latest contribution. I’m not quite sure why this is so grainy – must be the filter I used when I boosted the saturation to make the reds and blues pop. Oh well.

This is actually almost a year old. I was looking for something in Lightroom and found this photo that I’d never posted before. Lucas is “building” his Thomas & Friends Tough Trike from FisherPrice. He still loved peddling around on that thing!

Hey, remember last year when I went through my “texturizing” phase? Yeah, me too! (Also? The daffies are blooming in my garden! Yay!)

Speaking of blooming, I was delighted to find and capture an image of this rare specimen of the rural Easter shrub as it bursts into its brief, annual period of eggy bloom.

I’m getting ahead of myself with this one, as it’s officially part of next week’s pictures, but I loved it so much I had to share it. My inlaws called on Wednesday and asked if we had plans for Easter, wondering if they could pay a quick visit. It was a beautiful day and we had a great (and photogenic) time colouring eggs and going for a giant walk and then out to dinner to my new favourite restaurant, Burgers on Main in Manotick. (Really, I need several posts to do this all justice!) But this photo just about perfectly sums up our brief, blissful visit: Beloved’s dad and Lucas.

Some things are too sweet not to be shared.

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This post is a little redundant, as you’ve already seen nearly half the pictures in my post about my trip to Toronto this week, but I’m a creature of habit, so pardon the repetition.

I’m continuing to enjoy the simplicity of using my iPhone for daily pictures. Funny how it seems to be the next step in the continuum from film through digital. Back in the film days, you had to bring the film into the lab and wait for the prints, a painstakingly long process by digital standards. With a digital SLR, the process was streamlined to transferring the images from the camera to the computer via the memory card, editing them in Lightroom, and then sharing them. With my phone, I can do the editing and posting to Flickr within the phone, making the computer the cumbersome process. (Especially with my aging, cantankerous laptop – oy!) I think I’m just getting lazier. Mobile pictures are the path of least resistance!

Like this one. Truly a throwaway photo, but I liked the raindrop pattern on the glass and it was the kind of day that didn’t leave a lot of room for seeking out a better alternative.

And this one. No doubt, I could have taken a better quality picture with my Nikon, but by the time I grabbed it, the moment would probably be gone. I like to think the grain and blur add character.

I like the serenity of the early morning that comes through in this picture of the morning light just starting to illuminate the National Gallery and MacKenzie Avenue.

This one was about the light and the shadows, and the refraction through the vase. It was *exactly* this kind of day: “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” (Charles Dickens)

And a few repeats, from the Toronto pictures. The skyline, a few seconds prior to landing at Center Island airport:

A rather spectacular night view from my hotel room:

And finally, this one. This is on approach to the Ottawa airport, somewhere south-ish and west-ish I think. A minute or two after this, we flew over the Rideau Carleton raceway. The picture is sort of uninteresting, but any time I can incorporate Rush lyrics into my photo of the day, I’m going to have to take that opportunity.

Subdivisions

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone
Subdivisions –
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions –
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights…

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I flew off to Toronto for a conference this week. It was a one-day conference and I pondered flying in and out on the same day, but even flying Porter into Centre Island that seemed a little too rushed (and frankly, the idea of waking at 4 am is unpalatable even to an early bird like me!) so I took advantage of my day off on Wednesday and flew out the day before.

My professional goal was to attend what promised to be a pretty interesting conference (using social media for emergency management and crisis communication) but my personal goal was a little photo safari. I thought maybe some airport pictures might be of interest to Getty Images (cuz, yanno, I’m sure nobody ever did THAT before) and I personally wanted some pictures of the CN Tower.

I’m fascinated by the CN Tower. I grew up in London, in the shadow of Toronto, and can just barely remember when it was completed in 1976. We took lots of trips into Toronto when I was a kid, and I still remember the giddy “we’re almost there” feeling when we finally managed to pick the tower out on the horizon. To this day, I can’t help myself. I know when to start watching for it from several different routes into the city, and I’ve infected the boys with my enthusiasm.

For some reason, though, I’ve never actually been up the tower. I had the chance once, when a gaggle of us teenagers made a weekend of staying at the Royal York to see U2′s Joshua Tree tour. We made it as far as the base of the tower, but never went up. I’ve been thinking that the boys are of an age to enjoy the experience, but we usually zoom through Toronto instead of actually going downtown. I picked my seat on the flight thinking about how the plane would approach the airport and showcase the Toronto skyline, and was rewarded with this shot, taken just a few bumpy seconds before we hit the runway.

Not even wheels down, and I had what I came for. Damn I’m good! (Aside: I will never get used to the abruptness of the landing at the Centre Island airport. I feel like we’re going to overshoot and end up in the drink every. single. time I land there.)

I got a few more shots of the tower from the ferry, and realized as I stepped off the ferry that I had four to six hours until nightfall and no real plan. Happy as a clam, I was! Without really thinking about why, and with thoughts of the tower and Front Street still in my mind, I hopped the free shuttle to the Royal York hotel. I was still toying with the idea of going up the tower, but the skies were flat and low and grey, and I think the tower is best experienced on a brilliant blue day, don’t you?

I know a few landmarks in Toronto well, like Union Station and the Eaton Centre and the south part of Yonge Street. I’d thought about heading over to Union Station to take some pictures, but I decided instead to wander up University Avenue toward my hotel, the Park Hyatt on the other side of the University of Toronto campus on Bloor Street. I’ve never really been through that part of town. Wow, what a gorgeous walk! It took me about an hour to wander the 4 km or so, stopping here and there to admire various landmarks I knew (Queens Park) and try to puzzle out quite a few more.

The hotel was lovely, far too posh for the likes of me. I’d asked for a room with a scenic view, but had no idea how scenic it would be:

I’d just snapped this photo when Beloved called. “Do you have your keys?” he asked. Um, yes, of course I do. I drove myself to the airport. (Tip: it’s way cheaper to leave your car in parking overnight than to take a taxi to and from the airport.) Beloved had locked his keys in his car at school pickup. We seem to have problems with keys and travelling. Remember when my mother had to overnight ship the keys to our cargo pod when we drove to Nova Scotia? Sigh. Anyway, now we have a membership to CAA for Beloved’s aging station wagon, which is probably not a bad thing in the long run.

I still had a couple of hours of daylight, so on the recommendation of my clever friend Kev I wandered off to find some interesting pictures around Kensington Market. Wow! How exactly have I never been here before? Colour, chaos, vintage junk — it’s visual heaven! The day was still flat and grey, though, and the light was uninspiring, so of all the pictures I took I like the high contrast and colour saturation of the hipstamatic pictures on my iPhone the best. They seem pretty well suited to the subject matter, don’t you think?

By the time I limped back to my hotel (more than 10 km of walking and a couple of very angry blisters later) it was nearly dark. I’d entertained vague ideas of checking out the opening hours of the ROM, literally across the street from my hotel, but I was done.

I couldn’t resist setting up my camera to take advantage of the incredible views of the city all lit up at night, though.

And because I can’t resist heaping cliché upon cliché like filters on a lens, I kinda like these ones, too. Night shots taken with the creative aperture kit (star aperture) with my Lensbaby. The shaped aperture is what turns all the out-of-focus lights into stars.

And speaking of camera tricks, this may be one of my favourite shots from the trip. Porter uses little Dash-8 turbo-prop planes for the Ottawa to Toronto jaunt, and on the way down I had a great seat just in front of the prop. To be honest, I’m not sure what about the iPhone camera optics caused the effect that makes the spinning prop look like it’s coming apart, but you can see it even on the screen. It occurs to me as I type that I should have / could have actually captured a quick video to show you how cool the effect was, but my brain steadfastly refuses to think beyond still photography! Anyway, I love how this picture came out.

As you can see from the picture below, there are only six blades in the prop, so we should only be able to see three at a time, but we’re seeing all six on the same side in the picture above – plus a few fragments more.

All this to say that this clearly proves something I’ve suspected for a long time: photography really is magical!

I had that pesky conference all day the next day, which was actually quite interesting, so I didn’t take too many pictures. We were in Hart House on the U of T campus. Have you ever been in there? OMG, I don’t know what was more entrancing, the neo-gothic early 1900s architecture (lots of stone, lancet arches and stained glass, truly breathtaking) or the crazy-beautiful light coming in through the leaded windows. Does this not look like a place you’d like to sit and read a book forever?

And then I jumped in a taxi (another new experience, just sticking out my arm and flagging one down near Queens Park. I felt like something out of a movie!) and I sat in the Porter lounge and watched the Twitter feed of the federal budget before skipping back up the lake and home again.

28 photos for 28 hours in Toronto:

All business trips should be this quick, this photogenic and this much fun!

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There are weeks when I live for my camera and my computer, and weeks like this one where I keep taking pictures and putting up blog posts because of some sort of internal imperative. I think I learn things from each extreme. I’m sure this brief period of physical and creative lethargy will pass, and even so the pictures this week have merit enough to post, I think. After so long blogging and taking pictures, I’m not sure I know how to stop.

It certainly wasn’t the weather that was sapping my energy this week. It’s been summer interluding at the end of winter, and I’d be happy if it just stayed on through October.

Look, spring flowers in mid-March!

And beyond warm breezes and early flowers, the return of spring also means a migration out of the house and on to the porch. (I’ve also been reading the Hunger Games trilogy on Beloved’s Kindle, another thing that has been pulling me away from my camera and the keyboard.)

I spent a lot of time this week admiring the buds on the branches as they got fatter and fatter.

I would never have imagined wandering the Byward Market with bare legs and sandals before the first of April but I did just that more than one day this crazy week. The fishy design in the concrete caught my eye.

When I noticed Lucas surfing his hand on the breezes coming in through the open car window, I snapped this with my iPhone, but when I saw the final picture it reminded me of something more nostalgic – road trips and sunshine. I found this quote from Dave Barry to go with it: “And that’s the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.”

And some pictures you take just because they’re too cute not to take.

I think this is the first week I’ve taken every single picture with my phone. My poor Nikon must be wondering where I’ve gone, but I’m really enjoying the different set of skills it takes to pull together a good iPhone picture. The iPhone seems to scratch an itch I used to satisfy with my TtV kit — but it’s a heck of a lot more convenient.

I promise a return to more regular blogging in the near future, too. I think the key to getting through a creative drought is equal parts inspiration and stubborn determination. Fake it ’til you make it, you know?

What do you do when your muse is on vacation?

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This was supposed to be a week filled with pictures of our family visiting for March Break, but we all ended up being so sick that I barely pulled out my camera at all while they were here. (Nothing like a stomach bug that downs four of five members of your family on the same night while you have a house full of people to make a vacation memorable!) And then a computer virus nearly took out my laptop. Clearly, it was the week of the plagues.

But I did get one terrific picture of all the kids together – one of my favourite ones ever, taken at the Aviation Museum.

Luckily, the plague from hell started about six hours AFTER the Tristan’s most excellent birthday party with visitors from Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo. (This was another terrific birthday party, and I wholeheartedly recommend this as an excellent birthday party theme!)

It was also a week that started with snow and ended with none. Spring is a melty season!

This was an idea that worked out better in theory than in practice. Oh well.

These were just yummy.

I took this one a few weeks ago, actually, and somehow missed posting it. I’m hoping these are the last of the snow pictures until November or so!

And speaking of spring melts, I was sitting in the house and I noticed the huge puddle underneath the swings in the back yard. I was thinking about how still the water was, and how it was probably offering a perfect mirror of reflection. And the next thing I knew, I suspended precariously with one foot on each swing, praying that the ropes were strong enough to hold me and concentrating very hard on pulling both of my feet into the frame while NOT dropping my iPhone into the puddle.

(The tiny rippling splash is a lucky catch, don’t you think?)

So we survived the week of the plagues, barely. I’m almost looking forward to going back to work next week!

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It’s been one of those incredibly long weeks, so that I look back at some of the pictures I took earlier in the week and think to myself, “No, surely that wasn’t this week. It seems like I took that picture a month ago!”

It was one of those crazy end-of-winter weeks when the temperatures soared from freezing to gorgeous and back. The furious winds we had last Saturday knocked out our power for 12 hours, which was just long enough to make an adventure for the kids but not long enough to cause any serious inconvenience. The boys liked having bedtime stories by the fireplace!

The quick melt turned what was a farmer’s field filled with snow into a roadside lake.

Finding a sunrise like this on a cold winter morning is one of the benefits of driving to work at “are-you-kidding-me?” o’clock every morning.

I didn’t actually take this one this week, I took it a couple of weeks ago and kinda forgot I had it. I had such a crazy day on Friday that I didn’t really have much time for a picture, and I thought I ought to post it before there’s no snow left on the ground at all. (I really like this one!)

I told you about our most excellent trip to the RCMP Stables earlier this week. The shots in this collage are a mix of iPhone and camera shots.

Can you handle another picture of the cat? I snapped this one with my iPhone and then played with some filters in Snapseed. (Pending one of these days: a few posts about iPhoneography, including filters and apps.) I love how this one turned out too!

I think this is my favourite picture of the week. It was Tristan’s 10th birthday on Wednesday, and I love the look of contemplation on his face. We all laughed at the long pause before he blew out his candles when he told us he was trying to come up with the best thing to wish for.

And now, off I go. I have out-of-town relatives on the way, a party in the house tomorrow, and one of the boys started barfing in the night. Oy. It’s going to be that kind of day…

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