Category: Mothership Photography

As I mentioned, I’ve really been enjoying the act of photography lately. More particularly, I’ve rekindled my romance with Photoshop, a program I’d left more or less alone since I discovered Lightroom about this time last year. (Cuz, yanno, I have so many spare hours in my day for idle noodling on the computer. Sleep? Who needs sleep? And interacting with your children is overrated anyway…)

During my first 365 project, I used Photoshop mostly for adjustments and actions. In particular, I am a huge fan of the Pioneer Woman’s actions, which I use in both PS and PS elements. Recently, though, I’ve taken to doing all my image adjustments in Lightroom, and have been having fun using Photoshop to create storyboards and playing with frame effects.

I started out with some I downloaded from Rita’s amazing collection on The Coffee Shop Blog (I like Rita’s stuff so much that I actually made an online donation, something that I rarely do for websites) and now I’ve started to use Lightroom to create my own.

I’ve also been using Photoshop to create a banner for my Mothership Photography site. I’m on my third version now, and I think I’ve finally got it right. In fact, I am so pleased with myself I wanted to show it off. I was searching for a PS tutorial on how to make photo borders and stumbled across a tutorial for this clothesline effect and immediately fell in love. It was a little more advanced than what I’m used to, but luckily I had PS expert Beloved on hand to walk me through the tricky bits.

Ta da! What do you think?

If you click on the image, you can see it in action on my portfolio site. Fun, eh? It only took me an hour (okay, two hours) to do, and I think I’d like to make up a few different versions so they refresh every time you change the page, much like the banners on this blog do. In truth, the hardest part of the whole process was choosing which photos to use!!

I’m finally happy with the look of the photography site, after picking at it in fits and starts for the last couple of months. I’ve got a couple of shoots lined up for this summer, but now that I’m almost in vacation mode, I’ve got a lot more free time on my hands and quite frankly, my kids are desperate for me to find someone else to point my lens at for a change!! I’d love to capture some beautiful memories for you and your family – drop me a line and we can set something up!

I‘ve been really shy about unveiling my Motherhip Photography site, and even more shy about taking on the label of “pro” photographer. I’ve got a huge insecurity complex and am so grateful that if any of you snorted with surprise and derision at the idea of me going pro then at least you had the decency to keep it to yourself. (Yeesh, needy much?)

Some of the things that make me hesitate to assume the mantle of “pro” photographer (see, I can’t even discuss it without the air quotes around the word “pro”) include the fact that I don’t have a huge amount of expensive gear, have very little interest in doing studio work, and don’t have any real plans to drop my day job for a career as a photographer. For those reasons, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to lose the self-conscious shrug and apologetic quotes every time I call myself a “pro”.

Technically, though, since I’ve received commissions and compensation for my work, I suppose I should just get over myself and own the word “pro”. It’s just a word!

The main reason I decided to put up a website and make things more official is simply because I love — really and truly love — photography and the idea of finding reasons to do it more often simply makes my heart soar with excitement. I love the idea of meeting new people and having the honour of capturing the things they value in life, preserving moments in imagery that they will hopefully treasure for years to come. It’s a very romantic notion, I know. It’s a damn good thing I’m not in this for the money!

And so when some casual conversations turned into queries about rates and packages, it seemed like a good idea to get it all out there in the open. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized that there is so much more to a photography business than I ever imagined. Contracts, packages, insurance, overhead, marketing, accounting… yikes! On the weekend I read a really excellent article that talks about the money side of professional wedding and portrait photography. My jaw dropped when I realized that on a $200 session fee, a photographer is really only pocketing $60 after taxes, equipment, overhead and other costs. When you figure there’s an hour or two for a shoot, not to mention travel time, another four to six obsessive hours to select, edit and process images, and who knows how long in meeting with clients, prepping and processing print orders and other tasks, it all breaks down to less than $10 an hour. It was a real eye-opener, and confirmed for me that I really am doing this for love and not money!

I’m lucky enough that I don’t need to do this, I want to do this, and that’s making a huge difference in how I’m valuing myself and my work. I don’t want to be popular, I want to be good. I don’t want to be rich, I want to be happy. And so I’ve decided that if I am going to do this, I will do it right: professional printing and packages, professional rates, professional contracts, professional behaviour, professional expectations, professional results. And I’ll consider the whole thing a huge success if I can book five or ten sessions this year.

In a roundabout way, this venture has reminded me how lucky I am. I’ve always been selective and particular about how I market and monetize the blog, and I’m choosing to approach the photography business in the same way. I’m just so incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to have so many things in my life that make me happy AND give me a few extra dollars for the boys’ future bail college funds on the side.

😉

On 21 July, a perfectly blue and clear Saturday afternoon, Meghan and Jeff got married in a charming ceremony at the Rockcliffe Park gazebo. I couldn’t have asked for a more joyful, sweet and (phew!) photogenic couple for my first wedding shoot!

After a sweltering week, we were blessed with a breezy and relatively cool day for the wedding, but that didn’t stop me from sweating through the day. Weddings? Are a LOT of work. And also? A LOT of fun to photograph. Especially when you have an adorable couple who never stop smiling, laughing and looking at each other with obvious love throughout the day.

See?

I’m slowly learning to love taking pictures of people as much as I love taking pictures of stuff, but I have to admit that I could have played with endless permutations and combinations of the rings and the bouquet and the shoes and the delicious little details of her dress like this for hours — if we didn’t have that whole pesky wedding thing to get to!

The bride and her bridesmaids had an 18th floor suite at the Delta to get ready, but I was so busy taking pictures that it wasn’t until the very last minute that I noticed this spectacular view. (And isn’t it the perfect backdrop for such a gorgeous bride?)

This is one of my favourite shots of the day. A girl and her daddy, both in the moment and loving it.

These two monkeys, on the other hand, were behaving just long enough for me to capture this classic shot — before they found more mischief to get into. Adorable, no?

Everything about the afternoon was delightful, and Meghan and Jeff never stopped smiling for a moment, right up until the car drove away with them still grinning.

Here’s a few more of my favourite shots of the day, or you can see the full set on Flickr.

Well, not quite the full set. I gave the bride and groom a set of 200 images, of which I posted 30 to Flickr. In total, I almost completely filled an 8 GB memory card with 1224 images of the day! Eep!! I think I just about wore out the shutter on my poor old Nikon. 🙂

Thanks, Meghan and Jeff, for allowing me to be part of your amazing day. I hope each day of your lives together is filled with the sweet bliss that was the essence of your wedding day.

When Finola contacted me out of the blue one day last month and asked if I’d be interested in taking some portraits for her to use for an online avatar, I was absolutely delighted — and absolutely terrified. It’s one thing to take pictures of your own kids, and the kids of family and friends, which gives you the ability to shrug it off any awkward shots and delete the lot of them (the pictures, not the kids) if they don’t turn out like you expected. (Tangent: that’s something that might be worth looking into, now that I mention it, the ability to delete kids that don’t turn out like you expected.) Ahem, anyway, as I was saying… It’s an entirely different ballgame to commit to professional portraits of a complete stranger, no matter how sweet they seem to be from your online encounters, and the idea left me breathless with anxiety.

But you know what? Taking pictures of an exceptionally photogenic adult is WAY easier than taking pictures of an admittedly adorable but restless toddler and his two accomplices. For one thing, Finola actually sits still when you take her picture. What a novel experience! And she doesn’t glare at me like the other adults in my life seem to do when I point my lens at them. In fact, she has a lovely smile that she unleashes in a blink, as opposed to the puckered squints that my boys seem to think passes for a smile. See?

We agreed that we both love natural-light photographs, so we made arrangements to meet at Britannia Beach. I knew there’d be a good variety of backgrounds, and plenty of open shade. (Tip: when you’re doing portraits, the blazing mid-day sun is your enemy. It makes raccoon-like shadows around the eyes, and people can’t help but squint. Plus, it’s a harsh and rarely-flattering light. A nice area of open shade, on the other hand, can be very flattering.) And, wouldn’t you know it, all week long the Saturday forecast called for rain. I drove through two separate downpours on the way to the beach. And then, miraculously, the skies cleared and the sun came out just as I pulled into the parking lot.

We tried a handful of different backgrounds — bricks and beach and even the yellow door to the washroom. And, by the way? Finola? Is an extremely good sport, and not once did she look at me like I was a crazy person for chattering in an endless and almost nonsensical stream, nor for making suggestions like, “Go stand in front of the bathroom door.” I was, how shall I put this, positively manic with nerves a little bit nervous.

Speaking of nerves, I completely forgot that I was going to ask her to do a few poses looking away from the camera and try a few profile shots, but at least I remembered to restrain myself from putting her dead in the centre of each frame. My favourite picture of Finola ended up being this one that I took while standing on a picnic table looking down at her!

Taking pictures of Finola’s daughters N and B wasn’t originally part of the plan, but they were at the park playing contentedly on the play structure while they waited for their mom, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take pictures of something other than boys. I mean, look — how could I possibly resist this kind of cuteness?

That’s Miss B. And her sister, Miss H, has an eight-going-on-eighteen kind of serenity in her face that I find simply gorgeous.

So here’s something else I learned yesterday: the old “don’t think of boogers” trick that never fails to get a smile from the boys doesn’t work quite so well on girls. It worked like a charm on Finola, though! 🙂 Who knew — with girls, you just *ask* them to smile and they do!

Thank you, Finola, for the great honour of letting me take these pictures, but especially for being such a fun and easy-going and highly-photogenic subject. It was a delight to meet you and your girls! Oh, and the rest of my set of favourites from the afternoon are, of course, on Flickr.

So Finola, after all that — which one will you choose for new avatar?

Edited to add: Simon was looking over my shoulder as I scrolled through some of these images. “Is that the lady whose picture you took yesterday?” he asked. I told him yes, it was. “Wow,” he said, “she’s just as pretty as you.” I think we can both take that as a compliment, Finola! 😉