Rob and Lauren Blog

In the summer we had the absolute pleasure of hanging out with these two lovebirds for an evening. I gotta say, some of my favourite people to shoot are artists. They just have a different way about them, and the shoot turns more collaborative then directive from our standpoint. Buffy happens to be a rockin’ wedding photographer herself, and Mike is a graphic designer and together they help create Here & Noun which we have a copy of and is ridiculously great. 

Here are some fun times photos of them.

Tomorrow will most likely have a super awesome post, so come on back y’all!

Lauren :)

Hey guys!

Well, our new film scanner finally arrived. For all those curious, it’s a Microtek M1 Pro. Rob has been going through all our 4x5 and polaroid film and scanning it in, exciting! Today I have some really sweet polaroids to share with you that we took in Greece!

(Apologies for the slightly crooked scans, we’re still learning :)

 Now, these next shots on are on a type of film called TZ Artistic. If you start mucking around with a pointy object on it, the emulsion will start to move, and you’ll be able to manipulate the way it looks. Very time consuming (each one takes almost an hour to do fully) but very cool results. 

 This is a super close up of the detail. Very very painterly!

 Hope you enjoyed those! We had a ton of fun taking them. They were all taken with an SX-70 Polaroid camera, 600 film with an ND filter, and TZ Artistic film. 

Lauren :)

P.S. Rob has been “secretly” blogging for a couple weeks now! He’s never really blogged on here, but has so much knowledge, and amazing photos to share! Today he posted a couple scans from our 4x5 camera. So now you’re going to have to go over to his blog (www.roblim.com) and check it out! Make sure to leave him some nice comments! 

This was our first practice session of ourselves while in Greece. I learned a lot of things that day. The most important was probably regarding the importance of hairspray when driving around in a quad…Needless to say I was totally hairsprayed to the max on the wedding day.

 Lauren :)

Whew! What a day Sunday was! We were honored to host some very talented and wonderful photographers at our home, and had a blast doing it! I think our attendees are still probably recovering from the brain overload :)

One of our favourite things to do is challenge ourselves. Every time we put ourselves in an unfamiliar situation, we’re amazed at what comes out of it. So when we were choosing a spot to shoot for the Chill Session, we decided to go totally out there. We found a random elementary school and worked it out. I think we’ll be shooting at elementary schools more often, they totally rock!!

Here are some of our images, with our beautiful and wonderful couple, Michelle & BJ. And yes, they look really familiar, because we just shot their wedding the weekend before! They just couldn’t get enough of us, I guess :)

 BJ looks a little intimidated having 10 women with huge cameras staring him down!! But they rocked it so hard. I’m not even mad, I’m just impressed. ;)

 Children at play. Completely appropriate :)

 Ok, I can’t get over how insanely stunning Michelle is here. HOLY SMOKES. And if any Chill Sesh peeps have a “behind the scenes” photo of how we managed this shot, I’ll totally post it up :)

BEHIND THE SCENES!!!! Yes, we do this for real. And it works awesomely.

Thanks to Devon for this one…

And Sandra for this stellar montage. I look like such a slacker reclining on the grass. It’s epic. 

  *sigh* Cutie pies

 That’s their ride. Honest. ;)

 G-darn I love this one. A+ to Rob.

 Yeah. They’re fierce. What.

 I also wanted to share this super duper sweet message from Rhiannon, one of our participants:

Thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much! It’s so wonderful of you both to be so open about your art - it really means a lot to me that you are willing to share it. You gave me so much information and inspiration! Like you used to be, I am really shy, which is one of the biggest reluctance’s I’ve had to throwing myself into a career with this. You’ve given me the confidence to know that it can be overcome, and I’m really excited to put all of my new tricks to work at my next session. Oh, and the Snickerdoodles rocked!

In case you’re totally confused, Snickerdoodles are the crazy awesome cookies I made for the Chill Sesh. Don’t you wish you came now? ;)

If you’re interested in the October Chill Session hit me up (love [at] robandlauren [dot] ca) and I’ll get you signed up. It’s going to be stellar!!

Lauren :)

When S first emailed me and asked if we’d do a boudoir session, my knee-jerk reaction was “Nope, we don’t do boudoir!”. But rather than responding right away, I stopped and thought about it for a bit. Was there a way to do boudoir, but in a way that would really reflect our style? We’ve always been the type to take on a challenge, especially if we’ve never done it before. So we agreed, and gave it a go! I’m truly bowled over by the results, and so much credit goes straight to S for rockin’ it so hard, and being so confident and beautiful.

 And as I created the majority of the stills, Rob produced yet another stunning Moving Portrait.

S // Edmonton Boudoir Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

We really hope you enjoy this work! And for anyone interested, we’ll be taking two boudoir bookings this year, and then booking for next year. Give us a shout if you’re interested!

S, thank you so much for sharing such a beautiful evening with us, and endless props for doing such an amazing job. And congrats on marrying the love of your life :)

Lauren

P.S. For the photogs who are curious, all of these images are processed using Lightroom alone, as usual. We’re loving it!

Goodness, I’ve been slacking with the blog this past week! Life has gotten so crazy busy for us, you wouldn’t even believe! But we’re loving photography more than ever, and having a blast with work, so all is good :)

I’m super stoked to be sharing these images with you guys! We met up with Liesje and Mike a while back and shared a wonderful evening just having fun. These two just celebrated their 5 year anniversary (CONGRATS DUDES!) and what a great time to have a session!

I’m very happy to say that they absolutely got this one printed. Their puppies are so incredibly sweet! When we dropped off their prints I got so many puppy kisses, I was on a bit of a high for the next hour :) I think this image is best viewed while humming the theme song from Chariots of Fire….

 These kids are huge into bicycles, and have so many cool ones! I was in love with Mike’s gorgeous blue bike he picked up at a garage sale for like $7.

 Man, what fun times. I’m totally missing these guys now!

Anywho, in other news, Rob has just released a pretty cool open source project for photographers. It’s called Open Source Keys, and is a system for using Lightroom with an X-Keys keyboard. I won’t get too in depth about it here, but if you’re a photog you HAVE to check it out. http://www.opensourcekeys.com

That’s it for now!

Lauren :)

I strongly feel that if every single evening was exactly like the one we spent with these two snuggle-bugs, I’d be the happiest person in the world. Not only did Angie & Jordan spend their Canada Day with us, it was also their last night in Canada! The next day they were heading off for a whirlwind trip to Vietnam & Cambodia! I think this may be my favorite engagement session we’ve ever done. We don’t normally do too much shooting in natural areas, but these two convinced us, and we’re so glad they did. Simple, gorgeous, beautiful light, stunning couple, and lots of laughs. I really hope you enjoy these, they make us smile :)

 In case you’re wondering, the holes behind them are swallow’s nests. Wicked.

 Lauren :)

This post is a lot more philosophical than we normally put up on here, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Rob and I chat quite a bit about art, beauty, photography and life, and it’d be really great to hear what others think of all this crazy stuff that goes on in our heads!

So, recently we watched Match Point again. It’s a truly brilliant movie. Truly. It needs to be watched a few times to really appreciate all the subtleties. But my favorite line is this:

The man who said “I’d rather be lucky than good” saw deeply into life

This weekend we shot a very intense wedding. Two days, 23 hours of shooting, two ceremonies, and an unbelievable number of images created. Last night when we got home we were just exhausted, but can never sleep right after a wedding, so we usually peek at some of the photos.

It was then that I came across this image and was just totally stunned.

 At first glance this image looks fairly straightforward. But I URGE you to stop and give yourself some time to look at it. Really look at all corners of it. Take the time to see the tones, the colours, the background. Note where your eye travels across the image.

Now that you’ve done that, I’ll tell you how I see this image. First off, it’s important to note that this hasn’t been edited at all. It hasn’t been cropped to create a better composition, it hasn’t been given contrast, had the colours changed, or the exposure tweaked. It is completely straight out of the camera. (I gave it a touch of web sharpening so you can see the details well at this size, but that’s truly all). I wouldn’t even put our logo on it because that would ruin it. That’s how deeply committed I am to showing this image are purely as possible.

The first thing I noticed was the absolutely perfect composition. Notice the space on either side of his shoulders. It’s pretty much perfect. Notice where the center of his neck is in relation to the two lines on the wall behind him. It’s pretty much perfect. Notice the fantastic lines in the image. The lines of his jacket, his shoulders, his tie, his shirt, his jaw, the peak of his lip, the small goatee. See how those lines all play together in such wonderful harmony.

And now where does your eye travel? It first hits on his white shirt and his tie. The brightest point in the image. The interesting thing here is that the tie isn’t in focus. If Rob was thinking when he took this, he would have focused on the tie. But he didn’t, he made a bit of an error almost, and focused on the face. So since the tie isn’t in focus, your eye tries to find something else to look at. Something to anchor to. It then travels up to the strongest point of contrast, which is his chin. Then you see his lips. I know this sounds so creepy and weird to say, but from an artistic standpoint they are perfect. The tone, the shape, the subtle expression. Perfect.

Then your eye drifts down, takes in the wonderful colours of the boutonniere, and lingers on the forms because it’s not quite in focus. The lines of his jacket then bring you down to the bottom of the frame, completing the journey.

(NB. That’s why my eye does every time I look at this. Your eyes might have a completely different trip, which is the beauty of art, it’s so completely subjective.)

Now, by this point hopefully you can see what I mean when I say that this image is absolutely perfect to me. I wouldn’t change anything at all. Nothing. There is nothing I feel I could do to make it any better than it is.

That’s a bold statement to be sure. And trust me when I say I’m not bragging. That’s where luck comes into it.

Rob took this image. I’ll be the first to say that I think he’s a wonderful photographer, and has a great eye for composition. But Rob isn’t this good. He’s not perfect. This image he created was not the result of him seeing all these little elements, and then pressing the shutter. He saw a lot: he saw the lines on the wall, the beauty of the groom’s outfit, knew he wanted to crop out most of the face to keep the focus on the details, and wanted the shoulders squared (essential to the composition) and the head turned (also essential). But Rob could not have possibly intended to create such a perfect frame. He was lucky. Very very lucky.

When I realised that this perfect image had been created, and it was a result of luck, I started to think. How much amazing artwork is the result of skill combined with heaps of luck?? Obviously skill is an essential part of creating great art, but does luck bring it to that next level more than we realize? It’s just a hypothetical thought, but what if Da Vinci had inteded another expression for his Mona Lisa? What if he was trying to do something else? And now all these years later, the smile is what we see as his brilliance? Now I’m not saying Da Vinci wasn’t brilliant. I’m just using a well known example to suggest that maybe luck is a huge huge part of being an artist. Some days you’re lucky and create something that transcends your skill level, and some days you’re not, and what you create is pretty standard.

To me, this image isn’t just a wedding photo. It’s a piece of art. I’m completely serious when I say that I intend to send this to our printer, and have a very large canvas made. I want to look at this photo every day, and enjoy the experience of looking at it. That’s what I get when I see it: an experience.

But perhaps I’m totally crazy? Maybe we are seeing more into this than exists. But I’m so very in awe that so many elements seemed to unite so perfectly to create this. So much chance. I don’t think images like this just happen every day, and so I wanted to share something that really excited us.

I really hope you enjoyed this diversion. Tomorrow we’ll be back to our regular program of crazy awesome photos (including acrobats, unbelievable reception rooms, Indian Orthodox ceremonies, painterly landscapes, and even a Bentley :)

Lauren

Wow, this is truly somewhere I never expected us to be, but all of a sudden we find ourselves at the beginning of this project, and it seems like the perfect place.

Before I get going, I’ll warn you that this might be a long post. But I strongly urge you to read it all through, since there are contests and giveways involved :)

On Thursday we went out to Pigeon Lake to do a family session. We expected nothing out of the ordinary, but instead walked away with buckets and buckets of inspiration.

You see, this family session was scheduled to start with a few portraits of the grandparents. Typically we would end up shooting these portraits in front of everyone else, and have about 5 minutes to do them. That’s when you default to very stiff, formal posing. Not too fun. But we were left alone with these two wonderful people, and given half an hour to create some images.

I’ll be totally honest, I was so nervous! This was something I’d never done before; posing an elderly couple. But instead of trying to change my approach because of their age, I just did exactly what I do when I pose one of our wedding couples. I asked them to snuggle, to kiss, to look at each other. I asked them questions about their wedding, their marriage, and just enjoyed chatting with them. When we came home a few hours later, after spending the rest of the evening with their kids and grandkids, we took a quick peek at the images. I sat there and was just stunned. Let’s let the images do the talking for a little bit…

 These two have been married for 44 years and are truly truly in love. When we realized the importance of that, that’s really when this project started.

 I asked them what their “secret” was to such a long and happy marriage. She paused, thought about it, and gave me such a simple and poignant answer. “Stay alive”. Loving for these two is easier than breathing.

Rob asked her if her husband was still as good looking as when they got married. She replied “He’s even more handsome than on our wedding day”.

This one almost reduces me to tears every time I see it. I mean, think about it. 44 years. That’s almost twice as long as my whole lifetime, and they still cuddle and snuggle and kiss and just truly enjoy being around each other. Their connection has grown stronger since they were married, and we want so much to be able to capture that.

I want to share a couple sentences from an email I received from their daughter when I shared one of these images with her, and told her of this project:

What you captured in that picture, is what I’ve grown up with all of my life—that love…that connection that was there on their wedding day and has just grown stronger and stronger and stronger through the years.  They have always expressed their love with deep affection…growing up on the farm, it was never a surprise to see him hugging her in the kitchen or her sneaking a long kiss from him out in the barn.  We got used to it, and that was our version of “normal”…

When you photograph a couple on their wedding day, you photograph the beginning of hopes and dreams.
 
When you photographed my parents 44 years after their wedding day…you photographed the fulfillment of hopes and dreams that went beyond the scope of anything they could have imagined on that wedding day…it’s definately an inspiration to those who follow in their footsteps.

And now finally, the project. We think it’s so important for this amazing and lasting love to be documented. It’s a cheesy parallel, but it’s like fine wine. Love gets better with time. Thus the name: Aged Love. Love that has time to settle and grow and sort itself out. We want to shoot these couples, talk with them, understand their life together, and create some real, natural and beautiful images that show that strong connection between them! At a time like this, when divorce rates are frighteningly high, I think couples like these two are such an incredible inspiration for all the young ones like ourselves. Who knows, we may even create a short film with all their advice!

Contest:

To kick off this project, we’re holding a wonderful contest. We want our readers to write in and tell us about their parents’ or grandparents’ love story (we’re looking for the age group of 60+, but we’re flexible). If possible, you can also include a photo of them so we can put faces to names!

Our favourite entry will win a free Aged Love session from us (valued at $500), which includes half an hour of shooting, all the edited files on a disc, and a print collection of our favorite images. At this time the winners will have to be from Edmonton (or the surrounding area) but hopefully we will expand this project to include the whole world!

So send in your entry to love [at] robandlauren [dot] ca. You have a week to send me the stories, and then we’ll announce the winner! It doesn’t need to be long, just a short little outline of their lives together. I can’t wait to hear these amazing stories!

Do let us know what you think of our new personal project! We’re so excited about it, and truly think it’s such a wonderful way to spend our time, learning from these couples, and creating such beautiful images of them! The beauty has very little to do with our photographic skills, and everything to do with the honest love just eminating from them.

Ok, I’ll leave it there for now. But send me your stories!! Right now!

Tons o’ love,

Lauren :)

Kingston doesn’t care too much for schedules. Even though the whole world had planned to meet him at the end of this month, he decided to come 4.5 weeks early!! There went our plans for a maternity session ;)

In the end though, we’d much rather meet this little man early. And I’m sure his parents are pretty happy to get to spend so much more time with him! You might recognize his gorgeous parents from this post, or even this one. They were one of our wedding couples from last year, and we were so excited to get to shoot them in this new and awesome point in their lives!!

Without further ado, Kingston’s Moving Portrait:

Kingston // Edmonton Newborn Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

And his images from his newborn session.

 I believe Kingston was in the middle of showing us one of his yoga poses here… ;)

 Hope those brightened your Wednesday!!

Lauren :)

Adam was a sleepy little guy. But he knew that we were waiting for him and finally peeked at us, and opened those gorgous eyes. I can’t believe how different shooting newborns is. It’s something we’re really really loving. I mean, Adam will literally never look the same as he does in these images. We just saw him again yesterday and he was already totally changed!

I hope you enjoy this Moving Portrait!

Adam // Edmonton Newborn Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

And here are the images of Adam. What a gorgeous little guy.

 Adam’s sister Leah was so incredibly adorable we just had to sneak a few images of her while Adam was having a snack break.

 Love this one! What a poser.

Drop Rob a comment and let him know what you think of his latest Moving Portrait! I think he’s rockin’ them!!

Lauren :)

Rob is a guy full of ideas. He has lists all over the place; some on paper, most on his multiple computers in several different programs…

Needless to say he spends a lot of time thinking. Some of his ideas are admittedly pretty “out there”. Stuff about robots and such. But many of his ideas are pretty amazing, and we just jump on the opportunity to try them out. They don’t always go exactly as planned (well, they almost never go exactly as planned) but they always result in something totally new. And that’s exactly what we want.

Rob had an idea for a photo shoot, but we needed the right couple. Enter Romy and Joyce. A totally gorgeous couple who loves to have fun together. And yes, they are already married, and I already blogged some wedding photos, and I’m totally going out of order here, but I don’t care!

What made them absolutely perfect was the fact that Romy is a photographer himself. That meant not only that some of Rob’s planned shots would have special meaning for them, but also that we knew they would be up for whatever crazy ideas we dreamed up.

So here we are. Romy & Joyce’s concept shoot. We need a better name for that, but essentially what we mean is that we have a concept, and that drives how we shoot, rather than just shooting whatever comes to mind as we usually do!

This concept took quite a bit of prep work to execute. Here’s what it was.

When a couple books us, we often say that they get something special: two unique viewpoints for their big day. But what would happen if we took that idea, and went as literal as possible….

Well, you get this:

 That would be two images taken at the EXACT same time. One by Rob, one by Lauren.

 You see, Rob devised a way to trigger the two cameras at the same moment. I would set up my shot, as would he, and then he controlled when both cameras would fire. The result is two images of the exact same moment, taken with completely different viewpoints. I think what’s amazing about these images isn’t the photos themselves, although they are pretty nice. I think it’s so fascinating to see how different two people can see the same scene!!

 This is what I meant when I said these images would have meaning. Here you can see Romy holding one of the cameras, and taking a shot of Joyce. Rob is again controlling when both images are made.

  And as always, we have a lot of fun, even when doing something all artsy and whatnot!

I really hope you guys enjoyed these! We have always made it a point to keep pushing ourselves, and doing something totally new. And we loved getting that opportunity with this shoot. Thanks Romy and Joyce for really making this all happen, and braving the cold weather for all those hours!

Lauren :)

Well, we’re pretty much all booked up for portrait sessions in May and June. Unfortunately we are merely human, and shooting 10 sessions a day isn’t physically possible (although believe me, we’d love it if we could do that!). And since we are still getting tons of awesome people looking for some killer photography, we decided to extend the offer to include July as well! YAY!!! And we have a  bunch of dates available so give us a shout ASAP before those all book up as well!

Session fees are normally $350 for weekdays and $500 for weekends, but will be an amazing $150 for weekdays and $300 for weekends! Yahoo! Hit up our contact page if you’re interested and we’ll hook you up with the details.

*New posts will be below this one, so keep scrolling to see some awesome photos!*

Rob & Lauren Portraits!

Over the years we’ve been really fortunate to get to photograph some beautiful families, adorable babies, playful couples, radiant moms-to-be and straight-up awesome people. And the more we do these shoots, the more we just adore them.

So we’re beginning a new stage of our business with a strong focus on portraits. Weddings will still be a big part of our business but hopefully with many, many more portraits!

This direction is especially exciting now that so many of our wedding couples are starting little families of their own! I can’t tell you how sappy we get when we hear one of our clients is expecting…*sigh* It’s so fun to see them going from figuring out how to plan a wedding to figuring out how to change a diaper, haha!

Anyways, I’m sure you’re just waiting for all the details so here they are!

Our new portrait portfolio site is here: www.robandlaurenportraits.com

And to celebrate this new direction we’re offering a fantastic discount on our portrait sessions! They are normally $350 for weekday sessions and $500 for weekend sessions, but for all bookings in May and June they will be only $150 for weekdays and $300 for weekends! Zoinks! Did you catch that?

$350 -> $150!!! for weekdays

$500 -> $300!!!! for weekends

Hooray! If you’re interested make sure to drop us a line right away since our weeks tend to get pretty full pretty far in advance! We will also be offering gift certificates of our sessions, which is kind of like the best present EVER!

Send us an email at love [at] robandlauren [dot] ca and we’ll hook you up with more details. Make sure to let any friends know about our special, since it won’t be around for long! And now, for your viewing pleasure, a few portrait favs. For more make sure to check out the new site!

P.S. These sessions are also perfect for engagements or even getting dressed up in your wedding dress again and having some fun!!!

 Tons o’ love,

Rob & Lauren :)

Hey everyone!

Something a bit different for you all today! I have been going through all of our photos from our trip last year to finally choose some for a portfolio. It was quite the experience, revisiting that trip, and has made me get all itchy to go travel again! Don’t worry though, we won’t be running off to Tibet any time soon. We’ve got a full year of weddings ahead of us!

But I thought I’d share a couple I edited this morning. If you’d like to see a few more check out The Wedding Travelers.

Both of these were taken in Varanasi, on the holy Ganges river.

Lauren

Hello Everyone!

I just realized today how poor a blogging team we are (read: Rob never blogs!). That wouldn’t normally be such a problem but it seems like a lot of people are reading our blog lately and I feel guilty not providing some fresh content;)

Here are a few photos we took in Phoenix of the fabulous wedding photographer duo, Jana and David, who make up Wink Photography. They’re from Vancouver, so it was awesome to get to pick their brains a bit about our plan to move to there. We’re really enjoying making new friends in Vancouver, the support from local photographers there has been unbelievable and we can’t wait to meet more people!

They were a lot of fun to shoot and we can’t wait to meet up with them again!

Cheers,

Rob

Happy Monday everyone! This morning I experienced three of my least favorite things: waking up early, the cold, and driving during rush hour. Uck. So I went back to bed :)

So here’s a late afternoon post for you! Hopefully these nice warm images can warm up all those who are in chilly locales.

Hanging out with Chelsea and Kevin was so much fun, I just adore getting to know new people in one of the most fun ways! Photoshoot!

 We are now starting to book for portrait shoots this year, so give us a shout and let’s go have some fun!

Lauren :)

This morning we received an email from a past bride of ours. Needless to say, we were both incredibly moved by what she wrote, and I asked her if I could share it. Here’s the email:

“Hello you three crazy cats! I can barely keep up with you two, what with all the blogging, and pictures, and travelling and e-sessions and whatever else you guys get yourselves into! Where do you find the time?!
Anyways I wanted to drop your guys a line and say thank you again- there was one picture you had taken at my wedding of my Gramps sitting down and looking out the doors before the ceremony.  Well, he passed away late December and that is the picture that my Grams wanted blown up and put beside the sign in book, and also the one used for the memorial cards. So not only do you create memories for weddings, you also have the amazing ability to capture a moment, an essence of someone so beautifully, that it goes on living after they have gone, and brings joy to those who see it. Seriously, thank you so much for doing what you do, and keep on doing it.”

This is why we spend all our time doing what we do. Our friends and family will know most keenly how much we have sacrificed of our personal lives to do this job. I don’t think many people know that, but we really spend most of our time working. But when it creates something this special, it’s absolutely and totally worth it.

I’m sharing this story with you because I want to issue a challenge to you all. Rumor has it that this is a long weekend? Maybe? I don’t know. Either way, I’m sure you’ll find yourself spending the next couple of days with loved ones. Take out your camera, and create some real images of them. Not just the posed, “Look here and smile” ones. Take shots of them doing what makes you love them. Laughing, smiling, reading, cooking, playing video games…Anything at all. Believe me when I say that down the road those photos will mean more to you than you will ever imagine. It doesn’t matter how great your camera is, that’s certainly no excuse at all to not take photos. It’s going to sound corny, but love doesn’t care about megapixels or L-glass.

And if you’re a photographer, your challenge is to take photos of you WITH your loved ones. We recently heard a talk by a great photographer named David Williams, and he really hit home about how important it is to take photos with those you love. Photographers find themselves consistently missing from their family photos, since they are behind the camera. Use your tripod, set up a timer, ask a friend to take the shot. Just go out and take some beautiful shots this weekend. You never know how much time you have left to get them.

Here’s the photo that inspired this post:

 With love,

Lauren :)

Wow.

That’s about all I can say to sum up the DWF convention we just got back from. We’re absolutely on information overload, and will be spending the next few days processing it all. It is pretty certain though that this year we’re going to be able to improve our business in so many ways!

Just wanted to throw a couple quick edits your way until we can post a bunch more of the shots we took. These are of our new BFF John Edgar. He works with a little company called Still Motion. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? If you’re in the wedding photo biz, it’s highly unlikely that you haven’t. We found quite the challenge in John, as he hates having his photo taken, but I adore these two shots of him.

 And one from Rob

 More coming soon! I promise!

Lauren :)

These Fotojournal boys seem to be all over this blog right now! It helps that they are both pretty darn fun, and so are their wives :)

Anywho, a really fantastic thing about our job is that it is so easy for us to call up a couple friends and just go out, have some fun and shoot. If we were accountants or something, it wouldn’t really be too fun to call a friend and say “Hey, wanna have some fun and do your taxes?” So way back in the day we called up Kyle and Alyssa and went and had some fun. Here are the photos:

Not sure what Alyssa is pointing at, but I imagine she’s saying: Look Kyle, this is what you’re supposed to be doing with your feet.

They are such cutie pies.

I love this one.

Haha, for this one they jumped over Rob! Kind of an interesting angle.

This one is too cool. They look so sassy.

Now this is honestly the most fun I think we have ever had on a shoot. Kyle showed off his cart-surfing skills while Alyssa pushed him around. It was hilarious!

And of course, there were tons of snuggles.

Thanks you crazy kids for hanging out with us!

Lauren :)

Here are a bunch of shots from the really great session with had with our friend Talya way back. She’s now taking over the Australian dance world!

Make sure to drop us a comment and let us know what you think! We’re getting awfully close the next comment winner!

Lauren :)

We really love to take photos. That’s pretty evident. But having to shoot for clients every weekend is pretty draining on your creativity. It seems counter-intuitive, but it can actually really help for us to go out and shoot but with no goal in mind. Just to have some fun with a friend, take some cool shots, and just enjoy shooting and experimenting.

Enter Steve. Those of you who have been following along with the blog for a while already know this handsome dude. He is Rob’s best friend, and a great guy to hang out with. He’s the reason we are photographers today, and even though he hasn’t been doing photography lately (he’s too busy being a super cool engineering student) we know we’re going to have tons of adventures with our cameras in the future. Who knows, we might even be able to convince him to join us! Photographers make way more money than engineers…..right?

Anyway, we’ve been wanting to shoot with him for a while now, and finally got a free evening. We packed up the car and drove Downtown to a cool little spot. There was some longboarding, laughing, sticking out tongues, and all the good things that go into a great shoot. Here are the results:

Steve is a pretty crazy athletic guy and was able to scurry up this wall with no problems. I think he’d be pretty awesome at parkour.

I told you so.

At the beginning of the shoot, like most people, Steve was unsure of what to do, where to look, what to do with his hands ;) So I told Rob to make him laugh. Rob stood behind me and did a weird little dance and Steve sure did laugh!

He was also able to bring out the modeling skills.

Rob really digs this sequence.

Shooting a guy skateboarding past with a manual focus lens in a dark parking garage = tough. Rob = a superhero.

Thanks Steve for spending an evening with us! Can’t wait for round #2!

Ten Bonus points to the first person who names him.

Life is a crazy, crazy thing my friends. It’s crazy. Did you know that?

This business links us up with random people from all over the world and it’s incredible the connections you make. Example #1: We were able to shoot two weddings in India through connections with our own friends in Canada.

Now another incredibly crazy connection. I got an email from Stef wanting to schedule a portrait session with her husband Josh and their dog Parker. They were going to be moving to Calgary and wanted some shots with their first house before they left.

“Cool!” I said. “Let’s do it!”

She said that we’d have to be able to go all the way to the south of Edmonton because they live in Rutherford.

“No worries!” I said. “We live in Rutherford too!”

She said that was cool, and gave me her address.

Well, believe it or not, but they live directly across the street from us. Like, we looked out our front window and could see their house! Insane! Of all the people in Edmonton, our neighbors book us for a session.

Their “baby” Parker. What a gorgeous dog!

Beautiful family.

When Stef first emailed me she had all these great ideas for the shoot, which made me incredibly excited! We LOVE when people put effort into making their photos unique and truly “them”. And also, the house on the left is ours, haha!

It was Josh’s longboard that inspired us to get our own! How fun does this look?

Clearly you can tell we had so much fun with these two. I’m very very sad that they have now moved away to Calgary! But knowing how crazy life is (we know that now, because I said it at the beginning of this post) we’ll meet up with them again!

Lauren :)

James came to Canada from Australia. And now James is returning to Australia with his girlfriend, Lauren. James had taken some wickedly awesome photos of us and we wanted to return the favour before he left.

So off we went to Calgary for a day trip to do nothing but shoot James and Lauren. It was a fun little escape from the office and a refreshing change of scenery.

When we rolled into Calgary did a quick location scout on our bikes and found one of the coolest places ever. James and Lauren showed up and the game was on.

So much fun was had here. We went on a bit of a photographer power trip and made James get into the shopping cart. I won’t show you all the photos of him giving us the finger for letting Lauren push him down the alley, but just know there were many ;)

Of course he got his turn for a bit of revenge.

Heck yes! How amazing is this photo. The tone, the feel, the light. Perfection.

This one ain’t too shabby either :)

I was getting a shot from an “aerial perspective” and decided to use Rob as my ladder. James had to take a shot and Rob was kind enough to act as though he was in excrutiating pain. Thanks Rob!

We had pretty much the best light in the world. Honestly we kept these two up on this rooftop forever and used the classic line “Just one more shot” a million times because we just couldn’t give it up!

Haha, if you’ve never met James and Lauren this will let you know just what their personalities are like!

So at the end of the shoot we’re all pretty wiped out and hungry and ready to go eat. And of course as soon as we get down to the entrance of the parking garage we were shooting in we found the door to be locked. Oops! First Lauren attempted to climb over the fence. No go.

Then we tried a synchronized jump on the weight pad that lets cars open the door. Clearly we haven’t been eating enough lately, because that was a miserable failure.

Eventually after a bit of wandering we did find an emergency exit, hoped that no alarm would go off, and pushed out in to the glorious freedom of the outside. It was a bit of a walk to get back to the cars, but a funny end to an awesome evening.

These two crazy kids are now off on their way to Australia and ready to tear it up down there. Hopefully one day we’ll make to Oz and get to hang out there!

And if you, our awesome blog reader, want to have this much fun with us and take some wildly awesome photos, make sure to contact us soon so we can hang out before the summer is over!

Lauren :)

So yesterday we headed off on a quick little adventure. It involved some driving, some bike riding, some shooting, and nearly getting locked in a parking garage (thank goodness for emergency exits!).

To keep up the bonus point fun, 5 points to the first person to identify the city, and 5 points to the first person to identify the bloke in the photo (and the two people in the photo aren’t allowed to answer!)

Up on the blog tomorrow is a very fun wedding with a rockstar groom!

Until then,

Lauren :)

What a late post! Today was definitely a recovery day after the awesomeness of last nights wedding. It was pretty much a mushroom cloud of cool. But it took a lot out of us, and we slept a lot today! Then we were off for another fun session this evening.

So yeah, to keep up my streak of posting every day I’m throwing a couple more of Talya at you. Enjoy!

Ridiculously good lookin’ baby photos coming at you tomorrow!

Lauren :)

Ok so this images are really going to tease you. This week we went out on a rare night off and hung out with our friend Talya. She’s moving to Australia in a few days to pursue her passion as a hip hop dancer. I can’t wait to show you more of what we shot that evening, but to be honest I haven’t even had time to look at them all yet! Just wanted to post a quick couple before she leaves so she can take a peeky-peek.

We had so much fun Talya and really wish you weren’t leaving. But now we have another excuse to make our way to Australia :)

There will DEFINITELY be more of these photos on here soon! But for now enjoy these as we spend our Saturday with Leslie and Mark!

Lauren :)

Welcome to a lovely Sunday everyone! We’re feeling a little sore after yesterdays wedding, which went a grand total of 15 hours! But it was a ton of fun, and we can’t wait to share some of the photos with you!

Today we’re going to show you a little something different. We’ve never had a chance to do much band photography, and so when one of our grooms (Skye, of the recent Kaelyn & Skye E-Session post) told us he was in a band, and had a show coming up, we immediately said we’d be there!

It was awesome timing that the show was the first day that our photographer friend, James Day, got here. We all packed up a bit of gear and headed off to the show. Now, since we’re all wedding photographers and used to having to be on time, we were there right on time. Which apparently is WAY too early for such an event. So we had about an hour to kill on Whyte Ave, so decided to go for a stroll. And what do you think happens when photographers go for a stroll?

Photos!

Here we are showing off our best posing skills.

And the ever so awesome, Mr. James Day!

We had to show him the wonderful and delicious Marble Slab Ice-Creamery. He got this really cool shot of them mixing in the goodies to the ice cream! I think James got chocolate with gummy worms and sprinkles and oreos…Something insanely sugary, whatever it was!

Then he took us around Whyte Ave for an impromptu photo shoot. I think these photos perfectly capture us: two goofy and silly people! Huge thanks again James!!!

We can do tricks!

I LOVE this one! Rob’s face is what makes it ;)

And then finally it was time to see the show! Skye plays in a band called Triple Exposure. I’m going to tell you right now: they are AWESOME. It’s Skye on guitar and his friend Mike on drums, and they bring so much energy to the show that it’s contagious. Rob was all ready to see them again as soon as we walked out!

For the record, James Day took a bunch of photos with us that night. Though we can’t remember all the ones he took, I know he took this amazing one. Skye’s hair is just way too cool.

He also took these really crazy shutter lag ones.

Skye’s guitar looks like it’s on fire in this one. Nothing is more awesome than that. Good job, James!

And then a bunch more of Skye and Mike just jamming out!

Hope you guys enjoyed that little something different! Up tomorrow we have a really awesome engagement session to show you!

Cheers,
Lauren :)