Rob and Lauren Blog

Oh man, the weather here in Edmonton certainly is wonderful! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays this way! If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know we aren’t fans of the cold at all! Why do we live in Edmonton then? Well, there are some awesome people here :)

Anywho, in celebration of our shooting season starting up again (which we are so excited for! We’re dying to start shooting again!) we’re having a Spring Portrait Special! Check out the graphic below for all the deets! 

Click on the image or this link to contact us! Now is a wonderful time for some custom artwork for you and your loved ones!

If you’d like to view our portfolios, here are a couple links!

// Maternity, Newborns, Families and Individuals

// Couples

Lots of love,

Lauren and Rob

Well, our contest for the Best Wedding Image of 2009 ended at midnight last night, and I’ve spent the morning counting votes. It was certainly a thrilling race, with nearly 600 different people voting! And that’s all individuals, there was no tricky business allowed. Trust me, we sent those ninja cats out to a couple people. I hear they were terrified, but promised never to cheat in an online contest again….

Anywho, you don’t really care about that. What you care about is who won. And whether or not you got that sweet free portrait session!

Since I’m still missing the Olympics, I gave our top three contestants medals for their bravery and dedication to this contest.

Coming in third place, which was the most hotly contested spot….

April & Sheldon! They get a custom 11x14 print for their effforts! Hip hip hooray!

In second place, with an astounding number of votes, the very romantic Laurie & Joseph! They will also receive an 11x14 custom print! Huzzah!

And in first place, the big kahuna, the ones who swept the competition, with an INSANE number of votes…..

SONAL & RAJ!!! YAYYY!!!!111!!!1!111!!!!!

Now, what’s really cool about these two being the winners is that even if I took out all the votes made by friends, family, and obvious co-workers (I can figure that out when I get a million emails all from employees in the same company ;) they still would have won. The votes that I was most interested in were those made by our own friends, family, past clients, and colleagues. We are very honoured to have our blog frequented by other photographers from around the world, as well as stellar wedding professionals, and were so happy to see them getting in on the voting! Those votes, which were completely unbiased in terms of loyalty, were going most frequently to this image. It was the true winner. It’s romantic, exotic, adventurous and unique: everything you’d like your own wedding to be! Congrats you guys!!! They will receive a gorgeous 16x24 canvas, and I definitely think they should pick this shot ;)

Ok, now, the winner of the free portrait session and 8x10 print is…..

Chelsea Luft!!

I’ll be giving Chelsea a shout to see if she is able to claim her prize. We did get a lot of votes from all over the world, so I don’t know if she’ll ever be in Edmonton! So sit tight, and I’ll announce if the prize is indeed awarded, or if we need to draw again :)

Thanks to everyone for participating, it was super fun! We have a little thank you treat for everyone who played, so check your emails :) 

Lots of love!

Lauren & Rob

Just a reminder that our Best Wedding Image of 2009 Contest is ending tomorrow (March 9) at midnight!

You have one more day to enter yourself to win a free portrait session from Rob & Lauren, and help your favorite image win eternal glory!!!!

Just hit up this post, and vote away!

Remember, only one vote per person. We have our army of ninja cats waiting on standby…..

Lauren :) 

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED! THANKS FOR PLAYING!!

Well, here it is! The contest you’ve been waiting a whole day for!!!

The Best Wedding Image of 2009 Contest!!

I’ll keep this short and sweet. I’ve chosen my favorite image from each wedding we shot this year. There are so many great moments and memories connected to these images, I’ll give you a quick insight into why I chose it. Then, choose your favorite image and click the link below it. 

Now, Rob has informed me that some people don’t use mail clients, but web based email. Ok, I’ll forgive you. If that’s how you roll (If you use Gmail you should be reading this part!!!), and this whole “Click the link” thing won’t work for you, simply do the following: 

1. Email voting@robandlauren.ca

2. Write “Vote for Best Wedding Image of 2009” as the subject

3. As the body, put “This is my vote for _____ and _____.” Clearly you fill those blanks with the names of the couple you’re voting for. Bride’s name first, groom’s name second if you please. 

But that’s like, a lot of work, so if you can just do the link-clicky thing and everyone’s life will be easy. 

Moving on. The winning couple will receive a free 16x24 canvas of that image! Yowza that’s sweet!

But, since we wanna make this extra fun, one really lucky voter will win a free portrait session in Edmonton and 8x10 custom print from Rob & Lauren! Huzzah!!! So it definitely pays off to vote! 

We will only count one vote per person, so please don’t cheat. We will be doing all that fancy geek stuff like checking IPs, so we’ll know if you’re using all the email addresses you’ve ever created since you were 13. If we do find someone cheating, we will send an army of ninja cats after you. And that would be bad news. So don’t do it. Cool? For full contest rules check the fine print at the bottom of this post. Because without rules, all of this would descend into anarchy. 

With all that business-y stuff out of the way, let’s get to the fun part! Our favorite images of 2009!

Angie & Jordan: We found a really great, quiet parking lot to shoot with these guys. Rob unloaded his 4x5 film camera and took this beautiful frame of them. Even being so small in the shot, you can tell they are grinning ear to ear. Their happiness just exudes from each and every image we took of them that day. You felt truly happy just being around them. 

Anita & Robin: When chatting about where to take photos on their wedding day, Anita and Robin told us that the old Fort at Fort Edmonton Park was special to them. We shot there for quite a while on their big day, and had the place all to ourselves. Poplar fluff gently floated on the air like a mid-summer snowfall. And the light was just beautiful for them, letting us capture this gorgeous shot. I love that, again, you can tell they are both just beaming at each other, and that you can see Robin’s Metis sash, a tribute to his heritage. 

April & Sheldon: Separately, both April and Sheldon are chock full of energy, life, and personality. But when they are together, you get to witness quietness and tenderness. It is so amazing to see how they balance each other, and we feel very lucky to been able to capture that wonderful relationship in this image. 

Barbara & Anthony: Barbara is one of my oldest friends, so getting to shoot her wedding to the man of her dreams was a true honor. These two have since moved to Victoria, so this image with the Edmonton skyline in the background is special to me, as Edmonton is where we met and became friends! I also love the look of pure happiness on her face as her new husband tenderly gives her a kiss. 

Sonal & Raj: Undoubtedly one of the most visually amazing weddings we’ve ever shot. This extravaganza took place on a massive cruise ship, culminating in a magical ceremony on a Caribbean island. This image sums it all up: stunning couple madly in love, amazing outfits, golden light, and a unique and exciting location. They really made their wedding into an experience of a lifetime for each and every guest!

Jenn & Jonathan: These two brought us all the way to Virginia to share in their wedding celebrations, and what an experience that was! It was tough to choose my favorite image from their stunning day, but I went with this one. End of the night, they slowly dance together (quite fortunately under a spotlight!) as the lights resemble a ceiling of stars. 

Jen & Wade: This image is one I’ll always remember. I’ve spent a LOT of time trying to figure out how that reflection works, and still can’t sort it out. Neither can Jen and Wade. It’s doesn’t much matter though. All that matters is how happy you can see they are looking at each other. I love this shot because I don’t understand it, and it’s this wonderful little teaser to me. Plus they look amazing. It’s a good’er. 

Laurie & Joseph: This image always stands out for me when I think of the wedding of Laurie & Joe. We walked down into the woods near their church and found ourselves in a natural wonderland. Beautiful weather, wonderful friends, and a lot of fun. Walking back out, we asked these two to stroll up the path and go in for a kiss. They had shared their first ever kiss only a short while before (their first kiss as man and wife was their first kiss ever, which is just too romantic for words!) and so they were more than willing to oblige! This classically stunning image will always be a favorite of mine. 

Jamie & Jon: These two cutie pies are so full of love for each other it’s spellbinding! On their wedding day we headed out to Jon’s family’s property to take some shots of them. Jon had spent countless hours leading up to the wedding painstakingly preparing the landscaping. You see, Jon owns his own landscaping company (he’s the reason our yard looks so good!) and so he used those talents to create a beautiful spot to take photos with his new wife. And as you can see, he did an incredible job. 

Joyce & Romy: Oh man, there were so many potential shots to choose from this wedding!! What it came down to was wanting to show the personalities of these two. Romy is a goofy, funny, wonderful guy who is up for anything! And Joyce, though she seems quiet in comparison, definitely has some sass to her! This image always always always makes me smile and I love it for that! 

Karen & Gary: Oh how much we love this image. It’s so quiet, romantic, timeless, classic….I feel it right down into my heart every time I look at it. There is almost nothing that needs to be said about it. These two are just so stunning, they definitely made our job easy peasy. 

Kristin & Michael: These two had such an amazing, urban style, and expressly requested “no trees!” in their wedding photos! That’s not a common request, and we loved it. I’m sure people think we’re nuts when we talk about how much we love parking garages for wedding photos, but look at this image! You have concrete, metal, lines, patterns, shapes. And in between all of that beautiful graphic interest, two people, deeply in love, their soft, natural forms quietly about to kiss. That sort of contrast gets me all excited and makes me talk too loud until Rob has to tell me to chill out. I really love this shot. 

Michelle & BJ: Oh man. Getting to know these two has been an experience worth more than anything. I can’t even begin to tell you in words how funny, entertaining, and just downright awesome these guys are. That’s why I chose this image. This image shows you who Michelle & BJ are better than I could tell you. Really, you’d just have to hang out with them for a while to get the full experience, but since you probably can’t, this shot will hopefully suffice. I love that these wacky kids completely owned it on their wedding day, and rocked out like rockstars. True story: that wall behind them was in perfect condition prior to them bringing the noise. Well, maybe not true story, but let’s all just pretend together. 

Reina & Prav: If there was ever a posterboy/girl for the word “trooper” these guys would be it. When we were shooting their wedding in Calgary it was FREEZING cold. Freezing. Like, you don’t even know how cold. A blistering wind made every moment of shooting a tough one. And we were all bundled up!! Look at what these two are wearing. Now. Look at their faces. They just got married, and didn’t care for one moment what the weather was like. Even though it’s a bleak day, with snow on the ground, they literally warm this whole shot up. Love it. 

Robyn & Susheel: This was pretty much the most ballin’ wedding we’ve ever shot. These two poured their hearts into each and every detail, and it showed! In the midst of all that, of course, they treated us like great friends and we had a blast together. There were so many shots that I could have chosen that were gorgeous (I mean, look at them!) but I went with this one. It was one of the very last images we took of their wedding. After two morning to night days, we were all exhausted. The first dance had just ended, and we snuck them outside. For the first time in hours, there was quiet. They were alone (pretty much). The lights of the city shone in the background, and the air was warm. They still looked flawless, and we created this portrait. And I think it is totally them: urban, modern, beautiful. 

Shazma & Matt: This shot is one that snuck up on us. There were so many shots of these two being silly, having fun and goofing around. They really are a goofy pair when you get them together! But there is a very deep connection that exists between them, and you can see that in this gorgeous twilight image. The tones, the tenderness, the light, their beautiful outfits, everything about this shot leaves me breathless. 

Vini & Money: These two had one of the most insane wedding days we’ve ever been a part of! An extremely early morning saw them being married in Calgary. After lunch, portraits, and the 3 hour drive back to Edmonton, they then spent the evening performing a traditional ceremony for Money’s family. And they smiled through every moment, even though I’m pretty sure they were exhausted. It didn’t matter, they wanted to make sure all of their family was part of their big day! But on their reception day, they got to enjoy something rare: some time alone! So when we showed up to shoot some portraits before the reception, they were just exuding happiness and calm. That meant that when we started shooting it was so easy; they were just so happy! This frame was one Rob took with the 4x5 film camera, and I LOVE it. It has a surreal, soft quality that I adore. And I can just feel the mood from these two, so happy, so calm, just hanging out together. 

Wow. Writing this post took me pretty much all day. But it was wonderful to do. So many great memories of our time spent with these wonderful people! We are truly lucky to have been a part of each and every one of these weddings. I have no clue who will win this contest, but I’m looking forward to hearing from all their loved ones! Remember: simply click on the link beneath the image you’d like to vote for, and press send! The contest will end at midnight on March 9, so get your votes in!! 

Lots of love,

Lauren & Rob

Contest Rules: There is no cost to participate in, enter, or redeem a prize in this contest. Voting will take place from February 22 to March 9 at midnight, MST. The couple who receives the most legitimate votes will receive a free 16x24 canvas print of any image from their wedding. We will only accept one vote per person, so please don’t try to circumvent that, as we will be checking. One voter will be chosen at random to win a portrait session and 8x10 print from Rob & Lauren. That prize contains other conditions that will be communicated to the winner. The prizes have no monetary value and cannot be converted to cash or credit. This is our contest, so we reserve the right to make the rules, and change them if we see fit. Have fun and play fair!

Well friends, we have some cool news to share with you today! 

First up, we were recently honored with a neat award. It is the Bride’s Choice Award from WeddingWire. Here’s a blurb from them about the award:

 The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness, and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds. This year’s winners represent the top five percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which consists of over 100,000 local wedding professionals nationwide.

We were super surprised to see this bad boy waiting for us when we returned home from Peru! Huge thanks to our super duper wonderful special amazing clients who took the time to leave us some wonderful reviews. Even though they always make me cry, in a good way :)

Now, for something way more exciting!! A CONTEST!!!

Tomorrow. This will begin. Put it in your daytimer (do people still use those?) or your iCal. Set your alarms. Clear your schedule. 

The images will go up tomorrow, and then the vicious competition will begin. This will be WAY more interesting than the Olympics, so get ready. Ok, so it won’t be way more interesting than the Olympics, but it will be fun!

Plus, the rewards won’t only go to the wedding couples, but you. Yes, you! You will have a chance to win a free portrait session and 8x10 custom print from Rob & Lauren just by voting! WOW! No, I’m not joking. This is legit. There’s a banner and everything for it. 

See you tomorrow!!

Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve been awfully quiet lately. The reason is we’ve been working like mad on a new project…

The Adventures of Rob & Lauren!

In two days we leave to spend a month in Peru. We created a blog, and will be updating it frequently during our trip with all sorts of neat stuff. It’s a return to our deep passion for travel photography. We are just unbelievably excited about this, and would LOVE if all you wonderful readers would check it out! 

You’ll get to follow us as we journey through Peru, visiting such breathtaking sites as Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, and trek through the Amazon to visit indigenous tribes. And of course there will be a TON of super cool photos. It’s going to be an amazing adventure, and we hope to share as much as we can with you!

To check it out, visit this site: www.theadventuresofrobandlauren.com

And here’s our super cool logo! Yay!

We would be forever grateful and love you long time if you all would share this site with anyone and everyone who might find it interesting! We promise to make it as fun and entertaining as possible! This is our dream, and we are just so pumped to leave in two days and start this really fantastic adventure!

Love you guys, and hope to see you over at The Adventures of Rob & Lauren!

P.S. I think it goes without saying that this blog will not be updated while we’re in Peru :) So if you’re bored, you’re going to have to check out the new blog!

Happy Holidays everyone! We hope you’re all having a wondering holiday season! If there’s anyone who is sad about the lack of snow, just let us know. I’m sure Edmonton would be more than willing to part with a foot or so :)

And Happy New Year as well! We hope 2010 will be filled with adventures, laughter, and lots of friends and family!

I thought I’d share our holiday card image with you all! We sent this bad boy all around the world, and hopefully were able to bring a little smile to a few faces :)

Oh, and since I know you guys just love it when we create suspense….Rob and I have a stellar idea, and about two weeks to get it rolling. I’m really hoping it will work out, so definitely make sure to check back here in the new year when we hopefully launch a new project!!!

Loves of love everyone! Stay warm :)

Lauren, Rob, & Scooter

Hello blog friends! Hope you all had a stellar weekend. We got to see lots of friends, which definitely made ours a winner.

Anywho, this week we’re working on updating our portfolio site. We’ve done a lot of new stuff this year, and really changed the way we shoot, so we’re pumped to reveal it all. There’s a ton of our film stuff that we only just scanned in and have yet to reveal!

So I’m holding off on posting it all until we can have the website ready. Exciting!

Also, on Friday we created our holiday card photo. It’s absolutely hilarious. We may have topped last year’s image. So if you haven’t signed up to receive a card yet, make sure to do that right away, since we’ll hopefully send them out this week!

Lauren :)

Want a holiday card from Rob & Lauren? (You can see how epic the previous ones were here). Fill out this handy form, or email us! Hooray!

So, Rob had this crazy idea the other day. He wanted to send holiday cards to all our blog readers. What a nut right? Well, we’re nuts, I guess, since we’re going to be sending holiday cards to everyone who wants one!

We try to have fun with our cards that we create. To be honest we have no clue what we’ll be doing this year, but it’s going to be really really hard to top last year….

(Sorry about the quality, I didn’t feel like sifting through dozens of hard drives to find the original files so we just scanned the cards themselves!)

Our epic card from last year:

 The year before….

 And one of our first thank you cards!

So, here’s the deal. If you want one of our cards this year just send me your mailing address. Contact me at lauren (at) robandlauren (dot) ca. The catch? I’m going to put your email on our newsletter list. We don’t have newsletters yet, but figure we should. I won’t spam you though. Promise.

Lauren :)

Photos first.

 Wedding day lunch.

 The story:

Well, in case you are new to this blog, or didn’t notice the header photos, the two stunning folks in these wedding photos are indeed us. Yes. We just got married.

After spending the last three years of our almost five year relationship being completely consumed with wedding photography, we decided that we would need a wedding a bit out of the ordinary. So we flew to Santorini, Greece, one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been. It was just to the two of us, doing it exactly how we wanted it. And it was amazing.

We woke up late, shared a nice little breakfast together, complete with a delicious mimosa :) Then I did my own hair and makeup (what a challenge!! I’m not a hair and makeup girl at all, so I was sitting there in the morning watching YouTube videos on how to do a chignon! True story :)), we got ready, and headed off to take our own wedding photos.

Yep, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, we took all of these photos of ourselves. It was such a crazy fun and challenging experience, we had a blast!! There are tons more to share, especially when we get all of our film back from the lab. But for now I hope you enjoyed finally finding out where we would run off to in the middle of the season :)

I want to share a few links with you. You see, I did all our wedding shopping on Etsy.com, pretty much the best website in the whole wide world. And the people that I worked with were so incredibly sweet, it was the best experience. So I really want to make sure to give them some props!

My dress was handmade by the amazing Nancy Wilder. She was the sweetest ever, always sending me little updates on the progress. And then, in a totally tear inducing act of kindness, she included a small piece of cobalt blue shore glass, as my “something blue”. Yes. People that nice really do exist!! Thank you so so so much Nancy, the dress was more than perfect :)

You might have noticed that our rings are pretty frickin’ sweet. Well, you’d be right. We are actually completely obsessed with them. They arrived a couple weeks before we left for Greece, but we were so smitten that we actually wore them in secret as much as we could :) They are rose gold bands, and the edges are left somewhat irregular making each one unique. They are absolutely and completely perfect. They were handmade by the amazing Jenn from Red Cat Run Studio.

And finally, you might have noticed that Rob’s belt and my necklace were a matching pair, as well as being just absolutely gorgeous. They were made by the extremely talented Naomi from Flight Path Designs. We’re both completely obsessed with her work, and will be getting a whole lot more of her amazing pieces. Seriously check them out and I challenge you not to fall completely in love with her art.

Well, I have about a bazillion emails to start working on, and we have a stellar wedding to prep for this weekend!! But we’ll be sharing some more photos in the next little while. Hope you all had an awesome two weeks, and we’re excited to be back and shooting!!

Tons of love,

Rob and Lauren Lim!!!!! :)

Hey friends!!

Man, it seems like Rob and I haven’t even had a chance to breathe in the last few months, let alone update all our awesome blog readers about what’s going on with us! We’ve obviously been shooting a ton of awesome weddings, but as usual, there is always a lot more going on.
A few little news tidbits for ya today:

If you don’t have us on Facebook or Twitter, you’re totally missing out! I had posted a pretty awesome little piece of news a little while ago! Rob and I were very honored to be featured as the DWF members of the week! The DWF is a forum that we’ve been members of for a couple years now, and has been an awesome resource for all things wedding photography. It was really cool to get to answer the questions, and stop and think about our careers thus far. If you’re bored, definitely check it out here :) Props to our amazing friend, James Day, for the epic shot of us being huge goofballs, as usual!

Secondly, the October Chill Session is starting to fill up! If you’re interested, drop us a line. We had a blast at the last Chill Session, and are crazy excited about the next one! Rob and I tend to come up with new concepts, theories and ideas on a weekly basis, and so each and every Chill Session ends up being different, with all the things we’ve been thinking about lately! Good times.

Thirdly, we’re going to be heading out of the country for a couple weeks, shooting what will prove to be a crazy awesome wedding. Details are on the down low for now, but make sure to check back in a couple weeks for something that will literally blow your mind. If you’re emailing us, it will be a while till we can get back to you, so we really appreciate your patience!

And finally, we’ve been having a blast this summer shooting a ton of portraits with some of the city’s coolest people. I haven’t had a chance to blog them all yet, but here are a few samples of recent stuff :)

Have an awesome weekend everyone!! Oh, and tomorrow happens to be Rob’s 26th birthday. I still dig him, even though he’s getting old :) Feel free to leave him some b-day love in the comments!! He’ll really really enjoy it :)

Lauren :)

Hey all!

So we don’t have a wedding tomorrow, which actually makes it feel like a real weekend! Maybe we’ll even go to the Farmer’s Market for the first time!! Wow, that’s so exciting :)

Anyway, just wanted to wish you all a great weekend. I’ll be posting some pretty awesome stuff on Monday, so make sure to check back in.

Until then, I’ll leave you with an image of my Roberooni, as I like to call him. We just passed the 4.5 year mark, and still having stupid amounts of fun together :)

 Lauren :)

Anyone who lives in Edmonton will be excited about this post. You see, over the past couple weeks we have had a fair amount of snowfall. Yes. Snow. In late May. It’s ridiculous.

Anyway, we were out scouting locations for this weekends wedding and saw actual blossoms! Beautiful, fragrant flowers. I certainly hope that’s a sign that things will be turning around weather wise!

 We were told these are plum blossoms. They smelled amazing! Hope you enjoy this image while we head off to see Terminator!!

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!*

Hey everyone!

Lauren here. I’m slowly recovering from my wisdom teeth removal and have enough energy to post up a few photos for you!

Rob has been patiently looking after me for the past few days, and as glamorous as that sounds, I’m sure it’s actually very boring. So he called up a friend of his and then went out yesterday to take some photos. I was expecting them to return with some shots of trees and grass and other such things they generally shoot. But it seems as though they found something a little more interesting. They found a ton of dirtbikers and off-roaders having a blast at a dirt hill near our house! Here are some of Rob’s shots from the adventure.

 This is Drew, a photo buddy of ours.

 They even took Rob and Drew for a ride on this crazy Tom Car thing!

 If you wanna check out a video Drew took click here.

As many of you likely know, last year we embarked on a journey that we called The Wedding Travelers. It was a 3 month trip around South East Asia and India that we chronicled on a blog. It’s almost exactly a year since we returned, but we are always thinking about it. With amazing timing, a contest popped up called The Photoblog Awards. I thought The Wedding Travelers was the perfect thing to submit. We’d love if you’d take a few minutes this weekend to vote for us! Just go to this link:

http://vote.photoblogawards.com/photoblog.php?name=the-wedding-travelers

I believe you might need to set up an account. It will take a few minutes, but we’d really, truly appreciate it. This project is very close to our hearts, and we are hoping to continue to work on it in the very near future.

 Many thanks!

Lauren :)

We got home last night from our little trip to Vancouver, and I gotta say, in many ways we’re kinda sad to be back home. Vancouver is an unbelievably beautiful city, and we were so lucky to meet so many amazing people out there. And did you know they have GREEN GRASS right now??? That just blows my mind.

But we’re happy to be back among all the cool folks here in Edmonton, and Scooter is unbelievably glad we’re back. Plus we have our NAIT seminar on Sunday which is exciting as well! If you haven’t signed up yet, do it NOW! Details here.

Here’s a shot from the balcony of our hotel of a seagull friend who liked to hang around and eat the granola bars that Rob fed him. We stayed at the Westin Bayshore in downtown Vancouver, and I can say without a doubt it was the best smelling hotel I’ve ever been to. True story.

Huge thank you to all the wonderful people who made our trip so special. We can’t wait to see you all again soon!

Lauren :)

Got a cool little announcement here for you all!

From March 6 - 10 we will be in Vancouver meeting up with some of the cities’ coolest people! Hooray! It promises to be an incredibly fun visit.

While we’re there we should have time for one or two portrait sessions! So if you are in Vancouver and have been jonesing for a little Rob & Lauren photography of yourself now is a great chance! Head on over to our contact form and drop us a line so we can set something up!

I couldn’t find our photos from our last trip to Vancouver (archived on an old drive. Boo!) so instead I’m hooking you up with one from Banff.

 Take a look at that landscape, and then think of the exact opposite, and that’s where our plane is taking us tonight! I won’t tell you where we’re off to, but hopefully we can blog a few photos while we’re away!

Lauren :)

I’ll be the first to admit that I hate the cold. That makes living in Canada kinda tough sometimes, since it has a tendency to get incredibly chilly here.

But, winter has a few redeeming features. One of which is hoarfrost, the beautiful white frost that coats trees, and gives the landscape a dreamy look. The temperature has dropped in the past few days, and today we were treated to the most amazing scene. Here are a few shots.

 Hope everyone is having a wonderful Valentines day, and are keeping warm :)

Lauren

Well, I just got the go ahead so I’m really excited to post this here!

We are now confirmed speakers for the Professional Photographers of Canada Annual NAIT Seminar. It’s a two day seminar on March 14 & 15 that features the incredible Jesh De Rox, as well as yours truly.

I’m going to tell you right now that if you are a photographer, you would be flat out insane not to go to see Jesh talk. The cost for non-PPOC members is only $175 for two full days including lunch. You will never find a more fantastic opportunity to hear this amazing person speak. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had the chance to spend some time with him on a couple occasions, and he is such an inspiration. I’m going to say it again: you are INSANE if you don’t take up this opportunity. To all the local photographers who read this blog, just know that once the international photography community finds out about this seminar they will be mad with jealousy.

Plus, you will get to see us all awkward and nervous as we present our first ever seminar! That’s gotta have some entertainment value :)

Seriously though, we’re really excited to have this opportunity and have got some great ideas of what we’re going to share. It should be an amazing two days and we can’t wait to see you all there!

Here is a link to the PDF that you need to fill out and send off. Get this done right away because I have a feeling this is going to fill up crazy fast.

Leave us a comment if you sign up so we can make sure to look for you!

Lauren :)

NOTE: The email address was written incorrectly on the PDF so make sure you send it to this one: es [at] ppoc-alberta [dot] ca. If you sent it to the old address, without the dash, make sure to resend so you don’t miss out!

I know we mentioned in an earlier post that we would be responding to e-mails while away at this weeks conference, unfortunately we’ve run into some difficulties that I’m trying to work out today. For some reason we can receive e-mails but we cant reply to any of them. If you’ve e-mailed us in the past couples days please be patient as we try to work these problems out and respond :) Have an awesome day!

I thought I would start this blog post off with the weather at home a few days ago…

 Then for a change of climate, the landscape in Phoenix…

 Finally, a shot of my sweets!

 The DWF conference is just getting started but it’s been a blast so far.

P.S. Lauren is sporting my new medium format toy camera, I’ll post some shots from it when I get them developed!

Well, our flight for Phoenix leaves in only a few hours now, and then we’ll be attending the Digital Wedding Forum Conference. We’ve got our bags all packed up, our warm weather clothes ready to go, and are intensely excited about everything we’re going to learn. Just wait until you get to see all the great new ideas we’ll be bringing home! I can’t tell you how great this year is going to be!

We’ll be gone for 5 days, but will still be answering emails while away (though it might take a bit longer than usual). To our clients, feel free to email us if there is anything. We won’t be able to take phone calls, but if it’s urgent mark your email with “Urgent” and we’ll get back to you within the day.

And to our blog readers, don’t worry! There is still lots of new stuff to keep you occupied through the long boring workdays!

• First off, there is some fun new content on this blog! Have you checked out the Resources pages? For Clients we have some links to great local vendors. And for Photographers, Rob has been working on tons of great information, so make sure to check those out! We will always be updating those pages when we find new and cool stuff, so keep an eye on those.

• We also have some neat new stuff on the About Us page. Cool photos, and links to all our social media networking pages. Ever wondered what we listen to while we work? Believe it or not, you can easily find out from that page.

• Rob created an awesome new Facebook Page for our business yesterday. You can become a fan, and if you’re a client you can even leave a review! We’ll be updating it with new photos that won’t even be seen on the blog! You need to go RIGHT NOW and join!

• And have you noticed our brand new portfolio website? I think there are photos on there that have never been on the blog before as well, so DEFINITELY check that out.

Finally, we still have a ton of great photos to be posted on this blog. For now, I’m going to give you teasers from a bunch of sessions that still need to be posted. Enjoy!

And keep the comments coming guys! I can’t tell you how much we love to read them :)

Lauren :)

A few months after Lauren and I started dating we took off for a month and backpacked around Europe. We spent a lot of our time on a few Greek islands. The above photo was taken on a gorgeous little island called Naxos. Lauren and I rented a scooter (not of the cat variety) and spent our days riding from one beach to another. Deserted sandy beaches, the most breathtaking winding mountain roads, and olives you could eat off the tree (even if they weren’t ripe yet). When I look at this photo it makes me realize how far we’ve come in the past 4 years personally and professionally. It also makes me realize that we’re really just getting started!

This year marks a big turning point for us. We’re going to be providing an even higher level of service for our lovely clients, our range of fantastic products will be expanding significantly, and we’ll also be taking on a wider variety of awesome photography projects. I can’t wait to share with you the exciting new things we’ve got planned! Stay tuned for updates!

Lauren and I have also made the decision that we would like to move to Vancouver within the next couple of years. For 2010 we’ll be offering the same rate on wedding collections whether your wedding is in Vancouver or Edmonton. If you’re interested in having us shoot your 2010 Vancouver or Edmonton wedding then please feel free to get in touch with us!

We still have a limited number of spots open for 2009 weddings so get in touch with us as soon as possible if you’re interested!

Finally, if you’ve just started following us, now is a great time to bookmark / subscribe to this blog! This year is going to be filled with more posts, more videos, more weddings, and more awesome portraits than you could shake a stick at. It’s going to be mind blowing. Trust me.

On New Years Eve we braved the frigid cold with some friends to check out the fireworks in Churchill Square. Rob loves shooting abstracts with light, so here are a couple pretty sweet ones he took!

First, just a regular shot of the fireworks. For the photogs wanting the settings: 5D MK II, 50mm, f3.2, 3200 ISO, 1/160s

 Then Rob’s abstracts.

 We also have some sweet video from the night, but you gotta be patient for that :)

Lauren :)

Hey all!

So I have a few little notes to throw at y’all today. Strap in and let’s go!

• To all the couples who just got engaged over the holidays: CONGRATS! We still have a few spots open for 2009 so make sure to give us a shout right away. This year is going to be full of new and amazing treats for our clients, so if you’d like to be one of them let’s chat!
• Rob and I are off to the Digital Wedding Forum Convention in Phoenix next week! Exciting! Not only are we thrilled to be escaping the -30 degree weather, we’re also really looking forward to meeting a lot of new photographer friends. If you’re going make sure to drop us a line so we can meet up!
• To our beloved clients, and potential clients, we will have internet access while in Phoenix, so feel free to contact us.
  

And the most exciting news: the new Rob & Lauren brand will be launching this upcoming Monday, January 5th! The new blog is being carefully set up as we speak, the new logo is prepped, and we’re ready to roll. This marks the beginning of a new focus in our business, and we are so excited. Make sure to drop in on Monday to see what we’re up to!

And since it’s always fun to look at some pictures, I’ll leave you with these two Rob took yesterday. He and another photog friend bundled up and set off in search of some cool shots. A few hours and some thoroughly frozen toes later, they succeeded. Here are a couple for you to peek at. I’m sure Rob will post some more once he’s gone through them all!

 Cheers,

Lauren :)

Did you even know we were gone? Probably not, eh?

Anyway, we just got home this evening from 3 wonderful days in Banff with my family. Tons of fun had, hundreds of photos, and many stories to share.

That will be coming soon enough! But now I’m heading to bed. Here’s one photo to tease you!

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday! We had such a relaxing few days, but believe it or not I’m excited to get back to work tomorrow!

Lauren :)

Hey all!

First off we just want to thank you guys for participating in our Cans for Comments event. So many amazing photographers from across North America hopped on board, and I’m sure all the Food Banks will be very pleased :)

So we wound up with 41 comments. Pretty good! But we decided to throw an extra bit on there and Rob went off to the grocery store with $67 to buy a bunch of food. We took a peek at the Edmonton Food Bank website (which was actually designed by our cool friends over at LiFT!) and made of list of all the things they need most. If you’re planning on donating to the food bank this holiday season I highly recommend doing that!

Off Rob went, and he filled up a shopping cart with all sorts of good stuff. As our local grocery store is pretty strict on no photo allowed all he could manage to sneak was an iPhone photo of the bounty.

 And once he was outside the near -40 degree temperature was definitely preventing him from getting any other shots! 

But there you have it. A bunch of food successfully donated, thanks to our wonderful blog readers. I hope some of you decide to go out and add some food in there. This is the time of year when it’s most needed. And with the insanely cold temperatures Edmonton is feeling lately, I think everyone could use a hand right now.

I’ll be posting a bunch more weddings and portraits really soon. But for now a little teaser for you.

Come early January the entire Rob & Lauren brand is getting an overhaul. A new logo, a new website, a new blog design, new cards, new letterhead….I could go on and on about all the things I need to design, but there you have it! I hope you guys are excited. I think our photography has really taken on a style of it’s own and it’s time our branding reflected that!

So keep checking in, and one day the blog will just be totally different! Then will come tons of new content, resources, tidbits about us. Basically it’s going to be amazing :)

Lauren :)

EDIT:

I just recieved a very sweet email from Erin in the States. She wanted to share some information about how to best give to the Food Bank! Here’s an excerpt. Give it a read, and then go and donate!

“Here in the states regional food banks are able to purchase food items at 10% WHOLESALE cost from manufacturers and then distribute at no cost to each individual pantry.   This means that by making a monetary donation to a food bank your charitable dollar actually goes 20x further by giving money instead of product.  I know it’s not as exciting as going to the store to get real food to drop off and it seems more impersonal, but in the long run I think the banks benefit more from cash.  Keep the food items coming, too, though.  Every donation, whatever form it may be, is welcomed and put to use.  If you would be so kind as to put this in your comments it would be much appreciated.  With the economy as it is here we have several more people seeking food pantry services and fewer people donating.  The bank I work for may actually run out of food before January.  That’s never happened to us before.  I just want to get the word out.  Thank you and keep warm!”

Thanks so much for sharing that information Erin! Next time they are definitely getting cash from Rob & Lauren :)

Hey everyone! Keep those comments coming! We have a couple more days in our Cans for Comments event. So I wanna see a ton more comments, especially from all my friends who I KNOW check this blog every day, and haven’t commented yet!

Here are a couple gorgeous shots Rob took the other day to get you inspired. These two are currently our desktop images, since I liked them so much! Hope you enjoy :)

 Lauren :)

A ton of great photographers have decided to give back this year in a really fun way. They’ve started something called “Cans for Comments”. It’s simple. For every comment someone leaves on our blog we will donate one can of food to the Edmonton Food Bank. We’ll run it from now until Friday, December 12 (my birthday, yay!)

So go ahead and comment here, go back through our archives and leave some nice comments anywhere. And then hit up all these other sweet blogs, see some awesome photos, and leave comments! It’s fun and for a great cause!

Chris + Lynn
Shandro Photo
Perspective Eye
Picture That
Blue Olive
CJ Scott
Jamie Delaine
Erin Gilmore
Amber Hughes
Bebb Studios

And apparently there are tons and tons more photographers taking part every day! Check out Chris + Lynn’s blog for the ever growing list!

Now get commenting!

Edit:

Ok, since Kate asked for a photo here’s a photo! From the next wedding to be blogged. Just wait till you see the rest of this one!

Lauren :)

Hey all!

Just a bit of news to throw at you today.

We were interviewed by a cool local TV station called Omni in a segment about South Asian weddings. It will be airing tonight between 8:00 - 9:00 PM on Channel 11 on cable. Since we don’t have  cable here we will likely be checking it out at my parents. Anyone have any ideas of how to get a digital copy of a TV broadcast so we can have it stored?

Once again we were highly honored to see that one of our images is a finalist in the Mostly Lisa photography competition. Head on over and vote for this stunning image we took while in India.

I’ll give you a little back story on the image.

In February Rob and I were in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, India. Varanasi is a very fascinating city in terms of it’s history. It’s located on the banks of the Holy Ganga River (or Ganges). Because of this, it is considered one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites for all Hindus. They believe that to wash onesself in the Ganga will remove all of ones sins. Furthermore, it’s highly desirable to die in Varanasi, as it will release one from the cycle of continual life and death. We heard some fascinating stories of people waiting for 20 years to die in Varanasi. It’s really a very powerful city.

Along the river there are a series of ghats, which are steps leading down to the water. These different ghats have different purposes. Some are bathing ghats, some are cremation ghats. One cannot go to Varanasi without spending time exploring the ghats. As we were walking along them one day, narrowly avoiding water buffaloes and pick-pocketers alike, I saw this guru-ji. It wasn’t the enormous turban covering his incredibly long dreadlocks that stopped me, but his eyes. I stopped Rob and we stood a little ways away from him trying to figure out how to get a shot.

To be quite honest with you we both find it incredibly difficult to ask people for a photo. Since the beginning of our photography career we’ve always been expressly asked to take photos of people. We have no background in news photography so we’re not used to taking shots without being asked to do so. It took me a while to work up the nerve, but eventually I did.

I approached him and held up my camera to signal that I wished to take a photo of him. This clearly happened quite a bit to him, and he responded with a price of 20 rupees (50 cents).

If you’ve ever been to India you’ll very clearly understand what I did next.

I haggled.

I offered 10 rupees. It’s not that I was cheap. I mean, we’re talking about a quarter here. It’s simply the mindset you get into while in India. EVERYTHING is bargained. Your food, your lodging, your transportation. Everything. You never just accept the first price offered to you.

He refused the 10 rupees and stood firm at 20. I hesitated for a moment, simply because of the pride invovled in “getting a deal”. I didn’t want to just pay whatever he asked.

Then I stopped myself and said, this is going to be an amazing shot, and I’m looking at paying 50 cents. So Rob handed over two grimy 10 rupee notes to him.

I stepped forward to take my shots and he looked straight into my lens in way that so few people have the courage to do. So many get scared of the camera, and he just seemed to look straight through it.

I took a rapid series of shots to ensure I had the one I wanted, and we walked away.

Looking back at it, I really wished we had taken the time to take so many more shots with him. But even just stopping and asking someone for a shot was a big step for us, so we were happy at the time.

We always learn so much about ourselves and our art when we shoot, even if we wished it had all gone differently after the fact.

Hope you enjoyed the little back story! I guess it turned out to be longer than I expected :) Rob is actually going through photos from India today (the first time we’ve really looked at them since we returned) so perhaps I’ll share a few more on here.

If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out The Wedding Travelers , the blog we kept as we traveled Vietnam, Thailand and India for three months. The writing may not be that interesting, but trust me, there are some fascinating photos on there!

Love you guys, and don’t forget to go vote for us!

Lauren :)

So today is a pretty exciting day. Our friends/web dudes/clients Jon & Kyle have now officially launched the Fotojournal blog. For those who haven’t heard me gushing about it, Fotojournal is a brand new blogging platform designed specifically for photographers. We’ve been using versions of it for nearly a year now, and it has sincerely made me enjoy blogging so much more. The interface is sleek and sexy, and uploading photos is actually fun, not a huge headache like with all other blogging services!

And their new blog is the perfect example of the awesomeness that is FJ. Not only is it a killer design, but it’s running off the brand new public version of Fotojournal (which I’ve been told we get upgraded to this evening! Boo-ya!)

Anyway, I know all the photographers out there are super excited to hear about this. Fotojournal has so much buzz, and nothing has even been released yet! That’s how insanely cool it is. So make sure to head over to their blog and sign up, if you haven’t already. Due to the fact that they want to make FJ blogs the best out there, they are starting with a few select and lucky clients. So if you are awesome (and I know all our blog readers are awesome) you need a FJ blog.

In order to show the world how crazy cool these two are, we did a little photoshoot with them. These are possible some of the funnest shots of the year. I really want to start doing more stuff like this, band photography, alternative business branding, etc. It’s sweet!

Here we go with a few shots.

We sure had some fun out in the field. Yes, those are computer monitors they are throwing. And yes, it was fun to watch them crash.

Now this is just a small sampling of all the fun stuff we did with them. There are some more pictures that are pee-your-pants funny, but those will only be released on the FJ site, and I don’t know exactly when. So you’ll have to stay tuned there to see more!

Now go and get yourself some sexy blog awesomeness with Fotojournal!

Lauren :)

Every since we got our totally awesome longboard we’ve been getting into the whole “skateboarding scene”. Sure we’re in our 20’s and 5 year old kids totally school us, but it’s quite fun.

Rob decided that he wanted to get a regular skateboard to start doing tricks on. He waited ever so patiently for a week or so while it came in the mail, and when the doorbell rang today he hauled ass downstairs to get his new toy!

Of course we went right outside, Rob in his helmet and me with the camera. Here are a few quick shots!

You KNOW any skateboard with a panda on it is pretty much the best thing ever.

Side by side comparison of our longboard and the new skateboard.

It’s a whole different board to ride, but Rob was able to nearly do a nice ollie. Lots of practice still needed.

Coming up tomorrow, a super awesome Western/Indian hybrid wedding, woo woo!

Lauren :)

P.S. We’re super close to the next winner of the comment contest, so share your thoughts and win free stuff!

So I’m not sure how many of our lovely blog readers know that I actually mini-blog nearly every day! True story!

It’s not here on this rock-tacular blog, but actually on a little thing called Twitter.

Like all interweb things it is slowly becoming more and more popular with Twitterers like Barack Obama and Britney Spears jumping on board.

But it’s fun and a quick way to keep up on what our friends are doing. And I actually update it almost every day! So if you are wanting more Rob & Lauren follow us here! Just become one of our followers and join the party train!

Lauren :)

So we e-know (as in, we know her through the internet) this really cool blogger in Vancouver. Her blog is called Mostly Lisa and she blogs about all sorts of neat geek/photography/interweb stuff.

Anyway, she is having a contest for the best “Summertime” photo and one of our shots is in the top 8!

The shot that is in the running is this awesome one from Stefanie and Josh’s portrait session. It was such a perfect summer night to shoot with these two (and their adorable puppy, Parker)!

Anyway, we’d love for our blog readers to head on over to Lisa’s blog and vote for us! That is, of course, if you think our shot is the best one :)

Go HERE and add a comment to vote for your favorite shot! Ours is called “Summer Ride” by the way :)

Cheers guys, and hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Ours was marked with our very last wedding OF THE YEAR! Woo!

I’ll post again with some awesome photos. But for now go and vote and make us e-famous!

Lauren :)

Gonna throw another Before and After at you today. This one is from a shoot we did with the awesome dudes at Fotojournal (the makers of this blog). They are getting close to releasing Fotojournal to the masses and needed some awesome shots for their website.

We took them out to a field and played a bit off off-camera lighting. Here’s a before of one of the shots:

And here’s the after. Note: I didn’t just “press a button” and this happened! I worked on this image for quite a while to get it looking this spiffy! But you can see just how much you can improve an image with a bit of work and knowledge of the lovely thing we call Photoshop :)

You will definitely be seeing more from this shoot soon. Until then, go and sign up to get on the list for a Fotojournal blog! It will make you love blogging.

Lauren :)

So with a hearty response to our inquiry of whether or not we should do a Chill Session, we have indeed decided to go ahead and hold it on October 19th. It will go pretty much all day, with tons of chatting, learning and having fun.

We’re going to have pretty limited space, to keep the group small and make sure everyone has a chance to ask their questions, so make sure to give me a shout as soon as possible to register your spot.

As I mentioned before, this is aimed at advanced amateurs. I’d suggest you have a good knowledge of an SLR camera, and a desire to take your photography to the next level.

IMPORTANT: We have already found our model couple! Thanks so much to everyone who offered!

I think that’s it. If you have any questions about the Chill Session leave me a comment and I’ll do what I can to answer it!

Cheers, and hope to chill with a bunch of you soon!

Lauren :)

So I’ve known for the past couple days that the 300 comment mark was about to be breached and that we’d have our next winner. We actually hovered at 299 for a day or so, and it sure was exciting to see who would finally comment and win!

We woke up luxuriously late today after the craziness that was Allison & James’ wedding yesterday (can’t wait to show you that one, James is Australian and there were over 40 other Aussies there to celebrate. That meant good times!) I knew that it was quite likely that we had gotten the one comment we needed to reach the 300 mark.

Well, we sure did! And believe or not, it’s another person from Australia!

But this time, in such a wonderfully random bit of chance, it is actually Talya, commenting on her own post that won!!!

Hooray!

Way to go Talya, now you get a Wedding Travelers print to decorate your flat in Melbourne, and remind you of how much you miss us!

I’ll post up some more funness tomorrow, right now we’re just taking it easy, and about to enjoy some tea from the wedding last night that promises to taste like a creamsicle. I’ll report back on that.

Lauren :)

With all the interest in how we do our “thang” I thought it might be fun to show you what a morning with Rob & Lauren is like.

Warning, it is pretty darn boring! We just sit in front of our computers working on stuff.

But what is pretty fun is to watch what Scooter does all morning.

Anyway, here is a time-lapse video that Rob did yesterday. He bought a cool new remote that let’s him control the camera to take photos every few seconds. Way easier to do than the video we did of hanging the photos!

P.S. The video is HD quality because we used our SLR camera, but can’t be embedded as HD. So if you want to see it in it’s full glory click on the “HD of off” button, and then the link and you can see it.

Also, we wanted to ask a question of everyone. We’ve had quite a few people asking if we will be doing a “Chill Session” this year. Last year we set aside a day to have some young, new photographers over and just let them ask away. We also took them out on a couples shoot to see how we work. It was a very fun (and very long!) day of chatting and learning.

This year we were thinking of possibly doing it again, but a bit more structured, and with a small fee of around $100. This would include having some dinner, hanging out with us all day, and some tutorials on probably workflow, processing and shooting. We’d also try to have another live photo shoot as well.

Not sure if we’ll go ahead with it, but we wanted to see if there was any interest! It’d likely be a Sunday in October, and geared towards advanced amateurs who are looking to make a push towards becoming professionals.

So let me know who might be interested and we’ll go from there!

Here is the post from last year’s Chill Session.

Lauren :)

So it seems like a lot of people want to pick our little brains! It’s pretty funny to think we might have “secrets” but really we’re pretty open about how we work and what we do. We do spend a lot of time developing our workflow, and so we’ve learned a whole ton of what to do and what not to do.

In this post I’ll answer a couple questions that have come up and you can feel free to ask some more in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer those as well! Pretty soon I’ll be working on a Frequently Asked Questions page so you can see all this great info in one spot.

Question from Jane: What’s in your camera bag?

In terms of main components, these are our bodies and lenses:

(2) 5D for main cameras
(1) 30D and (1) 40D for backup

Lenses:
Sigma 15 mm fisheye
Canon 24 1.4
Canon 28 1.8
Canon 45 TS-E
(2) Canon 50 1.4
Canon 85 1.8
Canon 100 2.8 Macro
Canon 70 – 200 IS

Flash: (2) Canon 580 EX
(1) Canon 430 EX

We also have a ton of little gadgets and gizmos that we play with. I’ll post a more details list on our FAQ page when I make it.

Question from Meena: How much do you use photo editing in getting to a final picture? Like, what percentage of pictures are photoshopped/edited? Or, what are good techniques to use when editing/photoshopping?

Editing is a crucial part of the photography process. It’s one of the big things that can seperate an amateur from a professional. Not a lot of amateur hobbyists spend much time in Photoshop, whereas professionals spend more time working on the images than they do taking them (in general….at least we do)

Every single photo we take goes through two rounds of editing. Once through Lightroom, and once through Photoshop. In Lightroom we make adjustments to the contrast, colour balance, and brightness of the image. Then in Photoshop we convert to black and white, do toning effects, and other such processing. Photoshop is where we work the image to fit our intial vision. Lightroom is where we bring it to a good starting point.

That’s simply our process and every photographer will do something different. I know people who do everything in Lightroom, and it looks fantastic. Others do everything in Photoshop. Whatever works for you is great.

Workflow is also pretty different for a wedding photographer who needs to complete approximately 700 images per week, versus someone who is working on 10 images for a magazine.

And finally, our overall goal is to try to create clean processing. Sometimes we get a little more experimental, but overall we try to create images that will look good down the road. We play with the fads that come through, but are always trying to take our processing to a very natural place.

Questions from Jody: Which lenses to you tend to use the most for shooting weddings? Second question, where do you get your photos printed?

My favorite lenses are the 50 1.4 and the 24 1.4. I use those two for the majority of the wedding. The 85 1.8 is good for ceremonies, although I’d love to upgrade to the 85 1.2 at some point.

Rob uses the same lenses pretty much, although he will use the 70–200 for the ceremony. He also loves to experiment with the 45 TS-E during the portraits.

The macro only really comes out for the ring shots, and the fisheye only a couple times a wedding.

Next on my wishlist is the 35 1.4. I think it would be an awesome focal length!

As for printing, we get them done through WHCC in the States. It’s a super awesome lab with great quality!

Feel free to add your questions to the pile! And because posts without pictures are boring:

That would be me getting a little longboarding action in after a shoot. For the record, I wear my helmet 99% of the time. In this instance we hadn’t brought them along because we were shooting. But safety first kids!

Lauren :)

More questions!

Question from Boba (for everyone who is confused, Boba Fett is one of my family’s cats): What’s in your lunch bag?

Well, we usually eat a bunch of different things for lunch. Soup, Kraft Dinner, sandwiches, other simple stuff. Today we had a delicious lunch of beaners and wieners which was very tasty, but made me sleepy and I needed to take a nap. And yes I realize that sentence makes me sound like I’m 5 years old, and yes, I am ok with that.

Question from Kate: Can we see a shot in the first RAW stage and then the final product?

You sure can! I think this shot from Angeline & Dean’s wedding really shows what I mean about Photoshop being a means to achieve our initial vision for the shot.

This is straight out of camera (SOOC). You can see that Rob got a really good exposure, and that the 5D gives really amazing clarity and contrast. But the shot doesn’t really have the right feeling to it.

Rob did a lot of work in Photoshop and this was the final product. Now it really looks fantastic!

In a little while I’ll post some more before afters, even of more plain shots. Even when your lighting is nice and your settings are perfect, the shot can always benefit even from a little Photoshop!

Question from Nick: How do you shoot the processional? (*slight rewording)

I think many photographers will start to notice how difficult some parts of a wedding can really be. As soon as you get all the repsonsibility on your shoulders as the main photogrpaher, it can be pretty scary!

The processional, especially in a dark church is a huge pain. The best way to do it is to take the time before the wedding to test the lighting and get your settings in manual mode. Rob is the man in charge of this part of the day (I’m usually with the bride) and he does a ton of test shots to get it just right. Sometimes he’ll even make me stand in the aisle just to be sure.

In terms of focusing, we use the center focus and recompose. With the processional you’ll probably want a fairly wide lens so you can crop if you need to while still getting their whole body in the frame. One trick is to pick a spot in the aisle where you know you have your lighting and settings for, and shoot them as soon as they hit that spot. Do that instead of trying to get a focus the whole way down the aisle and that might help.

We also use very fast and pro-series glass that helps us to get a very quick lock on the subject before firing off the shot. It’s very useful especially when the church is quite dark. Also our flash units help us to achieve the focus so a good flash is key as well.

Ok, so first off we want to thank everyone who was been commenting on our blog in the past few days. Since I posted about the lack of comments we have gotten about 40 little tidbits of love in the past two days. It has really made me so happy every time I log in and see some new little message from a blog reader. I hope this keeps up even though we have our 200th commenter! Like I said before, this little contest will continue for each 100th comment, and if we’re getting 40 every two days, you can imagine I’ll be sending out a lot of free swag!

So keep commenting, keep sharing your thoughts and questions, and keep sharing the love!

Whenever I ask a regular reader why they don’t comment the answer is usually “I don’t want to seem like a weirdo/blog stalker”. Honestly, we think it’s more weird that you DON‘T comment.

So this is the time for our stalkers to come out of the closet and start participating! I’m going to start working harder to answer any questions that crop up in the comments, so if you have something you’d like to ask fire away! Then check the comment box later on for my reply.

Anyway, I know everyone is just pacing around waiting for me to announce the winner….it is……

Matt from [shadowplay]!!!!

He is one half of an awesomely talented duo of videographers from Australia. We’re dying to go there to hang out with them, but still need someone to hire us for a wedding, haha! But they are making a trip to Canada next year and hopefully we’ll all get to spend some time having fun. For now he gets a Rob & Lauren Swag Pack. Woo woo!

For the continuation of the commenting, I’m allowing multiple comments per post. Even my own comments will add to the count. Basically I don’t want to keep logging in and manually counting things! So to tell you the truth, we’re actually closer than 100 away to the next prize! Can’t wait to see who wins that one!

Lauren :)

P.S. Another photo post coming up soon! Still so much to share!

So after shooting a million weddings so far this summer, as well as a ton of portrait shoots, meetings, brainstorming sessions etc. (a friend looked at our schedule yesterday and just started to laugh. Yeah, we’re busy) Rob and I decided to allow ourselves a rare Saturday off.

Today we’re going to have a ton of fun, take it easy, and just give ourselves a bit of time to relax and recharge. I think on the menu is brunch (I love brunch!), tennis, longboarding, shopping, dinner and a movie. It’s going to be an awesome day.

Here are a couple shots I took last week of a friend just having some fun at a skate park. Let me know what you think! It’s definitely different from wedding photography, but I had fun. We already have plans to do some crazy snowboarding photos this winter!

What do you guys do on your days off?

Lauren :)

P.S. This is the first post that qualifies for the comment contest, so comment away! Tell me what you think of skateboarding photography, and what you do with your precious days off!

Ok team. I know there are like a bazillion of you checking this blog near daily (I have statistics, and the official count is exactly a bazillion). And you keep telling me in person how much you loves so-and-so’s photos. But why don’t you leave us some pretty little comments??? They totally make our day!

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to make a big move.

We are creeping up on 200 comments. So whoever makes the 200th comment will get a kick-ass Rob & Lauren Swag Pack!

Yes, real free stuff! Not just bonus points!

This Swag Pack will include an 8×10 Wedding Travelers print of your choice, some business cards, Rob & Lauren stickers, maybe a random polaroid, basically whatever cool stuff I can find around here. Mailed to you with love.

So yeah, how awesome is that? Who doesn’t like mail??

Rules:
– Comments must be real. Not like “Hi!” but like “Wow, I really like the second photo of the cat”
– One comment per post per person. So don’t spam me with 100 comments on one post and expect to win. I’m smarter than that.
– I’ll do this for every 100 comments. (ex. 200th, 300th, 400th…1,000,000th)
– This is for every new post from now on. So don’t go comment on every single old post I’ve made.

So let’s see some love!

Lauren :)

Today was Rob’s birthday. Hooray! It was the big 2–5 for him (can’t tell you how many times he heard “quarter of a century” today) and as such we figured we may as well throw a quick, impromptu celebration. We pretty much invited everyone yesterday or even today, and we were totally pumped that pretty much everyone was able to swing by and have some fun!

In total photographer style we had to take some photos. We did something that we’ve been wanting to do for a while: a photobooth! We did have to literally drag some people in front of the camera, but were able to get some really fun shots.

Here are a few I did up really quickly, we’ll probably post a bunch more shots from the evening in a few days when I’m not so sleepy.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by! It was tons of fun, and hopefully we can have more such soirees as the year goes on and we get a little less busy :)

Lauren :)

P.S. We are definitely thinking about doing this at weddings, since it’s ridiculously fun. More details on that when we work out our details :)

Hey all!

Sorry for the relative quietness here lately. We’ve been busier than ever and all sorts of great things are going on here!

Here’s what’s up:

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We recently bought a really awesome longboard! Not only does it look amazing, but it’s super fun as well. Expect some cool videos and photos of that soon!

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August has been our busiest month of the summer with 7 weddings. That means lots of trips around the city to find really fun new places to shoot. Rob has been continually practicing his bike tricks. Not exactly easy to do on a folding bike but he does it anyway!

Both these shots were taken with our iPhone.

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In terms of bonus points, Cori, Stef, and Steph all get 10 extra points for sending in their mangas!

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Yesterday we drove out to Bragg Creek in the morning, shot a wedding, and drove back in the evening. We were treated to one of the best wedding meals yet. Check this out.

Truly the best beef we have ever had.

And proof of how good it was, this was Rob’s plate.

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We are going to be on TV! We did an interview for a new station in Edmonton called Omni. They will be airing a piece on Indian Weddings and talked to us about our trip to India, and what it’s like for us to shoot Indian weddings. It will air some time after September 15. I’ll give you guys the details so you can tune in and see us! Also, if someone knows how to take the footage and get it digitized so we can put it up here I’d love you forever!

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We have a wedding to shoot today, and after that there are only 5 weddings left this year. I can’t believe it has gone so fast! 2009 is already booking up so make sure to give us a shout soon to reserve your date!

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Lots and lots and lots more awesome photos to come on the blog so keep checking in!

Lauren :)

This evening there was a really crazy lightning storm here in Edmonton. It started off with some lightening in the distance while we watched a movie. Then suddenly the rain just started to pour and the lightning seemed literally overhead. After a little while the storm moved and it stopped raining. We decided to check and see if it was safely in the distance and then grabbed our cameras!

Getting a really cool shot of lightening is something I’ve been hoping to get for a while so I was pretty pumped.

Even as a I write this, and we’ve been back indoors for half an hour or so, I can still see the lightning going crazy out the window! Amazing.

Lauren :)

As a side note, while we were out shooting we also noticed some weird light phenomenon not related to the lightning. We weren’t able to get a photo of it but having taken an Earth and Atmosphere Sciences class in university I had heard of ”Earthquake light”. You can check out a video of it here (happens at 33s and 39s) . The thing we saw looked just like the phenomenon in the video, a powerful bluish light rising up from the ground in an almost cone like fashion. No sound or anything and always right on the horizon. We saw it about 3 or 4 times in the 15 minutes we were outside. I know we don’t get earthquakes around here and so I have no idea what it was, but I was wondering if anyone else saw this?

Cheers,
 Rob

P.S. If an earthquake strikes Edmonton then I totally predicted it.

Ok so Wikipedia tells me that “manga” is a term referring to Japanese comics, but I’m sure someone out there can give a more detailed description.

Anyway, some cool dudes on one of our favorite forums, the Digital Wedding Forum, started a thread where they created their manga selves and shared the results. I did it for Rob and myself, and thought it was so funny I’d share it here!

This is me.

And this is Rob!

If you want to make one of yourself just go here!

Feel free to send me yourself and we’ll post it up here! Let us get to know each other :)

Lauren

Here we go! Rob & Lauren’s friends!

Cori, who’s wedding we will be shooting exactly two weeks from today!

Stef, who we did a really awesome shoot with a while ago (it involved cruiser bikes, long boards, and a very hyper puppy!) and who also happens to be our neighbor!

Steph, my wee little sister! (note the resemblance between our mangas)

So I finally got my butt in gear and chose the winner of the icanhascheezburger contest. I based the decision solely on which one made me laugh the most! And the winner is….

Jon! He gets 7 extra bonus points to bring his total to 8.

Terence, PatF, Kyle, Andrea Bowman, and JennLink all get 3 points for their awesome usage of lolspeak.

Lise (Rob’s grandma, woo!) gets 3 points for using French and making me have to go to babelfish to figure out what she said! Bon travail

Manik gets 3 points for quoting the worst line of TV dialogue of all time.

And everyone else who played gets 1 point!

That makes the current tally as such:

JennLink – 28 points
Talya – 11 points
Leslie – 11 points
Jon – 8 points
Cori – 6 points
Terence – 4 points
PatF – 4 points
Lise -4 points
Manik – 4 points
Kyle – 4 points
Andrea Bowman – 4 points
Matt Graves – 2 points
Natz – 2 points
Teresaling – 2 points

Everyone else – 1 point

C’mon guys! JennLink is running away with this contest!!! She’s totally set up to win that crazy awesome print!

Anyway, that’s all for today. Tomorrow will be another awesome wedding!

Lauren :)

Back in June, James Day was in town hanging out with us. We scheduled a little lunch get together with some other Edmonton wedding photographers so that James could meet them and we could all have some fun.

Needless to say, when you unleash photographers out together a lot of crazy things happen. And a lot of talking. A huge thanks to our poor waitress who had to wait forever for us to order because we were too busy talking about the lastest camera model, or something equally nerdy.

Here are a few crazy photos of our time with these very cool people.

The very cool Jason Leon Clark, who has amazing taste in pop culture references.

The very crazy Michael Shandro, who you will be seeing more of on this blog very soon…

You’ve seen this character before. The very sexy James Day.

The whole group. Peeking in the back there is the bearded Chris Uglanica.

James had to show our waitress how to take a “selfy” as he calls them. We were all squishing ourselves together to take the previous shot, and she offered to take it for us. We quickly thanked her, but said No, it’s very important we do it ourselves. She was confused but played along.

And one last amazingly horrible shot of Michael (btw, the photo is horrible, not Michael. He looks awesome!!). How hilarious is this???? Michael, you are funny my friend.

And those are a few of our friends!!

Real photos up tomorrow. We are getting closer and closer to being caught up, and I REALLY can’t wait until we do, because these two weddings we just finished this weekend were seriously mind blowing. Some of our favourite photos EVER! So keep checking back, keep playing the game, and we’ll all have a lot of fun!

Lauren :)

So the crazy duo of Rob & Lauren is currently out shooting at an awesome wedding. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to break my “blogging every day” streak! So here’s a totally rad shot of Rob on one of our folding bikes.

We were off doing a little scout of a shooting location. And, if you haven’t realized yet, we like to have fun no matter what we’re up to. So Rob was showing off his tricks.

For the record, Rob wants me to put up a picture of him doing a wheely, so we’ll get one of those up soon. :)

Lauren :)

You might notice I’ve been throwing around bonus points here. It’s not just for funsies. No, those bonus points are real.

I’m thinking once someone hits 100 I’ll send them something awesome, like a Wedding Travelers print of their choice, or something equally cool. I’ll figure that out later. So make sure you’re playing the bonus points game! Maybe I’ll start giving gold stars as well, but I’ll have to decide the conversion scale.

For the record, the current bonus point holders are:

JennLink – 21 points
Talya – 11 points
Leslie – 11 points
Everyone else – 1 point

I’m pretty sure those are the correct tallies!

For today, you can get 7 bonus points (yeah, I’m going to go with random numbers) for giving me the best caption for this photo, a la icanhascheezburger.com. (Note: don’t go to that website if you don’t have about an hour or so to kill flipping through hilarious photos of kittehs)

Aaaaaaand, go!

Todays model is Destiny, the new kitten belonging to Rob’s sister. Ain’t she cute???

Tomorrow I’ll give you guys a more regular post, like an awesome e-session. For now, you better give me some hilarious captions!

Lauren :)

The alarm clock rang at 5:45AM today. That’s DISGUSTING! We don’t usually get up before 10:00, so you can imagine how we’re feeling right now :P But we’re off to an awesome wedding, so I know things will pick up :)

For now, I’m just gonna hit you with one really awesome photo, taken by an awesome photographer, of two awesome people.

More of these tomorrow!

Lauren :)

So one thing that we get a lot of comments on are how do we find all the cool spots we shoot in???? Edmonton isn’t exactly the most extraordinary city in terms of places to shoot (that’s the reason EVERYONE goes to the Legislature on Saturdays…). But we still manage to find some neat little places that you’d never notice.

Well, we don’t walk. That would take forever! And driving prevents you from really seeing anything because you move too fast.

WHAT TO DO????

Well, we found our perfect solution. It’s called a bicycle!!! Yes, a bicycle.

But what’s even better than just a bike, is a FOLDING bike. We have a pretty small car, and there’s no way we could fit two normal sized bicycles into our ride. So a folding bike is pretty much the perfect thing.

You might wonder what on earth a folding bike looks like, and how it works. Well, we’ve put together a super awesome video to show you!

We shot that with our Canon 5D (the same camera we use at weddings). I love it!

Here are a few cool shots of the bikes!

They are Dahon Speed bikes, and they are gorgeous!

Always wear your helmets!!

A fun thing about exploring the city is that we can find new places to eat! We found this amazing little Mexican fast/fresh food place with the best burritos ever!!! It’s called Mucho Burrito. Yum!

They were big, too :)

P.S. If you are looking for a folding bike in Edmonton (or any bike for that matter) you HAVE to go to Revolution Cycle. The are THE BEST. They totally took care of us, answered all our questions, helped us out a ton, and were all around awesome. I love them.

Lauren :)

For Father’s Day this year we had a nice little dinner at my parents house. It gave us a chance to try out a recipe we’ve been excited to experiment with. It’s a little something called Beer Butt Chicken!

How awesome is that? It’s a really simple thing to make, and we’ll actually do a little video of how to make it, just for fun, in a little while. But until then here are some photos! Look at that thing getting all roasty in the oven! Yum!

Finished product. Tastiness.

OH NO! It’s a Beer Butt Chicken!!!!!

My sister, Stephanie, is sad. Beer Butt Chicken is just too much for her to handle.

Up tomorrow, the very scrumptious e-session of Gerryl and Juan, our free wedding winners! Yay!

Lauren :)

I opened the door the other day and this little (huge!) fella just about flew into our house. After it landed (and I stopped panicking like a little girl) I looked at it through the window and decided I needed to photograph it!

I expected to maybe get in one shot but it stood still long enough for me to grab the macro.

I’ve never seen a dragon fly so close before and I can’t believe how intricate and obviously unique it’s wings are. It’s interesting how what initially frightens us can turn out to be startlingly beautiful.

In other news we just saw The Dark Knight last night and it rocked our socks off. Heath Ledger (The Joker) totally stole the show. Hope you enjoy your Saturday.

We’ll it’s been about a week and a half since we started this new blog and the response has been great! Thanks for all the wonderful comments and compliments. Since the first post Lauren and I have definitely checked this blog an unhealthy amount, but we really enjoy reading the comments and visiting other photographers websites. Thanks also for filling out that poll earlier, it certainly helps us gain a better understanding of who our blog readers are. There’s a TON more to come so stay tuned!

Thought I would just throw up a quick self portrait. Lauren will probably do a more full post later today but since I don’t blog much I thought I would throw in a few words. Thanks again for stopping by!

Cheers,
 Rob

So last night when I posted up J&R’s TTD I was SO TIRED. I’ve been suffering a cold the past couple days, and it has really wiped me out. Thus the very noticeable lack of text in that last post.

But you didn’t think you’d get away without me saying something nice about Jennette and Reilly, did you? You know how things roll on this blog! We love our flients (friends/clients) and want everyone to know!

Jennette and Reilly’s engagement session was shot in Edmonton about a week after we returned from India. So we were a little nervous about figuring out how to interact with people again in the same way. But these two, from the moment we met with them, were incredible.

So we know Mexico was going to be off the hook. And it was. It was so funny because we were often asked by the other wedding guests if we were friends of J&R. And we know that they are wondering if we were old friends who just happened to be photographers as well. Which we weren’t, since we met them online as clients. But we still had to say yes, because J&R truly made us feel like friends!

I wanted to share a few fun little shots of the very very kind gifts they gave us when we got back home!

Anyone who gets Scooter a gift DEFINITELY gets to be on the blog. For serious. :) Here he is enjoying his new pillow that can be heated up in the microwave to keep him nice and snuggly.

And for the humans in the house, they got us insanely cool and unique bowls for our noodles. By the way, we LOVE noodles. These ones are the best.

J&R, you guys are awesome. So awesome we could just slurp you up.

So yeah, that’s all sorts of funness. Jennette and Reilly, we heart you forever.

Today we took some much needed time off. After a couple weddings last weekend and a couple weddings this weekend we needed to recharge our batteries a bit! This past Wednesday was my best friend’s birthday (his name is Steve, the fabled third member of our first photography company, 3 point photography). Since we weren’t able to meet up for his birthday we played a little tennis today, and roasted some weenies over a fire. We also got up to a little bit of fun on the trampoline…

The man of the hour. Mr. Steve.

Where’s the parachute?

I would love to do a shot like this with a guy in a business suit…

Lauren busts it out.

Steve and I teach Lauren how to do a backflip. She was actually able to sort of land the first one. I’m pretty sure next time she’ll be able to do it without our help!

Our good friend, Rosina, from highschool was in town and dropped by.

This would be such an awesome couples shot, if any of our current brides or grooms have some tumbling skills then please let us know so we can do an awesome trampoline session with you.

Steve’s brother Kurt. I think he said that he was trying to do some yoga move.

Rosina took us for a ride in her new Infiniti GS-37s. Holy cows what a beautiful car!

Rosina had to make the drive back to Fort Mac tonight so she left a bit early.

I wasn’t sure if i was still able to do a backflip on the ground. When Steve gives me some encouragement it’s easy to believe I’ve still got it. (The tennis and yoga we’ve been doing probably helps a bit)

This shot was actually taken in New Zealand four or five years ago when I was in a lot better shape! When I got back from traveling I made this picture my blogger profile pic and Lauren stumbled upon it. She thought it was an interesting picture and left a comment on my blog, I sent her an e-mail and the rest is history. It’s cool that she was able to take the above picture of me!

On an unrelated more photography related note I just thought I would share one thing with you guys!

At every wedding we try to do a little reception slideshow of some of the days pictures so that guests can see some shots of the bride and groom getting ready as well as shots of photos of the afternoon. These slideshows have become super popular at all our weddings and guests will often come up to us and say they wish they had gotten us to shoot their wedding when they got married.

I just want to put out a huge open invitation for people to keep in mind that anniversary photography is a great idea! Keep getting photography done throughout your relationship and as you start a family, it’s such a fantastic way to showcase the growth of you two as a couple. We’ve got a couple great family and baby shoots ready to blog and once you see them you’ll definitely know what I mean! So if you’ve been meaning to do this, there is no better time than the present! Run to our contact form (run, don’t walk) and give us a shout!

Cheers,
 Rob