Rob and Lauren Blog

Ok, so how’s this for awesome timing? I’m posting Jolene & Brian’s e-session right now and in about an hour we’re leaving to go shoot their wedding!!! Cool!!

You can just picture them in all these photos in a wedding dress and tux and pretend you’re watching their wedding day…um…maybe not. But still, it’s a neat little coincidence!

We went out to play with them around Whyte Ave and got some awesome, fun and colourful photos. Here they are!

I’m pretty much a spy-tographer.

Wish us luck today! It’s going to be so fun. And the extra dosage of fun for the day: Mr. James Day is shooting with us!!! This is going to be awesome.

Lauren :)

Ok so these guys are awesome. Their wedding is this weekend and I am almost peeing my pants with excitement! Not only is it at one of our favorite venues (Fort Ed FTW!) but these guys are so crazy and goofy and silly that the day is going to be totally full of laughs. I can’t wait!

It sure helps that they also look ridiculously good in front of the camera! We had to reschedule their first e-session due to rain, and just as we were about to start this one it wasn’t looking promising. But the clouds totally just missed us and we had so much fun playing around.

Here is the proof:

I told you they were cool. Check out the awesome shirts!

HAhaha! Ok, so Rob has this habit of taking pictures of any animals we happen to see while we’re out shooting. Just as we finish up our session and start walking back to the cars we all see this dog just doing his business on the sidewalk. We giggle and Rob takes a photo. Afterwards I look more closely at the photo and see that the For Sale sign for the house is none other than our buddy Mike Melnychuk’s, the coolest realtor in Edmonton!!! Good work Mike!!!!

Coming up on the blog we have our very first maternity session, as well as a baby session with a little guy so cute even the boys will “Awwwww”. Promise.

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 :)

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 :)

Yay! Wedding post!

Kaelyn and Skye have been so much fun to work with ever since we first met them. From a super fun e-session to a kick-ass rock show they have been awesome models. When their wedding day came around we knew it was going to be crazy fun.

It was.

They were married at the very scenic Eagle Rock Golf Course.

These definitely have to be my favorite bridesmaids dresses. Not only were they made by the fabulous Vera Wang, but they also had POCKETS!!! Am I wrong in thinking that’s the coolest thing ever?

Skye has ups.

Skye’s bandmate from Triple Exposure was the MC. His name is Mike and he’s pretty crazy!

The speeches were pretty hilarious.

Haha, this photo is too funny!!! One of the bridesmaids (who happens to have worked with Rob back in the day!) totally got biffed in the head with the bouquet! Ouch!!

So yeah, that wedding was kind of like, super totally awesome! Thanks you two for so much fun. I am sure we’ll be seeing you again, possibly at another Triple Exposure show! Woo!

Lauren :)

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 :)

Saajidah and Mehdi were runners up in our Free Wedding Photography Contest that we held last year, which meant that they won a free e-session with us. Cool! So we met up to get some fun photos of these two. They turned out to be practically supermodels! Just wait till you see these shots, these two are pros!

I told you! Awesome. Thanks so much you two for hanging out with us and being so fun. And congrats on your recent wedding, woo hoo!

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 :)

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 :)

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!

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 :)

I’m not one for random philosophical posts (this is Rob!) but today when I was editing some photos this photo of Sara just grabbed me and I had to share it with you. I feel so lucky that we’re able to share and capture such beautiful moments.

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 :)

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 :)

Today we met Raina. She’s the brand new daughter of our flients, Priety and Fabian.

I’ll post a full series of these shots later, but I was looking through them and just had my heart melted by them. I needed to share some right away.

This one got me totally teary eyed.

I’ll definitely post more later. Hope these brightened your weekend!

Lauren :)

I’m honestly bursting with excitement for Sonal and Raj’s wedding. I get pretty excited for all our weddings, but this one will be taking place on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, following a week long cruise. So I think you can forgive me for being a little extra excited :)

So a cruise wedding in an exotic locale is awesome enough. Then add in the fact that Sonal and Raj are drop dead gorgeous (they’d give Aishwarya and Abhishek a run for their money, I’ll say that much) and crazy fun to hang out with, and we’ve got ourselves a fabulous wedding!

We did two engagement sessions with these kids, and today I’ll be sharing the urban portion. Get ready for some amazingness.

 I’d say this shot is one of Rob’s favorites of all time. He loves it.

 Sonal can do smiley….

 And serious with equal expertise. She rocks.

I adore this one.

 And Rob is all about the sequences.

 I’ll be sharing their second session soon! For now I hope you enjoyed these shots, and are now waiting with breathless anticipation for their wedding photos! They are going to be unbelievable. Trust me.

Lauren :)

Hey all!

Wow, it’s about time I got some new photos up here, hey? The past couple weeks have been busy here, getting ready for the holidays, delivering tons of awesome albums and prints, and working on the new Rob & Lauren look! So apologies for the lack of posting, but there is still tons of great stuff to come.

Today you get to see a really stellar engagement session we shot with the wonderful Jamie & Jon. These two are so much fun, and Jon is truly a kid at heart. Since we are as well, it results in lots of silliness. I love silliness.

 Tickle fights are ALWAYS my idea. Rob says he hates being tickled….but he secretly loves it. Just like Jamie.

 It’s so wonderful seeing all these amazing fall colours right now, since we’re totally covered in snow today. Ah, I miss the days of fall.

 Jon got some serious height!

 I think this photo proves he won. But Jamie did give a valient effort!

 Love these ones Rob secretly snapped as we were just chatting after the session.

 I think from these photos you can tell that their wedding next year is going to be full of fun and love. It should be amazing!

Lauren :)

P.S. Tomorrow is our 4 year anniversary, yay! We are planning a HD movie marathon. Any good recommendations?

First off, a very happy New Year goes out to all our readers! Last year at this time we were madly preparing for our trip to India, and had very little time to reflect on the previous year, and dream about the next. But right now we’re just taking it easy, and thinking about how things will go next year, and couldn’t be more excited. A quick thank you to you all for following us this past year, and I hope you stick around for all the crazy awesome stuff to come!

Today I’m hooking you up with one of our last weddings of 2008. I enjoy every wedding we shoot, and always come away with so many new favorite images. James and Allison’s wedding was like an apex in that sense. The day just ran so smoothly, so perfectly, so amazingly and we came away with some photos that I know will grace our website, and likely our walls. There is just such a tangible connection between these two, and they both smile so fully and truly, and the resulting photos are simply *real*. I really hope you enjoy them.

 I’ll let you in on a little secret. My very favorite photos of anyone are ones of them laughing. It’s such an honest emotion and seems to really let you know what a person is like. Allison laughed about 95% of the day, and so you’ll see many photos of her laughing. I love them.

 These are all the Australians who came across the world to see these two get married. James is from Australia, and clearly has some very loving friends and family. Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie!

 This one may very well need to be a huge canvas.

 The food at the Union Bank Inn never fails to impress.

James’ father also knows how to laugh.

I adore the look between Allison and her brother during his speech.

Love the light on this one Rob took of James’ father.

Fact: Australians know how to party.

Allison and James, thank you for the laughs, the fun times, the book recommendations, and for sharing such a wonderful day with us.

To our readers, I hope you enjoyed these photos, and have a wonderful evening filled with fun and friends!

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 :)

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 :)

I think we need a cooler name for our “Trash the Dress” sessions. We definitely don’t go out with the intention of trashing anything, and the dresses are always just fine afterwards! It’s just so awesome to have all the time we want to create some spectacular images, without worrying about getting a bit of dust on ourselves :)

Anyway, we were so thrilled when Brittany and Terrance wanted even more awesome photos after their wedding. We took them to one of our favorite places in the city, and had some fun. 

 We had timed it perfectly to get the most amazing light.

 These guys are way too much fun!

 Sizzlin’!

 I adore this shot. You can just *feel it*.

 Believe it or not, we’re actually only a couple weeks away from our very first wedding of 2009! Wow! There is so much crazy stuff going on for us in the next month, we can’t wait to share it all!

Lauren :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Got a few pretty pictures to share with you today. You’ll be seeing more of these two in a just a couple weeks, and when you do, it’s going to BLOW YOUR MIND. I’m giving you fair warning. Prepare yourselves :)

 Haha, Raj was glad to finally be done all these engagement photos. He’s only got about 100 more hours to go with wedding photos!

 Happy early Valentine’s day everyone!

Lauren :)

Ah, how I long for those lovely days of summer….Luckily we’re in the middle of packing up our warm weather wear to hop on the plane this weekend :)

Here’s a nice shoot to share with you all on this awesome Tuesday! For the record, we adore doing family sessions like this. Just out to have some fun, and create some awesome images. We are going to be doing a lot more of these this summer!

 Nick is a volunteer firefighter, and we got to see all the awesome firetrucks! I think Rob was just as excited as the little boys.

 Possibly the cutest thing ever: wearing his dad’s fire helmet.

This one is pure nostalgia.

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 :)

Another teaser for you. We’re actually getting ready to head off again tomorrow, this time to Vancouver to hang out with a ton of awesome people! But that doesn’t mean you don’t get to see more pretty pictures.

This is one that we took after their wedding ceremony on the island of Anguilla, at the world famous Cap Juluca Resort.

 Lauren :)

Welcome to the first edition of Monday morning teasers! Every Monday following a wedding we will be blogging a few of our favorite shots of the day, so make sure to keep coming back!

Reina and Prav’s wedding was in the lovely little city of Calgary. The weather was beautiful in the morning, and even though it turned on us in the afternoon we still managed to get some wonderful images of these two very amazing people. I believe the following day Calgary experienced quite the snowstorm, so the weather was holding on just for these guys! Here are a few shots that caught my eye this morning.

 Enjoy your Monday everyone!

Cheers,

Lauren :)

o it seems as though we’ve got an interesting pattern emerging here! Last week I shared some engagement photos right before the wedding, and the same thing is happening today! April and Sheldon are getting married this weekend! We met up with them last fall for some fun and photos, and I’m just getting around to blogging them now. Based on these photos, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have an awesome time shooting their wedding!

 And to all those begging for more photos of the past two weddings we’ve shot, don’t worry, they will come!

Lauren :)

Hooray for Monday! Isn’t this a lovely little way to brighten up the beginning of your week? I sure hope so!

So, Saturday was a beautiful day, as far as March in Edmonton goes! It did get a bit nippy, but these wonderful people braved the cold, and about 8 flights of stairs (even though I told them it was only 4) to create some amazing images with us. Can’t wait to show you all the rest!

 Lauren :)

Well, we finally got our butts in gear and have decided on a date for our next Chill Session! Here are the deets:

When: Sunday, April 26, 2009

Where: Our home on the south side of Edmonton

What: A day of learning and shooting with Rob & Lauren. This time we’ll be focusing heavily on live shooting and post processing, with lots of one-on-one time!

Included: Snackies, bevvies, and din din

Cost: $250 + GST

We will be limiting the session to 10 people, and I have a feeling it will book up rather quickly, so get in touch with me right away (lauren [at] robandlauren [dot] ca)  if you’re interested. I’ll send you an email with all the details of what we’ll be talking about, and how to book your spot!

NOTE: As of Wednesday morning there are only 3 spots left! So if you’re wanting to come get in touch ASAP!

And a lovely little shot from our last Chill Session:

Hope to see some of you soon!

Lauren :)

Happy Monday everyone! We haven’t had a wedding the past couple of weekends, but I thought I’d share some Monday morning photos with you anyway!

It’s not easy to get us to go out and shoot in the snow for extended periods of time. We really hate the cold! Combine that with the need to manipulate small buttons on the camera and it’s just all sorts of annoying. But Jen & Wade were awesome enough to convince us to go out! We found a perfect winter day to shoot with them, and had way too much fun!

 P.S. I’m getting my wisdom teeth out on Wednesday, so emails might slow down a little bit while I’m recovering!

Lauren :)

Romy and Joyce are such a fantastic couple, we’re pretty much out of our minds with excitement for their wedding next weekend! The weather was really trying to prevent us from shooting their e-session (we were rained out one day, and when we were shooting these images we were nearly frozen and actually saw some snow!). But that didn’t stop the four of us from having so much fun, and getting some amazing shots. I’m so excited for this season to start, we’re loving spending time with all our couples!

Here are some of the shots we got with them. We also did a concept shoot that I’ll be sharing in a little while, once I’ve had time to fully process them all!

 I love the light we found here! So nifty. This totally reminds me of a couple of secret agents, lol.

 Romy is a fantastic photographer in his own right, and was able to borrow a 4x5 field camera for us to play with!! What an amazing piece of equipment! We’d never seen one before, and it was soooo cool! I guess you could call this shot a meta-photo, couldn’t you?

 Hope you all have a killer weekend! Our Chill Session is tomorrow so check back in on Monday for some shots from that!

Lauren :)

Happy Monday my friends!

Yesterday we had the wonderful opportunity to chill with 10 uber cool photographers! While we were all chatting in the morning I had a perfect view out the window of the blizzard that had taken over the city. But I knew that wasn’t going to stop us, and we were going to shoot no matter what! So everyone bundled up, and followed us out to an industrial area for some fun. To be honest, Rob and I were pretty worried as we were driving out there, and figured our shoot would be cut short. But we were having way too much fun, and were getting some mind-blowing shots, that I think we ended up shooting for well over an hour and a half in blizzard conditions!

Before I continue it’s essential that I give a huuuuuuge shout out to our models, Andrea and Mike. They drove all the way from Red Deer to hang out with us, and we truly couldn’t have had a better couple to work with! They were probably freezing cold the whole time, but never showed us anything but pure enthusiasm. We were so honored to create these images for them!

Check out the snow!!! In a normal situation we probably would have resheduled, but I’m SO pumped that we didn’t because it adds such a killer element to the photos.

 To get this shot I made all 10 photographer tramp through huge amounts of mud. We were all pretty dirty after that, but I maintain that it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.

 Again, we can’t thank Andrea and Mike enough for their amazing model skillz. They totally made our day!

And to all our Chill Session participants, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for an amazing day. You guys were fantastic!!!

Tons o’ love,

Rob & Lauren

One of the stops on our cruise with Sonal & Raj was the lovely island of St. Kitts. The Carribbean is such a beautiful place, I just can’t get over how amazing the water looked!

 We had a bit of time to take some shots of Sonal and her friend Jenya goofing around. Jenya came all the way from Switzerland for the wedding! Fact: the Swiss have the most fantastically designed passports ever. Google it and you’ll see what I mean.

 As always, we just had to take some portraits of Sonal & Raj together. By the end of the whole trip, we had photographed them in five different countires. Yes. FIVE different countries. And they looked amazing in all five!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

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 :)

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 :)

We go on bike rides sometimes just before it gets really dark. Its amazing how a short bike ride from our house can take us to a place where we feel like the only people in the world.

I feel like things are changing, that I’m beginning to see the world in a completely different way. I wonder how the details of the world have so easily passed me by until now. There is persistent, quiet beauty all around.

Lauren // Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

Rob :)

Recently we spent an afternoon with our friends Mark and Andrea, and their little girl Lila. Andrea is a fellow photographer, and we’ve been so lucky to get to know her over the past couple of years. And Lila is just one of those babies that you become addicted to. Seriously. Addicted.

During our shoot Rob created his first Moving Portrait of a family, and I think it’s one of his best yet. Check it out:

Hanki Family // Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

And here are some of the stills. I’ll probably end up sharing a ton more with you guys in the next couple weeks, but I wanted to get some up for these guys to peek at :)

  Lila is such a poser. Check her out!!

 What a seriously seriously beautiful family. We’re so lucky to know them!

 During this shoot I realised I have a bit of an obsession with flying baby photos. I’m ok with that.

 Ok, I need to get back to work! So many other amazing portrait sessions to edit. But Hankis, thanks so much for spending the afternoon with us. We love you guys a ton.

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 :)

I’d like to introduce you to these two stunning people, because they are going to be on the blog on Monday! Yep, these kids are getting married this weekend. We met with them this week to chat about the big day(s) and holy smokes. It’s going to be spectacular!!!! That is a Monday morning post you definitely don’t want to miss!

 Ok, check out that image on the right. With the bird. It’s trippy right? One of my favourite images I’ve created this year, no lie.

 Man, I can’t wait until this weekend! This wedding will be the definition of epic. Just wait.

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

I think my blog dudes would smack me if I uploaded the 49 images I got ready from this wedding all at once, so I’m going to do this over two days. Today you get to see part one of this wedding, and tomorrow will be part two :)

We started off with Robyn as she got ready for the Sikh ceremony.

 Yowza!

 Then it was time for the ceremony. The priest started everyone off with a prayer before the milni ceremony.

 The Nanaksar Gurdwara is seriously gorgeous.

 The ceremony ends with the offering of prasad to all the guests.

 See what I mean? What a gorgeous building.

I love these two. The background looks like a painting!

And our day ended with the doli. Sush and his guys had to bribe their way into Robyn’s house. I love these shots Rob got. He was squished in so tight that he could barely move. It made the shots seem so real, like I’m standing right there.

 For this one I feel like I’m part of the conversation. It’s a perspective we don’t usually get, being up that close and personal, but I love it so much.

 And for the record, they did finally manage to bribe the girls enough to get in :)

 And I’ll end on this one. Highly emotional, but so impactful. Sush leads her out of her parent’s home as they are tied together with a scarf. Robyn throws grains of rice as she leaves.

Come back tomorrow for the rest!

Lauren :)

I have a feeling that this is going to be a bit of a routine now, introducing a couple just before their wedding by showing their engagement photos! Karen and Gary are getting married tomorrow and we’re so so stoked for it! I’ll just say one thing: 3 hours of wedding portraits, heck yes!! So check back in one Monday because I KNOW there are going to be some fun shots.

For now, check out their engagement session. Karen and Gary have been together for something like 10 years (give or take, I can’t quite remember!). At that point, I really feel like couples know how to play, and goof around with each other. That makes things fun for us :)

GAH!! I’m so in love with these two shots!!! Mine on the left, Rob’s on the right.

 YAY!!!

 Fun times! Tomorrow is going to rock.

Lauren :)

Just can’t wait to share this one. From earlier today, at the wedding of one of my closest friends, Barbara. Her new husband, Anthony, is the sweetest guy, and I was so incredibly happy to share in their big day! And I’m so honored to have been able to be their photographer. I really, really like this frame :)

Lauren

Well, here we are. A “teaser” post of Barbara and Anthony! And it only took me all day to prepare :)

I’m gonna keep it short and sweet on the commentary, since I know I’ll get carried away if I start!

 Barbara and her posse.

It was a very highly emotional day.

 I can’t even look at this one without tearing up. This was Anthony’s reaction to seeing his bride for the first time. I don’t know if anyone had dry eyes after seeing him break down in tears. As he said in his speech “Real men cry”. Amen!

They only had eyes for each other during that walk.

 Anthony and his father.

 This here is where I lost my composure. It was a hand ceremony, that was beautifully performed by their marriage commissioner, Ian McClelland.

 Their ceremony was held in the outdoor gazebo at the Chateau Louis Hotel. We were treated to the most perfect light ever. The weather smiled on Barbara and Anthony, that’s for sure. It rained for about an hour, precisely when we needed it to. And it stopped, precisely when we needed it to.

Hahahahah! Rob was really getting into his hug with Anthony :) (He wants me to let everyone know that he was just goofing off for the camera….right….. ;)

These girls are some of my closest friends in the whole wide world. It was such an honor to get to photograph them. Aren’t they just ridiculously beautiful?

The guys weren’t too shabby either :)

Well, I’m just gonna leave it there, because I’m getting a bit misty eyed just thinking about what a wonderful day it was. Banthony (that’s the name I made up for them during the photo session, as I got tired of constantly saying Barbara & Anthony), you know we love you tons. Hope Jamaica is treating you well!

Huge heaps of love,

Lauren & Rob

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 :)

Hello!!!

Well, I’m sure most of you knew that we were off in Peru for a month shooting for our travel blog, www.theadventuresofrobandlauren.com. We just returned home on Tuesday and are already fully back into work mode!

We definitely missed getting to blog for all you lovely readers, and have a lot planned for the next couple weeks! Just wanted to let y’all know that this blog is going to start up again, so start checking! 

If you didn’t already, do check out our adventure blog. We had such a spectacular time in Peru, and were very lucky to be able to take some incredible images. 

And here’s a quick shot of us that our friend Drew Sinclair took at the end of our trip in Iquitos, the largest city in the world that isn’t accesible by road! It’s deep in the Amazon, and was really a fascinating place with tons of great colours!

By this point we were sweaty, our clothes were dirty, and we were exhausted from a full month of high-paced shooting. But as you can hopefully tell, we were very very happy to be there. 

Hope you all had a wonderful month! 

Lauren :)

Just a portrait of my Roberoo today. Took this during a full day coaching session we had yesterday. It’s so great to spend a day connecting with another photographer, and talking about this art form that we dig so much!

By the way, we are getting a lot of people wondering about these coaching sessions, so check out this link for deets if you’re interested! Good times. 

Lauren :)

P.S. Right now I’m about to get cracking on a big announcement for tomorrow. Make sure to check back in :)

Yep, it’s huge! We’ve been getting tons of emails asking when the next Chill Session would be. And we fully expected to just keep doing what we’ve always done, and hold an awesome workshop here in Edmonton. But then, we thought to ourselves: What if we do more? What if we go big? What if we hit the road, and travel to those photographers who weren’t able to come out to Edmonton? What if we ROADTRIP!!!

And, in the spirit of Photography Concentrate, we’re making it affordable, chock full of concentrated, high quality information, and a ton of fun to boot.

If you’ve been wanting to hit up one of our workshops, this is definitely the one to be a part of! It’s TWO days, so even more information, and will be filled up with all the knowledge that we can possibly cram in. It’s going to blow minds.

We really hope you’ll join us! Check this page out for all the details.

P.S. We’re shooting super special portrait sessions in each city! So if you wanted Rob & Lauren portraits, this is a SWEET opportunity! Deets here

And get ready, because this blog is heading back into high gear with a bunch of really fantastic shoots coming up! So much going on, I hope you can handle it!

Lauren :)

We drove 10 hours on Friday to be at the wedding of Tihiro and Mike. On Saturday we spent a beautiful day taking photos of them, their family and friends. Then on Sunday we drove 10 hours back. It was a great weekend.

I’ll be trying to post more tomorrow, but for now I just couldn’t help but share this frame that Rob made. I really dig it.

 Hope you all had a stellar weekend!