Black(and white) Friday
My kids playing in a small little nook of Goldstream Provincial Park. This past summer...it feels like a dream. I hardly remember this holiday at all. I am so grateful that I took the images that I did to remind me :)
Making my own albums and prints from the past year. I cannot tell you how important it is to print your images. We all need to do it more often!
Happy Black(and white) Friday,
Dana :)
Online Mentorship For Professional Photographers
Hi! I have decided to take on a limited number of photographers for a month of online mentoring this winter. The mentoring will be done through a private forum where there will be live webcasts(if you can't make the live webcasts--they will be recorded so that you can view them at your leisure), videos, and pdf's available for download. There will also be discussion encouraged. It will be a four week program running for the month of February, but I will leave the group up and access to the videos through until the middle of March.
What We Will Cover
Week One: Technical discussion--including portfolio reviews and image critiques; taking technical risks; creating an action plan specifically for you to aid in your growth
Week Two: Creative discussion--personal projects; inspiration--where to find it; helping you find your voice(and why it is super important that you do!)
Week Three: Business discussion--branding; marketing; pricing; making your business work for you
Week Four: Student Lead--together we grow! This is where the group decides what we'll discuss. Pick my brain on any topic you like. I know that everyone has unique needs and I am hoping that this week gives us the time to address specific needs, as well as, further flush out topics that everyone might want to dig deeper into.
I will be limiting the number of students and already have quite a list of people interested, so if this is something you would like to do...act fast.
When: February 4th-March 1st, 2013
How Much: $300(+gst)
**Please enter the email address where you wish to receive correspondence regarding the course**
Home Sweet Home
From the mom:
We chose to do these photos because we really feel like our kids are in the sweet spot of our family life. No more babies, but not independent enough to be off on their own. We enjoy our time together as a family. We love to travel as much as we can, and are at a point where things feel really good being us. It was important that these photos were done in our home and our yard, as this has been our family home and may not be for much longer. We are ready to embark on a new journey....to enter the next step of our children's life where they are going to become independent, find out more about themselves as a person, and as parents we hope to give them the best opportunities to grow into good people that will do good things for this world. But for this moment, they are still ours, safe, innocent, and able to enjoy the simple things....like a fire in the backyard, hanging out in the tree fort, and being loved by their siblings, mom and dad.
I like to play 'spot the cat' with these photos...so hard to narrow this session down. I think their gallery had well over 150 images...I stayed so long...had a glass of wine and walked away feeling like I had made new friends :) Love that...
~ Dana
Christmas Carols and Cookies
This was my fourth trip to visit this wonderful family. It was the mom's idea to do a Christmas-y session. We were laughing about how her neighbours probably think she is a bit crazy for having two(yes, two) Christmas trees already up and decorated. But, hey...she's all done now and she can just focus on having an amazing holiday season with the people she loves :) We listened to Christmas carols, played in the snow, cuddled with Papa while he read us 'The Night Before Christmas' and toasted with a bit of Champagne. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon...here is a wee sneaky peaky.
This last picture is of mom and her grandma. It has become one of my most(if not my most) liked photo on Facebook. Sometimes it is hard to convince our grandparents to get in the picture, but always so SO worth it...
After I posted that picture, the mom sent me a lovely email. I especially loved this piece of what she said:
I know that each of these 'memories' you take are creating a journal of my little girl's past. Does that make sense? I think I know the kind of young woman she is going to grow into - and I love that she will have a visual narrative to help make sense of where she came from.
How lucky am I to be a part of this family's narrative? Pretty gosh darn lucky.
~ Dana