I met Angie and her two wonderful daughters, Crystal and Sarah, last October when I was up in North Wellington doing portrait sessions at Ann and Kevin W’s home and stables. It was a great day. The girls had a lot of fun showing me their horses and I had a blast meeting and photographing them. This young family have a wonderful spot to live and clearly enjoy life in the country with their horses. A few of the images from our session are below.
In late October I had a fun portrait session with Ann, Kevin and their two sons at their home in rural North Wellington County. I had met Ann and Kevin several months earlier when they did an awesome job installing new kitchen cabinets on our Cambridge home. Over the few days of the install Ann and Kevin got a tour of my Cambridge studio and were impress with the images on display. A few months later Ann contacted me and we worked out a date for a portrait session at their property.
Ann and Kevin have an great spot. At the end of a country road, surrounded by fields and right next door to a vast stretch of Luther Marsh Conservation Area. While Ann was rounding up the boys, Kevin gave me a quick tour of the property and we we selected a number of spots that had some nice lighting and backdrops. Besides being ultra-talented cabinet installers Ann and Kevin operate a boarding stable and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ann had told several of her clients about the photo session, so as it turned out I ended up doing portriat sessions with five different groups that day!
Below are a few of the images that I did with Ann and Kevin and their two boys. As I worked with the boys I could really see what an wonderful spot it was for them to grow up… lots of open space, fields, forest and of course, horses!
Kevin Whetham, a broker with Remax Parry Sound Muskoka Realty Ltd, in Parry Sound contacted me in October and then dropped by my Parry Sound area studio to do some updates of his business portraits.
It had been a while since Kevin had his portrait taken and he was a bit nervous as we got underway. As we talked about his background and experience in the real estate business in the Parry Sound area Kevin began to relax. While Kevin updated me on local market conditions I kept shooting, while giving a bit of gentle coaching for some of the poses.
As with most business portriats sessions, I had asked Kevin to bring a couple of changes of clothes so he would end up with a fairly diverse range of images to use in promoting his business. As with wedding and portrait photography, word of mouth and a solid on line presence are important in Real Estate.
Kevin is a life long resident of the Parry Sound area and has several years of experience working in the Parry Sound area real estate market, so if your looking to buy or sell a property in the area you should touch base with Kevin and see how he can help you.
As 2011 winds down and we welcome 2012, I want to pass along a big THANK YOU to my own family members as well as to all the individuals, couples, families, businesses, and peers who I met and worked with during 2011. You all played a big role in making 2011 a wonderful year. I wish you all the best for 2012!
Regular followers of the Bayshore Photography blog will know that I try to do weekly posts on the various weddngs, portraits and business sessions I shoot and I will continue with 2011 shoots in the coming months. Once a year, however, I like to post a few images of my own family that I shot over the year. A couple of my favourites from my family from 2011 are posted below.
Have a Happy, Safe New Years Eve and a Great 2012 Everyone!
Grace and I wish you and yours a very happy, safe and healthy Holiday Season!
The holiday season is a great time for getting together with family and friends and a few weeks back Grace and I had a wonderful evening with some very good friends. While we were prepping for the evening Grace suggested that I should ask if our friends would like to do a mini studio portrait session while they were here. I was hesitant. I think my initial response was something like …”I don’t think so. I don’t want them to be afraid to visit us!” Having said that I reconsidered and told Grace that if she and the girls wanted to do it I would be happy to oblige. After the girls (many of our friends are female!) arrived and we had relaxed with some h’ordourves and a couple of Astrid’s famous Mojitos, Grace gave the gals a tour of our recently renovated digs, including the studio. Much to my surprise the gals were all keen to have go at a mini studio portrait session. Not wanting to high jack the evening I worked quickly and did several images of each of the gals in rapid succession using a favorite backdrop from Serendipity backgrounds, one of the new, bright red, swivel chairs from the consult section of the studio, and a couple of Paul Buff Alien Bees with accompanying diffusers and grids. Just as we were finishing up, Grace called out the dinner was being served and we continued on with a great evening of food, fun and friendship. Life truly, truly, is good and having some absolutely wonderful friends is a big part of that!
A few of the images from our mini portrait session are posted below.
Grace and I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season and are able to enjoy it with friends and family.
It was early on Thanksgiving Saturday when I meet up with the Campbell family at Desmasdon’s Boat Works in Pointe au Baril. After some introductions we boarded one of Desmasdon’s Georgian Bay worthy watercraft and headed out to the Blenkhorn Family cottages on a beautiful Island just beyond the Pointe au Baril lighthouse. There we met up with Tonya, Andy and their two boys and Shelagh and David, Andy and Wendy’s parents. Tanya and Wendy had organized the photo session as a gift to the Shelagh and David a few months earlier. After David gave me a quick tour of their piece of paradise we picked out several sites for our session and I started working with Tonya, Andy and their boys while the others were in the last stages of getting ready.
Although we had started early the day quickly become exceptionally warm and bright of mid October on the Bay. We used several spots on the property and ended the session with an image the grandkids perched on the branches of one of the huge white pines behind the cottage.
Tanya and Andy have operated Desmond’s Boat Works for several years and have a great selection of wonderful watercraft perfectly suited to Georgian Bay. Check them out if you’re in the market for a new or lightly used boat.
Family Portrait sessions are always a lot of fun and the session I did with the Bowie’s at their cottage property on Mckeller Lake in October was no exception.
Jaylyn had contacted me several months earlier and we made arrangement to do a session with her two brothers, mom, dad, and grandmother on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. I had already scheduled another session for earlier that same day, with a large family group on an island several km out from Pointe au Baril, so we arranged to do the Bowie family shoot in the early afternoon.
We started with Gran and as I was setting up the shot with her she told me the last time she had a professional photograph taken was when she was married, so she was more than a bit nervous. While I asked her about her wedding photos I could see her begin to relaxed so I kept talking with her while shooting to try to keep her at ease. It seemed to work and soon Jaylyn and her brothers joined in for some shots with Gram. Then we moved on, adding mom and dad into the mix before moving into singles.
After we had worked the shoreline getting some shots of mom, dad, Jayln and her brothers we decided to head down the road to a small dam that Jaylnn and her mom had scouted out earlier. It offered a some interesting backdrop options and we did another series of images there, including some of Jayln and her partner.
On a recent trip from Cambridge to do some portrait sessions in the Parry Sound area I stopped of in Aurora to meet with mom and deliver several enlargements and an extra large, specially mounted print, of mom, dad, and the three adult children. Mom tells me she intends put it in the cottage living room.
Alisa, Ben, Fiona, and Luca visited my Cambridge studio early in October for a family portrait session. Alisa is off on mat leave from her RN position at one of our local hospitals and the gals on her floor had given her a portrait session gift certificate shortly before wee Luca was born a few months ago.
Fiona is two and Luca was just a bit over two months when we did the session. Two year olds can be a challenge for many professional photographers. I find the best approach is to gently work into the session taking advantage of opportunities for creative shots as they happen rather than trying to stay with a rigid approach.
Fiona took a while to warm up to the studio lights and getting the ok from mom to give her a sucker helped ease things along. The studio portion of the shoot allowed me to try out another of my backdrops from Serendipity backgrounds. I think this one, called “glimmer “, is going to work really well for children and Christmas portraits.
We also did and outdoor session at a nearby conservation area. This worked out well as Fiona enjoyed exploring the area and we got some nice images to round out the session.
A few weeks ago I did a short post on the Orr-Barton family photo session I did in August at the Orr family cottage on Otter Lake. Today I have posted a few shots from the session. I always enjoy doing portraits of extended families. In today’s world with families often living great distances apart it is always a special time when they all get together and enjoy each others company.
Whenever possible at these types of extended family shoots I like to try to get a wide range of images, including Mom and Dad senior, Mom and Dad with their adult children, the various sub-family groups, the grand kids, as a group, the grand kids with grandma and grandpa and as groups of brothers and sisters…
Some more images from the Orr family shoot are included below.
