This is an oldie but a goodie :)

I drove to Ottawa in early May of 2019 so that I could meet this beautiful family and take some candid photographs of them doing their thing.

They have three daughters, and we had already settled on a one-hour session in their home, during which time we would be able to take some photos both inside and outside.

The best way to get photos of your family is to take your camera with you wherever you go!

I often have to remind myself of this, because during the cold winter months when I’m hunkering down and doing all sorts of cosy winter activities like putting together jigsaw puzzles and playing video games… I don’t even think about taking photographs.

But when spring comes, something in me awakens.

I'll always remember this photoshoot.

A couple of months before the session, Lauren had been given the news that her beloved pup Moe, had a very aggressive type of cancer, and was only expected to live a couple of months.

Lauren hoped for the best, but feared for the worst. So, she wanted to make sure that she could preserve some memories with before he passed.

She rented a cottage with her sister at Rideau Ferry.

Occasionally I take time out from doing family or wedding photography, and I document local events and activities happening around Kingston.

Last year, Kingston-based educator Katherine Morlog began a weekly skateboarding drop-in workshop for girls in Kingston to learn to skate. These sessions were held Thursday evenings at Daly Street Skate park (on Daly St, across from the Rideau Heights Community Centre).

It’s a fantastic initiative for many reasons.

Girls are waaay under-represented in skateboarding. It’s intimidating for girls to get into it, because it’s mostly boys and men who skate.

That’s the biggest lesson by far: that to serve your clients fully, you must stop assuming you know what they want, and really LISTEN and pay attention to what they tell you they want.

No photographer is above their client. We serve people. That is our job. To do a good job, we must listen to people. Not assume.

Photography is a hyper-saturated field. Everyone and their cat can become a photographer. All you need is an entry level body with a kit lens, and a business name.

BUT THIS CAN BE A GOOD THING!! Hear me out…

Two years ago, I walked away from academia. After pursuing it relentlessly and devotedly for some seventeen years (if you count my undergraduate degree), I walked away.

It wasn’t a dramatic, flailing arms and hair-pulling act...

When I first got into photography, I was fairly daunted by the mental image of setting up a studio in my unsightly aged farmhouse. But wasn't studio family photography the way it was done? The only way?

After watching her work her magic for a little while, I naturally assume Audrey was a chemistry whiz in school. This artisanal chocolate business is part art, part science. But no, she says. She didn’t take chemistry in school. Her counsellor told her that she’d be no good at science. He suggested she’d do something more suitable. Like being a typist.

Paula also has a sense of humour and a keen sense of timing: she was the lady who, at the Kingston Town Hall with the prime minister in January, after ‘tensions began to escalate' as she puts it, asked Justin Trudeau what he does with his old ties. After he fumbled for an answer, she told him, "The reason why I asked is because I’m looking at your tie and thinking it would make a fabulous dog collar"

We walk around and I see that the farm is far bigger than it looks. It presents a pull, too, to the visitor, a tug that makes you want to linger and inquire, and peek with curiosity at the seedlings in the soil.

The mare curls her lip and butts the Kid in the face. He falls backwards, lands on his butt in the wet grass, starts to cry. There's no blood, no scrapes, no bruises, but the Kid's heart hurts. He's lost his surety, maybe his trust. Some horses are like that, Kid, I tell him. You gotta be careful. But some horses aren't. You just can't know it on the outside.