I know, I know, I have been a horrible blogger lately. But I’m still here. I seriously have a million things I could post about, but seem to lack the time involved in getting them up on the ‘ol interweb. Picture my head hung in shame.

Speaking of pictures – one of besties had a baby girl (Juliette – how sweet is her name!?) two weeks ago and this past Tuesday Juliette’s mommy humoured me and allowed me to get snap happy while immersing myself in that new baby smell. Seriously, the smell. It’s right up there with the smell of freshly ground coffee. A drug I tell ya.

So, I’m by NO means a professional photographer (I’m a Graphic Designer) but do love playing with my camera and love taking photos. I enjoy a challenge so wanted to see if I could get some good shots that would make the new mommy proud.

I made a quicky pinterest board to see if there was any certain style she may like in particular. My pins were mostly from Bower Power Photography (Katie writes one of my favourite blogs) and Mikaela Ruth Photography (sidenote, Chef Kev used to play soccer with Mikaela’s husband) because they are really talented girls who shoot inspiring photos.

Camera in one hand, a basket in the other, and sushi in the other (figure that one out) I showed up ready to do my best. I have a Canon T2I and most of these pics were taken using my favourite ‘nifty fifty’ lens. For those not familiar, this lens is awesome for taking portraits. If you want a shallow depth of field (where your subject is in focus but the background blurs out) then take a look at this lens. It is a ‘fixed’ lens (meaning you can’t zoom in and out) but perfect for this kind of application

The shots were okay straight after the camera but a little photoshop never hurt anyone. I did some retouching and cropping to some of Juliette’s mommy’s faves and you can easily see how post-production can have a huge impact on the final product.

Similarly to how I added new art to our living room (in the form of the painting I did of Chace), I decided to update the art that hung over our leather chair in the family room off the kitchen – and was able to do it for free!

Here is what it looked like before. This is an old picture – I’ve since redone that tray table – which has since moved to a different location. And Chace’s high chair (in the background) is now in storage (sniff) but you get the idea…

Now this same corner looks like this…

Nothing drastic – but still nice.

As mentioned, it was a free makeover as I already owned the frames (but had nothing in them) and took the photos myself. I actually took them the day after I got my current camera as I was eager to test it out (so that would make it Boxing Day 2009). The photos were taken in the forest behind our home. Can’t beat that for location and price!

Here is a closer image of them both.

I simply printed each photo out on our home colour printer and trimmed off the white margin.Then I mounted each on a piece of black paper to creat a matt. I then mounted that on the matt that came with the frame.

And since it’s really hard to take a clear photo of a photo, here are the two shots that I have in the frames.

For those of you following along, you’ll know that this past weekend we escaped for a weekend of R&R to Whistler (see day one here).

Day Two we awoke to SNOW! It looked so beautiful falling lightly down and was just so peaceful. A beautiful silence broken… by a wimpering dog that wanted to go out for a potty break.

So, I bundled myself up and took her out for a nice walk. It was the perfect start to the day. Absolutely breathtaking scenery and so invigorating. But cold… and coffee-less, so after her bidness I continued back inside and set things straight – all while documenting as was my goal this weekend (to play with my camera – as mentioned in my earlier post). Now that’s my idea of a good time 🙂

With the coffee brewing I turned my attention to breakfast. Kevin had brought up an assortment of fruit, cereal and biscuits. Yum!

Aren’t the colours in a fig so pretty? I love the shades of pink, brown, cream and that vibrant green together.

After we relaxed and got our selves ready for the day, we found out the touristy thing we were going to do for the day was closed due to bad weather (there had been some recent storms).

So, Belle (our dog) convinced us that she needed to go out and play in the snow again and we obliged. Kevin walked ahead as I went snap happy with my camera.

I love how these shots look like they are (almost) black and white!

The mist looked really neat as it settled above the tree tops.

Looking back towards the hotel from our lake stroll…

I love how red the branches in the foreground are.

And a ‘happy dog’ shot…

We spent the afternoon doing some more relaxing after this walk (tough life). Then we were off to dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.

Of course I got sidetracked on my way down by pretty things in the hotel entrance.

Cool table base – so rustic yet modern with the glass top. And I thought the light fixtures were gorgeous. Um, yes please.

Dinner was Ah.Maze.Ing.

Luckily we had finished our main course and I was busy admiring the wine selection when…

we got a call from the front desk that our dog was whimpering loudly and barking up in our room. Oh. Awkward…

So dessert ended up being room service. Luckily they deliver 😉

And I was so enamoured with it that I forgot to take a picture. Woops.

Hopefully tomorrow on day three :).

We got away this past weekend for a belated 5th anniversary mini vacation. We’re lucky to live close enough to Whister (gorgeous home of the 2010 olympics) that we can easily escape there for a weekend of R&R.

So, our little guy had a weekend of grandparent surfing (thanks Grandma’s and Grandpa’s) and Belle (our dog) and Kev (the husband) and I (I) headed off for a snowy retreat.

We stayed at a beautiful place called Nita Lake Lodge and the plan was basically to do as little as possible! RELAX! Slow down the hectic pace of every day life and just BREATHE. It was grand.

Kevin was happy to hunker down and have a movie marathon and I really wanted to play with my camera this weekend and experiement. I’ve been meaning to explore it forever as I love photography.

So please indulge me as I share some pictures of our fantastic getaway.

First up, the lodge. Our room was a ‘one bedroom lake view’ and was like a little mini suite. Gorgeous! It faced Nita Lake and the view from our room was spectacular.

bedroom – love the dark colours.

What a grand bathroom entrance! And the floors had under tile heating. I’ve always wanted that!

The tub was a huge soaker and you could soak and look out past the bed at the view. Which was….

aaaahhhh.

Here are a few shots, first of the entry (and Belle waiting for Kevin – such a daddy’s girl). I love those armoirs and inside the first one was a little kitchenette – complete with granite countertop! The second image is the main living area.

I love westcoast style interior design.

The first evening we relaxed, ordered room service and watched “Crazy Stupid Love” (so funny). Then I went out on to the deck with my (well, my friend’s) tripod and played with the settings on the camera. I have a Canon XSi and external flash. I tried various combos of the two and did a bunch without flash as well. I love pushing the camera to see how far I can go with it (without the flash). It’s such a challenge and so fun. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the night.

I’ve put the camera settings below each for anyone interested. The first and last shot were taken with my 18-55 mm lens and the ones inbetween were taken with my 50mm fixed lens.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 3.5)

Bokeh!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 2.8)

I love how the snow looks like little sparkles.
(Flash, iso 1600, ss: 4 secs, fstop: 7.1)

And here is the SAME shot but with different settings.
(NO FLASH, iso, 1600, ss: 13 SECS, fstop 7.1)

It creates such a different feeling doesn’t it!? Such interesting light.

I love this last photo as it was taken at around 11pm in the pitch dark yet you’d never know! With the camera on the tripod I turned OFF the flash and set the camera to 1600 ISO with an fstop of 7.1 (same as the above shot). The shutter speed was set to 25 seconds (almost twice as long as the image above).

So that was the end of Day One! Already relaxed (after only about 6 hours up there) I went off to sleep excited about Day Two. More to come tomorrow!

Happy Monday everyone!

This past weekend was the anti-summer weekend. Rain. Rain. Rain.

Now I love rain (I know, weird right?) but even I was a bit bummed by the terrential downpours we had. It sure put a damper (ha ha, ‘damp’er get it. oy) on my deck sprucing plans.

BUT, it did offer me some great moments to get outside and capture a few neat things with my camera…

The rain created tiny droplets that captured the light like little diamonds. So pretty.

So quiet, so green and so serene. Oh, and a keen eye may have noticed that those top shots were taken on the new grasses in my recently redone planters!

Now let’s hope this Monday turns into a ‘Sun’day. Yup. Another pun. You’re welcome.