Images without Borders

Being photographers, both Murray and I were shocked and riveted by the images we were seeing from the earthquake in Haiti. The photos we were seeing on Twitter were eye opening to the devastation there and yet, some of them were capable of making us smile. We are amazed by the resiliency of these people and their capabilities to survive in a country that was so poor and destitute to begin with now reduced -- in some areas -- to almost nothing.

Murray and I were invited to submit some of our photos to Images without Borders. Currently IwoB is raising money to support Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontiers). World Class Photographers are donating their photos to support Doctors without Borders. All proceeds from the sale of  these photos minus the printing currently goes directly to the doctors' work in Haiti. We are excited to be a part of this! I spent a good portion of this week going through our images trying to narrow down which ones to submit. We finally agreed upon a final five. I am not going to post them here (sorry), but if you would like to see them, you can go through the almost three hundred images on IwoB or you can check them out in our album on our Facebook Fan Page here. Perhaps you will see a photo that you like on IwoB and will consider making a purchase.

Because we remember moments, not days...

Encouragement From a Fellow Photographer | Sarnia/ Lambton County Photographers

Dianne at Bunny Trails Photography and I were chatting on Twitter yesterday about how uninspiring the weather has been lately for expanding our photography skills. I went out with my cameras shortly after lunch and came back in with nothing but some good exercise. She went out at perhaps the same time as me, but she came back in with photos. She tweeted me to check out her blog for some inspiration, and inspired I was. It's all in the perspective you take.

So today, I headed out again, cameras around my neck and looked for some inspiration. I was also attempting some shots using my aperture and shutter settings versus my usual manual style. I'll show the differences in those in a post tomorrow. I confess I had a very unfair advantage today. We got a light dusting of snow last night and the sun was shining by 8am this morning, so you couldn't help but be inspired! Regardless, I did shoot several things from a different perspective than I might normally use. It was fun! I came back in cold and with soaking wet knees, but I was happy with what I was able to achieve today.

Thank you Dianne for your encouragement! May you be inspired this week too!

Because we remember moments, not days...

For Haiti

Thinking of and praying for Haiti.

Because we remember moments not days...

Winter Comforts | Sarnia/ Lambton County Photographers

Winter becomes a favorite season when there is time for cocooning. Curled up in a cozy chair with a soft throw, a cup of spiced chai tea in a pretty mug, the laptop and a good book or two within reach. The only thing that makes it even more enjoyable is the sunlight streaming in the windows.

Because we remember moments, not days...

Birthday Kids| Sarnia/ Lambton County Children's Portrait Photographers

As much as I would love a studio, with lights, softboxes, backdrops, and cool props, it simply is not in the budget for us (yet). So I resort to what I call my natural light studio. It's our living room with the sun as my light source. It's not perfect (the sun likes to hide behind the clouds at the most inopportune times sometimes), but it works quite well most of the time.

Bub our oldest turned 13 in September. (We have our first teenager in the house)!!  I have outdoor birthday portraits of him, but I wanted to try a few indoor ones too. His glasses make shooting very difficult, but we're so used to him in glasses it seems funny when he doesn't have them on.

Then in December, Squirt, our youngest turned five. December being the busy and overcast month that it was just didn't allow for a good photo afternoon. Now though, I had to get them done as she was happy to report to me that both her top teeth are loose. My brain screamed, "quick get her portraits done before there is no baby left in your baby".

Thankfully we had some sunshine on a quiet afternoon, and I was able to do some portraits of both our youngest and our oldest.

Because we remember moments not days...

APEC | Sarnia Lambton County Photographers

Murray and I attended the first ever Annual Photography Enthusiasts Conference. We had a great time of learning, getting together with photographer friends, and meeting some more fabulous photographers. I can't say how much I enjoy chatting with other photographers, seeing their work, and learning tips and techniques for how other togs work. We learned a lot of great things from the business side to wonderful additions like awesome lighting techniques, and incredible slide shows, and met a lot of great (new to us) photographers.

Here is a video/ slide show made by photographer Sebastian Auger of SA Photo. He is a true artist at making photos into special movie memories!



Because we remember moments not days...

Introducing...

our watermark! It's finally complete!

It's nothing fancy, but it was up on the mental drawing board for months. After a couple of dud drafts, we're happy with the outcome.

Because we remember moments, not days...

One Little Word

A fellow photographer fired out a question on Twitter the other day. "What one word would describe where you want to go in photography this year?" Murray and I spent some time thinking and talking about this question. We finally came up with a word. Push! We want to push ourselves to the limits of what we know so we can learn even more, only to push ourselves again. We want to push ourselves to talk about our business with anyone and everyone. We want to push our business. I'm not talking about the physical act of being pushy, but taking pride in what we do and sharing that pride and joy with others. We want to push ourselves to expand our horizons. What are our dreams for our business and how can we make them happen? Push. It may sound pushy, but we thought is was a fitting word for us for this year. If it sounds too drastic, we'll use the word expand instead.

Because we remember moments, not days...

Rosy Cheeks and Snowy Lashes | Sarnia/ Lambton County Children's Portrait Photographers

Finally enough snow to spend hours of time outside playing. I go out for awhile with the kids then I sneak back in and get other much needed jobs in the house done. Who knew snow would be such a blessing and a gift.

Because we remember moments not days...

Just a Dusting | Sarnia Lambton County Lifestyle Photographers

If you drive 20 minutes to the northeast of where we live, the snow blowers and snow plows are all working overtime. Murray's brother keeps reminding us of that fact. (They however, live two hours northwest of us). Although we have had hours of gentle falling snow over the course of days, it has amounted to a mere dusting. How can you make snowmen or go sledding in our miniscule amount of snow? Well, where there's a will, there's a way.


Today the buses were all canceled and many of the schools are closed. Maybe the dark green on the radar is finally over our county!

Because we remember moments, not days...

Geocaching Adventures Two and Three | Sarnia Lambton County Lifestyle Photographers

We went out again on New Year's Eve Day. First on the agenda was to find the cache that we couldn't find in the graveyard. Now that we had a better idea of what we were looking for and where we needed to look, we found it in less than two minutes.

From there we headed back to the gravel pits to see if we could find the rest of the caches in there. We found all but one. They each have a code under them that once solved will enable us to find two more hidden caches. Even though we couldn't find one, the Engineer entered our stats, info, etc., read to me the puzzle code and together we solved it.

A cool wooden coin in one of the caches.

Murray decided to go cross country where no man has gone before ;o) a couple of times. Happily the old gravel pits were frozen over or we would have been swimming.

Happy to be back on the trail again.

Yes, there is perfume in this cache. Strawberry scented. The girls and I all put some on :o)!

Today we headed out again despite the fact that it was -13C with the wind chill. We did five today. All ones along the roadside. One was especially neat because the dates on the bridge enabled you to crack a code to find the hidden cache -- which in fact we almost didn't find. It was hidden within the correct coordinates, but it was hidden in a manner we didn't suspect.


Each one of the caches were so unique. Two were hidden in an interesting manner with fun clues. Another one required Peach's eagle eyes to find it, and the last one wasn't exactly hidden, but was placed where it was because the location was so unique. If this all seems vague to you, it is meant to be. We have to be careful not to say too much as to give away locations to other local geocachers who may stumble upon this blog.

Brrrr! It is cold out!

One thing we've discovered for sure. We have found a new outdoor love, and our family works together very well as a team.

Because we remember moments, not days...