Dragon Hare Studios

I just came home from a personally rewarding conference. The speakers blew me away! It is hard to put into words what exactly inspired me this weekend, but suffice it to say, it got me thinking. We talked a lot about life journeys, stories and the power of imagery. We were asked questions like what is our passion and why we started capturing images? I have many answers for that - its hard to choose just one. I capture images so my client’s life stories are not missing photographs of loved ones like my story is missing. I capture images because I love showing my clients their true beauty. I capture images because I want people to know what my vision of the world is. I capture images because it is a creative outlet for all the energy inside of me. I capture images because my images are like a time machine, they can transport me back to an instant in time. It might be a happy time, it might be a sad time, or just an ordinary moment in time when nothing amazing seemed to be happening.

I spent the morning reassessing and looking at my images. I came across this one from a camping trip this past September and it made me stop. I stopped because I could hear her laughter. It is not just a silent portrait of my daughter Kalla to me. When I look at this image, I can hear her laughter. I can hear how much fun she was having and I can see in my mind the wonderful memory of all of my children on the swing set laughing together. It is a memory that had faded but this morning, I got to re-live it because of this image. Can you hear her sweet belly laugh coming out of this image?

I capture images because I never want to forget moments like these. Let me capture your moments so you too have your own time machine of memories.

When I photograph sports teams or dance schools, I like to photograph siblings together. Having a sibling is a special bond - there isn’t anything else like it. It’s someone who has your back regardless of what goes on in life, some who you can fight furiously with but the next day, they can defend you to a stranger. You share a lifetime of memories together. I think having family portraits is incredibly important, but family portraits only capture a small moment. What is life like for this particular family at this point in time? Well, for a lot of families, it means running back and forth to practices after school. When siblings share a passion for a sport together, I think it adds yet another element to their relationship and I like to capture this. I saw a story yesterday on the Olympics about the Canadian doubles luge team - they are brothers. They grew up with luge - Dad is a manager and Mom is an official. They have made luge their life.

For a lot of families, their lives currently revolve around whatever sport their children are in. There is driving back and forth to practices, there is encouraging children when they don’t want to practice yet again, and there is also spending a weekend traveling to a game or competition together as a family. I think it’s pretty neat when siblings get to share the experiences together. I recently photographed the Mannville Figure Skating Club and made sure we photographed the siblings too!

There was a program in the US that I loved to watch. A reporter would stand with his back to a map of the USA and throw a dart over his shoulder at it. He would travel to the town that the dart landed on and find a phone book for the area. He would open it up, close his eyes, and pick a name at random. Then he would contact that person and tell their story. It was fascinating to me because these were just normal people going about their own lives. Most reacted surprised and would say “but I have no story” or “but I am not interesting”. Every person this reporter contacted had a story and I remember being amazed because each story was so unique and was told with so many memories and feelings. One of the reasons I love what I do, is that it is personal. What do I mean by this? Well, in order for my clients to relax on camera, I need to get to know them and I do this by getting them talking with me. In essence, I hear their life story - in the same way that this reporter would uncover his subject’s life stories. I think everybody has a fascinating story and consider nobody to be “average”. Every single person that I photograph is a unique individual with an amazing story.

Jacob was a perfect example of this. Jacob has a fantastic story and I very much enjoyed getting to know him. He told me he had no interests/sports that he was involved in, but we found one - he loves computers and is considering an engineering career. Once I heard that, it was easy to incorporate part of his story into his portraits!

Taylor was so fun to photograph. I encouraged him to bring in items to personalize his portraits and he brought in his hockey gear, his guitar and his rifle. I love this as it gives me a chance to “play” and get more creative with the portraits. Taylor will be able to look back at all his portraits and remember well this time period in his life. As I have discovered, once you get out in the world, time moves faster, things become a blur and before you know it, you are approaching your 20 year class reunion and wondering how it happened so quickly! These images are going remind Taylor of where he was in Grade 12 and I love that I get to help him do that. Congratulations Taylor and best of luck in the future to you!

I was thrilled to be included in the Vermilion Standard’s First Baby of the Year article. I met Clara recently and quite enjoyed our session. Clara made me smile instantly because she reminds me so much of my youngest, Rylynn. Rylynn is the fourth baby and has a few years separating her and her three older siblings. She was a baby for about two days, and then she worked at catching up to her siblings. She stood on her own at two months, sat up at four and crawled at six months. Now at 15 months, she is talking up a storm and can instantly put her siblings in their place when they annoy her! Miss Clara is working hard to keep up with her siblings. She was just four weeks old, but this little miss was ready to go. Most babes this small will fall fast alseep and snooze while we photograph them. Mom tried to get her to fall asleep but there was just too much to look at. She wiggled and wiggled and wiggled some more and refused to sleep. She is a darling and I can see that she is going to be one busy little girl trying to keep with her brothers and sister. Congratulations Mom and Dad on this beautiful baby girl!

I first photographed Paige last year for dance. She has been in dance since she was small so I encouraged her to bring in her favorite dance costumes for us to work into her grad portraits. When she arrived, she had brought numerous costumes and shoes, but also her very first dance costume! I thought this was a fantastic idea and love that in this portrait are memories - memories of a small girl dancing her heart out, memories of passing time at dance class, and memories of a grown child about to enter adulthood. Congratulations Paige on your accomplishments, your passion and your graduation. I wish you years of success, happiness and hope you remember to dance through life with your whole heart!

Miss Lynn came in for grad portraits recently. This was a fun session for me as her Mom was my foods teacher in high school. She was actually pregnant with Lynn while I was her student! How cool is that? Lynn has wonderful fashion sense and came in wearing this fantastic red jacket and scarf. I made her put them back on for her photograph because I thought she looked absolutely striking in them! Lynn, your beautiful smile and sweet personality is going to take you far in life. I wish you nothing but happiness and dreams achieved!

The eyes are the window to the soul. I have noticed that some eyes just dance when light hits them. It is usually the ice blues or the crystal greens that do this. The very first portrait I took of Blake, I noticed his eyes in it. He has beautiful eyes that catch the light brilliantly! Blake is graduating this year and came in for grad portraits. He also has a fantastic smile but I wanted to share this portrait because it shows off those beautiful eyes! Best of luck Blake as you travel on life’s journey!

I love photographing babies because I get to snuggle these amazing little beings! I love their little mousey sounds and it fascinates me to watch their tiny bodies discover stretching out cooped up limbs. When my babies were newborns, I could so easily waste away a morning curled up in the rocking chair just watching this amazing and precious gift. Sofia slept soundly throughout the entire session so we had many beautiful portraits of her! Congratulations Mike and Eli on your beautiful baby girl. She is so precious!

I love photography. It is not a job or a position to me, it is my life’s passion. One of the things I struggled with while I was in school, was what type of photography do I go into. There is commercial, portrait, wedding, advertising, product, fashion, architectural, schools/teams and editorial to name a few of the choices I had. I could not sooner pick one favorite type of photography than I could pick a favorite among my children. Each is unique, different and offers varying challenges. In a larger area, I would have to choose one niche and specialize in it but here in rural Alberta, I get to do all types of photography and I love it! It keeps things exciting for me - everyday is a new adventure!

I was thrilled to be approached by the Mannville-Vermilion Highland Dance Club for club portraits. Thank you all for introducing me to Highland Dance!