MERRY CHRISTMAS

Hope everyone is having a marvelous Christmas holiday!  I'm in Vernon spending Christmas with my family and my grandpa and aunt and her family.  My parents rented this amazing condo at a resort on the lake here.  The Strand resort.  Very nice.  And so we had a very yummy brunch compliments of my parents (I LOVE that family tradition :)) and now we're headed over to my grandparents again to play games and have a yummy Christmas dinner.  Cheers to all!!

Flickr, Photo's, and Prints

It's me again... I'm procrastinating finishing the last bit of housework.  I was just wondering if people would be interested in prints?  I need to get my Flickr account back up and running so I can have all my photo's on there.   I'm hoping to get it cleaned up, put up samples for people there, but also have my own personal stuff, and maybe sell prints of those if people were interested.  So I am just wondering if people might at all be interested in prints, if I put up a few samples of my own stuff that I've been thinking about.  Like the cat pictures in the last post, and maybe even some of my self portraits, though why people would want me on their wall I'm not sure, but some of them are cool and you can't tell that they are me, so maybe that's alright.  Anyway, just musing, since I did establish this whole thing to help get me through school and at the moment it's mostly just cost me.  Just a thought.  I could probably do cards or something too... first I need some interest.  So if you read this, drop me a comment.  And I'll try to find time to post some samples of what I was thinking people might be interested in.
Cheers, goodnight and happy holidays!!  I'll be making a Merry Christmas post soon I hope. :D

Busy Year - Tying Up All The Loose Ends

So it's been quite a while since I posted anything, here or on Flickr.  Been super busy with school and am happy to have survived my first semester back and to have good marks in the classes that I know my marks for.  So now I am cleaning house furiously (it's been totally neglected most of this semester) and finishing up photography projects from the summer and fall, hoping to get at least mostly caught up and relatively clean and decorated before my husband gets back from working out of town.  It's been a good year for photo's and learning things and getting this whole thing started, and I'm learning to be faster in my post-processing.  My mom has been helping me sort photo's, since that is where I get bogged down a lot of the time, so that has been a total blessing.

It's also been a very rocky year, especially this fall.  My brand new camera from mid-summer broke down in October and Canon is refusing to fix it, stating it has fluid damage, though if it did, it must have been from really poor sealing, since everyone's cameras that I work with are fine, and they've been exposed to the same levels of moisture (drizzles, seeing as you gotta shoot a wedding in any weather there is) as my camera was.  So that really sucked and now I'm trying to figure out how to get another camera.  Luckily I always have the option of borrowing camera, so I've been able to continue with some photo stuff, but that was a blow, especially seeing as we were still paying off that camera... *Sigh*  And then our cat, who had had renal insufficiency when we'd adopted her 2 years ago as a senior cat, started showing signs of true renal failure and while we had her on the best food for her kidneys and had a cat fountain for fresh water, and made sure she stayed as healthy as can be, her kidneys slowly declined and she wasn't doing to best around my exams.  So we waited till after I was done all my exams and then my dad, a vet, came and we put her to sleep at home, so she wouldn't get stressed out.  We totally miss her and are hoping to get another kitty sometime, another rescue, though younger this time.  At least we know she had a good life for the past two years and we're glad we got her out of the rescue and in to a home where she was much happier.  So that was a hit, and Ryan, my hubby, has had to work out of town a lot, and when he was around in the fall I was usually stressing out with assignments and studying, so we're really looking forward to the Christmas holidays and spending time together. :)  But all that work paid off with pretty awesome grades in biology and religion... just waiting on chemistry marks... and it's been fun to get back into the school thing and start learning new things and working towards my goals.

I had fun with a maternity shoot, my first new born shoot, tonnes of delightful, beautiful weddings, a gorgeous, fun practice shoot with extra photo's for my brother and sister in law, as well as some sample trash the dress stuff with some other girls, and a chilly but awesome engagement shoot, as well as helped work on a shot for a calendar a lady was doing as a Christmas present.  So it's been good in that department.  I've met some really nice people and gotten to document some beautiful moments, and I'm so thankful for everyone who chose me as their photographer this year.  Thanks everyone. :)

So since I'm playing catchup and it's nearly Christmas I am not doing any more shoots this year.  We're going to head out to visit my grandpa for Christmas, since he was diagnosed with cancer and he would like to see everyone for the holidays.  Then we'll be home for the new year, where we plan on just relaxing and getting in lots of 'us time'.

Next semester I'm hoping to stay more caught up on everything.  I won't be doing a lot of photo work all at one time during any of my school months, since I don't want to overwhelm myself and it's not fair for people to be waiting so long for photo's... but I will be open for maybe a shoot a month, since I am trying to raise enough money to buy myself another camera, which is going to be guarded very closely and protected with something super protective this time, just in case.

And on that note, I hadn't raised my prices for fall, which I had planned to do, but here comes the new pricing, since I've been doing this as a business for a year now and it's time.  Everyone says I'm selling myself too cheaply, so I'm going to follow advise and raise the prices a bit for the new year.

And I'm going to get some pictures up on here, since I haven't put anything up in a while.

Winter/Spring 2010 Pricing for Sessions

Sessions being: Portraits (graduation, birthday, etc...), Couples (engagement, maternity, dating, anniversary...), Family (children, families, newborns...), Animals.

***Basic session on location, with print DVD of touched up photo's (unlimited number - everything good you get - no watermarks - full sizes (*cropping can cause some files to be smaller than others)) - $215.00*

*On location - must be in the area around Spruce Grove/Stony Plain. If location chosen is farther away, there will be an additional minimum charge of $15 for travel.

*There's an extra fee (rental fee) for studio sessions, which is subject to availability at Mode LaVan's studio in Spruce Grove.  This will be worked out at the time, and depends on the length of the shoot as well.

*Specialty Creations: these would be special collages or themes, such as 'story book pages', 'scrapbook collages', announcements, invitations, etc...) will be an additional $25/image (file). Examples of such work will be provided to help you determine if you would like such an image. This editing can be done after you receive your DVD, on a photo of your choice, or the option can be chosen before the DVD is done, on a suitable photo chosen by the photographer. (If you choose the option of picking a photo after your DVD is burned you may not receive the themed photo file on another disc and it may be e-mailed to you or transferred to your computer by means of a flash drive, etc...)  With regards to special creations: you can specify the pictures or have me choose them , specify the wording, fonts, colours, etc... and then you will be provided with samples of a couple different versions to see if they are to your liking.  You then choose the one you would like and that is $25 for the file, which will be unmarked, full sized, fully printable, etc... You may purchase more than one design if you choose, and for multiples each one afterwards are only $15/image. This is only for alternate versions of that request.  (Example:  If someone wants a collage made up from a shoot, as well as an announcement or invite, they would get a couple choices of designs for their collage, as well as a couple design choices for their announcement.  If they wanted two collages, it would be $25 for the first one and $15 for the second one, and then for the one announcement it would be $25 again, since this was a different request.)  Please inquire for further information.

*Session is for a max. of 4 people/subjects. Each additional person/subject after that is $20.

Sarah is currently assisting Lauri McKinnon of Mode LaVan Photography with weddings.  As Sarah is super busy and does not have an assistant to help with weddings it is only in rare circumstances that Sarah-Creative Force will do weddings.  Please feel free to take a look at Mode Lavan Photography and talk to Lauri.  You can request Sarah as the assistant photographer for your special day.

So now that all the updating and price changing is out of the way, on to the fun part..... PICTURES :)

Graycen, farm cat (yawning)

One last picture from the maternity shoot I did in the summer... more in an earlier post...

The baby shoot I did late summer/early fall...

Isn't she awesome?

It was her mom I did the maternity for...

 Such a sweetheart :)

So it was a successful first baby shoot and we're all pleased at how they turned out... they got tonnes of photo's.... she's so adorable.

Then for something totally different... one of the crazier fairy versions I did for a client of Mode LaVan's.... it's pretty wacky but it was fun to do and I was just playing around.... there were more normal versions too, but everyone thought that this was neat.

Self-Portrait

Before I started taking pictures of other people I always turned the camera on myself for practice and I still like to do that sometimes for fun.  So then I was inspired by a movie poster (I browse Apple Trailers a lot since I love movies...)  Anyhow, saw the poster for To Save A Life and decided to make something like it, sorta......

Then we had that fun extra photo/practise/sample shoot in early september that I'm still working on... these are pretty much SOOC (straight out of camera, just added borders..).  It was awesome to have a chance to get more photo's for my sister-in-law for her bridal portraits.  And I caught some fun ones of my brother and her too :)  Then, I will add them later when I've actually worked on them, we did a couples and trash the dress samples shoot with Lauri's niece and her friend.  Totally awesome.  Can't wait to work on them and post them, but real work comes first :)

We did take more lovely ones, but these ones make me smile all the time.... :D  I did make sure I put one nice one up ;)

And then I did an engagement shoot on a chilly October day, but we had a blast.  I'm working on their invites as we speak.

Anyhow, enjoy the pictures... :)  Hopefully I'll keep up with these posts better in the new year!

My life is crazy... :) And I put up a few more samples :)

Well, I finally took a break from homework to finish the samples for Jenna and Nathan... here are a few more I figured I'd put up for them...









And a bit of an update on my life at the moment...
School is a bit of a bog on the brain at the moment... it's taken a while to jumpstart my mind back into school mode, and I'm finding that I haven't retained things quite as well as I had hoped. Especially chemistry equations. But I'm enjoying school, so that's good. Learning is always awesome :)
I shot another wedding today as Lauri's assistant... it was way hotter than previously forecast, and we all got quite warm during the day, but it was a lovely day with lovely people, and we had a lot of fun and were on task and organized throughout it.
So my life is really busy at the moment, but things are going well, besides my husband having to work out of town for the next 2 weeks... :( That's gonna suck! But at least maybe I can use my time to get caught up on things so I can spend more time with him when he get's back...

Jenna and Nathan

I had the honour of shooting the wedding of Jenna and Nathan a couple of weeks ago and it was such a gorgeous day! What an awesome couple, a fun bridal party and a beautiful location. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your special day guys. :)

Here are the samples so you have something to look at while I work away...
(I re-posted the photo's so that they actually load separately and larger when clicked on this time... so they aren't in the best order, but it's late and I don't feel like re-arranging them....)

There are a few more coming, but I thought I'd get the first sneak-peeks up :) Enjoy :D

All Kinds Of Busy

So, more camping, more work, and another photo shoot, this time for the awesome couple that has been there from the beginning, who are so much fun. I got to do a maternity shoot for them, and practise with studio lighting, and I am so thrilled with the sample images I've done up so far. I haven't had any time to sort my most recent camping trip photo's and am getting behind in my personal stuff... but on that note I am thinking of starting a Rocky Mountains Journal Blog, to post my trip photo's in, and to give suggestions of hikes, sights, touristy things, campgrounds, food, etc.... Maybe one day I'll have time to do that.

But here are my samples for Keri and Garry's Maternity shoot... can't wait to see the new baby girl! Congratulations you two! The babies room is the ultimate in amazing-ness! I totally love it!

I just had another wedding with Lauri and Mode LaVan. Such a fun couple. We had a lot of fun with everyone and the ceremony was beautiful. My very first Catholic ceremony... so sing-songy. :)

Now I've taken this coming week off from the farm (I'm pretty much done there except to help with days off) and am going to get these last two weddings done if I can, plsu the maternity shoot, plus clean my house and plan for the next two weddings next weekend (I have one with Lauri on Friday and then I'm heading to Edson to shoot a wedding for the lovely Jenna) and then all my family is meeting up in northern Banff NAtional PArk to go camping for most of the following week.... and then I start school and REALLY get busy!

Can't wait to put up samples from these most recent weddings.....

July Family

Well it's been a pretty good month so far... July 4th I was second-shooter at a wedding for Mode LaVan, with Amy as the principal. They were a really fun couple and even though we got a little rained on we had a lot of fun and I'm working on the images now... didn't size any to put up though. Will soon. After shooting that wedding my husband and I headed out that evening to my grandma's old place, The Westland, for her memorial/family get-together. It was good to see everyone, and I had fun experimenting with my new camera and 50mm lens.

My cousins little girl, Scotia.

Two of my uncles...

Some of my cousins...


It was awesome to hang out with family and reconnect. We all had a good time. It was kinda weird being out at the Westland without seeing my grandma there, sitting in a chair, talking with whoever was nearby. But a bunch of family was all together, and she would have liked that.

Next I'll post about our camping trip :)