A Saturday Full of Laughter

Oh man, I am truly too, too fortunate to be able to have days like this. I have been wanting to put together a fun shoot with two of my old high school friends for months. Basically all Autumn. But y'know, school got in the way and it just never happened...until yesterday! We were planning to head down to the beach but it was just too cold (well, 50 degrees: that's cold!) so we stayed at Melissa's beautiful house and shot most of the day inside. We spent a total of 4 hours shooting and had so much fun. It was so good to see these girls again and I laughed so hard that day I believe I sprinted to the bathroom twice. Yes, they are that funny.

Morgan & Melissa & I



Melissa and Morgan.



Sooo many more photos coming, but I think I'll wait until I reveal my brand new blog... say it isn't so!!!

Christie & Rebecca & Jamie Delaine

One of my number one reasons for going to university was to connect with other people, to find community, to meet new friends. It was my prayer that God would bless me with a few great friends out of the whole experience. At TWU, where I'm attending school, they do what is called an Orientation Week or O-Week the first week of September. Basically, everyday is full of assemblies and tours and meetings and games and eating and pretty much 6 days of just hanging out and really trying to get students connected and interacting with one another. On one of the O-Days, the first-year students went on a day trip to Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver. I'm not sure how many first-year students there are, but I know it's at least 600 or so, so we had at least five school buses caravan-ing (not a word...get over it) down the highway. On the hour drive there, the leaders on each bus organized a "speed-dating" game. The student sitting closest to the aisle would move forward or back a chair every minute. As awkward as SOME interactions were, it was such an effective way to get to know almost the entire bus in a half hour. Seriously though, exhausting. Try answering, "What is your major? Where are you from? Are you dorming or commuting? What do you want to do about university?" 30 times in a row. And then factor in the movement of the bus and the sudden stops. Fun times.

It was through this game that Christie and Rebecca both sat down beside me. As we rattled off what we were doing, I found out that Christie is a science major and Rebecca an art major. I asked Rebecca what area of art she really loved and she replied Photography, I'd love to do that after school. I was so excited I blurted out, "That's what I do full-time right now! Well, I guess not full time right now because I'm in school full-time right now, but if there were enough hours in the day I'd still be full-time, but I was full-time in the summer and I'm going back to full-time next April when I'm done school!" --y'know or something approximately like that was said at sixty words a second. Then a few minutes later I think Christie asked me what area of Business I wanted to specialize in after I graduated and I gave her the whole "I'm only here for 8 months because I have a wedding photography business that I'd love to pursue more!" Turns out, she adored photography as well. Before each of their "minutes" with me was up, we exchanged first and last names and tried to remember the spelling so we could find each other on facebook later that day. & we did! Also, turns out that these two girls I connected with were roommates at Bible School in Spain last year! Of course! Rebecca is from Kelowna, which is the interior of BC (and where the famous Gary Fong lives...for all you photographers!) and Christie has lived in Haiti with her family as missionaries for about the past six years.

These two have been SUCH a blessing to me, and I am so fortunate to have met them. They are such amazing women of God and I am thankful that I had the chance to meet both of them this year. So since September we have been trying to plan a day to meet up for a shoot and man, schedules are ridiculous. It seems that every hour I am not in class or doing homework or in group project meetings I am at home working on my business or at another shoot! However, Monday there was no school (Fall Reading Break) and I had to make the commute for a meeting anyway, so we got together for a little last-minute session. Blog readers, you've known for a while that I have been itching to go out and shoot, to do something creative. It finally happened and I loooove how it turned out! These shots are all from my camera, and the ones of me were taken by Christie--Rebecca used her own camera so I don't have any of those.

Meet Rebecca, an amazing photographer and artist!





This one is just stunning. Absolute absolute favourite.





Good style hey?!





& then there's Christie, who is just so naturally gorgeous.











P.S. That chair? Yeah, we found it. We pretty much just pulled over to a little field and said, "This looks good! Let's go for it!" Then we found a cute little house and a little chair and all these other wonderful things. I love shoots like this.






Christie reminds me of Gisele in the photo on the right. I think it's her hair. ;)





Rebecca in action.






There's meee! With freshly dyed hair as well; I had eight month roots, so it's nice to be blonde again.









Mmm. Love this. I like to get right up close in people's faces during my portrait shoots--once Christie got used to it, the result was stunning! Haha! Don't blame you for being a little freaked out. ;)










My crazy idea.






Mmm, yup. Pretty.



















Cute house hey? I love Rebecca's hat. She has a ridiculous sense of style. She cracks me up too, I believe the next words out of her mouth were, "I don't know how to work the house guys! I'm not feeling it!"










I LOVE THIS of us!! We definitely just set the self-timer and hoped it focused okay and it turned out so great!






.
I'm a shortie. :)





A little behind-the-scenes, all photos by Rebecca except for the one she's in...obviously.




Watch the slideshow below or click here to have it open up in a new window! The song is "There She Goes" by Sixpence None the Richer.

jess janz | in concert.

Friday night, April 18th, my best friend Jessica Janz was opening up for Jacob and Lily and Ari Neufeld at Fort Langley Community Hall. (See, Jess, if you had a myspace with some songs recorded, I could link to it, silly girl!) If you missed my session with Jess a few weeks back, you can watch the slideshow HERE and listen to one of her songs.

The hall was decorated so neat! I just loved it. I had no idea what it was going to look like, but they had candles and flowers everywhere. There must have been about 200 people there as well; it was such a good turnout. Jess was the first to perform, and I was so excited for her. Pretty much the first song she started singing made me want to cry. She has been incredibly supportive in my business the last year, and shared so much of my joy with me. It was amazing to be there last night.


















I think she sang five songs, and at the ending of the last one I pretty much started to cry. Yup. That's me. Everybody just started clapping for her and there was just so many of her good friends, teachers, mentors, family in that room that had been waiting for her to do something like this. Then I saw her dad kiss her as she left the stage and that didn't help the waterworks. I am SO emotional it's ridiculous sometimes. I went to her high school graduation last year and cried throughout the end of it. Happily, of course. I cry because I'm happy a lot more than I cry because I'm sad, which is a good thing, but I'm a little afraid for wedding season! :)

I had to skip out on the final two performers unfortunately, because I'm a student leader at my church's youth group and they were having an Open Mic night as well. I wish I could have stayed because I just LOVE both Ari and Jacob+Lily so much. Probably a good thing I didn't though, because it took me a while to stop crying. Oh Jamie! It was a great night, thats for sure and I'm glad I got a few photos to remember it by.

Liz | Grad Shoot

We had an absolutely GORGEOUS day here in Vancouver yesterday. Our weather around here is so crazy...two weeks ago the day we landed back in the Northwest, it snowed that afternoon. Two weeks ago! And yesterday, it was a beautiful 22 degrees! (about 70 degrees Fahrenheit for all of you South of the border!) And we had SUN! It was such a great day. I had an early 9:30AM hair appointment, and I got my full-head blonde foils done...finally. I used to be crazy with dyeing my hair, I would literally do it every 6-8 weeks, and often a different color. I've been Auburn, Dark Brown, Light Brown, Platinum Blonde, Honey Blonde, Dark Brown with Black and Blonde streaks...the list goes on. The past year I've sort of settled down and realized I will forever be a blonde, and I have to stop ruining my hair. And, bonus! If you don't dye your hair every month, it saves you a lot of hair color bills. Who would've guessed? ;) Anywho, it's really nice to be a "fresh" blonde color, and to cover up eight months of light brown roots.

Back to LIZ! I've just gotten to know Liz in the past eight months, as we both attend the same Bible Study at my church. Liz is graduating this year, and her parents bid on a Jamie Delaine Session at her high school's fund-raiser last fall. Don't you just adore her dress? It's stunning. She is an amazing girl; she's beautiful and a very talented baseball player. We were talking, and she's in the middle of deciding which university to attend in the Fall, because she has had offers from a couple in the States.


We started in this great diner, in Fort Langley.


And moved onto a random grassy area with some beautiful light!






We walked all around the town (poor Liz in her 4 inch heels!) to see what we could find.


This is one of my absolute FAVOURITE shots. How sweet is the random bus we found? The letters on the roof of the bus say "Honeymoon Bay."


When I asked Liz to stand right near the ivy, I said, "Is that OK? I hope there isn't spiders or anything!" She just shrugs and says, "I'm good. Once you've been to Africa, a few bugs are nothing." Haha! She told me that her Dad is on the board of a big HIV/AIDS orphanage in Africa, and her parents have visited Zambia over ten times. Liz has only been once, but for that, I admire her. I don't think I am a Africa kind of girl. Unfortunately God made me a little too...high-maintenance.


A cute little white picket fence near a church we found.




Some gorgeous sun in the middle of the street.




Love this!




Watch the slideshow below!

my best friend | just because

My wonderful friend Jess is just that. Wonderful. She's beautiful, talented, smart, chill, artistic, blessed, need I say more? She house-sit for my family while we were away, and when I returned home she had left a playlist on my iTunes entitled, "and then jess stayed over." I've been listening to it non-stop since I got home. Much to my surprise, I saw the last song on the list was called "Maybe" by Jess Janz. What? I clicked on it and the most amazing song came on. Jess is a guitar player and a song writer and a fantastic one at that. She's opening for Jacob and Lily (whose music is featured on my website) next month, and I'm just so excited for what life has in store for her. I was out location scouting this morning, and found a few places to keep in mind. This place however, I found a few weeks ago and I have been DYING to shoot at. So we did.

Well about 30 minutes into the shoot, a guy walks to the back of the property where we were taking pictures and asks us what we're doing. I explain that I'm a photographer and I loved this property and I've been looking at it forever wanting to shoot. I said I'm so sorry, but is this alright with you? I said, I would have totally phoned and asked, but I didn't see anybody living here and it's kind of abandoned. In the end, he gave me his phone number and said just to call before I shoot on his property again. It was worth it though! I get so frustrated looking for locations because it's a lot of wasted hours, and most of the places I find I can't get to that safely. We entered in his cell phone # into Jess' cell phone while we were shooting. When I dropped Jess off at her car, she handed me the number of the owner with the title, "Sketchy." Hah! I have to admit though, the place is a little creepy...abandoned places tend to give off that vibe.
































Here's the slideshow of our session. I just LOVED shooting this it was a blast. Oh, and the girl singing? It's HER! Now you have to listen to it, right? Presenting "Maybe" by Jess Janz.