Today was a perfect day to be at the zoo; perfect temperature and not too many people there. And fun for an 11 year old who continually compared out zoo to Calgary’s beautiful zoo. I don’t know if he liked ours more, but he had fun.
Here are a few highlights.
The first person to send me an email for the free video was baby Max’s mother. I added some of my favorite classical music from Vivaldi. This video has a completely different feel from the last one. Have a look. I know you’ll love it!
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Because I love this program so much, I am extending my free video offer to all portraits booked in May. I’ll be away at a photography workshop this weekend. I’m going to The Delta Marsh for a workshop by one of Canada’s formost photographers, Mike Grandmaison. I know it will be amazing and that I’ll learn a lot and have a ton of fun!
I will be checking email but not as regularly as I normally do. So best to call or email before the weekend.
This afternoon and tomorrow I’m photographing the production of Annie at Maple Leaf School. The sets look amazing and I’m looking forward to seeing the performance. The fact is, I was going to help with the sets and backdrops but then got asked to substitute in grade one. And since the substitute job paid, I did that and my friend Sally got all the backdrops done by herself. It was a huge job. And it looks very cool. Any time a school does a musical, there are a lot of volunteers that help to put it together. Anyways, I will post a few Annie pictures after I get them edited.
Till next time,
Christina
After a very, very long cold winter, we finally are getting a taste of warm weather. This warm weather is not a constant, but comes and goes as the phases of the moon, but at least we do get a glimpse of spring now and then. I think Spring is a grand thing to celebrate. Why not mark the end of yet another dark season to welcome the beginning of new life and more light. So I am offering a spring has sprung special. If you book a session by May 15th, I will give you a $25 print credit. It’s a limited time offer so why book that session that you’ve been meaning to book now?
I showed you the image in the poster in an earlier blog. It now has won another award at Manitoba Camera Club; a 2nd and a 1st Honorable Mention. 
Hope to hear from you,
Christina
I was lucky to be able to shoot this beautiful 10 day old little guy on Thursday. K was adorable ,as you can see from his pictures. He looks so peaceful and sleepy in the pictures but in fact, he was very resistant to sleeping. His mom and dad kept getting him to sleep, but as soon as we tried to pose him, or take the blanket off him, he woke up. He also has an incredible appetitite. For most of the 3 hour session, he was drinking his bottle. And the dozing off again, only to wake up again the next time we tried to move him. But I did get some beautiful images of him. Here are a few of them:
Do you remember the standard wedding poses of another era: the bridal party all lined up in a row and the bride and groom looking stiff and formal? Wedding photography has become much more creative and what is important to anyone looking for a wedding photographer is that they find someone whose style matches what they are looking for. What used to be standard and predicable is now a creative process that involves spontaneity and fun. That’s what I love about wedding photography. I love to capture the moments: the bride looking at her parents as she walks down the aisle, the love between a bride and groom as they get married and the fun after the ceremony when everyone feels a lot more relaxed and free.
How to capture that fun and the happiness is an essential skill of a wedding photographer. Often what actually looks spontaneous has been set up in order to capture precious moments. I believe that you need to give people something to do in order for them to feel free and relaxed. Some of these things can be simply walking down an interesting street; it can be the groomsmen lifting the bride up into the air, or it can be the bride and groom pretending to dance in a meadow. All of these actions and others lead to the spontaneity that I love to capture.
Here are some examples:
This is an example of the groomsmen lifting the bride. Don’t you love their expressions?
This image also has an artistic action applied to it.
In this image the bride and groom were told to simply pull towards each other. I love the background in this one. It’s an old train station in Alberta.
An intimate conversation between a bride and groom or just a pretend one? Hard to know, don’t you think? I wonder what they were discussing.
These very fun groomsmen knew how to ham it up. You can see how they all got into the spirit of the day.
Four different spots, four different “posed” photojounalistic images. What they do have in common is that they look real, not set up, and that the people in them are having a great time.
That’s it for today. I’m in Calgary right now. If you are wanting to contact me, please send me an email. I am checking my email regularly. It’s chrismcwilliams@shaw.ca. I will be back in a few days. By the way, the sun is shining here and it’s shirt sleeve weather. Very lovely.
Chris
I’m off to Calgary tomorrow to visit our son and his family. Best part is that our son and his wife are going skiing so I will have my grandson to myself. Ashton is 7 and in grade 2. I timed the trip to coincide with his Parent Teacher Interview. The teacher in me wants to know. lol.
Been out doing a lot of night shooting in the last couple of weeks; in the exchange and at the train station. We actually got out onto the tracks at the station while an engine came in. It happened so fast but I did get a shot. The theme this month at Camera Club is night/low light, hence the night pics.
Also, taught a couple more photography classes at Ralph Brown School. I wish that I could post some of the pictures that the kids have taken but since most of them are pictures of each other, I am not able to. I’m so proud of the great job that they’ve done. Turns out that holding the camera still is their single biggest challenge. We worked on that quite a bit and there was a big improvement.
Other than that I’ve been working on setting up a friend’s website. Check it out: www.digital35.ca. Tse Li Luk is the name of the photographer and he will be having an exhibition at the Millenium Library for the month of May. All proceeds from the exhibition will be going towards the Chinese Cultural Centre to celebrate the Chinese community having been here for 100 years. The images are all from the Chinese countryside that Tse Li took on a recent trip to China. This exhibition is definitely worth checking out. I am by no means a website designer, but know how to see up a site at www.smugmug.com , because they are the hosts of my 2 sites; this one and www.studio86.smugmug.com. The customer service at smugmug is simply the best and keeps me there. I don’t do a lot of work on the studio86 site as my www.chrismcwilliamsphotography.com site keeps me busy enough. Anyways, I will post one of Tse Li’s images for a sneak peak at the exhibition.
That’s it for today. The sun is shining but winter seems to be back. When will it end? Or rather will it end? Who knows. One can only hope.
These are not the images that I will be entering this month. I will post my entries after the judging night. I also have changed the resolution and size of these images.
Here are a couple of images from my night shooting and then one of the images that will be on exhibition at the library:
I’m sure that you’ll recognize these spots if you’re from Winnipeg.
And now one from a place faraway with mystique and beauty-China:
Isn’t that a beautiful image! Mark May on your calendar and come down to the Millenium Library to see more of Tse Li Luk’s work.
That’s it for now.
Christina
CM Photography Blog (Winnipeg Newborn, Child, Family, Baby Photography) 