We were so excited when our super fabulous web developer, Steve, told us this he and his wife Jordanne were expecting their first child. We had Steve & Jordanne in the studio in December so that Roger could capture some maternity portraits of beautiful Jordanne. When their son, Lucas, arrived we headed over to their home when Lucas was just 11 days to take some newborn portraits of his tiny cuteness. It was so lovely for us to see how happy Jordanne & Steve are and we adored meeting Lucas. He is so so cute.

Congratulations, Steve & Jordanne, on the birth of your son. We are so very happy for you three!

Holly & Roger

Isn’t Lucas so adorable?

Hanging onto Dad

More major cuteness. Poor Jordanne & Steve had to listen to us constantly comment on Lucas’ adorableness.

Lucas’ tiny little feet

Quit bugging me, Roger, I’m trying to sleep!

Kisses from Mom

So much joy

What a lovely family

Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve we met up with Chris & Belanina and their family for some family portraits in Stanley Park. The whole family were in town for the holidays so it was a perfect time to take some portraits. We loved how Belanina and her sister Serena happened to have their children so close together. Their boys are are few months apart in age and their baby girls are about a month apart. Isn’t that so lovely? The boys, Hayden & Griffen, were so cute in their jeans and ties. Roger lit the portraits since it was a bit of a gloomy December day. We lucked out in that the rain held off until right at the end of the portrait session.

Thank you so much the Brants, the Gomes’, the Reeves and Great Grandma Maria for a lovely portrait session.

Holly & Roger

I love these portraits that Roger took at the end of the session of Hayden & Griffen. Aren’t the boys so cute?

We were so excited to get to meet the newest member of our Union family, little Ollie, son of the lovely Gabi & Mike. Ollie is an adorable little guy with big chubby cheeks and a gorgeous gummy smile. We loved seeing how happy Gabi & Mike are and to see them full of love for Ollie. We feel so honoured to help Gabi & Mike capture these amazing milestones in their life together.

Congratulations, Gabi & Mike, on the arrival of Ollie. He is so so cute! We hope we’ll see you all again soon.

Holly & Roger

What ya doing, Roger?

Come on, Ollie, give us a smile!

I won’t smile for you, Holly. I look too dashing in my cardigan and don’t want to ruin my image!

That’s what I needed! Kisses from my Dad, tickling me with his Movember mo.

And some snuggles from my Mom.

In the end all of the excitement of the shoot tuckered little Ollie out.

One thing that we feel very strongly about is that we need to give back, to share our skills with others. We feel so blessed to be able to do the work that we do and to live the life of privilege that we do. By privilege we don’t mean that we live in a giant mansion or that we have oodles of fancy things. We feel privileged just to live in a beautiful city where we are free to do what we want, to have a roof over our heads, to have the love of our family and friends and to be able to look after our basic needs without worry.

That is why we work with the Tiny Light Foundation locally. We also have been lucky enough to be able to donate our photgraphy overseas. Roger went on a trip to Northern Thailand in 2007, photographing hill tribesmen for a small NGO. In 2008 we went to Cambodia and visited a few different orphanages around Phnom Penh taking pictures to help NGOs with their fundraising efforts. The photo above is one that we took of an adorable little girl in an orphanage in Phnom Penh. We have it hanging up in our studio as a reminder to us to give back.

In February we are going back to South East Asia to visit Vietnam. The trip is a vacation for us, however we still wanted to find an NGO that we could work with while we were over there. We thought about going back to Phnom Penh to revisit the orphanages however we realized that we would like to help some new people. We were about to start searching for an NGO when we received an email from our dear friend, Craig, in Tokyo who we are going to visit at the end of the trip. He told us that he has a friend who is working with families who lost everything in the tsunami last year, taking pictures for them to help them rebuild their family photo albums. Craig asked us if we would like to participate in the Photohoku Project and without any hesitation we said yes. Craig is very kindly trying to coordinate our 4 days in Japan with the Photohoku Project. It will be an unforgettable experience for us for sure. The thing is, we’ve found that when we give to others, we are always blown away by how much we receive back.

On this cold and dark wintery day we’re enjoying getting some sunny cheer looking through the photos from the lovely Ritchies family photo shoot on the beach in Stanley Park. Roger photographed Jen & Dave’s wedding when he was starting his career in wedding photography so it was really fun for us to see them again and meet their adorable girls, Marlo & Gemma. We spent the shoot with them digging in the sand, running on the beach and giggling like crazy. Needless to say, we had a ball.

Thank you so much, Jen, Dave, Marlo & Gemma, for a really fun photo shoot. We loved capturing you hanging out at the beach!

Holly & Roger

Ah, sisterly love!

Such a lovely family.

The girls loved running straight at Roger

As you can see!

We had to get a few photos of just Jen & Dave.

Isn’t she such a sweetie?

We wish you all a very happy Christmas. We’re taking some time off to relax and enjoy the holiday. Our studio will be closed starting on December 22nd and we’ll be returning to work on December 27th. Come back next week when we’ll share the slideshow we’ve created of our year in pictures.

Merry Christmas!

Can you believe that Christmas is just around the corner?  If you’re like us, you’ve been scratching your head wondering where the year has gone. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas with our family.

So, with the holiday season almost upon us, we thought we would offer all you, our lovely Union Members, a promotion so that you can give the gift of photos to your loved ones at a superfabulous price. We have 3 print packages as well as two different personalized, supercute, Christmas card packages. We’ve been sending out our own Christmas cards the last few years with our photo on it and they are so well received (or so we’ve been told!). We’re sure that your loved ones will enjoy getting one of these adorable Christmas cards from you too.

Please get in touch with us to take advantage of this promotion. We will need your Christmas card order by December 7th at the absolute latest and your print order by December 14th at the absolute latest.

If you have any questions for us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Little Linden came by the studio the other day with his mom, Jessica and his dad, Sean, for a portrait session with Roger. We met Sean at Candace & Dylan’s wedding a couple of years ago when Sean was one of Dylan’s groomsmen. We were thrilled when Jessica got in touch with us and told us that she wanted to get some photos of  Linden after seeing photos of Candace & Dylan’s little Duncan.

My goodness, isn’t Linden super cute? He was so good in the studio and even taught Roger a few tips on photographing babies as you’ll see below.

Thank you, Jessica, Sean & Linden, for a wonderful portrait session. We hope to see you again soon!

Holly & Roger

Hanging out with Mom

Linden’s cute little feet in his Dad’s hands

And Linden taught us a new trick – put the baby in a bear suit and he will pass right out!

Don’t you just love the adorable swirl in his hair?

What a lovely family

I was over the moon when Lauren got in touch with me and told me that she needed the Labour Union for maternity photos. Lauren and Dave are a truly lovely couple who are so kind and generous who are going to be wonderful parents. When we were planning the session I asked Lauren if her and Dave would be up for me shooting their session in my style, in a photojournalist way  and they were totally up for it! I really wanted to capture Lauren & Dave in a natural, unposed way, doing their usual thing. I asked Lauren what they like to do together and she told me that they like to cook and since they’re both techies, they hang out on their computers together. So, I headed over to Lauren & Dave’s home on a sunny Saturday afternoon to take some photos. When I arrived at their home Lauren & Dave made lunch together before I took some portraits of them. Then they hung out on their couch surfing the web. It was a really fun photo session and don’t you think that Lauren looks absolutely gorgeous?

Thank you so much, Lauren & Dave, for welcoming me into your home. I can’t wait to meet your little one.

Holly

Lauren in her happy place

Dave was getting hungry with all that good food around

I think Dave is a supportive sous-chef, just like Roger is with me when I’m in the kitchen!

Chilling out together after taking a few portraits.

I’ve been thinking for a while about a new series for the blog and what I should call it. Earlier this week I thought of the title State of the Union and you know what? The very next day my girlfriend, Tanya, called to tell me that she had the very same idea for a series of posts for our blog. Well, if that isn’t a sign from the universe, I don’t know what is. Usually, being my perfectionist self, I would want to iron out all the details and know the ins and outs of what I would post and when etc etc etc. After reading Steven Pressfield’s books I realized the most important thing with any new creative project is to just begin. So, here we go with our first State of the Union post. What exactly will we be covering with this series of posts? I’m not exactly sure. Hopefully it will be informative and entertaining to you all.

Since it is Thanksgiving this weekend I thought we’d start our first State of the Union post by sharing what we are thankful for. As I was sitting and thinking about it I realized that we have a lot to be thankful for. As Roger and his family always say, life is good and indeed it is. We are thankful for getting to do this incredible work that we love with all of hearts and to get to do it together. Even after 7 years of working together we still pinch each other to be sure we’re not dreaming. We are thankful to every one of our Union Members (i.e. our lovely clients) who believe in us and trust us to capture their memories of their journey in life. We are thankful for our dear family and friends who love us and cheer us on. We are thankful to live in this gorgeous part of the world and to live this life of privilege that comes with living in Canada. We are thankful for our health and for the health of our dear ones. We are thankful that 9 years ago we met each other on a dance floor.

We hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you will take a moment to reflect upon what you are thankful for in this crazy amazing life that we lead.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (or as Roger likes to say, Happy Spanksgiving!)! Gobble, gobble!

Holly & Roger