We’re starting to get caught up with the shoots we did late last year and getting this blog updated with fresh content. If you’ve been following us on this blog, Facebook, or Twitter, you’ll know things have been kind of heavy for us since the beginning of the year. For all the prayers, well wishes, and good thoughts sent our prayer – thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We have felt so well supported by our community of family, friends, fellow photographers and our awesome clients past and present. It really helps carry us through this time.
Now to switch gears a little – John and Cathy are dear friends of ours who are getting married this coming summer and we’re absolutely delighted to be a part of it. They flew into Montreal over the holidays so we found some time to get some engagement shots between Christmas and New Years. I thought it would be a hoot for them to do some cross country skiing – and it was, even though it turned out to be Cathy’s first time and it was unseasonably cold. Don’t be fooled by their attire – Tim and I were fully decked out in multiple layers and the puffiest of parkas to stave off the cold, while John and Cathy went a little more svelte, weather notwithstanding. Easygoing, full of laughs and teasing, they got some skiing in followed by warming up in a little chalet/snack bar tucked away in a remote corner of the park. Here are some of our favorites:
Winter weddings are such a rarity in these parts, but Sandy and Christian held theirs this past December in St-Isidore at Au Fin Palais after a short engagement. Sometimes, its all not about planning the most perfect and beautiful wedding – sometimes the excitement and anticipation of joining two lives together and starting on a new path as husband and wife, and the knowledge that this person is the one – is enough. And should always be enough, really. So on a cold winter afternoon, Sandy and Christian – surrounded by a great number of people who matter to them – exchanged their vows together in an emotional ceremony and later danced the night away. Here are some of our favorite images from their wedding:
Friday, January 22, 2010 Posted in Personal
I know it seems like we’ve been in hiding for the last little while with the lack of fresh content on the blog and with our absence at the Marions Nous Wedding salon. It’s because we’ve been going through an extraordinarily difficult period as Tim’s father passed away very unexpectedly a week and a half ago from a heart attack. No warning signs, no nothing. It was and still is a shock to us all.
Mere days before, Tim and I had just attended a refreshing series of seminars at an event called Mystic 5 (images and a blog post to come soon) where we came away inspired to take more pictures of the people we love in our lives – our parents, our siblings, our friends – and each other. We looked at each other at the close of the last session and I said, "Tim, doesn’t this make you want to go straight home and take pictures of your parents together?" We both realized just how much we wanted to remember their faces, their gestures, their expressions.
But that last photo session was not to be. Instead, we have spent the past week flipping through old family photographs – chuckling at the fashion sense in the seventies, smiling fondly back at the beaming smiles of Tim’s parents in their youth. We felt a pang in our hearts going through images of Tim with his dad – as a little boy building a chair together, sauntering down a park path, and years later – his dad beaming proudly on the wedding days of his children. Going through the mounds of photographs – colors and edges slightly faded with age – we found ourselves immersed in a visual history of his life. Images breathed, recalled and imparted stories, personality and love.
So this is why we do what we do.
I think we’ve both agreed that we need to get in front of the lens more – for each other and for our children to come. I need to remember how Tim looks when he’s about to play yet another prank on me. Tim needs to remember my face when I’m deliriously happy (usually after a productive shopping spree!). Because those small, seemingly insignificant visuals will mean the world one day. Photographs are important. And we say this not just because we’re photographers – though we both have a new sense of purpose for the work we do – but as a child to our parents, as siblings, and as husband and wife. Your life, your relationships, the people you love need to be documented and remembered.
A few gems we’ve come upon this week:
So I am very aware that we are now firmly planted in 2010 and here I am offering a look back at last year – completely unintentional and totally because Tim and I have been shuttling back and forth between seeing our families, catching up with friends and more recently, ringing in 2010! I will not let the fact that it is now the new year prevent me from sharing highlights from last season. What a year – Tim and I had the opportunity not to only photograph in our fair city but also in Toronto, Ottawa, Lake Placid, Las Vegas, NYC and Tobago. It’s been quite a ride – immersing ourselves in different cultures, meeting new people, enjoying getting to know all our clients and having our lives enriched by the experiences we had. It’s a privilege and a joy to do what we do as photographers. We appreciate that our clients have opened their lives and their hearts to us and have ultimately trusted our vision – as zany as it sometimes seems. We are grateful for our friends and family who support us in what we do and to our photographic community all over the world whom we mutually challenge to become better photographers.
Below is a slideshow of a collection of images from this year’s wedding season – a number of which have not been previously blogged. I couldn’t even begin to cram in all the images I wanted to for the sheer number there were that we loved – and didn’t even get a chance to include our families and maternity sessions. Call this a brief snapshot of 2009 – give it some time to load, turn on your speakers and enjoy!
by Ange
2 comments
share your thoughts with Tim+Ange link to this post email a friend