Before I get into the details of the fab session I had the pleasure of shooting yesetrday, I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for supporting me in the voting process for the 2012 Reader’s Choice Awards. LMP was nominated by clients for Best Photographer under the Best Person category. It was an honour to be nominated and now, we just have to wait and how the chips fall. We were up against incredibly talented competition and I wish them the best of luck! A special thank you to my ‘campaign manager’ Chris who contacted lots of people (TONS of people) despite the fact he was recovery from surgery!

So, our busiest time of year officially kicked off yesterday with a baby shoot. This little guy decided that even though he wasn’t due to make an appearance for 2 months, he couldn’t wait to make his arrival and showed up 8 weeks early. His mom and dad, Carrah and D’Arcy are excited to have life return to normal (as normal as things can be with a new born!) and even more excited that their baby boy is doing so well.

Carrah made me smile because every time I asked her to give her little guy a kiss, she responded with, “My pleasure!” Parenthood seems to come so easily and naturally to D’Arcy and Carrah and this fam (fur children included) are obviously smitten with one another.

We had SUCH a relaxing shoot and the boy of honour was on his very best behavior. One of the best parts of the session was that it ended with a sweet little baby fast asleep on his dad’s chest. You never know how a baby is going to react to a shoot and it’s especially nice when we finish on such a high note. I work with a lot of babies and little ones and the best ‘trick’ I have up my sleeve is patience. I come prepared to take lots of snuggle and snackie breaks and always let the ring leader (the baby) run the show. This shoot couldn’t have gone better!

Here are some of my faves from the day

It was wonderful getting to know you 5 (fur kids included)! It was a great way to spend a lovely spring evening. Stay tuned for your online gallery.

I want to thank everyone again for nominating Lexie Mitchell Photography in the BEST PEOPLE category for BEST PHOTOGRAPHER in the Waterloo Chronicle’s Reader’s Choice Awards. I was thrilled when I got confirmation of the nomination and it honestly means the world to me.

If you’d like to vote you can do so HERE. You will need to register (the confirmation email will likely go to your junk mail) and then you are able to vote. If you’d like to vote for LMP, we’re under BEST PEOPLE for BEST PHOTOGRAPHER. Registration and voting takes less than 5 minutes. We have some extraordinarily talented competition.

For those of you who follow the blog on a regular basis, here are some oldies but goodies that really speak to me. These come from my updated portfolio which will be launched with my new site this summer. If you’re visiting for the first time, welcome! It’s great to have you here!

Now, for something a little different…

I was doing hot yoga this morning (which was cool.. ahaha) and while I was stretching and contorting on my mat, our instructor said that we should start each day with an intention. I decided my intention was to be grateful for all I have. I have a wonderful family who adores me and the feeling is mutual. My friends are the best there is – honestly, I’ve looked! My manimals, my sweet fur friends bring such joy to my life and love so unconditionally. Chris is my flava flave and very best friend. I’m looking after him while he’s in recovery and he’s a pretty fab patient. And, we’re still working on expanding the fam through adoption. There are lots of days that I’m angry or sad that things haven’t been easy for us. Today though, I’m making an effort – making it my INTENTION, just to be thankful that we’re able to go through this journey together and will come out the other side with a new member in our fam jam.

I also want to express how grateful I am to my clients – past, present and future. Thank you for trusting me to capture the important times, phases and moments in your lives. I have the honour of calling many of your my friends and I could not ask for more.

Holy Bananas! It’s been WAY too long since our last blog. Just because I haven’t blogged doesn’t mean that we’ve been relaxing though.

Trust me.

Let’s see – adoption wise. We are officially adopt ready. We’re registered with 3 agencies and we’re impatiently waiting for potential profiles to start coming our way. I thought that working like crazy to get all of our paperwork ready to go was going to be the hardest part. Ah, silly Lexie-of-the-past, how naive you were to think that! WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART! It shall all be worth it when we meet our babeh. Along that vein, have any of you seen the movie, “Orphan”? Yeah, I had a dream about adopting yesetrday that was very Orphan-esque. It wasn’t pretty!

In April, LMP did some things that we don’t do often. I did a shoot for RTC Renovations, a crazy talented business that does incredible work. I have done interior photography before, like for the Best Western Hotel in St. Jacobs, but I generally do Lifestyle Photography. I love stretching myself and doing things that are a little out of the ordinary. Here are a couple pictures of some of the bathroom reno I snapped from a job RTC did a few weeks ago. Like I said, they are talented!

Something else we’ve done this month is work for an up and coming company called, Opera Five. I did some intense editing of a shoot they did for their latest show. I am proud to be even a small part of such a fabulous company that I know will experience wild successes because of all their hard work and because they have such a unique and lovely concept. Seriously, check em out.

More along the lines of our normal day to day, I did a baby shoot recently with a sweet 3 month old charmer. This little girlie was all smiles. Babies… is there anything cuter?

Finally, I want to mention that LMP has been nominated for a Reader’s Choice Awards in the Waterloo Chronicle! When I found out, I was so touched. It’s incredible that a client or clients took the time to nominate me. It’s important to me that my clients know how much you’re appreciated! It’s been a pleasure working with each one of you!

Here is some information about voting.

When it comes to photographing a family, my hope to capture some fun and real moments that happen between everyone. The family that we photographed Saturday afternoon made that easy.

Our original plan was to have this fam join us in Kitchener for a shoot at Huron Natural Area. However, due to some rain and questionable weather in general, we decided it made for sense for us to drive out and meet them in Belwood on the lake where we had an indoor location, just incase.

I am SO happy we did this.

First of all, while it’s a bit of a drive from our part of town, I love the drive to the Fergus area. It’s easy and beautiful. Also, I love photographing people in a place that has meaning to them. Add to that a family that reminds me of my own and that was all the assurance I needed to know this was going to be crazy fun shoot.

Okay. So. Now to introduce the crew. There was Alaina, Phil (AKA Mom and Dad), Michael, Jeryka, CJ, Sarah and Andrew. Phew!

Chris joined me on the shoot to ensure we would capture everyone and also to snap some candid moments. Chris, as always, came through. He was the one that uploaded all the photos (I went for a run) and he was laughing hysterically at some of them as they were loading. Especially the ones with the sisters because there were so many laughs between them.

Oh, that and the awkward family photos. Another reason I adored this fam was because they all had matching sweatshirts specifically for the purpose of getting an awkward family photo. How ah-MAZING is that?

They were also willing to stand up against gale force winds down by the lake and let us get some individual shots as well as some shots of Sarah’s beautiful engagement ring.

Enough from me already! Here are some of my faves from the day.

Thanks everyone for being so much fun to work with. Chris and I raved the whole way home about how wonderful you all are. You have a really special relationship with one another and that’s so rare! Stay tuned for your online gallery.

Where has the sun been during my last whack of shoots? I’m sure it exists.. but it definitely hasn’t shown its face.

Despite that, I’ve still had some fun with the families I’ve met up with. Take for example, Kathryn and Jason’s family. We met at Waterloo Park in and the span of about 15 minutes, we got booted off the Perimeter Institute’s property (there were no signs saying no photos!) and a random guy meandered his way over to me and asked me if I owned the camera sitting at my feet (I was also holding one). Now that I think about it, what if I had said no? What if I said no, but I saw it first? Hahaha. Needless to say, it was a pretty eventful shoot. And that’s not even taking into the account K & J’s 2 kiddos who were very active, fun and sweet.

Here are some of my faves from the day.

Jason and Kathryn, thanks for a fun morning. You have a beautiful fam jam and it was a pleasure working with you all. I love for protective your son was of your daughter when he thought she was trying to put some rocks in her mouth. Melts my heart! They’re so sweet. Stay tuned for your online gallery.

It’s neat when clients see a location that I’ve shot at before and know that is the perfect place for their own photo shoot. That’s what happened with Dawn and Gord. What caught their eye is the barn with the wood and stone work at RIM Park Trails – they knew it was the ideal spot for them.

This couple comes across as very sweet and reserved but they are adventurers at heart. They told me stories of the places they’ve traveled to and things they’ve seen (like bear cubs fishing salmon right out of a river for example) and it’s clear that have a love for the beauty in our world. I thought it was especially neat that while they’ve seen all sorts of amazing sights, they enjoyed the small things about this location too, such as the old house at the start of the trail and an amazing lean to that likely used to be a smoke house.

Something that also endeared me to this couple was how they met. At a Tim Horton’s. I love that they just saw one another unexpectedly one day, and it started a love story that led to their wedding a year ago.

Here are some of my faves from the day.

Gord and Dawn, I had a killer afternoon with the two of you yesterday. I’m glad you made it to Waterloo in one piece! At least it’s a good story to tell. Stay tuned for your online gallery.

Have you heard of Trap Tiger? I HAVE! They’re a band from KW (look em up!) and they’re some sorta awesome sauce.

Plans for this shoot began forever ago when Andre contacted me. We still use the email with the subject, “August 13” because that’s when our original shoot was booked. Life happens though and circumstances brought us to yesterday.

I felt from the beginning that Andre and I were kindreds because of the ease of our emails back and forth. He specifically enjoyed the fact I am determined to ruin the English language with my made up vocab, so I knew he MUST be cool. Little did I know that the rest of the guys would live up to that cool factor as well.

We met at Huron Natural Area and these guys were as stoked as I was for the shoot, despite the fact that it was very early and very cold. I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish. They’re pretty much a walking circus and I loved it. I talk a LOT but nothing compared to this crew. They’re easy to laugh, easy to work with and easy going. Couldn’t ask for better clients!

I adore my job. I mean, I get to meet highly incredible people (like Trap Tiger.. or is it Albino Rhino?) but something I gripe about a lot is how lonely I can get when I’m not out on location. I have my manimals who give me lots of snuggs and keep me on my toes during the work day, but it isn’t the same as interacting with people on a daily basis at the office and I really miss that. Even though we were only together for an hour, I was in awe at how close these guys are. These are people who not only work together well professionally but they also genuinely like one another as friends. I don’t think you could ask for much more.

Allow me to introduce (from left to right in the photo below) Ceilidh, Matt, Ryan, Andre, and Kevin of Trap Tiger!

Loved working with you guys. I laughed out loud with some of the photos I went through when they were uploading. You are awesome. Thanks for a great shoot. Stay tuned for your online gallery.

When I got home from my shoot yesterday, all I kept saying to Chris was how much I love what I do and how great my afternoon was.

Okay, so. I’ve had an opportunity to get to know Dave, Christine and their family change and grow over the past year. They’re the very best. This will give you an idea of how our shoot went.

3:00 – I arrived and their 4 year old came running to the door calling out my name, and was desperate to tell me about his Easter basket adorned with Buzz Lightyear. It was an epically cool Easter basket.

3:01 – I was blown away at how BIG D&C’s little girl (who turns one on my birthday!) has gotten since the last time I saw her

3:02 – Still blown away

3:05 – Christine went over her extraordinarily organized and efficient list of shots she wanted to get. These included shots with balloons for the kid’s bdays (which are both coming up), Easter eggs/baskets and shots on the front porch.

3:10-4:05– We went with the flow and snapped a whole bunch of fun shots featuring two of the most adorable kiddos EVER.

4:10 – As I packed up and got ready to go, my bestie ran back into the house to get a special Easter egg he had picked out for me to take home. How cute? There were also huggies and kisses blown to me as I walked towards my car. He specifically asked if I caught his kiss. Melt. My.Heart.

So, yeah – that’s why my job is so awesome. Honestly, these kids have my heart. D&C are so much fun and MAN do they make gorgeous babies.

Here are some of my faves from the day.

It’s been such an honour snapping all the changes your family has undergone in the last year. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for you! Stay tuned for your online gallery.

Sometimes the best laid plans just explode in front of us! Kerry and I had arranged for an early morning shoot this morning featuring her two little ones.

Let me back track a bit. Chris has been sick. Quite sick. He had to get some IV fluids last week because he wasn’t able to keep anything down and was pretty dehydrated. I had something along the same lines but it didn’t hit me nearly as hard as it did to Chris.

Well, apparently there is something going around! I was expecting to meet Kerry’s husband, Chris and Kerry’s mom, Debbie this morning, along with the two kiddos. I was surprised when Kristy (Kerry’s sister) and only Kerry’s daughter came strolling up, ready for their close ups! Debbie, Chris, Kerry and their little 8 month old boy are all sick. Luckily, Kristy and her beautiful niece have been unaffected and Kristy was able to take the morning off work to swing by and have some photos taken.

This 4 year old, freckle faced little beauty had me from minute one. She had picked out her outfit (which was to die for) and had decided how her hair was going to be done for the shoot. She was a little reserved when we started – she was willing to help me out, but as soon as I gave the okay, she was back to her aunt and wanted to hold her hand. By the end of the shoot, she was posing and acting like a goofball. Love it!

Here are some of my faves from the day.

Kristy, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you two don’t catch the bug! Debbie, Chris, Kerry and your little one, I wish you all a speedy recovery! Stay tuned for your online gallery.

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