Dan & Amy – Family Shoot

As you can probably tell my blog post a day doesn’t extend to the weekend While I totally believe the weekend is worth blogging about and that I should be faithful in blogging – my promise to myself does not extend to Saturday and Sunday. I promise though I have a great reason for it. My husband works all week and gets home pretty late sometimes so the weekends are all we get – and we have to fit out time in and amongst shoots and weddings and other family commitments, so basically I just don’t want to add one more thing I have to do on the weekends lol So this weekend Bryan and I were working away at the office and in walked my scheduled 12pm appointment. DANA AND GEOFF They are getting married on May 24th and although I have no photos to show as of yet – it still wanted to mention it in my blog. This couple is great – they are warm and funny and I cannot wait til their wedding day. So we chatted for an hour or so and then they had to get back to their new home – they were actually moving in that day! Then at 2pm Amy & Dan show up for their in studio shoot with their two gorgeous and active little ones. Amy was worried about the boys being rambunctious but it just makes everything a little more fun. Her little guy Camryn, was so in love with our puppy Freddie he didn’t want to leave him on the other side of the office and actually got some shots with him Kaleb – the newest addition to the family is so cute and has this big smile. Here are a few of the shots we got

Freddie at the park

So as most of you can tell I use this blog as a personal blog + a business blog. Since most of the photos I take in my personal life are with the same camera I use for work I like to post both kinds of photos. I had an appointment today so I couldn’t be in the studio for the whole time with Brianne so after my appointment I decided to take my brother out for a late lunch and then bring him with me to the park with Freddie. Everyone in my family is crazy about dogs and well everyone who’s met Freddie is crazy about him. Here’s a few shots of Freddie running around

Earth Hour and Model Shoot

So if you haven’t heard about it Earth Hour is a global initiative to turn off all the lights (and anything else really that consumes power) in your home between 8 and 9 pm tomorrow night. I know there are a lot of nay sayers that don’t believe in global warming or that an initiative like this can make a difference but I truly believe that there is nothing wrong with raising awareness for such an important cause or participating in something that gives me an excuse to cuddle with my husband by candlelight for an hour. I think the whole point of the initiative is to stop for that time and think of just how wasteful our society is and that by making small sacrifices we can help the environment and make our world a better place to live in. Amanda Lachapelle Photography will be participating in Earth Hour – all the computers and equipment in the office will be fully powered off. I think we plan on having a pretty chill night and just relaxing by candle light – perhaps even have a few friends over for a board game. Think about all the things you can do in your daily life to help conserve energy. For more information regarding Earth Hour please check out www.earthhour.org

Yesterday Brianne and I went out to do a model shoot with Kiera to give Brianne more of a chance to see what on location lighting is like as well as learn more about direction/motivation on a shoot. We went to an old broken down train yard building. It was a lot of fun and we got some great shots – here are just a few

101 Things I’d like to do in 1001 days – or something like that . . .

I know it’s a kinda vague title but I’ve seen this list on quite a few people’s blogs and well since WPPI I have decided to try and create some goals for myself and my business – so hopefully this list will remind me of them and help me acheive them. PS – are you all surprised – this is my second post today 2 posts down 19 more to go

By the way if you have a bad habit too that your trying to change I’d love to hear about it

So here’s my list . . . at least what I am able to compile of it today – more to come tomorrow
1. Go on a wednesday afternoon picnic with my husband and my dog

2. Teach Freddie (my dog) to roll over

3. Go on a trip to Europe

4. Shoot a destination wedding

5. Go on a roadtrip – destination unknown

6. Have lunch or a real conversation with a photographer I admire

7. Make my mind up about having children

8. Buy a new house

9. Set up a home studio in said house

10. Smile more

11. Get my photo taken at least once a month for the next six months ( I never take photos of myself as it’s something I hate)

12. Do a portrait session with my family

13. Do a portrait session with my husband (We don’t have any formal photos since Christmas 2003 unless you count our wedding photos)

14. Participate in a workshop

15. Attend WPPI again but do the Business Institute and Master classes as well

16. Get my business to go in the direction that I want it to with the clients that I want

17. Make sure that this time when I attend WPPI – I go a few days early so I can photograph all the landscapes I want

18. Do at least 5 seniors sessions

19. Donate my time to a local cause using my photography skills

20. Tell my husband one thing that I love about him (that’s different from the day before) every day for a month

21. Be a second shooter for a photographer I admire

22. Plan something great for our wedding anniversary

23. Spend more time with my mother

24. Take my little brother back to Canada’s Wonderland

25. Take my 19 year old brother out to a bar for drinks just the two of us

26. Give everyone of my bride’s a little gift to thank them for the gift they have bestowed upon me

27. Join the chamber of commerce

28. Donate more money to charities or donate more time

29. Buy lens, end and body caps for all my gear and actually keep them without losing them for an entire wedding season

30. Lose 20 pounds before the end of the year

That’s all I can think of for now but I will be adding more to this list over the next week

Take care for now ) ) ) (That’s me smiling more

Boda Bag

ahh the Boda bag – I admired it after seeing it on J Garner photography’s blog – as they are the creators I got a chance to stop by the booth at WPPI and fell in love. I purchased the smaller version of this bag and i can uncategorically say I LOVE IT – it’s so easy to use and it keeps everything at the ready I used it for the first time today during a shoot and can’t wait to use it at a wedding. If you don’t know about this little bag check it out at http://goboda.com/ – it’s not a camera bag but a lens bag designed to keep everything you could possibly need at your hip or waist so that you don’t have to lose a second heading back to the camera bag or worry about carrying two camera bodies. I know lots of us love to do that but it can get pretty hard on the back – besides even if you continue to carry the two bodies – having this provides security against people taking your most important equipment and of course the memory cards. I will post some photos of it soon

For now here’s a photo of my Freddie with his head in the bag

A blog post a day keeps the . . .

I don’t know that it keeps anything away but after going to WPPI and hearing all of the photographers scream that blog posting is a great way to connect with clients I have decided to work on one of my worst habits – not posting regularly. So like with every bad habit it takes 21 days of change to truly think that you’ve changed the bad habit. So here and now I am committing, whatever should happen, I will be posting one blog post a day For those of you who might have been checking in for the last little while it’s been more like one a month or so – so this will be a challenge for me but if your willing to read I am definitely willing to write – after all (yes I know it sounds like sucking up but its true!) I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all of you

So ok if I am going to blog it should be about something right? Well how about WPPI? If your a photographer you were either there or wishing you were there but if your a client your probably wondering what that is. WPPI stands for Wedding and Portrait Photographers International – It’s a great organization and every year it’s members are invited to a conference in Las Vegas to learn from other photographers about certain aspects of the business. There is also an amazing tradeshow where you can check out the latest products and see vendors items up close. At most of these booths they have great photographers doing presentations about the products and how they use them and/or how that product would benefit you. This is great because you get to see whats successful but it’s also nice that you get to meet these photographers and perhaps talk to them for a minute.  I got to meet quite a few photographers that I admire at WPPI – all of them for different reason. The main one I wanted to meet was David Jay – I really admire his business sense and his ability to get his name out there and invent products photographers really need. I’ve used showitfast for about a year now and I love it – my clients get a slideshow of their images set to music and time and time again they come back to that slideshow to show their friends, each time marketing my work and it’s not just me – he’s pretty popular in our studio – My assistant Samantha is a huge fan but unfortunately she is pregnant and has a little boy and could not make it to WPPI this year. So she made me promise that I would take a photo of him for her with his arm outstretched so that we can photoshop her in later. I’m sure this made DJ laugh but I can’t wait to “insert Sam” into the photos.  So Sam and I will have a photoshoot in the near future so that we’ll be able to show you those. I ran into DJ just past the Pictage booth and he was talking with Jasmine Star as well as a few other photographers. I asked for the photo and he was very nice about it and then I got a photo with Jasmine – who I have to say is the most bubbly person I have ever met. I only spoke to her for two seconds but she just exuded happiness I wanted to tell her that I love how much people smile (natural smiles) in her photos and ask her how she gets them to feel at ease but honestly I could tell without even asking, it’s just something about her. Here are both of the photos – I feel like a dork in them but honestly I’m ok with that

Not sure what I was looking at but honestly I think I was just having a hard time focusing as I was happy to meet them both at the same time

This is me with my Nikon bag that I apparently wanted to include in the photo lol

More photos from WPPI to come – got photos with other photographers as well as around Vegas, also got a chance to do a bit of a maternity shoot with my friend and fellow photographer Jayme Morrison oh and we also did a shoot featuring JB and DeEtte Sallee’s “I shoot people tour” Tshirts Looking forward to posting those as I really made a fool of myself there

That’s all for today but I’ll be back … tomorrow