I’ve known Mark and Tina for a bunch of years now, actually I knew Mark before I knew Tina, but I have many awesome memories of hanging out with both of them.

One such time was a VERY rainy and cold May Long Weekend in Algonquin Park where their tent didn’t just get a little leak, no, it had turned into a wading pool, I believe this was Tina’s FIRST camping trip (I could be wrong though), regardless, their tent was a mess and they spent the next night sleeping in my parent’s much drier car. They both handled it gracefully and with much humour.

Fast forward 6 0r 8 years to this past July. I’m on vacation sitting on a lounge chair in the front yard at my family’s cottage reading a book and my phone makes the “purplunk” sound it does when I get a private Facebook message. It’s Tina inquiring about maternity photos and baby pictures and when it would be a good time for these types of photos to happen. I shrieked “SHE’S HAVING A BABY!!” To which my mom yelled back “WHOOOO!!!!”

Several congratulatory/planning messages later it was decided there’d be a maternity session in late November with newborn baby pictures, well, as soon as baby was born sometime in January.

So we did, the maternity session that is, and then Tina and Mark did, have the baby that is, and then we did again, the newborn session that is.

Maternity:

9-day-old Baby Kaisa:

Sometimes newborn sessions don’t go quite as planned. Baby Kaisa was really hungry during her first photoshoot so there was quite a lot of feeding going on and a lot of crying happening, and a lot of cuddling, holding and warming up too. Again, Mark and Tina handled it all very gracefully and with much humour… just like I knew they would.

Enjoy your precious little girl, I can’t wait to see the day she fits that new pink knitted hat that arrived!!

Kat

It’s the second kissing and dissing of 2011!!

In all honesty I don’t have much to diss this week! It’s been a really great week! Third week of 2011, you’ve got a lot to live up to!

Disses:

1. The cold and the snow, I’m meant for warmer climates, but as has been pointed out to me this week, if it wasn’t for the change in seasons I would not appreciate it when the warmer, nicer, be outdoors weather comes along. Still -20 and snow galore sucks.

2. Banks: if I put a cheque in the ATM early on Friday morning before your bank opens, why isn’t it cleared the same day? And why do I have to wait until Monday to have access to the funds… ridonculous.

3. Glee and The Social Network, for winning a lot at the Golden Globes… granted I was super happy that Jane Lynch won, she’s fantastic in Glee, and I may have actually cried gotten dirt in my eye when Chris Colfer also won for Glee, the show, for me, in general has gone down hill from its first season so I’m not loving it anymore. The Social Network diss? There were just a lot of other really great movies that I think deserved it more. BUT!! I haven’t seen The Social Network, so I’m open to having my opinion changed. Let the hate mail start!

4. Dunno if there’s a fourth thing. Yeah, nope, that’s it!

Kisses:

1. To Jing-Ling Kao-Beserve for inviting me out to the Yelp Elite Party on Wednesday night at the Stirling Room! I’m never one to turn down free drinks, swag and apps, and getting to hang out with Jing and her friends and mix and mingle for a night on the town was really great! It was also fantastic to get to know Jing better, away from the photography thing.

2. To Rodrigo Fernandez for meeting up with me for coffee on Thursday. Although we’re “nemesis’s/nemeses” for all of three hours twice a year at the Richmond Hill Welcome Wagon shows (really there’s no animosity towards him at all, just a bit of ribbing), it was also great to get to know him and discuss photography, business, marketing, the future, and more. This industry of photographers needs to learn that openly conversing with others is not a bad thing, there is so much to be gained and so little to be lost by sharing. Fresh perspectives never hurt anyone! And, you don’t need to pay an arm and a leg to get that perspective at a conference/workshop!

3. To myself: for stepping out of my comfort zone several times this week and proving to myself that being slightly uncomfortable for a few moments is worth it if I get meet interesting people and do fun things. That is truly living.

4. To my mom: for suggesting we head out to the Doris McCarthy show at Spezio Gallery on Thursday night. Doris was such an incredible, inspiring woman. The doors she’s opened for ambitious female Canadian artists are numerous and the reminders to pursue what you love are many. At the opening there was also a lot of mention of art and imagery as storytelling and story preservation, a good reminder for this photographer.

5. Shopping with my sister! Sunday I got to spend the whole day shopping, chatting, and laughing with my sister. Everything from brunch in the am to the drive home was great. As we get older my sis and I are becoming more and more like best friends, which wasn’t always the case, and sometimes still isn’t, but I have nothing but love for her

Hope you all had a mostly great week and that your coming one is just as great or even better!

Kat

Last weekend I went away with my church for our winter retreat at the Salvation Army Conference Centre at Jackson’s Point on Lake Simcoe. What a great time!!

There was a lot of board and card games being played:

Some cross country skiing and walks in the woods:

Hung out with some friends from my youth sponsor days:

Some people knitted:

And there was a HILARIOUS story time, kinda like an open mic night, where any one could share a story: real, made up, off the top of their head or written, they could be serious or funny, but the whole time was magical. Stories that I’d never heard, and many that I had… it was a great time of sharing. There’s an African tribe in Nigeria, the Yoruba, who have a history of storytelling, when they share they have a carved staff that they pass around to signify who had the floor. Well since we had all forgotten our Yoruban story-telling staffs at home, we used a ski pole instead

One of the funniest moments was Simon singing Mennonite Woman… and if you know anything about that song, well you know how funny it is, and if you don’t know anything about it… you’re missing out, it’s prettygreat.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Kat

Second photo of Photo of the Week!!

This week, well it’s been pretty awesome. Church retreat last weekend, and it was good to get away and socialize with my church family. Lots of laughs, lots of good times, and a lot of memories. I’ll share some pictures soon (promise). But there was also a lot of learning and discussion. This week I also met up with a lot of fun and interesting people most of whom I’d met before but never had a really long in person conversation with. All of them really influenced me. From discussions about photography business to secrets for the perfect loaf of bread I learned a lot and now I’m full of fresh ideas.

So the photo of this week, is of a school desk in a field.

Hope you have a great weekend and catch you all on Monday!

Kat

Over Christmas I went to Cuba, my family came along too! Thought I’d just share some of the pictures of the gorgeous resort we stayed at on Cayo Ensenachos in Santa Clara. Figured, it’s a little cold and snowy out and a reminder that hot warm weather isn’t too far off would be good. (yeah, I know the thumbnail way of seeing these pictures kinda sucks, working on it still).

Kat

It’s the New Year and time for a new round of Kisses & Disses… which I might actually rename to Roses & Thorns, but we’ll see about that.

To the Disses first:

1. Blog issues galore! Broken links, pictures not wanting to load, bad bad bad bad… Dear blog, why can’t you just work for me? Sigh. Update: Although since you’re reading this and seeing a picture in here things are now fixed. Thanks Kieran!!

2. Doubts and self-destruction. These two are such difficult things to deal with and wrangle when you’re building your own business, especially one in a creative service. I’m getting better at handling this pair of nasty feelings and behaviours, but when I’m going about my day and I get struck by either one it just throws me into a spiral. Also, I’m getting better at recognizing when this is happening and trying to stop or shorten the cycle of ugliness that follows.

3. Cold weather. Actually this is more a love hate thing. I’d rather it was spring or fall or even a hot sweltering day, but I love looking outside and seeing the cold snow while I’m warm, or the squeaking crunching sound it makes under foot or my car’s tires. Other than that, it sucks

Kisses:

1. To my family!! I know I’m getting older because I count my mom, dad and sister among my best friends. It’s great that I can now appreciate all their experiences, stories, and viewpoints.

2. To Rachel, Simon and JD, for the great game of Settlers of Cattan this weekend at the church retreat. I keep meaning to get this group of people (and others) together to hang out and have dinner, I need to stop meaning and start doing.

3. My church: For being more like a family then they’ll ever realize. It was so great playing, laughing, eating, hanging out, and learning together this weekend.

4. To all the awesome brides, grooms and moms I met on Sunday at the Richmond Hill Welcome Wagon Show at the Markham Hilton. It was so exciting to hear about their wedding days, and to watch them get excited about their wedding photography.

Another new feature blog this week! Sharing my life and what’s been going on in it not just in words but through pictures is a big deal to me. So that’s what is gonna show up here every week. It might be a picture that I took this week, it might be an old one from eons ago, but it’s going to summarize what my week was about. Sometimes it’ll be from an iPhone, other times, from my DSLRs or a good old point and shoot. I hope you enjoy it!

This week:

The start of a new year is always like a clean slate, but I also see it as a spider’s web that catches and holds all the possibilities, dreams and hopes for what is to come.

Happy New Year! Here’s to all the things that are to come in 2011.

Kat

I have two good friends who’ve known me since about grade 2 or 3. I know them through the church that I grew up in and as we’ve grown up our lives have taken us to different places: Laurena in Vancouver and, for now, Sarah is kinda sorta based in St Andrew’s, Scotland (although that’s changing soon). With me still living in the Markham area where we grew up it’s a rare but special occasion when all three of us get to be in the same spot and all hang out together.

The weekend before Halloween we were all gathered around Laurena’s family’s kitchen table having our typical conversations about life, the universe and everything and a topic came out about the idea of “putting things out into the universe” by naming them and then just allowing the universe to do it’s thing and make them happen.

It was Sarah who told us about a colleague who did this and explained that everything this person had “wanted” came true. At her work they had developed a hand gesture…I’d call it a mix between jazz hands and squeezing a big ball of dough.. which they do instead of saying “good luck” or something sorta granolaish like “release it the universe,” yeahhh that’s not me either.

So really what I’m getting at is I want to put some things into the universe **insert jazz hand, dough squeezing gesture here** and hopefully some thing will come of it.

1. Book some really cool weddings in some really cool places!

This past year I was so lucky to shoot in some quirky locations: on a farm with a cornfield reception, on the front docks of a summer camp in fall, and in a backyard with cute country schoolhouse reception. I love quirkiness.

My wedding wishlist for 2011:

• Beach; I don’t care where in the world it is.
• Mansion or country estate
• Steampunk inspired
• In the middle of a forest
• At a lighthouse or on a boat

Of course I don’t want to be limited to just these on the list, but it’s a good place to start! Right?!

2. I always feel like I should number how many weddings I want to shoot… Doubling the number I shot in 2010 sounds like a great starting point, but if I’m gonna shoot for the stars lets triple or quadruple that number. Twenty weddings would be thrilling!

3. Purchase and update some camera gear!

4. Go to some photographer get togethers, take some workshops.

5. Become a networking and marketing machine!! I need to really work at this part. I’m good at networking, but I need to be more deliberate in my networking and marketing.

6. Take time to smell the roses! Somehow in all of this I want to travel, and take vacations. We’ll see how that pans out.

7. Meeting a great guy… yeah not photography related at all, and I know things like that always happen when you’re not worrying about meeting a great guy… but really… come on universe. Throw me a freaking bone already! please? Okay cool.

That’s all for now!

Yikes! It’s been exactly a month since I updated ya’ll with something on this blog, it’s not been deliberate, I’m just not loving my current blog layout, and changing it over seems to be taking longer than I had thought it would. Anyways…on with the Kissing and Dissing!

KISSES

1. To Girls Night…yeah it’s nice to get together with my girlfriends Les and Steph and get out for a night of crazy fun: eating, a few drinks and dancing up a storm! It felt good to cut loose.

2. Sushi. I’ve been eating my fill lately…it’s a little addictive and I squarely blame that buzz and energy kick I get from it at the end.

3. Sessions! My calendar is filling up with portrait sessions, booking meetings and weddings…not to say that my calendar is FULL…no furthest thing from it actually, but having several sessions in a weekend and even more in a month…wow. That’s just awesome!

4. Summer hours! It’s no secret that one of the perks at my day job are our summer hours, and we’ve all been counting down the weeks and months until we can have half day Fridays and 4pm end times the rest of the week. I think they start this week with the first half day Friday!

5. Coffee with Lindsey. It’s always fun to catch up on her latest exploits and business plans. She’s just had a business she started up in January explode and take off big time and I hope that it can all sustain itself. I’m excited for her and the possibilities of where this could go.

6. To a good handful of people I’ve talked to in the last week who’ve been supportive and lovely and very encouraging. Every once in a while I hit a brick wall and it’s kind words from people I meet along the way who really help put things back into place. Thanks guys!

7. Cupcakes. Pretty little pieces of decadent sweet baked goodness. Vanilla cake with vanilla icing, you’re like heaven.

DISSES

1. What the heck weather gods! Play nice! This nasty cold weather is just not fun. I’ll take hot and sunny any day.

2. Trying to decide what to do with my vacation time. It’s summer…I want an adventure, and have no idea what that is yet.

3. People who feel the need to rain on my parade. If it’s jealousy, deal with it, if it’s something else, handle it, but don’t put me down for taking care of what I need to and my fledgling business! I’m happy, be genuinely happy for me.

4. Aroma Cafe…for NOT having my Raisin Cheese Roll last night. The hot chocolate was to die for, as always, but without the Raisin Cheese Roll, it’s really just not the same. There really was a yeasty sweetness that was missing.

So I really need to focus on an oodle of Kisses today, there are some Disess…I’ve had a crazy amount of luck come my way in the last few weeks. It feels good…still feels good, but as you’ll see in my Disses sometimes that luck runs out. Oh, and not really feeling like posting the pic that goes with this SO!!! Here we go:

KISSES

1. My new iPhone. I love you iPhone. I lovingly fondle you every day…and sleep with you every night.

2. David DuChemin for picking my suggested title “Vision is Better” for his latest e-book! It’s pretty awesome on its own to have a book with my title on it, but even sweeter to get some awesome prizes! So looking forward to the Henry’s gift certificate arriving in the mail.

3. The Cottage: It was so great to get up there for the Easter long weekend and have a nice time in the quiet clean beach air.

4. My mom: for finishing her radiation therapy and being well on the road to recovery from breast cancer.

5. My sister: for suddenly becoming one of my bestest friends. We used to not get along at all, but it seems as we’re getting older we’re very quickly becoming much closer and much better sisters and friends. It feels awesome.

6. Shopping! I’d been wanting to get some nice summer dresses, more for everyday use/wear. Ended up with no dresses but an awesome skirt from Zara that I’m in love with and a great pair of leather gladiators.

7. Mature relationships: where you can openly discuss your fears, concerns, worries and leave them knowing you still care, still love the other person and that if it’s meant to be it will come back.

8. E-books! I bought an iTunes card the other day (thinking it could work for an iPhone app I wanted to get..ha nope) so then I had a whack of cash to spend on iTunes…well I’ve managed to whittle down my business reading pile by buying e-books. Already through several chapters of “Ladies who Launch” it’s an interesting listen so far…there’s a stack of other books on my list too.

9. To not feeling guilty: life is too short to sit around feeling like you’re neglecting someone.

10. To beautiful sunshine, working in the garden, sowing seeds, pulling weeds and cleaning out the dead branches…it’s amazing how much gardening is a metaphor for life.

11. To mini-kegs. Those things are amazing! They fit in a fridge! And hold ample amounts of beer! AND how lovely that they last for 30 days. More beverages should come in 5 litre quantities!

12. Doggies! I have doggie fever lately. There’s nothing I want to do more than play fetch and run and snuggle with a doggie.. I’m lucky my sister has one that I can dote on, but one of my own would be lovely.

DISSES

1. To the interruption of relationships. When one person feels neglected and the other feels guilty for doing the neglecting it’s sad to see things come to an end. Hope remains for the near future, but sometimes it’s easier to not remain hopeful.

2. To having to sit at a desk when all I want to do is wallow in bed under a pile of blankets.

3. To waiting for circumstances to change. I’m an impatient person. I love having things now, and having results now. Two or three months feels like an eternity right now.