This morning I was up at the crack of dawn to drive to Canmore for a session with recently married Les and Charlene.  It may have taken the aid of a large Tim Horton’s coffee but it was entirely worth it. The early morning mountain air, the sweet light, the sheet of dew. Oh it was just divinity.

Also, if you are wanting to contact me this weekend it may take me a couple of days to reply as I am participating in the 60km Weekend to End Women’s Cancers. If you happen to see the hundreds of walkers in Calgary either Saturday or Sunday honk your horn, break out the sprinklers on your front lawn, or smuggle one of them (aka. me) into your car to the last pit stop (okay maybe not so sure about that last one). Every word or jester of appreciation is awesome!

Here are two images from this morning – I can hardly wait to put the rest up!

You may also notice over the next few weeks some changes with the blog – it is a work in progress!

Enjoy and leave a comment!

Enjoy! I hope they leave as much of a smile on your face as they did mine!

I have been keeping a marvelous part of Guatemala from all of you. Colours. Everywhere there are the most brilliant and shocking colours – whether it be in the women’s huipils, the cuisine, or the landscape. Although black and white is just so wonderful for displaying textures which are so common and intricate throughout Guatemala the colours are breathtaking. So, expect to see a few smattering of colour images within this post.

I would now like to introduce you to one of my favourite elderly couples.  In the aldea of Tuixoqel, Doña Maria Dominga Gomez Perez lives with her husband and six children.  Twenty years ago they started a pharmacy in their home to aid their community and the surrounding towns. With loans through CAUSE Canada‘s microcredit program, Doña Maria has been able to purchase a wider variety of drugs in the city of San Marcos. Before leaving, they asked for a portrait of the two of them. I can’t recall precisely what was said, but what I said in English was translated first to Spanish by the interns and then to Mam, their native language, by one of the local CAUSE representatives. These are the images that followed. I can not help by smile every time I see them.

Don’t you just wish you could just grab a cup of coffee and sit down and discuss life with these two?

Doña Maria with her pharmaceuticals.

From Comitancillo we stopped in Veinte Reales where Don Cornelio, one of the CAUSE teachers, and his family live. It required a thirty minute hike across fields, up and down hills and across several streams but it was more than worth it to see these smiling faces.

I’m going to say it. Perfection is over rated. After taking the above images I showed the two kids the images on the back of my camera and this was the reaction – blurry as anything but I love it.

Before leaving, Don Cornelio’s wife and kids insisted on giving us a giant bag of ripe plums. I can not even explain to you how delicious they were. Absolutely delectable!

Doña Reina leads a leadership class at her home in Tuilelan – the primary topic this day was community leadership and savings.

Doña Isabella, one of the ladies in the leadership class, invited us to her home at the end of class.

Below is another of my favourite elderly couples. Don Desiderio and Doña Tecla reside in Todos Santos, Huehuetenango where they are a well respected family.  Prior to the escalation of violence during the Civil War Don Desiderio was the mayor of Todos Santos for two years.  In 1991 the founder of CAUSE Canada, Paul, approached Don Desiderio at the prospect of starting a nursery to help combat the growing problem of uncontrolled deforestation.  For seventeen years Don Desiderio spearheaded the project before being made director of Institucion Mam de Desarrollo Integral (IMDI) – providing potable water, pilas (device used for laundry and washing dishes present in most Guatemalan households), agriculture knowledge and health initiatives.

Don Desiderio and Doña Tecla are now retired and dedicated to working at home growing milpa, apples, and peaches.

One night while returning to my hotel I turned around to see Bobby, the local dog, stopped under a streetlight after following me that far from the interns’ place.

That’s it! A small sampling of the experiences and sights I had the pleasure of having in Guatemala.  I could not have enjoyed myself more and hope someday (soon) to return. Thank you for taking the time to read these posts.

To end – one of my favourite images.

Being 5’8″ I am not particularly tall here in Canada. In Guatemala however, I noticed a distinct height difference between myself and the local people. The average man likely stood 5’2″ and the women closer to 4’8″. You would have thought I would have learnt my lesson after smoking my head on several door frames and clothes-lining myself on ropes holding tarps up in the market but quite apparently I didn’t. To add insult to injury one of the hostel’s definition of a bunk bed was stacking two single beds on top of each other, secured by a single nail in each leg. Although resourceful, I could not admire this handiwork with the recollection of the first morning waking up to my head greeting the upper bunk.

A third year class of women met in Vista Hermosa – at this point of their education they were able to read aloud from newspapers. Spanish is their second language as Mam, a Mayan dialect, is their first. I will see if my next post if I can post a sound clip as it is quite an interesting language to listen to.

I was followed around this classroom by several young boys who were quite enthralled with my camera – this young fellow however was more content listening to the women read.

Class would typically start with a game or exercise. In Don Adelfo’s class ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ was the game of choice.

Thanks for looking! Feel free to check out CAUSE‘s site for more information on their programs.

In case you missed their engagement images, Greg and Vanessa first met in elementary school – where Greg had a serious crush on her. Their lives went on however and it was until three years ago when Alex, Vanessa’s maid of honour, reunited them.  Needless to say things blossomed from there. Talk about a love story!

I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Vanessa and Greg and their rocking bridal party and I can not be more happy for this marvelous couple. You can tell just how much Greg adores Vanessa by how he looks at her  - my heart almost popped when I took some of the images below and this was so apparent.  Vanessa vibrant smile whenever he is in the room is unmistakable.

Needless to say I had a hard time cutting down on the number of images. So enjoy!

This is Vanessa through and through. Turns out she has had this expression for the camera since a very, very young age. Gotta love a girl with character!

Okay grandma’s are typically awesome to start with but Vanessa’s grandma was something special. When she was putting the heirloom necklace on the bride it accidently slipped and she declared, “Well look at that dear, it fits perfectly in there!” – I just adore her grin.

Oh I just have to include an outtake here and there.

This is what happens when one talks before thinking. Perhaps saying “Vanessa, you should be a bride more often” should translate into “Vanessa, you should marry Greg every year”

Huge thanks to Terence for helping me out that and photographing some of the images below!

Congratulations you two! I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to be part of your wedding day!

So her due date came and went.  The Canadian men’s hockey team nearly gave the entire country a heart attack at the end of the third period (I emailed her at this point and asked her if she had an Olympics-induced-labour… as I was barely clinging to the edge of my seat and yelling at a television in an otherwise empty house). Yet still, he had decided the time was not quite right. So, together Chelsey, her husband and their daughter waited and I went about life with my phone attached to my hip and jumped each time it would so much as buzz.

Then Monday came. At 3:35am, I received the text.  Off I went to the Foothills hospital.

Odd how a 40 minute drive during the day becomes 26 minutes – when the only thing playing on the radio is Pink Floyd and Journey.  (A disclaimer. I didn’t speed… at least not enough to be pulled over by the two cops along the way despite having a headlight burnt out. Just so you don’t think too much less of me :D).

I have tried writing this part about twelve times now and most sincerely am not able to express that morning in words.When going through these images I laughed, and at times nearly cried at the tenderness shared between Chelsey and Peter.  As cliche as it may be, I believe the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words’ is perfect.

I will allow the images to speak for themselves.

Thank you Chelsey and family for honouring me with the opportunity to be a part of Ezra’s birth day.

2010! Wow! Now, the question of the day: is this to be pronounced ‘twenty-ten’ or ‘two-thousand-ten’? I personally am still completely on the fence, not as if it matters too much as it takes me until at least June to write the correct date.

So. Here we are starting a whole new year which is going to be awesome! No seriously. I am looking so forward to working with amazing couples, going on some amazing trips, meeting tons of new people and growing as a photographer and a person.

I had a few spare hours of the Christmas break to edit images from a trip I took to Iceland in late summer of 2008 and I thought I would share.

Enjoy :)

After my last exam, Stefan and Stefan (throughout the shoot christened Stefan #1 and Stefan #2 to avoid any confusion), the sole band members and I met for a short time on campus. Needless to say I was highly entertained the entire time.  From random outbreaks of songs while wandering the halls (terrifying all the kids who had come to skate I am certain), to full out disputes as to who got to hold the gun, followed by the taking down and carrying of meters of string holding snowflakes from Mac Hall (as requested), I can say with confidence I have never looked quite as perplexed or laughed quite as hard.

Here is just a sampling of the nonsense that occurred that fine day.

Have a good one!

I am proud to say that you wonderful people raised this amount of ‘cans’ for the food bank:

(wait for it… wait for it…)

60!!!

That’s pretty impressive! So today I bundled up and braved the crazy Christmas roads and shoppers to go pick up the items to drop off at the foodbank. Thank you so much :)

Coming soon will be another blog post of a ‘random’ event. On my Facebook page I challenged my friends to comment on my blog to raise a certain number of cans within one day in exchange for me taking a picture of a stranger or taking a self portrait. Well they did it. I on the other hand didn’t. I have a confession to make. I am a true and utter introvert at heart. Shocked? No, seriously, I am. I didn’t say a word until I was 3 (some people may argue I am still working on this), hid behind my mother whenever we went through the grocery store checkout line (okay, I did stop this at a certain age) and to this day I have to mentally psych-up to talk to strangers. Surprised? Yup. It’s true

Well, in any case, I chickened out on taking a photo of a stranger but now it is a personal goal. So, if you happen to see my wandering Calgary with my camera in hand, please stop by and ask to have a picture taken :)

Once again. Thanks a TON :) Check back next year!