I first photographed Shauntel and Matt as a couple when I was first delving into photography and you can always be sure to have a good time with them. The fun is now doubled (or squared if you prefer)! We met at Nose Hill Park (where oddly enough neither of us had been) and wandered and took in the amazing light.  Here is just a sampling of the day – the rest will be posted later this summer.

Enjoy!

#1 – I have an irrational fear of bees. I don’t mind spiders, snakes, naked mole rats etc. but bees… no.

#2 – I will eat just about anything once (and typically enjoy it enough to have more). This includes bugs, alligator and puffin to name a few.

#3 – Depending on how you define ‘siblings’ I have been the youngest, the middle, the oldest, the only, the whole and the half at some point.

#4 – I am actually very shy. I didn’t speak until I was 3 and would hide behind my mom’s legs whenever going through the grocery check out. The checkout lady still knows me as the shy girl.

#5 – When I was born my name was Esther Laona. However, according to one parent I didn’t ‘look’ like an Esther Laona and with 10 minutes before leaving the hospital was renamed Brittany Esther. Looking at pictures I think Jabba the Hutt may have been more fitting.

#6 -The only thing of great significance my family can claim is selectively breeding a pepper, aptly named the Staddon Pepper.

#7 – I collect old toy cameras.

#8 – I deeply despise shopping; all types except grocery, school supply, and antique shopping.

#9 – When I was one and a half years old I ate a light bulb off the Christmas tree and swallowed it. Yes, the electricity was on. That was the second time that week my parents had to call poison control because of me

#10 – English isn’t my forte. Friends say I am fluent in ‘Brit-ish’ and my second language is English.

#11 – I love traveling almost more than life itself. I have visited 28 countries and have been on around 250-300 flights.

#12 – My nickname when I was younger was Rip. This derives from the tale of Rip Van Winkle and my ability to sleep anywhere, at any time, for however long.

#13 – I was nicknamed Brittany Brillo Head. That’s pretty self-explanatory.

#14 – On my mother’s side I have 37 cousins.

#15 -  I am 8” taller than my mother. She is vertically challenged.

#16 – I road-tripped-it to Alaska with my father and sister when I was 8. I learnt all about camping in the back of a truck and that sometimes the roadside was a better option than a junction washroom.

#17 – Anytime I use a vacuum I break it. It’s a sign.

#18 – I really hate socks. I would go barefoot everywhere if it was socially acceptable.

#19 –I always put a single chip in my burgers

#20 – My newt committed suicide by escapement. My cactus was killed by love (ie. over watering). My fish ate each other. My dog has epilepsy. I am a crumby pet owner.

There we are. Twenty completely useless facts about yours truly! If you write your own please feel free to leave a comment with a link to your site :)

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!

Upon arriving in Guatemala I was greeted by the CAUSE Canada interns and representative at the airport and so began a seven hour cross-country adventure from Guatemala City to Huehuetenango (pronounced Way-way-ten-ango and more fondly referred to simply as Huehue). Being an enthusiastic road tripper the prospect of such a long car ride wasn’t too bad. So began my first experience of transportation Guatemala style.

To give you the best description of Guatemalan roads let me start by giving you some basic math. The driving distance between Guatemala City and Huehue is about 260km. As mentioned, the time to cover said distance is seven hours. So take 260km and divide it by seven hours and this will give you an average velocity of 37.14km/h. Yes. 37.14 (I hold on dearly to this point one four) clicks. We crawled from the capital to Huehue. The bumpy-caked-in-with-fog-while-passing-chicken-buses-on-blind-corners-while-going-through-police-checkstops ride was a good taster of what was to come. While traveling to the more remote towns to attend leadership and literacy classes I became quite accustom to my head ricocheting of the Mitsubishi’s windows. Anywhere else it might hurt right?

Here is a small clip just to give you the slightest idea of how the trip went. Unfortunately this portion of the ride was missing the barrage of merengue and mariachi on the radio – my deepest apologies that you miss this integral part of Guatemalan transportation. (You may not want to watch this if you have a tendency to become motion sick)

The second mode of transportation is the infamous chicken bus, locally known as a ‘camioneta’. In every town there is guaranteed to be a lineup of brilliantly painted old American school and transit buses with lights flashing and the most ridiculous horns you have ever heard blaring.  For approximately $1.25 for an hour of travel you can go practically anywhere. Now, you are not simply paying for the trip but also the experience – which makes it so worthwhile. At the bus stations vendors will flood onto the bus offering all types of delicacies or health products, and individuals may come on to beg for money. One particular man scrambled onto the bus just as it left the terminal and started to give a rather lengthy speech. With my rudimentary Spanish I understood little of what he was saying and eventually just started to watch Xela go by outside my window. Several minutes later I turned my attention towards the front of the bus just as he lifted his shirt followed by a rather large piece of gauze and lo-and-behold – intestine! I now wish I had paid more attention to what was being said.  Only on a chicken bus!

Now for the true reason of what took me down to the country of Guatemala. CAUSE Canada has been working in the western highland regions of Guatemala for over 20 years empowering and improving the lives of the indigenous people through water and health, forestry and more recently microcredit and women empowerment programs. Primarily operating within the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango, Mam women are given the tools to establish small businesses and become leaders within their communities and to their children.

In the first literacy class we attended in Chemal there were three older children who were quite enamoured with the idea of having their photo taken. Upon asking their names it was learnt the girl was Reina, her twin brother, Samuel (aged 8), and the younger boy’s name was Aldolfo. When further inquired about the youngest girl’s name, Reina just looked at us and shurgged saying in the most exasperated tone, “who knows!”. So here are Reina, Samuel, Aldolfo and Who Knows.

I let Aldolfo (above) try his hand with my camera – I would say he has quite the eye!

Meanwhile, their mothers were inside with younger siblings learning their numbers. The teacher would come around the classroom and have each of them read the numbers, spell them, and write them down.

A second class in the region offered loans of Q500 (about $70) to the local women to grow their businesses.

One of the primary businesses that the women had started in the department of Huehuetenango was potato farms. The money was primarily used to buy fertilizer and seeds and the potatoes were then taken into the larger towns such as Quetzaltenango to be sold.

Several of the women also helped to grow their huipil weaving businesses. The huipil, or blouse, worn by indigenous Mayan women in Guatemala vary by region. Even between aldeas thirty minutes apart there may be a different style, colour or pattern. One huipil may take up to two months to make with skilled hands working three hours a day.

More images to come in a later blog post. I even promise to include a self portrait and a story about a particularly low doorframe – sometimes not being the height of the average person around you can be a bit of an inconvenience.

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!

Enjoy!

It’s a hard job being beautiful! I just love real moments such as these.

When asked what his favourite book of all time was Jayden pulled out “Where the Wild Things Are” – good choice I must say! I haven’t had the chance to see the movie but fell in love with the book the first time I picked it up in my Grade 1 library.

Thanks you guys!

A family of four.

I couldn’t help but smile at how Jordan would look at Jason and say, “I love him”. So infatuated!

Enjoy!

I am so enthralled with our recent weather! Such balmy temperatures can be attributed to Calgary’s marvelous chinooks as seen in this image. Aren’t they just a rad couple? I think so!

It wasn’t until last year that I took a darkroom course over the summer at the University. Needless to say I instantly fell in love. This past week I finally broke and bought myself the chemicals and equipment needed to do it in my own basement.  There is nothing that can quite compare with preparing the chemicals, loading the film in a pitch black room, and that moment of pulling the film out just hoping that you see those dark squares.

This past week I walked around the University of Calgary campus for 2 hours between classes with my Kodak Duaflex IV, which I picked up in an antique shop in the quaint Ontario town of Harrow. Here are the results of the 12 roll film.

Now, I don’t want to get all mushy here, but I just need to do a shout out. Take pictures people! I mean it! Get out there with your point and shoots and just document life.  Today I was trying to find an image my father took when he was in grade 11 to accompany this post.  Being the nerd that he was he set up in his basement a system in which a hammer would fall on a lightbulb, smashing it, which would trigger a flash and the camera. Follow? It turned out quite brilliantly I must say. Shame I can’t find it. But, I did find this small treasure and thought I might as well share. Just think about what people will say about the images you take today in 30 years.

Here is my father after packing the 1960-something Chevy truck to head off to the University of Western Ontario in 1975. He’s the short fella. I secretly wish we still had that truck.