I loved doing this photography session so much, quietly witnessing him create beautiful art, surrounded by his amazing works.  This young man has been an avid and passionate artist for most of his life and his mom even showed me some of his drawings from when he was just four and five years old and they could rival that of my current drawing abilities.  He is a quiet personality, we didn't talk much and I didn't ask him to pose or smile.  I just wanted to capture HIM doing what he LOVES to do and I think we got it.  I got a little emotional when I received this message from his mom after she saw the images.  "Wow Krishna.  I just had a look at the gallery.  I am actually quite overcome with emotion as the photos are so beautiful and they really capture the true essence of Sam.  It just shows what a good idea it is to photograph kids doing what they love - I've never seen Sam be "so Sam" on film before.  I love all the shots of his paints and brushes too and all of the "mess" that can sometimes drive me crazy but is so totally incredibly beautiful at the same time.  I love them all so much! Thank you for doing this."

 If you would like to talk about having a photography session for your child doing what they love, please call or email me, I'd love to hear about your child's passion and how we might be able to capture those memories forever.  Here are some favourite shots from my session with Sam.  

Two months into this project (where I take a photo each day of something which I'm grateful for or that makes me smile) and my observation so far is this….by acknowledging these moments of gratefulness, the feeling of happiness not only lingers much longer but is remembered with more clarity.  

 If you want to join the project, it's not too late.  You find us on instagram, #365gratefulheart.  You can see more of my images at  @krishnaneale and if you want to see some beautiful images from others taking part, take a look at my friend Ute @foto_ute and also @mspurevanilla and @tressavent.  

Here are a few of my grateful moments from February.

I'm not sure if these boys are just naturals in front of the camera or if there was some serious bribing that went down before they arrived ;-), but they were so comfortable, natural and just happy to be there.  I loved meeting this family and spending the afternoon with them.  Here are a few of my favourites from their session.  I especially love the one when Dad made the boys laugh and they both put their hands up to their mouth the same way.  

Spring weekend sessions are starting to fill up, so if your planning on getting professional photos taken this year, give me a call so we can secure your spot.

I feel so lucky to live near Whytecliff park and although I don't get there as much these days, we spent so many hours there when my boys were young.  It's a great location for a photography session with it's beach, park and playground, and we decided on it for this local family because of their real love for the ocean.  The morning light was lovely and although the youngest took a bit of coaxing to find his smile, we got it in the end.  

On a warm afternoon last summer, I had such fun photographing this family.  At one stage the kids had me laughing so much with their Sears catalogue posing that I had to work hard to keep the images from blurring.  Such a beautiful family in so many ways, and they all have the most radiating smiles.  Here are a few of my favourites.

Well, things got a little crazy over the past couple of months, hence the lack of blog postings and I have some serious catching up to do.  For now I'm skipping ahead to a Christmas style session that I did a few weeks ago with this beautiful little lady.  Talk about co-operative, we had multiple costume, props and set changes!  

Set one - Colour, colour, colour.  (thank goodness for plastic ornaments because everything goes in the mouth at this age)

Set two - fun and bright but with a traditional red and green theme.

Often I photoshop the drool out of an image but sometimes it's so epic I just have to leave it.   

Set three - warm and winter cozy.  (The hat was a little snug which she indicated to us in that last frame)

We wrapped with a few cuddle pictures with Mom then she went back to her trailer for a nap ;-).  What a star!

With the invention of digital cameras and the fast growing advances in technology, it's not just professional photographers that have good cameras, the average Joe can take good photos using a very affordable camera.  This is great for 'Joe' but it has a negative impact on the professional photography industry.  People are more reluctant to hire a professional because they can get pretty good results themselves.  So one of the things professional photographers have had to do, is get skilled at editing or what we call post production.  They need to be able to create something that doesn't look like it came straight out of 'Joe's' camera.  Over the past several years I have learned and practised my skills in Lightroom and Photoshop and I love what I can do now to create an image that looks like art, rather than a snap shot.  

For an average child or family photography session, I charge $150 for the sitting and it will only take me 60-90 minutes with the clients, which may seem like a rather high hourly rate, but what people often don't realize is that I spend anywhere from 6-10 hours in post production working on that same session.  I go through every image, delete any obvious bad ones, then go back and pick out the best ones.  Once I've narrowed it down to my favourite 30-40 images, I adjust each and every one of them and do photoshop touchups on things like skin, flyaway hair, colour casts and even soften the odd wrinkle :-).  I want the images on my clients gallery to look the best as they can and I want the client to love them immediately and want to buy enlargements to fill every wall in their house.  Ok that might be a bit much but you get the idea.

So at this time of year, I do some cleaning up of my computer files and archiving of old photographs and recently I came across this photo I took a long time ago and early in my professional career.  It was taken around this time of year in Stanley Park amongst the fall leaves.  I didn't do much photoshop back when I first started out so I decided to work on this image again and see what I can do with it now.  It's a wonderful moment taken of two adorable little girls, the 'before' photo straight from the camera is ok, but with some Lightroom and Photoshop work, it really transforms into fantastic photograph worthy of display, don't you think?  

So that's one example of what a professional can do for you and a good reason to hire one every now and again.

It's hard to remember back to when I had two kids under 3 years and I'm not even sure that I fully appreciated (at the time) how adorable they were because it was so busy and all consuming.  So now, I love to look back on photos and videos, especially the ones that remind me of their funny sayings, their favourite things, their habits and rituals.  Photographing this beautiful family reminded me of how precious these memories and keepsakes are.  Capturing the little boys love of Thomas the Train and of stickers.  The way he sat with his feet tucked under him.  His disinterest with his new baby sisters :-).

If I was to go back and raise my kids over again, I would take more short video clips, write down more of their quotes and I would have someone take photos of them WITH ME.  I have oodles of photos of them but almost none with me.  

I loved every minute with this family and I hope years from now, they look back on the photos and are reminded of their own special moments.

Krishna