listen
March 10, 2011 | Filed Under Photoshoots, horses, personal | 1 Comment
Sometimes you just have to listen to yourself. That little voice that gives you ideas isn’t always wrong. You have to have faith in your abilities or else no one else will. I feel like a motivational speaker when I write things like that, but there’s a reason they’re so cliche and why they’ve been said a million times. They’re true. You can start small and give yourself some confidence.
Say- “Today, I will cut up an onion, and it will not go all over the place. I will chop it perfectly and look like a chef while doing it.”
What things will you need? An onion, a good knife, youtube, and maybe some help from an experience onion cutter. And you’ll do it. And it will look swell. And then your confidence will climb, just a little bit. Not a mountain, but a good sized sledding hill. And you’ll own the onion. And maybe you’ll move on to carving carrots all fancy like they do at Thai restaurants. Who knows. Confidence will make or break you.
When I got to Kelly’s, it was bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. There was no shade. I made a quick mental note that she had light eyes. Awesome. She was going to squint and my pictures were going to be really flat and washed out. And then I thought, “What’s this whole ’shooting into the sun’ business?” So I tried it. And the picture was horrible. So I fiddled with the settings, while Kelly fiddled with her horse’s bridle. And I acted like I planned this. And I shot the pictures. And they actually turned out. The onion was mine. And it was chopped. Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not the way a chef would do it. But there it was.
The pictures turned out far better than I could have imagined. Sure, they’re blown out in spots, and the colours aren’t realistic at all. But they have feel, and convey a message and an emotion, and they mean something to me. They mean that I’ve finally listened to myself and pushed a little farther than I thought was comfortable. And I didn’t die. I didn’t fail. And that little voice didn’t say a word. It was far too busy giving me a “told you so” smile.
Spring Promotion!
March 9, 2011 | Filed Under Photoshoots | Leave a Comment
Like every year, I’m offering a spring promotion again. While I don’t usually jump off the bridge when everyone else does, this year’s buzz word (buzz acronym?) is the BOGO sale. BuyOneGetOne sale. I should specify that it’s Buy One Get One FREE. Free. In addition to the BOGO part, I’m dropping my prices down to $250.00 a shoot for the duration of the sale (down from $300.00). A math major I was not, but I’m pretty sure that works out to a $350.00 savings. These are the biggest savings I’ve ever offered off of my regularly priced photo shoots.
Here’s the deal. I’m offering my BOGO sale from today (March 9th, 2011) until April 17th, 2011. It’s a first come, first serve kind of deal where dates are concerned (ie: I’m not going to give you someone else’s day just because that’s the only day you can squeeze me in). I need full payment upon booking a date (I can take email money transfers, cash, cheque, and paypal) and you have to book your first shoot somewhere between today and April 17th, 2011. Your second shoot can be redeemed anytime that I’m not booked until March 31st, 2012. So, you’ve got a year to cash that in- in case you want snow pictures, in case you want to give the second shoot as a Christmas present to someone (they’ll have three months to redeem it, after that, I’ll credit the balance to a regularly priced shoot), in case the rest of the year goes by in a flash, you forget, etc. Lots of in-case scenarios. I plan for them often.
The shoots are about 2 hours each, and as always you’ll get full printing rights to your pictures. This will be changing as of July 1st, 2011 where I will still be giving you the digital files, only at a much smaller resolution- you’ll only be able to print up to 5×7. The BOGO sale includes full printing rights on shoots purchased during this promotion until March 31st, 2012. I upload your edited shots to a password protected website for easy viewing, sharing, and downloading. Travel costs are NOT included in this promotion, but as always, they will be $0.25/km and I have no problem splitting charges between clients in the same area.
You can keep both shoots for yourself, give one away, give both away, double book for 4 hours in one day…there are tons of options. If you have any questions, please give me a call or shoot me off an email (902 956 6060 or danique@centuryclassic.ca)
Overview, because I’m long winded:
-BOGO sale means Buy One Get One. Free.
-Buy and book a shoot anytime between now and April 17th, 2011, and redeem another shoot for FREE anytime between now and March 31st, 2012.
-Shoots are about 2 hours each.
-Travel is not included in the BOGO sale. Mileage fees are $0.25/km and are always split between clients in the same area if I can make it work.
-All of your edited pictures are uploaded to a password protected website in full resolution for easy viewing, sharing, and downloading.
-Shoots are $250.00 taxes included.
-Payment is required at the time of booking, and only shoots booked and paid for by April 17th, 2011 are eligible for this promotion.
-Payment can be made via cash, cheque, email money transfer, or paypal.
-Call (902 956 6060) or email me (danique@centuryclassic.ca) if you have any questions or special requests.
-oh, and weddings aren’t included in this promotion. nice try, though :)
And because it would be borderline blasphemous for me to blog without a picture, here’s one of my favorites from last season. This is Krista and Scout galloping across the top of a hill in Falmouth.
just one
March 7, 2011 | Filed Under Photoshoots, people, personal | 1 Comment
I’m only going to share one picture today.
It’s beautiful, though. It was taken with my Canon 5D mkII and I was fortunate enough to borrow the 90mm f2.8 TS-E lens from work for the weekend. What neat lens. I have absolutely no idea how to use it, but played around-I tilted and I shifted, and came up with a few decent shots :)
Of course, my model was perfect as always. Oh Miss Mary, what would I do without you?
letting go and holding on
March 3, 2011 | Filed Under Photoshoots, horses, people, personal | 17 Comments
There is one friend in the life of each of us,
who seems not a separate being,
however dear and beloved,
but an expansion, an interpretation of one’s self-
the very meaning of one’s soul.
Every time I walk into the pasture at Kaila’s place, I’m immediately surrounded by horses. Happy, fun, life-loving horses who just want to assimilate you into their herd. They want to show you things. They want to do things for you. They sniff you and crowd around you, taking their turn to introduce themselves politely and see if there’s anything they can impress or amuse you with. I always feel safe and welcome. I’m always a little bit in awe. Every time.
I joke that Blue is like a big lap dog. He’s more labrador retriever than he is horse. Kaila smiles at him as he turns himself inside out doing his whole lineup of tricks, just on the off chance that she *might* have a cookie in her pocket for him. She tells me that Blue is like her first love. As she rubs him under his forelock, his eyes close, his feet stop moving, and he sighs. He is happy. His girl is here and she is with him. And that is all he wants. Every time.
I ask Kaila what she means about Blue being her first love. “He’ll always have a special place in my heart. He was my first everything. My first horse. My first mistakes. My first accomplishments. He taught me everything I know. He’s the reason I’m here. He’s the reason that they’re all here,” she tells me as she looks out across her field at all of the happy horses. I’ve teased her for ages, telling her that as soon as she’s done with him, I’d take him off her hands. She giggles at me, pretending to be offended that I’d ever think she’d part with her first love.
I make a point of photographing the Meadow Brook horses at least a few times a year. It is not work. It’s a reminder why I started this job in the first place. My visits there humble me. They inspire me. They challenge me. My most recent shoot was on a perfect winter day. It was cold and fresh and big fluffy snowflakes fell from the just right cloud cover above. The wind picked up just enough to blow forelocks around. I got there late (surprise) and walked into the arena to introduce myself to the new girls. I asked Kaila who was getting pictures with which horses and she listed off all of the new pairings. She ended with, “…and me and Tru.” For the first time she didn’t add “…and maybe just a few pictures of me and Bluey…” like she’d requested every other time I’d been there. I’ve known for awhile that her first horsey love was slowly being replaced by her true horsey love. Literally. Her coming two year old filly, Tru, was her world now and even non-horse people could see the intense bond she shared with her. Still, I was left feeling a little nostalgic for the old times- Blue licking her face, snuggling in her hands, acting just as I knew he would, looking my way but not moving an inch when I whistled. I’d all but perfected photographing Kaila and Blue and it was a little sad knowing that I wasn’t going to be taking their picture that day.
A soft giggle came from the right side of the arena- I looked and there was Blue, moving his feet, licking a blue jacket, nuzzling in under the pink and brown tendrils of hair that hung over big brown eyes. Leigh made quick eye contact with me and shyly smiled, softly pushing Blue away. I walked over and introduced myself, all of the pieces coming together. “So YOU must be the girl that Kaila’s told me all about. You’re Blue’s new favorite person, she says.” Even more shyly than before, Leigh smiled at me. “Yah, I guess,”she said, turning her attention back to the grey horse, not for one second wanting all of the attention to be on her. My eyes got big as I turned around and smiled at Kaila, finally getting what she’d been telling me for the last few months. “He just LOVES her, Danique,” she’d tell me, “he does anything she asks. He’s so happy to be loved and played with again.” I got to see it myself when I took their pictures a few minutes later. This was why Kaila wasn’t worried about him. This was why she’d been able let him go.
Leigh is 13 going on 25. She is quiet and deliberate in everything she does and doesn’t say a lot. A quick smile and a polite answer to a question is about all she’ll give you if she doesn’t know you. Sometimes she hides her big brown eyes behind her fancy coloured hair, mostly because they’d give her away if she didn’t.
Yesterday morning I was able to do one of the most wonderful things. I was there when a little girl’s dream came true. I watched it happen. “Leigh,” Kaila said, her voice wavering just a little bit, “how would you like Blue to be your horse?” Leigh looked at us, a bit confused. She said, “Ok.” Kaila explained it to her again. She did not jump around, or scream, or yell, or say one word. She barely moved. She was speechless. As it sunk in, she turned around and looked at Blue and looked at us again and then hugged him. She hung onto his neck for a long time. She gave that grey horse a long, hard hug like she was never going to let him go. Because now, she didn’t have to.
