Ah, wedding season!

Leanne and Moya, brides from San Francisco, braved last week's Vancouver chill to legalize the wedding that had been invalidated in California nearly three years ago. They were one of the hundreds of couples snaked around San Francisco's City Hall in the rain after Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Feb 14, 2004. Every couple was "unwed" a scant seven months later.

This time, all signals were go! While the ocean churned brown and turbulent behind the 30 guests and the wind tossed icy knives, the brides held hands, and their daughter, Lucy, to repeat their vows.

Now they are well and truly hitched, with no invalidating to follow! Frost-bitten, I'd be willing to guess, but so happy. They told us they loved in particular the part of their ceremony where Johanna Hickey, their marriage commissioner, had them repeat the phrase that states that they know of no legal impediment to their marriage. It's a pretty heady phrase for gays and lesbians, and packs a wallop.

It's a misty moment for my wife, Joy, and I too. We cried when we repeated those words to each other in June of 2003, and I cry at almost every wedding when I hear them again. It makes me stop and remember our long court case, and how iffy the end result seemed at the beginning, and how significant and empowering the victory was, for Canadians, of course, but also for couples around the world.

Joy and I stop every so often and shake ourselves. Is same-sex marriage really legal? Did we really have a part in making it so? The legal victories in Spain, Massachusetts and South Africa were no doubt partially influenced by ours. It changed the world, and it--always, always--makes us proud.

The photograph below, showing Leanne and Moya's rings on a sprig of yet-to-pop cherry blossom, signifies the fact that with this spring wedding, everything is refreshed and newly growing.

Congratulations, new wives!

SPECIAL OFFER FOR BRIDES!

Vancouver has had a tough winter, more like a winter back east than anything we're used to here, with windstorms and wind damage combined with snow and torrential rains. We missed a month of it being away in the Bahamas and Cuba shooting, but we've still had more than enough!

When the snow melted in our yard over the weekend, we were amazed considering the months of low temperatures to find bulbs pushing their tough little snouts out of the chilly earth. We found snowdrops, too, the diminutive harbigers of spring, with their white blooms still tightly furled. I'm sure they'll pop at the first blink of sunshine.

We decided what with all this new hope and new life springing forth it was time to indulge ourselves, and our brides, in an awesome day of studio and street photography, on us! Anyone who books at least a 6-hour contract in February, and who has a wedding gown she doesn't mind getting dirty (spares are available for under $100 on eBay), and who pays for her own makeup and hair, is welcome to a day of fashion photography around the Lower Mainland! Let's see what kind of trouble we can get in. Train station? Bus station? Gondola up to Grouse? Underwater? With urban graffiti? Romantic shots with your honey rolling around in the surf? (Oh, okay, not until summer...) Only limit? Imagination!

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Started by co-founders Sandy "Sam" Puck and Cheryl Haggard, the US non-profit organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep provides photography for infant bereavement sessions. We photographers volunteer our services in order that parents might remember their new little sweethearts through fine art photography long into the future.

If you know of families needing the services of a NILMDTS photographer, or of a hospital where you'd like to see the program start up, please pass along the web site link, where local photographers are listed, or if the need is for someone in Burnaby or Vancouver, have them leave a message for me at 604-435-9581.

From the NILMDTS website:

"Pregnancy and Birth is a miraculous journey. This amazing time of life is full of mystery, anticipation, joy, hope, and wonder. Feeling the powerful energy of birth and new life, watching as a new family is born unto each other. These things humble and amaze. These are the things that we celebrate when a baby is born

But there is another aspect of pregnancy and birth. There is an unexpected place in this journey where some families may find themselves. When a baby dies, a world is turned upside down. There is confusion, sadness, fear, and uncertainty that cannot be explained. There is sorrow where there should have been joy. During this time, it might be impossible for families to know what they might need in order to heal in the future.

This is the place where NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP gently provides a helping hand and a healing heart. NOW offers a vital service to our community. For families overcome by grief and pain, the idea of photographing their baby may not immediately occur to them. Offering gentle and beautiful photography in a compassionate and sensitive manner is the heart of this organization. The soft, gentle heirloom photographs of these beautiful babies are an important part of the healing process. They allow families to honor and cherish their babies, and share the spirits of their lives."

Shi Shi

I was delighted to shoot Katari Taiko's character "Shi Shi" last evening. It's a bit of a challenge shooting dancing in the studio, limited as I am to the unexpansive edges of the seamless, but I still managed to catch the excitement he brings when he explodes into life. Jan Woo, who plays Shi Shi, says there is nothing like the expression on kids' faces when Shi Shi jumps into a classroom. Can't you just imagine? Last summer I photographed Katari Taiko, and Shi Shi's six-minute number, at Vancouver's Powell Street Festival, as I have for several years running. I caught two photos of kids reacting to Shi Shi, and Jan's right, it was out of this world. Just everything that is magical about childhood--big, oversized, fantasy characters who can pop you right out of your universe and into a new world.