Digital painting done as gallery wrap

This painting just arrived as a 24"x30" gallery wrapped canvas, ready to hang. Isn't it beautiful? It was painted for us by Paintings by Stacey, and we couldn't be more pleased. Didn't Stacey do an awesome job? Just for the moment, before it goes off to its real home, it has a happy spot on our mantel where we can get our visual fill. The only thing I might not like? It's not big enough! I'd love to see this as a 40"x60"!

We've been working like fools around these parts of late. I just wish there were enough time to keep up!

We had to be out in Langley on the weekend shooting, so we made a point of dropping by Brad Jalbert's Select Roses Open House. Brad and Joy and I go way back to our fledgling days gardening--even before I started The Adequate Gardener column, back in the early days of On Our Hands and Knees gardening group. All our best performing roses come from Brad's, it's safe to say.

Joy and I got a first peek at a rose Brad has been hybridizing for us, called Wacky Sheila in memory of our mothers. It's pink and frilly and I know if they were here, tears would course down their faces to see it. All our gardening friends and relatives will be getting one next year when it hits the market!

I wanted to announce that we've decided to have some of our Portrait Party hosts host their parties in-studio! This is a big step for us, since originally we planned to have all the parties in people's homes. But for those who lack the space, this is a great alternative!

Happy Father's Day to all our dads out there!

People ask me what I mostly photograph, and I really photograph love.

I did a family shoot last weekend out In Richmond with a great family of four--mom, dad and two of the spriteliest kiddos, an 8 year old girl, and a 6 year old boy. As I made my way through their images this week, preparatory to creating a slideshow for them, I kept smiling, and I know I grinned over and over because of their transparent love for each other. Love and happiness are infectious--it's hard for humans to see other humans having fun without smiling ourselves. And that's what happened to me. They infected me with their adoration and high spirits. Wouldn't it be cool if this virus spread?

Speaking of being infected with love, the studio hosted our second Studio Portrait Party yesterday with ten families. We had a terrific, expressive group of families, with a whole lot of infants, and while it will take me a couple of weeks to finish up with the photographs, I can already tell everyone that there are many, many great shots. Joy, Meg, Greg and I are very pleased and proud of the results.

I will attach a few here, with a special sounding out to the dads in attendance who are celebrating what is, for many of them, their very first Father's Day. Congratulations to you all. Thanks again to everyone who helped make the day such rollicking good fun, and so fulfilling, for us all.













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Amy and Mindy

These two lovely Floridians came up to Vancouver to be married this week! Congratulations, Amy and Mindy! They are the first in their circle of LGBT friends to wed, and I'm so curious to know if their lovely nuptial day (yes, the rain held off, if not during their carriage ride then during their Stanley Park Rose Garden ceremony), and their freedom in Vancouver to express their love and commitment, will influence their community at home.

To see more from Amy and Mindy's sweet small wedding, please navigate back to our wedding site and click slideshows.

Congratulations, brides! May you have many, many happy years together.

Where does the time get to?

Okay, boys and girls, the June 16 Studio Portrait Party is completely full! We are taking names for the waitlist, because inevitably a couple families will have to cancel due to illness, but we are also booking our July 21 party! We still have a few spots left, but they are going swiftly!

The photographs have come down from Pictage, my online gallery, but you can still sample them by navigating to my portrait site (link at right) and looking under the Menu for Portrait Parties. I've made a short slideshow of images from the May 12 party.

Meantime, we've been busy shooting weddings, designing wedding books, designing baby announcements, and shooting kids and families in our regular sessions. These too are getting pretty darn booked up, so if you need to get your kids in, give us a quick shout and we'lll try to accommodate you.

Wasn't the recent warm weather delightful? I had to work most of it, but Joy and I did manage to get out in our extremely insane flower garden and clean up a bit. Of course I painted the front steps something like a half hour before the deluge started on Sunday! Doesn't it figure? Hope everyone's gardening was great, and don't forget this weekend is the garden show at VanDusen gardens. Always a pleasure.

The photograph attached is one of our tree peonies last year.

The Studio Portrait Party pix are up!

Hey everyone!

Good news! The party pix are finally online--but for one week only!

You can view them by navigating to my website and going to Portraits/Online Proofing and finding Studio Portrait Party 1. There is no password.

Meantime, here is a sample birthday card I designed for those thinking of invitations, announcements etc.

Studio Portrait Party!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, moms!

Meg, Greg, Joy and I were so pleased and happy to host all of you in our premiere Studio Portrait Party yesterday, May 12. We heard tell it was sunny outside, yet all of you took the time to truck down to my studio and trust me and my crew with your precious children. Thanks to each and every one of you, moms and dads too, who made the effort.

I've got the pix downloaded now, but that's about all. I just spent a couple of hours proofing an image from every family so you could celebrate just a little piece of Mother's Day by visiting my blog, so here they are!

Can't say when I'll have the pix up online for you, but as soon as humanly possible, and hopefully this week sometime. I'll be back in touch when they're up!

We're having another Studio Portrait Party June 16, so let your friends and family members know the date. We ask that no one who attended yesterday returns for another 3-6 months depending on the rapidity of the change in your child/ren, but you are surely welcome to pass the opportunity along to others!

And we are building that waitlist for Home Portrait Parties where we bring the studio to you!

Cheers everyone, and smell a lilac for me,

Jane

The camera loves her

Erin was such fun to shoot!

I love, love, love taking shots that show the beauty of the human form, and Erin made it easy! She's a beautiful woman with an unerring sense of how to move for the camera, and every second with her was a pleasure. She arrived with her friend, Amanda, in tow. My impromtu assistant, Amanda did all the picky little things that go faster with help, like hair-brushing. Thanks, Amanda! Erin, you were amazing!

Shhh! We've got a secret!

We're happy to announce our very first

PORTRAIT PARTY!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

by appointment only

Fifteen minute slots, one per family, beginning at 9 o'clock in the morning until we fall over from exhaustion! No session fee, and no obligation to purchase. 10-20 images will be posted online at Pictage (www.pictage.com) for a period of one week during which time prints may be purchased. After a week, all images will be purged from our system.

Love portraiture of your children? Put yourself on our waiting list to host a Portrait Party in the privacy of your home! Get together at least 8 families on a Saturday morning, and earn valuable print credits! Contact us to ask for details!

Isaac at five months

I've made a slideshow of Isaac, the preemie baby I've just re-photographed at five months. It's up on my site under Portraits/Slideshows which links from over on the right side here. He's such a dreamy big monkey now...just as sweet of temperament and cuddly as ever, and while undoubtably his cheeks are the same remarkably adorable cheeks as I shot umplumped shortly after his autumn birth, it's hard, mostly, to catch the tiny vulnerable preemie in any of the current shots. His parents have shots from our first session all over their home, and I just stood before them, familiar as I am with them, and stared at how tiny Isaac was to begin with. Back then, worried about Isacc's fragility, no one but his parents could hold him, and he almost disappears into enfolding arms.

If ever I had a question about whether it is worth commemorating a child's birth and new days in pictures, Isaac, newborn, answers it. He is so different now after just a few months, that without pictures, good, artistic pictures, much of that early vulnerability would surely be forgotten. I know one can't quite recapture such states even with photographs--even with video that captures sound and movement--but oh, when the pictures are lovely, it is quite a pleasure even to try, to stand before a photograph of him tucked tight into his parents' arms and marvel at his size.

Besides finding Isaac himself remarkable, I found his mothers' happiness compelling. These are women who waited a long time for their son, and perhaps their joy at his arrival is to be expected, but still, palpable delight absolutely leaks from them, and when you leave their presence you can't help but to leave grinning, made just a little happier by knowing this small simple unit called a family is there behind you, loving each other.

New art images

Here are some pieces I've been working on of late.

This is a composite image of a small underwater daffodil merged with the leaf lattice from last year's hydrangea, also taken underwater, using a compositing technique known as the Orton Technique after Michael Orton. It is modified because it begins with digital imagery rather than the more usual underexposed film, and because digital always offers up a different effect than would be possible using film:

This is another modified Orton technique using three underwater digital images of spring flowers:

This third image is an unmodified underwater image of a dyed blue daisy:
The fourth image was a pan made of an immature magnolia seedpod:
This last image is the hydrangea leaf lattice again, shot while being swished underwater:

Baby Isaac: how he has grown!

I stopped by baby Isaac's home recently to take more photographs of this bouncing five-month-old baby, and to grab a shot of the wall art his parents purchased in February commemorating his arrival. It is sure stunning up on their yellow wall. The matts are incredibly thick, setting the artwork off beautifully. It's funny seeing and shooting Isaac now. I am so ultra familiar with him because I've spent so long editing images of him, and so completely a stranger, too. Do I recognize him? He is huge now--nearly 20 pounds. Sometimes I'd look at him and see someone completely new, he's changed so much. But then in the next moment I'd spot that tiny preemie newborn and his adorable cheeks poking through the big boy he's become. He loves to cuddle; loves to laugh; is clearly just so delighted to find himself alive.

One thing's for sure...if he was loved the day he came home from the hospital, he's loved doubly now. His parents just exude happiness and joy. It's a pleasure--and an honour--to be around that kind of blissed out mama-love.

I hope to be able to post some of the images from our recent session soon!

Spring is still springing here in Vancouver...

Still working slowly to get the fine art site up and running.

I had my favourite model and second-born daughter, Meghann, out under the second string of Vancouver's blooming cherry blossoms this week, this time in Queen Elizabeth park, where, given it's Easter, there were a considerable number of picnickers and revellers. There was even a family who had erected a tent for their kids to play in. The weather has been much, much warmer than last weekend, though it's overcast, sprinkling and a little cooler today. (Rain is due. Yuck. More of it.) It was a challenge getting good shots around all the people enjoying the park, but I managed, and hopefully I'll find time to pop some up in our portrait section. Meantime, here's a couple ones I've worked on...



The last shot is of the art "Vancouver Ancestors" by the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. I love this installation, part of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale. I'm sure most Vancouverites, including me, wish all the sculpture around Vancouver would stay permanently; alas, only a few will stay.

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!