Janurary nearly passed away with no post in it! But here, on the last day I am finally posting, suddenly inspired to post a monthly recap in the form of photos. I decided I wanted to double down on photography this year, becoming more creative and hopefully falling deeper in love with the art. In the name of sustainibility, I committed to taking a simple photo with my phone once per day. Feburary will most likely look more intentional as I hope to take out an actual camera more frequently and hopefully invest in some more education. But for now, here are my small beginnings. It did me a joy to see all these pictures and I hope it does the same for you.

P.S. For those of you who were counting, you noticed that there were not 31 photos. That is partly intentional and partly not; a few I chose not to post and other days I simply missed.

We wish you a blessed day as you celebrate this holiday; may the wonder of Christ’s incarnation never leave you and may His presence be felt now and always.

The Ungers

My love for photographing events (with the exception of weddings, of course) is evident to you all by now. There is something so inspiring and invigorating about celebrations, leaving me with much more creativity and zeal for capturing the moment. Ironically, this is the area of photography in which I am the least skilled, but my infatuation of it won’t let me go. The idea of capturing a moment perfectly in its purest, photojournalistic form has never lost its appeal, no matter how many times I have fallen out of love with photography. At its heart, photography has always been about the art of preserving moments and memories, and event photography brings me closer to that beat. So here’s a look at my latest session of this style, one that I was incredibly hounoured to be a part of.

One of my aunts had her fiftieth birthday recently, and in honour of it, her sisters planned her a birthday party. I was asked to document it, and almost refused because it was such a (seeminly) small event. But unbeknownst to me, two of my aunts flew one sister in from out of the country and another drove from a different province, and it was the most beautiful surprise to all of us. Seeing them all gathered to celebrate and love their oldest sister was such a joy, and of course I teared up a tiny bit behind the cover of my lens. Here is my attempt to capture it all.

The Decor and The Food

Behind the Scences

The Surprise

The Sisters

This month nearly slipped by without me posting! And that was actually intentional. The first half of November was fraught with unplanned and changed plans and the last half was filled with living them out in ways much more beautiful that we dreamed of. So between business and travel, I didn’t have much time to create or post. But a change of plans (the theme continued) left me with some surprise moments of time, and so here I am.

As usual, this is a post simply for the sake of posting with little rhyme or reason. But as I opened Lightroom, I saw my most recent edits and decided to share my favourites. A year ago in October we took a weekend trip to Banff and Jasper with Jon and Yesenia in lieu of a trip down the US West coast (thanks to Covid). And it turned out to be the most lovely weekend. We saw some stunning fall beauty that hopefully I will share with you in another post, as this one only covers the first day.

There are days when you do the next right thing because it’s the next right thing to do. But I wonder if sometimes you don’t do the next right thing simply becuase it’s the next right thing? When consistency and schedule and commitment and routine isn’t enough reason? Do you sometimes pause, re-evaluate, re-define, and then, resume? Is there a time to stop until insperation? Or always go until insperation?

I wonder that with regard to blogging. I set a goal this year for two posts per month. And it was relativly easy when I had planned content. But as soon as that was all consumed, I lagged. These days, I’m feeling accomplished with one post per month. And let’s be real, the posts arn’t that great. Defiantly not my best work. But it is a post. So it counts, right?

I’m not actually expecting answers. I’m just thinking outloud. Online. Which is actually quite scary and unwise, really. So I’ll stop my rambling and post again simply for the purpose of posting, this time with four simple photos from March, 2020. Like for so many of us, it was a long, dark month. But these photos remind me that all was not as seemed or remembered. There was light too. In playing games, connecting over the table, and finding companionship in the dreaded home work. God is good, all the time. And that’s reason enough to keep going. All the time, going, good.

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I had this grand idea of posting some photos from our past year on this blog, but quickly realized it took way more time than I expected! Hence why I havn’t posted yet this month. As I was searching for alternatives (and it’s ironic how hard they are to find considering how many photos I have), I came across some I took for my niece, who was 6 months old at the time. I was terribly nervous for this sessions, as babies and toddlers are not subjects I photograph normally. But the session (or should I say, the results) were such an answer to prayer that I simply had to share the joy! I know you’re not supposed to advertise what you normally don’t shoot, but I decided to break the rules for this post. Though let it be known that I’m not necessarily looking to shoot more baby portraits, family is whom I make exceptions for;)

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But even if I don’t, that’s not going to keep me from posting:) In the process of editing photos from 2020, I immediately tag those that I want to print. And since a lot of you don’t get to look at the finished product, I thought I would share a few of my favourite photos on here. I have selected photos only from the month of January, in which we took at trip to Texas. So the majority of the photos will be from that trip, but a few will give you a glimpse into our everyday life.

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I’m sure there would be a dozen other photos competing (and successfully so) for this position. But this one comes so close, I think it can take the stand for today.

I try to make it a point every year to take photos of Mum’s flower bed. This session was in September, and I remember being surprised at the beauty that was still there in fall. I also remember working so hard for this one frame, trying to get the composition perfect. I rarely put that much effort into photos, so to have it turn out so wonderfully was incredibly rewarding.