Category Archives: Photography

  • New year rambles, goals, pigs, writing, walking and more

    It’s January 2nd, 2016, er, .. I mean, 2017 and we’ve done so much already. I’m tired just thinking about it.
    But in a good way. In a “I’ve got my list, and I’m getting things done” kind of a way.

    Speaking of lists, in the back of my prayer journal this morning I made up a list of goals I’d like to accomplish each month. I’m not real big on ‘resolutions’, but I’m very big on goals. Not just on New Year’s day though, all the time. I actually LOVE Monday’s even, for this very reason. Monday’s are a chance to start a whole new week with a whole new set of goals!

  • Saskatchewan, land of the living skies.

    Saskatchewan, land of the living skies.

  • Oh deer.

    On our way home from Good Spirit Lake last month, we came upon this lovely little family of deer.

  • A mother’s plan.

    A while back I came across a post in my facebook feed about a family of four girls who had their photo taken together every year, for years, in the same order. The photos began from the time the four were ages 15-25, and went on for the following 36 years. I thought this was pretty impressive and it got me thinking about my own children, and photography.

    Like all parents, we started with our first child snapping one photo after another. We have quite literally thousands of photos of Alesia, our eldest. When Joshua came along, life was a little busier with two but we still managed to get a fair amount of photos. Probably a more ‘normal’ amount of photos.

  • Living the glamorous life!

    This Jan. 1st I shared on Facebook that I was going to start walking, outside, every day! I asked if anyone would like to join me. Some did, hopefully more still will!

    So far we’ve walked outside for 30 mins every day.

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    First day we walked the field, next day to the lake down the road and hubby joined us.

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    Yesterday we started down the road towards the lake and soon turned around to the shelter of our treed yard. It was WINDY!

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    Today however, we opted out of a walk in favour of something more glamorous.

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    We scooped ‘poopsicles’ instead. I think the hour and a half of poopsicle scooping we did was probably the equivalent to a few hours of walking! Phew!

    Farm kids work hard, and no, it’s actually not glamorous, but it comes with benefits of extra fun!

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    Lots of extra fun!

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    And when we were all done, the horses were thankful.

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    And we went in for some well deserved hot chocolate!

  • Northern Lights

    We had the rare opportunity to witness the Northern Lights on the last night of September!

    I’m not the greatest photographer when it comes to night time photos, I’ve still got LOTS to learn but I always like to at least try. Since I didn’t have time to set up a tripod, first I tried hand held.

  • The beach with Julia

    For anything in life to be truly worthwhile, you must add in that little side of fun!

  • Anniversary flowers

    These flowers were a gift from our eldest daughter, Alesia, for our 21st Wedding Anniversay on the 22nd. She knew I was feeling down about her dad and I being apart for so long, so she brought me flowers.

    She brings me flowers quite often. She knows that even though the flowers themselves won’t last forever, because I love snapping photos, they will still be captured forever in time.

    When I saw how pretty they were looking in my kitchen window, I decided to snap photos of them right where they were.

    I love how the sunlight was shining on them.

    Flowers, I love them all. My daughter knows this well.

    Thank you Alesia for thinking of me. You are indeed a blessing. Don’t ever forget that!

  • All creatures great and small.

    I was going through some photos on my camera card and came across these photos of some moths the girls had found on our front deck.

    They knew I love to snap photos of interesting things, so they called me to come take a look, and to bring my camera.


    *as you can see, they’ve developed my love of awesomeness too. hee hee.

    As I was looking through these photos, especially the ones that show the details of the moth,

    I found myself pondering whether I felt the moth was pretty,

    or ugly?

    In either case, I definitely find it fascinating.

    As I do pretty much all creatures.

    That is, until I got to the next photos. These were the very next photos on my card.

    This is one creature I consider pure ugly.

    Not at all fascinating, just ugly.

    A vulture.

    We see them periodically around here. One time, a few years back, we had three of them on the property. Each one sat on a different fence post at the horse pasture. One on each post, 1, 2, 3, ugly creatures. They all sat just like this one, wings spread out wide.

    I have to admit, THAT was slightly fascinating.

    But this single vulture on this day sitting in a dead tree overlooking our pasture?
    Fascinating? No. Ugly, and even disgusting? Yep.

    And when he finally flew away, I was glad to see him go!

  • I’m learning to take better photos

    Some time this past summer my mom and I attended a photography workshop.

    We were unable to stay for the entire day. Both of us needed to leave early, so we only had the opportunity to listen and learn from the two speakers, in a conference room. We would miss the afternoon “safari” lessons, the hands on part of the workshop.

    This was a bit of a bummer, but… it is the reality of busy people.

    We were both just very glad to even have the opportunity to attend a workshop and learn some things! “Groupon” had an awesome deal that we simply could not pass up, so away we went.

    Before we left Victoria, we made a quick stop at the harbour for a few photos!

    I love the harbour.

    My mom snapped this quick photo of me snapping photos of the ocean, with the family around. I couldn’t believe she used her point and shoot after we had just sat through that workshop!

    I snapped one of her taking pictures too.


    *my younger sister in the foreground, my mom snapping photos in the back.

    Since the workshop, I’ve felt much more confident in playing around with the buttons on my camera. My wonderful, wonderful camera (a Nikon D300) which I purchased used from an online friend a few years ago. This camera has been one of the best investments I have ever made. Not only does it help with my business, GREATLY, as it makes for great product shots, it also allows me to learn more about how to get great shots of what’s even more important to me,
    every.day.life.


    *my husband and three youngest girls checking out an old sailboat

    Great product shots are important… but life? It’s passing by me so quickly that I’m happy to beautifully freeze frame snippets with my camera here and there. We may not be able to go back in time, but we can relive the memories through photos.


    *my mom and sister

    The biggest change I’ve noticed though, by playing around with buttons recently, is the sunset photos I can finally achieve.

    I snapped a photo of how I ‘used’ to take sunset photos.

    And it was ‘ok’, the photo may even look pretty to some, but it always frustrated me that what I was seeing with my EYES, was not what I would see in my photos.

    That photo above, was NOT was I was seeing with my eyes that night.

    THIS is what I was seeing, and what I so desperately wanted to capture!

    The sky that night, it was amazing.

    I’ve become brave enough to play around with settings, get myself out of ‘auto’, and just keep snapping away until I get it right.

    And now, what I see in front of me for just a few short moments as the sun sets.

    I can keep forever, even after it’s faded and gone.

    I can’t tell you exactly what settings I changed, that was so different from how I used to take photos. I’m not real good at teaching others what I know. I learn simply by doing.

    What I can do, is tell you to get brave with your camera if you haven’t already. Read, read, and read some more. If an opportunity comes along to take a lesson, attend a workshop, or anything else that’s going to help boost your confidence, go for it!

    You’ll never regret getting better photos!