Badlands Shoot

I always go on these road trips, take a bunch of pictures and never do anything with them. They end up getting lost in the infamous hard drive abyss. I'll stumble upon them months later wondering why I never did anything with them except make one of them my profile pictures on Facebook. Well this was the case with this shoot; even though I think it's one of my favourites. 

Having wanted to visit the Badlands, for quite some time, Marnie and I braved the hoards of tourists parked along Olde Base Line Road and managed to find a quiet spot away from curious onlookers. By the end of it, I had forgotten my sandals by the side of my car and driven off, was covered in mud (don't worry Julia, your dress remained unscathed!) and Marnie got some kind of allergic reaction to bug bites. I think it's safe to say it was worth it. And if you're wondering about those sandals, apparently someone really wanted a pair of visibly used Gap sandals left sitting at the side of the road.

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Website Updates

I realized that lately I've been updating my blog; but my website hasn't received the same amount of attention. So I've spent the last few days, with a glass of wine in hand, because this required me to resize A LOT of photos, updating information and galleries on my website. Updates include a few weddings I've shot last year, plus additions to current galleries, a baby shower, which was featured on the Style Me Pretty blog, a styled wedding invite shoot (one of my favourites!), including family and maternity sessions. I'll keep adding more in the next few days; but right now I need to stop because I'm getting a migraine for staring at the computer screen for so long...or it may have been the wine. Regardless, in the meantime, take a look at my website to see the latest changes.

Included in the update is this adorable family session with the newborn baby Hamzah I shot a little while ago. I had such a fun time at this shoot; baby shoots can be a little tricky at times, especially since you never know how the baby is going to react to being photographed in positions that they really don't want to be in. But Hamzah spent the majority of the time sleeping, which I was so thankful for, plus his family was the sweetest to work with.

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Apartment Tour

A little while ago, I was featured in Apartment Therapy's Small Cool Contest but was limited in the number of images I could submit; so here is the entire tour. I ended up winning second place in the International Category, which was pretty exciting. Every once in a while I'll stumble upon one of these pictures on Pinterest and continue to be surprised. I moved into this apartment two years ago, mainly because it's extremely close to my work and at the time, the Gardiner Expressway was being fixed and I didn't want to have to commute two hours to work each way. The space is only a little over 200 sqft, but it's a historic apartment building that's being turned into condos - it even has a coach house in the back! I think the biggest challenge is not having a bigger closet, but it's really taught me how to hold onto to the most essential items and to regularly purge my apartment of unnecessary things. 

To maximize storage space, the ottoman/coffee table opens up and holds my shoes; which there are way too many of. That stuffed dog on my bed I've had since I was a baby; and I've dragged it with me through two countries.

There's my color-coded book collection and my record collection.

The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourite books (pictured on the left). I also really liked The Brain That Changes Itself (it's a fascinating read; I highly recommend it) so I bought these other related brain books I have yet to read. My friend Andrew made that dog figurine modelled after one of his Golden Retrievers.

My grandma bought me that guitar for my 15th birthday. Maybe one day I'll learn how to play.

I bought the antlers in Leiper's Fork in Nashville, a town suggested to me by a fellow photographer I followed on Instagram and who sadly passed away in a motorcycle accident last year. Leiper's Fork is an extremely picturesque town filled with coffee shops, art galleries and an outdoor wooden music stage. And there happened to be a massive outdoor flea market when I went. That trip was one of my favourite trips that I've been on, not only because I've come to love Nashville, but because of the company too. I remember driving through Kentucky's Bourbon Trail and winding roads in a convertible and it was the best experience.

The American flag print I bought on my last trip to NYC. It was my favourite painting at MOMA; mostly because I liked how you could really see the brush strokes when you stood up close to it. 

 My bathroom is well-travelled; it contains a print from Paris, Rome, and a mermaid figure from Nova Scotia.

These plants are long since dead; if the three on the right are any indication.

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ROYALFUZZ at Horseshoe Tavern

The last time I saw ROYALFUZZ play was at Hard Luck Bar back in October. My friends formed the band in the summer of 2014 and have been building a dedicated following ever since. On Thursday night they played at Horseshoe Tavern and I managed to make it out in the cold to catch the show, and hang out with some friends that I hadn't seen in a while. The turnout was great...I think over a hundred people showed up! You should really check out their music; they're playing their next show in March at The Starlight Lounge in Waterloo.

What I'm Reading

I just recently finished All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda. If you liked Gone Girl, or The Girl on the Train, then you will definitely enjoy this book. I started All the Missing Girls on Sunday, and finished it in two days - I could barely put it down. Without disclosing too much, it revolves around Nic, who returns to her hometown to care for her father, after being away for ten years following the disappearance of her best friend. Her old boyfriend still lives in the same town and upon Nic's homecoming, his new girlfriend goes missing as well. The story is told backward, which I didn't think I would enjoy at first, but I quickly accustomed myself to the narrative and it felt as though I had to pay more attention to what was happening throughout the story so I could recall it later on. If you like a good true crime story as I do, I would also really recommend the podcasts Sword and Scale, Generation Why and True Crime Garage, which feature a different story every episode.

And yes, my books are colour coded. I think I saw it on Pinterest and really liked how it looked, but arranging your books according to colour is not only visually appealing but it will instantly make your bookshelf look more organized and intentional. Realistically, I should probably get rid of this over-sized bookcase in my tiny apartment, to make room for a dresser, but I find something comforting about owning books, and the satisfaction of flipping through actual pages, bookmarking pages and underlining quotes that I want to remember. And it's always been a dream of mine to have a library equipped with a rolling ladder; guess I'm just accumulating my book collection for when that day comes.

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Happy 2017

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Years! I feel like this year the holiday break flew by exceptionally fast, but I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I worked right up until December 23rd; it wasn't even a half day! Normally I would take the week off before Christmas and do some last minute shopping (okay, who am I kidding here, start my shopping) and mail out Christmas cards. I still plan on sending mine out this year, so if you haven't gotten yours yet, stay tuned! Better late than never, amiright?

I feel pretty excited for the coming year; hopefully the two tickets I got this morning are not an indication of things to come. Last year was a challenging year, but it's also taught me a lot about what I want in my life, what I'm willing to put up with and which friends I can count on no matter what and I'm really grateful for all of those things. I've had to say goodbye to Cody and that was a hard decision, mainly because I had the option of adopting him, but I'm certain it was the right one. Through the pictures he sends me, I can tell that the person who adopted him loves him just as much as I did. 

I've recently come across this quote: "Its time you start living the life you've imagined" by Henry James, and its really resonated with me. I don't want to spend this year wishing I was doing something else, waiting for the weekend or wishing it were five o'clock. It's time to start living unapologetically and follow your passions, no matter how scary it is. And a lot more travelling too. That's my resolution for 2017.

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