Earlier this spring I was at Gibbon’s park here in London Ontario with the family. I was busy tracking my boys, getting shots of them at play when I spotted this cute little guy and his mom who also was sporting a camera. I asked her if I could get a shot of her son and gave here my website to contact me for a copy of the image if she wanted one.

That was how I met Amanda and her adorable son Brayden (Love that name by the way!). She contacted me via Twitter about doing a session with her son and I was more then happy to help her out! Brayden has one of those faces that just cries to have a camera pointed at it and I was excited that camera was going to be mine.

We decided to met up back at Gibbons Park seeing that there is quite a bit of stuff for kids to do and the park does offer a lot of different backdrops. Amanda asked if she should bring anything for Brayden and I suggest she bring some balloons. After seeing an engagement session by a California wedding photographer Bonnie Tsang, I so wanted to work balloons into a few shots and Brayden offered the perfect opportunity.

I normally try to keep my image count in the blog posts down to around 5 or so, but I really had a hard time choosing between all the great images we produced, it was all I could do just to get it down to ten. So this is a long one, but with such a cute kid like Brayden, I’m sure you won’t mind…….Hope you enjoy.

What is it with kids and water? Last Sunday the wife and I introduced the kids to the beach for the first time. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but the crowds of Port Stanley have kept me away with such young kids.

One thing i love about kids is their excitement and amazement over the things us grown ups have become desensitized to. I think that is why I prefer to photograph children at play rather then having them pose for the camera.

Our trip to the beach was a short one for the first time unfortunately, about a hour in Nathan (the youngest) got it into his head that he wanted to swim to Erie or something and he wasn’t happy that mommy wouldn’t let go of his hand. He insisted and took the required temper tantrum when he couldn’t get away from mom and we had to head back to the car. Our trip may have been short, but I got some great shots of our first time at the beach and I thought I would share.

Hope you enjoy,

Good Friday found some fairly nice weather and since I was lucky enough not to work that day I was able to head to the park with the family. Of coarse, I had to bring along the camera, I love getting actions shots of the kids and maybe they will even sit still long enough for some portraits, I got very luck that day!

It’s a gorgeous day for a Sunday in February and not wanting to be stuck in the house I decided to take Logan to the Children’s Museum here in London. A while back he got hooked on dinosaurs after watching the movie Jurassic Park (and who could blame him, that was a cool movie!). These days, if you want a buy Logan a gift that you know he’ll love, you best bet is a dinosaur.

Logan had a great time digging for fossils in the sandbox and running around the little cave setup they have there. I tried to show him that there were more displays and we wondered around for a bit, but it didn’t take long to end up back at the dinosaur room where he was playing with the other kids.

If you live or are ever in London and haven’t been to the Children’s Museum, I highly suggest you go. It’s no Museum of Natural History or anything, but I guarantee your little ones will enjoy themselves.

“I will pick up this hook.
You will see something new.
Two things. And I call them
Thing One and Thing Two.
These Things will not bite you.
they want to have fun.”
Then, out of the box
Came Thing Two and Thing One!
And they ran to us fast.
They said, “How do you do?
Would you like to shake hands
With Thing One and Thing Two?”

From The Cat in the Hat By Dr. Seuss
© 1957 by Dr. Seuss. Copyright renewed 1985 by Theodor S. Geisel and Audrey S. Geisel

Oh yes, The Cat in the Hat, my 4 year old son’s favorite book…Well the book he picks the most for me to read to him before bed. Actually the whole thing is just a stall tactic so he can stay up later, but it’s still a chance for me to read to him.

That quote from The Cat in the Hat also reminds me so much of my sons, so I thought it would be the perfect prelude to introductions of my little guys, Thing One and Thing Two!

Thing One, A.K.A. Logan

Now, don’t let that innocent face fool you, this little devil is just coming into his own with his ability to getting into trouble. At this time he is in his “I don’t wanna wear clothes no more” phase and his pretending to be (insert evil Spiderman villain here) phase. He runs and crawls around yelling “Where is SPIDERMAN!” and pretending to kill everyone, real fun late at night!

It wouldn’t be so bad, but Logan also has the magic bullet that always takes daddy down whenever he wants something, the “Pleeeeease” with the sad little face, I just can’t say no to that. Luckily mommy can!

If you were to head on over to my Flickr stream you will see a few more images of Logan and you may think that he was a little poser that just loves having his picture taken. Well let me tell you, it’s a fight and a half to get this little bugger to sit still. Every half decent picture I have of him is a picture paid for in tears, screams and whines! Case in point

Thing Two, A.K.A. Nathan

Nathan is the baby of the family as well as a HUGE Momma’s Boy. He has been a scare, a joy and a headache even before he was born. When my wife was giving birth, Nathan gave us a big scare, his heart stopped and they had to rush my wife into surgery for a C-section. I was not allowed in the room so I was just FREAKING out! But, when the nurse came out with a little bundle of blankets and handed me my son and I looked into those big dark eyes…Well you know.

As you can see, Nathan takes after his brother. You have to be quick with the focus to get a good picture, if you don’t get it right the first time he doesn’t give you a chance at a second.

I always said that I wanted to hook a stationary bike up to a generator and have Logan power my house seeing that he has so much energy. Nathan has him beat hands down, this kids pretty much vibrates with all the energy he has bottled up inside.

Well that is the kids, they may be little brats, but they are my little brats and I love them. I will work on Nathan and hopefull I’ll be able to get more great shots of him all the while filling my Flickr account up with grab shots of Logan.

I was going to include my wife Carrie in this little introduction, but I think I’m gonna save her for the summer time. As it turns out, she still fits into her wedding dress (after 7 years and two kids, yeah I’m one lucky guy!) so we will be doing a Trash the Dress this summer…I can’t wait! I’ll make sure the to get those pictures processed and up here as soon as we do that.

In the mean time, keep an eye out for a little wedding I did last September as well as more personal work I have planned. Till then,

Have a good one!

That’s right folks, it’s all over! Another Christmas session is in the bag. It’s time to take that tree to the curlcurb (or stuff under the stairs if you’re the plastic type), pull out the ladder to yank down those lights and start getting the aspirin read for New Years day.

In the mean time there are always the memories and nothing makes for good memories like the kids…well isn’t Christmas really all about the kids? Myself, I have two little devils angels to help cheer up the photo books.

Every year on Christmas eve we pack up the kids and the presents to head over to the wife’s parents house to exchange gifts and generally trash the place. The kids always get super hyper like someone spiked their juice with pure, uncut sugar and just dig into the rapping paper while the grown up sit back with their alcoholic beverage of choice and try to stay out of their way.

This year I decided to take along the camera and try to capture some of the chaos that is Christmas eve at grandmas. Being in the middle of the wedding reception dance floor is one thing, but you don’t want to be lying on the floor between a 4 year old and his Christmas gift! At a wedding reception the guests say “excuse me” and try to stay out of the shot, a 4 year old with his eye on a present will just go right through you whether or not you are their dad.

Well all the scraps and bruises have started to stop throbbing, so I thought it would be cool to share some of the images I was able to snap before I had to run for my life.

I hope you enjoy them!