I love kids, always have. I couldn’t wait to be a father and may have jumped into it a little to early, but I have no regrets what so ever. I’m one of those people that believes children bring meaning to ones life, a purpose to care for and teach another human being.

My oldest son Logan was planned for, we were among the lucky couples that had no problems conceiving. We basically lost the birth control and about 6 months later my wife was delivering the good news (please don’t quote me on that one), Nathan on the other hand was a complete surprise.

The first months were a joy, but as Nathan grew we started to get worried about his development. At first we got that ol’ line “Don’t worry, children develop at different rates”. Other parents were saying this, Nathan’s doctor was saying this, but as time went by we really started to get worried. Then on a late night visit to the Children’s Hospital for an ear infection (gotta love those ear infection eh!), the doctor on duty walked in and with in 15 seconds he noticed signs that signaled our worst fears…There was something wrong with our little Nathan.

After a few months of waiting and worrying, Nathan finally got in to see a developmental pediatrician and he diagnosed Nathan with PDD-NOS (pervasive development disorder-not otherwise specified). From what I understand, this basically mean “He may have Autism, MAYBE, but we don’t really know. If it’s not Autism it’s something else, either way theirs something wrong”. At the age 2 and a half years, Nathan is not speaking, has social problems, motor skill problems and has a major case of Momasboyitis, he’s a HUGE mama’s boy!

This last part kinda stings sometimes. I come home from a long shift at the day job and Logan will come running to say hi and jabber on about his day, but Nathan completely ignores me. I do get to have some fun with him with tickling and stuff, but it doesn’t take long till he wants his mommy and goes running. I completely understand that the combination of my working long hours, starting a photography business and his condition won’t lead to strong bond. His mother is his life line and that is why their is such a strong tie between the two of them. But when he runs past me to go to mommy, well it kinda breaks my heart just a little.

I know this won’t last and as he improves (which he is doing little by little) he will come to daddy for more fun and rough housing. Till then I guess I will just have to satisfy myself with snapping pictures of my little guy and enjoying the little time I do enjoy with him…So don’t be surprised if you start to see even more pictures of Nathan.

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,

This time of year is slow for shooting, weddings don’t generally start till April and right after the holidays portraits are not a big thing on the to-do list since either people had portraits done for the holidays or they are still reeling from the credit card bills. Whatever the reason, this is a good time to dig through the pictures I have already taken and have another look at them, bringing them out in the fresh air to breath so to speak.

Last summer Tara, the wife of my long time friend Rob asked me to do a small family session. I guess she wanted something other then the portrait studio look and she knew I liked shooting on location. They were heading to a wedding the day of the shoot, so they all were done up in their best and looked great. We started out thinking of hitting up a local park to get some “picnic” like shots, but mother nature had a different plan for us and decided to bring in the showers to rain on our parade.

The day before I was driving around in the country and had noticed a field of freshly harvested hay, luckily I had remembered the location because we used it when the rain started in the park. We all jumped in the car and headed to the field I found the day before with our fingers crossed that we would make it there before the rain did.

When we got to the hay field, I could not have asked for a more dramatic scene. The dark clouds were coming in from the east, and the sun was coming in from the west which created amazing light and contrast. I really like the mixed setting of the storm coming in behind the family looking like they were… well heading to a wedding, having a little play time in the middle of a harvested hay field. All in all I was pleased with what I thought was going to be a washed out family session and I hope you enjoy the no so new picture.

“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!