A Year in Review: 2015

So the year has end­ed and I thought to share my favourite pics from the ses­sions I had. I was giv­en the hon­our of shoot­ing wed­dings, engage­ments, mater­ni­ty ses­sions (some for cou­ples whose wed­dings I had shot pre­vi­ous­ly), and short­ly after, the grace to meet the baby that grew inside the moth­er’s womb, fam­i­ly ses­sions, and por­traits. And although some may have fall­en under the same cat­e­go­ry, each ses­sion was unique because each client was unique.

What I learned this past year…
Tech­ni­cal­ly-speak­ing, I had upgrad­ed my gear from a crop sen­sor to a full-frame sen­sor dSLR: Canon 6D. What does this mean? For me, it meant hav­ing the abil­i­ty to get the shal­low depth-of-field (and but­tery bokeh, if you will) that I so earnest­ly love. Because I wear glass­es and every­thing is always sharp, I appre­ci­ate shal­low depth-of-field even more. This also meant upgrad­ing my lens­es (Sig­ma Art Lens­es: 24–35mm f/2.0 and 50mm f/1.4) and final­ly know­ing what effect I’m get­ting with each focal length, with­out hav­ing to do the math with a crop sen­sor. My ulti­mate favourite lens is the “nifty-fifty” 50mm, espe­cial­ly for por­trai­ture: not only to get that mag­a­zine feel but also to be close enough to my sub­jects and engage in dia­logue to get the expres­sions that only cap­tures their essence. And I promised my wife that 2016 will be a year that I will refrain from buy­ing any­thing new … famous last words!

Artis­ti­cal­ly-speak­ing, I learned to be more atten­tive to sub­ject mat­ter. Back in high school — in visu­al arts class — my teacher talked about this term. I hadn’t a clue what he was talk­ing about and I just want­ed to draw and make it look “real”. But now, I get it. Tak­ing pic­tures — to be hon­est in this day-and-age — any­one can do. What real­ly mat­ters is what mes­sage is intend­ed to be expressed with the pic­tures there­after (whether com­po­si­tion­al­ly or styl­is­ti­cal­ly). Is it for social media “likes”? Is it just to show that the image is “in style” with the cur­rent trends? Will it try to earn recog­ni­tion in a con­test?

To be hon­est, I strug­gled with the idea of fame (espe­cial­ly being new on Insta­gram). But as the year went on, I real­ized that my client was my sole-pur­pose. Here I am, being hon­oured with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a snap­shot of their life in a 60th or 4000th of a sec­ond, then try to make their life a piece of art — whether com­po­si­tion­al­ly or through colour/b&w — with the inten­tion of hav­ing them remem­ber that spe­cial moment upon see­ing it. If I was giv­en per­mis­sion to share that moment of their lives, to inspire oth­ers going through sim­i­lar life events, then that was just the icing on the cake.

To all my past clients, you will nev­er hear the end of my grat­i­tude and it was so great to have made a close con­nec­tion with each one of you. You are all “fear­ful­ly and won­der­ful­ly made” (Psalm 139:14) in the most unique and beau­ti­ful way and I am so hap­py that I got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet you, work with you and befriend you!

To my new clients, I only look for­ward to enjoy­ing each ses­sion with you and cap­ture his­to­ry-in-the-mak­ing.

Final­ly, I present to you a com­pi­la­tion of my favourite pics (one to two from each client). I hope you like them! Thank you 2015, hel­loooo 2016!!!

Tags: baby, Canon, engagement, family, gratitude, head shot, maternity, mddphotography, newborn, photography, portraiture, reportage, Sigma Art, VSCO, VSCO presets, wedding, weddings