Night of Creation 2013

For the past few years, our church has hosted what we call "Nights of Creation".  It's an awesome idea where they decorate up the church for an evening once a year and invite various artists from all over the city to contribute their work.  There is live music and appetizers (food is art, right?).  There are displays of paintings, models, photographs, videos and much more.  It's a place to share the gifts God has given you as well as to meet and socialize with other artists in the community.

There's just one thing.  I really struggle with calling myself an artist.  I feel pretentious every time I do it.  Aren't artists supposed to be these wonderful free spirits that walk around oozing creativity and procrastinating?  (Don't ask me where I got that definition from).  I'm just so not that person.  I am type-A in the EXTREME.  I am not a "free spirit".  I love structure and rules and organization.  Deadlines are my best friend because I like to BEAT them.  I don't do procrastination.  And I feel like I have to work and dredge every bit of creativity out of myself.  I'm probably the only person on the worship team at church that HAS to practice.  Everyone else "seems" to just get up there and improvise.  Also, I sit for hours researching, shooting and editing the "perfect shot".  I don't walk around with my camera capturing these beautiful happy accidents.  I'm way too methodical and anal of a personality for me to feel like, "Oh yes, I'm an artist".  My career should be something like lawyer, accountant, etc.  But my husband?  He's the artist.  He's the one that can sit around and conceptualize ideas and gets visibly excited when the creative juices start to flow.  I'm the one that's like, "Just pick something.  There, that's cool.  We should do that.  Let's make it happen - by tomorrow."  I suppose that's what makes us a good team.  So, in conclusion, I guess I'm just "me".  I never really did fit the social norms.  So here is "me" sharing what I made with you.

My 2013 submissions to our annual Night of Creation:

Mitchell / Morgon / Maxwell Family Photo Shoot 2013

On Friday, my husband and I got to do our first "official" shoot together since deciding we are going to start our own little photo / video company in the new year.  My good friend, Tara, (brown glasses, fifth picture below) hired Nick and I to capture her family.  She has also given me permission to share a little background information regarding this shoot.

Her mom has Alzheimers and it's getting worse quickly.  Tara has written a beautiful post about her mom and this awful disease HERE if you are interested.  The family wanted to capture both some memories as well as their mom's spirit.  I'm not going to lie - this was probably one of the harder shoots I've done / will have to do.  Two very energetic little boys.  A big family of eight (Mom, Dad, Tara & Husband, Sister Jenna & Husband & their two Boys).  Trying to engage Tara and Jenna's mom who wasn't always sure of what was going on and tired quickly.

A lot of the shots they wanted were bigger group shots and family combinations with their mom to have as keepsakes, which I was more than delighted to be able to provide for them.  However, most of the photos sampled below are from some of the smaller combinations of people and candid moments, as those are the most fun for me to shoot as a photographer, and thus those images easily become my favourites of the bunch.  Enjoy :)