Merry Christmas!

Emily & Dale

Today Emily and her father Dale came by the studio for a session. Emily is a cutie, and if you look closely, you'll see that her pupils (especially her left) are tear-drop shaped.

Christmas is coming!

It's still not too late to book your portrait sitting with Blake Photography! Many of us dislike fighting the crowds at the mall, especially when we're trying to find a gift for that person that "has everything".

Why not give a gift from the heart this Holiday Season? Come to Blake Photography and let us help you create a family portrait that you'll treasure for years to come. We can create your portraits at our studio in Navan, in your home or at a location of your choice (location fees may apply, please call for details). We have a wide selection of products, and we can even create custom cards from your images that you can send to family and friends.

If you mention this post, you'll receive a free set of 8 2x3 wallets (a $29.00 value) for any sittings booked before December 10th.

To see more samples, please visit our website at blakephotography.ca Call at 613-884-3355 to book your appointment.

Poirier Family

On the weekend I had the opportunity to visit Carl Poirier of Cayenne Creative at his home to do some family photos. Carl and his wife Natalie recently had a baby girl named Lilliane who was born October 10th.

It was a lot of fun working with Nat and Carl and their other two daughters Caroline and Isabelle.

William

Here's a shot of the best little man in the world. Thanks, Auntie Shauna, for a great outfit! More to come, keep checking back.

Mackenzie

Today I had the pleasure of photographing Mackenzie. She was a blast, full of personality and boy, does she like jelly beans!

Megan

I was going through some images that I'll be enlarging to display as samples in my studio, and I came across these ones.

Megan recently turned 1, and she came in with her mom Sue for a sitting. Truthfully, it's pretty hard not to get a great image with such natural models!

Happy Halloween!

Prolity

Here's another project I worked on with Carl from Cayenne. Prolity distributes the Microdrone and the RDCC.

The Microdrone can be fitted with a camera, video or infrared for monitoring crisis situations, military operations, search and rescue and many other applications.

The RDCC is used in the same situations as above, and it provides on-site communications in any environment.

Boone

I've been working with my graphic designer, Carl Poirier from Cayenne Creative, to photograph the exteriors of all four Boone locations in Ottawa.

It's always a challenge to make a building in an industrial park look good, but I think this one passes the test. Stay tuned for the other locations, coming later this week and next.

William

Here's a shot I took of William during a break in the action. He's pretty cute, if I do say so myslef!

It's been a while

Ok, I've been pretty delinquent about posting here, and I hope to be better in the future. Hopefully it's not 5 months between this post and the next!

Since my last post, our son William was born. He arrived on August 5th at 4:07pm at home (9lbs. / 21.5") and has been doing amazingly well since then. As of last week, he was already 18lbs! I'll post more photos of him and us in the next few days.

Thanks to Colin Gemmell for coming over yesterday to do some photos of our family, as usual he did an amazing job.

William's Crib

Today Jen and I attended our first pre-natal class at the Monfort Hospital. I wasn't expecting much, but our instructor Kim was amazing. She was funny and entertaining, and she made the time fly by. We go back tomorrow morning for round 2.

After the class, we went out for lunch at The Works, an amazing burger joint. Then we went and picked up William's new crib and change table, came home and assembled them. 13 weeks to go until the big day - I can't wait!

April 26th

I got this set at the Heineken brewery in Amsterdam. Jen and I were in Europe for our honeymoon from October '01 to February '02. We started at a resort in Portugal for two weeks to start, and then we backpacked through Europe for the next 5 months, eventually visiting 12 countries. If you ever get a chance to go to Europe, I highly recommend it - we had a blast.

The season of Jen is still in full swing. Tonight we had dinner with her father at the Merlot Grill at the top of the Marriott hotel in downtown Ottawa. The restaurant revolves once every 2 hours, and I took this shot as we came around to see the river and Parliament Hill.

William

Today's picture is in honour of my son, William, who's due to be born on July 22nd. Jen and I can't wait to meet him. Here's his latest photo from February 26th:

April 23rd

Photo a day continues. I'm looking forward to Wednesday when I get to see the Algonquin College Photography Exhibition. Hard to believe it's been 9 years since I graduated. Where does the time go?

Montebello

Well, the season of Jen continued yesterday. We went to Montebello for brunch, and then got a couples massage at the spa. Both were fabulous.

April 21st

This is Milo, one of my parents' two Maine Coon cats. He and his brother, Benny, spend their days hiding in the basement, and in Milo's case, in this wine rack. They're both beautiful cats, just extremely scared of everything except my Dad, who is also known as Dr. Doolittle. I'm surprised Milo stuck around long enough for me to get this shot.

April 20th

The trees in my back yard.

No story today, just a small statue from around the house.

Dinner last night was fabulous! If you know anyone who's a member at the Rideau Club, I highly recommend you ask them to bring you for a dinner.

April 18th

Happy 30th Birthday to the love of my life, Jen.

Jen and I are off to celebrate her birthday at the Rideau Club. This is one meal I've been looking forward to for a long time, and it's not even my birthday!

The Sens beat Pittsburgh last night to go up 3-1, and I just found out summer hockey starts on Sunday, so I figured I'd go with a hockey theme today. This is the blade of my skate, from front to back.

April 17th

Ok, not much to say about this one, except it's orange. I had an idea for a shot when I picked my wife Jen up at the airport this afternoon, but in my rush to get out the door to get her, I never remembered the camera. Oh well, next time.

My Andy Warhol moment

Ok, today's photo started out only as my desire to think of something other than the 10cm of snow we got today. So looked around the house for something that would represent warmer climates, and I found this cactus. Who knew there was a cactus in the house? I didn't until about a half-hour ago.

Once I got it in Photoshop, I started playing around with different effects, and one thing let to another until I came up with this. I told you this was stretching my creativity!

Three other photographers (Jon Harrington & Marc Desnoyers of Icon Imaging and Colin Gemmell of On Point Photography) are participating in the photo-a-day, and you can see all the photos HERE. Colin has his own blog that you can see at http://colingemmell.blogspot.com.

Photo-A-Day

Since the beginning of April, I've been taking one photo everyday. The only rules: I can only photograph the same subject once, and I only get one frame (click of the shutter) to get the photo right. I've been having a lot of fun with it. It's really stretching my imagination to come up with different subjects and finding new & unique ways of lighting them. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Day 15
Today I needed a thumbnail for the entry to my blog on my website, so here's what I came up with:



















Day 14
OK, I cheated on the one frame per day rule. You would too if you had to time dropping the dice at exactly the same time as the timer ended. I figured since I had to do another shot, I may as well keep shooting 'till I got something I like.













Day 13
Rock salt. Hopefully we don't need any more this year!


















Day 12
MMMMMMM.......Pizza


















Day 11
A self-portrait. Any of you fellow Canadians will know the frequency of winning another chance to play "Roll Up the Rim to Win!". My Dad got me one of those rim rollers from Lee Valley tools - they really do a good job. Just make sure the cup is empty when you roll your rim!


















Day 10
This is probably my favourite photo of the month. This can was in the middle of a farmer's field near my house.



















Day 9
I seem to be having a hard time uploading this one for some reason. I'll keep trying, but if it doesn't get posted, that's OK. It wasn't one of my favourites anyway.

Day 8
One of KC's MANY toys. Just wait 'till we have kids, we'll never see the floor!









Day 7
Looks a whole lot better than it tasted. Actually, it didn't really taste at all, which was the problem.



















Day 6
On the feeder in my backyard.



















Day 5
If you guessed packing peanuts, you're right.




















Day 4
The power went out, so I worked on my laptop till the battery went dead.














Day 3
I've been working out for the last 5 months at Lean + Fit. If you're in the Ottawa area, I highly recommend it, I've had a blast.














Day 2
A tulip for the start of Spring.


















Day 1
The best dog in the world, KC. He's a Schnoodle, and his current favourite toy is this stuffed carrot. He carries it everywhere, and unlike all his other stuffed toys, he doesn't feel the need to take all the stuffing out.

Welcome to my Blog

Well, I did it! After a lot of work and many hours at my computer, my website has been totally transformed. Please take a look and check back often - I'll be adding new content here and on my website on a regular basis.

Please feel free to send me any feedback you think might help.