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camera cruise november 2010

lifeimages — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:20:08 +0000

we are soooooooooo excited. it has been months of emails and collaboration and now, we are sooooooooooo proud to announce that the camera cruise website is officially launched! go… sign up… like right now! why are you still reading? click here to register!!!!

ok well if you are still reading… i might as well give you some basic info.

come for a vacation, enjoy the luxuries of cruising and during the days choose workshops from some absolutely amazing photographers!!! get the idea? wicked workshops will be offered by the following (click on their name to see the workshop outline: David Beckstead, Bui Brothers, Frederick Van Johnson, Khara Plicanic, Kevin Swan, Shaun Austin, Sarah France and us. what a great chance to meet, learn and be mentored by some seriously great people! not to mention the opportunity to shoot with such a beautiful backdrop (isla cozumel, mexico) and build your portfolio!

obviously if you read our blog even a little you will know how important family is to us. our kids are behind every decision we make in business. so when the founder of camera cruise, carl & his wife nicole approached us a few years back with this camera cruise idea, we were all over it. this is all about bringing your family along and combining business with pleasure. i mean, what is the point of owning your own business or even being photographers if it just means time away from your family right? that’s right! so alex and i will be bringing our 3 kids along for the ride and we invite you to do the same. the cruise has amazing day activities for the kids while you attend the workshops. it’s perfect!!! join us!!!

our workshop outline:

creating a profitable, MANAGEABLE photography company

- common mistakes in the beginning of business

- shooting styles and standing out in a crowded industry (marketing)

- wedding day inspiration, create art for every wedding by pre-visualizing

- products that sell themselves, sales meeting unmasked.

- happy clients every step of the way

- advertising vs. referrals.

- creating a support team around you that will take you to the top

dates: november 11- 15 2010

cost: $1,250 USD (price includes your lodging, meals and all camera cruise workshops).
port of departure: mobile, alabama
stops in: isla cozumel, mexico
port of return: mobile, alabama

for more information visit the camera cruise blog or the official camera cruise registration site.

we really hope to see you all there, it’s gonna be a blast!!!

19 days to go…

lifeimages — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 04:56:42 +0000

so i wait… and wait and wait. please come soon little girl. we want to hold you and snuggle you and know you. we want your big brothers to feel proud of you. we want to bring you home and make you part of this family.

as i sit and write this blog post, i feel the shift of incredible fear and then extreme excitement. as i wait for this new little life to be introduced into the world, it is an anticipation that is hard to put into words. the last nine months have zoomed past and it feels like all of a sudden, time is standing still. it feels like my feet are stuck in mud, like everything around me is slow motion as i just wait.

jomei came 3.5 weeks early so as my due date approaches (19 days) each day i wonder if this could be the day! what a wierd way to go through life, i feel like i am floating – a bit day dreamy – not really all there.

so far life with two boys has been a whirl wind of truck races, building tents, lego, scraped knees, superman undies, mud fights, sword fights, pillow fights (lots of fights)! but now i see pink on the horizon… i see tea sets and barbie dolls, tutus and ballerina slippers. my life is about to change, and i can’t wait!!!

what will she look like? what little personality will emerge? almost most importantly… what color hair will she have?!??! if you read this blog at all, you would have seen our two boys and know they are completely different. one blonde, one brown so the dices are loaded… will we get a redhead?! imagine? we’d have to go for a fourth just to see if it would have blue hair or something ridiculous.

you can be sure we’ll keep you posted on any baby news!!!

photography disclaimer: the photo above was taken with my point & shoot on a timer because i suddenly realized that if i went into labor today i wouldn’t have the latest shot!

2010 16×20 – wppi awards

lifeimages — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:21:36 +0000

it was so exciting to receive our wppi awards in the mail today!!! first of all i love getting mail and secondly, we weren’t in vegas to accept the actual award so it now feels real! this year we won first place for the 16×20 wedding detail, 3rd place for non-wedding photojournalism + 5 awards of excellence. alex is totally honored to have won these awards and being a aprt of such a great community of photographers makes this job such fun.

being toronto wedding photographers, i have to say, it felt good to represent canada over there with all our american friends! it feels incredibly rewarding to see your name beside some of the greatest photographers of our time – guys that have been doing this for 15-20 years! it is so cool that those guys still enter and they are still lovin’ the game. i think that is why we enter, to stay creative, stay interested and stay involved. rubbing elbows with other passionate photographers can only encourage even more success and happiness – true?

our lovely awards…

first place under wedding detail:

third place under non wedding photojournalism:

5 awards of excellence:

thanks again to the judges & the entire wppi association for this honor!!! click here to see all the winning images (2010 wppi awards – 16×20 competition)

lifeimages. toronto wedding and engagement photographers

the wedding co. – great engagement shoot challenge

lifeimages — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:48:28 +0000

today alex is photographing a couple that is engaged to be married. but this is no ordinary couple, this is a randomly chosen couple that have been chosen for an engagement photo shoot challenge through none other then the wedding co!!! how fun is this… twenty couples, twenty photographers – one hour – one winner. alex has from the steven bulger gallery to the drake hotel toronto (and anything in between) to create a winning image – all without ever having met this couple.

good luck baby!

(obviously we will keep you posted after the event)!

lifeimages. – toronto engagement photography

lifeimages published in rangefinder magazine!

lifeimages — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:59:39 +0000

our dream for some time now has been to see one of our photos on a page of the renouned photography magazine rangefinder. well we finally popped a bottle of champagne… we have been featured in the most recent issue that was handed out to over 30,000 photographers in las vegas for wppi (not to mention it’s regular subscriptions).

needless to say, we are very very thankful to rangefinder for choosing us and adding to what is becoming our most exciting year ever! 2010 baby! can you feel it???

the article was about “young pros” – companies 5 years or under that have made a mark in the industry. we were honored to be chosen for the wedding photography company (they featured other photographers like food, architecture etc.)

page from the magazine seen below:

camera cruise – last call for early bird registration!

lifeimages — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:29:32 +0000

hey everyone! just a reminder that if you will be joining us on this year’s camera cruise, the early bird discount ends on march 19th!

hurry! limited spots available!!!

register now!

baby #3!!!!!!! booyah!

lifeimages — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:25:05 +0000

wow, i am actually super excited to announce to the blog world that we are expecting our third baby!!!!!! i say actually because up until now, i didn’t know for sure if we wanted 3 kids, or could handle 3 kids, or could afford 3 kids, or could fit 3 kids in our lifestyle etc. etc. etc. i listed out all the logical reasons why our 2 boys are just the perfect number but i will be honest, i knew we wanted more kids, i was just trying to plan ahead and be in control of my life which – which is rarely the case. we tend to “fly by the seat of our pants”. yes, we got married at 22, yes we quit our jobs and went backpacking for 8 months, yes we quit our jobs (again) to pursue photography full time, yes we opened our studio and had tayus (#2 kid) in the same month, yes we bought a house in a week and yes, we just had to “think” about baby #3 and battaboom-battabing… here we are. like i said, we are kind of just like that.

so now it is official, i didn’t believe it until i saw this cute little peanut in there, heart pumping, toes wiggling that i came to terms with what i had known all along – of course we wanted more kids and we are so happy to have a growing family. no, it isn’t logical – we will be out numbered, it’ll be harder to travel on planes, one more snowsuit to wrestle with, etc etc. but you know what? alex and i love eachother and we have lots of love to give to our kids. enough love for one more that’s for sure. the scary part is i always told myself either two or four – i like even numbers. hmmmm, we will have to see. i can’t say i am thrilled to actually deliver another child (can i get a witness out there moms)? but it is all worth it when the doctor (or midwives in our case) hand you a little human and they are yours to take home. oh i can just see christmas around the dinner table – a full house full of laughter. that is what i have always dreamed of.

so, as i type this announcement i feel incredibly excited, thankful, joyful, blessed and hormonal (oh, i mean – what? ok yeah i said it, hormonal ok? i am mushy and centimental all day – hence the loooooong blog post that was meant to only be a quick little announcement and me fully crying during grey’s anatomy)!

boy or girl? we shall wait and see! send in your votes people! albojer #3 due in late august.

wow, 11:30pm – i gotta get some sleep! good night!

first hand account of haiti’s earthquake

lifeimages — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:05:19 +0000

when we were in haiti, we had the amazing opportunity of working with dr. cheryl vandermark, a family chiropractor that decided that they should move their family to haiti to work directly with mission of hope to save lives. they have such an inspiring story and you can read more on her blog.

this was an email i received tonight giving her first hand account on what happened:

I don’t now how to start this e-mail.

Maybe with an “We are sorry” for the lack of communication.

Maybe with a thank you to my daughter Teagan for communicating with so many of you for us.

I don’t know

I am exhausted, emotionally drained and in control at the same time.

It is time to tell our story.

We are all OK. Our house still stands. That is a blessing. If that were not the case, we would not have been able to help so many after the quake hit.

I was in the kitchen, my son Grayden was in his room. Bridgely was in the house but close to the door. We think one of the twins was in her bedroom and one was on the porch. Teagan and Laurens were on the porch. It started as a low hum and shake, then it grew….

My mind thought, “that is strange”, then my mind thought, “what is that?”. In a matter of seconds the house came alive and I was at the end of my kitchen table. The shaking was incredible. I remember seeing the concrete walls moving violently in a wave like at a wave pool. One to my right, one to my left and then one in front of me moving in a different direction. I also remember the ceiling was moving in a wave above me. The floor beneath my feet did not feel attached to me.

Grayden ran to me screaming. Hysterical screams and I clung him tight to me and instinctively semi crouched. All of this may have only taken a few seconds..i don’t know. The next thing I remember was Laurens running in the house yelling “get out, get out, get out…RUN” As he grabbed my arm, I went into full action. Still clinging to Grayden, I ran to the door grabbing as many of my children as I could. Yelling myself, “RUN, RUN, RUN, GO, GO”. We reached the steps to the garden and I remember how difficult it was to run down them as the concrete steps were moving. I remember running through the front drive with the land still moving. Laurens was still yelling to run further to get away from the building. The dog followed us all. When I got to the end of the driveway, I looked around and counted kids, I could not see Bridgely. I turned back to the building and screamed “BRIDGELY, BRIDGELY, BRIDGELY” as I thought he was still on the upper level at our neighbours. Then there he was in front of me. He had been holding my hand the whole time.

Somewhere between the driveway and the road, the movement stopped. For a moment….. then it started again, smaller but almost as big as the first and long as well. I gathered the kids and instructed them to sit and we huddled until it stopped. Then it started again…….Finally the earth rested for a while.

Then I stood up and turned around……From our rural hill not far from Port au Prince, we have a few of the whole city. As I looked out towards the city and the ocean, that is when I realized what had just happened. The entire city went up in dust. One huge even dust cloud arose from the entire massive city. It was like a bomb had gone off and it was the smoke rising. I looked to the right and saw a similar smaller cloud over our local village Source Matlas. I looked to the left and saw a large cloud of dust and smoke from the flour factory. I was speechless regarding what all this may have meant.

That may have been enough to deal with except that we realized that we had a team of 53 Canadian’s visiting on a short term mission trip. We went into leader mode. Laurens went to check on a few things and I gathered the team. Grant went to get the ambulance and I gathered the visiting nurses and doc. We jumped into the ambulance and headed down to the clinic. Grant took the team in and I rushed to the front gate of our mission. By the time I got there, the injured started arriving. They came in tap tap (pick up truck taxi) after tap tap. Children, woman and men.

Their arms and legs were crushed, their bones sticking out of their bodies, their heads gashed open. Some crying in pain, some barely alive. 5, 6, 7, people per truck.

After a few minutes I left the gate and security took over letting them all in and I rushed back to the hospital. For the next 33 hours straight we worked on the traumatic cases that lie before us. It looked like war. We did not know the integrity of the clinic yet so we could not go inside. The aftershocks started to come and were frequent but less in intensity. We had to get supplies in side but ran back out every aftershock we got. The injured were lying all over our outside walk way. Grant, our visiting nurses and myself worked on triaging the worst patients. We are not a full service hospital, we are just a clinic…..we started to get reports that the biggest hospital in PAP, General hospital had crashed down, Doctors without Borders had crashed (the only 2 main ER’s in the entire city!). We got further reports that other hospitals were down. We started to realize, that we were all there was for miles and miles and miles.

At the 20th hour, we told the gate we could not accept anymore patients as we still had to get through many many more. We sent our nurses (except for a few) and our helpers to work in shifts and Grant and I worked on. We reduced (tractioned bones back in place) open compound fractures…….putting tibia bones, back into people’s legs that were sticking out. We reduced and set many many femur fractures, lower leg fractures, arm fractures. We sutured arms, legs, heads. We put scalps back together and we cleaned concrete out of wounds for hours. We stabilized pelvic fractures and we helped babies with head trauma breath on oxygen.

We had 3 die. 1 baby, 1 two year old and 1 ten year old. We had 4 others on the brink of death. We saved a lot. Because we had no other choice (as there was no where to send them), at the end of 33 hours, we had discharged all but 5 to follow up. The last few we attempted to take to hospitals. 3 refused and wanted to go home to die.

The other 2 Grant and Laurens tried to find somewhere that would take them in Port Au Prince. It was true, most hospital’s were not functioning and those that were, were full of bodies, inside and out. Everywhere, some alive and some dead. Bodies were pilled up in the parking lots as there was no where to put them. Most of the doctors that used to work at the hospital’s were dead or not heard of. Families had no where to take their loved one’s bodies because their houses were crashed down, they still were missing family members or the funeral homes were destroyed….so they left them.

We went home and slept 6 hours. Then opened the clinic again. We worked another 10 hours, seeing the same things. Finally it stopped. There were no more tap tap’s running as there was no more diesel for their vehicles.

That same night, our president of Mission of Hope arrived. We started into disaster relief planing with some partner organizations. By this time reports of what the damage in the country looked like were becoming clear. We had US and CAN doctors start to come in through the dominican to help. We have had doctors coming now since Sat. We have been coordinating a grand scale disaster relief plan for the 100’s of thousands of people that have not yet got into the hospital and for food distribution. It is to say the least, no small task.

We have hardly slept, we have not been able to communicate with you. Tonight it was time.

The capital is devastated. The national palace is on the ground (white house), the ministry of transportation is on the ground, the huge justice palace (the whole judicial system) is on the ground, the ministry of health is on the ground, the ministry of finance is not down but destroyed, the entire downtown core has almost every building down to rubble, the insurance bureau is on the ground, every national bank headquarters are crashed to the ground except one that stands severely damaged, the head police headquarters is in rubble, the hospital that Laurens was in after his accident (the best in the country) is severely damaged and non functional, the building that has all the adoption papers in the country is destroyed, the only grocery store that all the missionaries shop at (that I almost was at that day) is rubble on the ground killing and trapping everyone inside, the Montana hotel where we had lunch not so long ago is completely rubble killing everyone inside, many collages and schools and crashed down, Digicel world headquarters (cell phone) and the tallest building in PAP is to the ground (hence we have no cell communications and on…..and on…..and on.

We have 160 staff on our mission and we already know of one that has died and we still have not heard from about 100 staff. Everyday that someone shows up is joyous to see that they are alive. Most everyone has a family member that has died. One security guard has 4 children that died. Many of our Haitian staff suffer severe post traumatic stress after what they have been through or seen. One of our friends was trapped in his school next to 50 of his classmates that were crushed by the building. He heard them screaming but could not save them. He watched them die, as he was trapped inside for 3 hours with a dead man on his chest. He was pulled out eventually.

Every time a plane passes over, or a car drives up, we all brace ourselves and jump until we realize that it is not another quake. Aftershocks are stressful. We often have a false sense that the ground is moving. People have a fear to go in buildings. Our building is structurally OK but I do not like to be in my bedroom for long….it is too far from the door. Laurens sleeps on the couch. A protective move I know to be closer to the kids for evacuation. We sleep with the front door open for quick escape…baby steps. It is better than the tents we slept in at first to make sure the building was safe.

This earthquake was like no other. Mainly because it hit a country with such poor infrastructure. It was completely unexpected. It is like kicking a baby down before it knows how to stand.

But we are moving on. We are alive and our house is fine. Mission of Hope is an oasis compared to the city. The kids are good. They are resilient and they started back to school today. Diana has been amazing and the Canadian team was amazing being there for them too. We have a great team on staff at Mission of Hope.

Despite the destruction, we are seeing hope, we know that God will use this to show his light. We know many people that have come to Christ already because of this event and now is the body of Christ’s time to shine. So many things destroyed….yet most of the Christian missions survived. God has big things planned for this country. God has used us in mighty ways this past week. He has used us for the Haitian people, He has used us in the media, He has used us to bond with each other and He will continue to use us mightily.

I have learned more in one week than most in a lifetime. I now know how to reduce compound open wound fractures, I know how to cast, I know how to suture and have become proficient enough that I sutured the flap of someone’s nose back on (quite good too I might add), I know how to handle cases when there is no other option, I know how to stab an attempt at coordinating disaster relief and to run functional field clinics. I have been on TV and am part of meetings at the UN logistic base with the World Health Organization, UN, military and other NGO’s. I am one of the few North American doc’s on the ground right now that lived in Haiti and I am visiting and coordinating inside many field and broken down hospital set ups. It is strange. It is surreal.

Rachel (missionary here) and I were just saying today that if someone had told us that this is what we would have had to do this week prior to this event, we would have “quit”. We would have said no way God! I can’t do all of that. We would have underestimated our abilities based on what we were comfortable with. We have learned that God knows more than we do, that He knows what we can handle and He has more faith in us than we have in ourselves.

We thank you for your prayers this past week. This is not over, it is a long road ahead. Please pray for the Haitian people. Every person was affected by this. Please pray for supply chains to open up, pray for the port to be fixed, pray for timely food and water distributions, pray for organization of relief organizations and military. Pray that now eyes will be opened to the need we had prior to this earthquake…our clinic and hospital, and that funding will come in. Pray for our family and the other staff.

Cheryl

want to help Haiti?

lifeimages — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

thank you soooooo much to everyone who has emailed lately. after reading about our recent trip to haiti, people have been emailing me asking how they can help.

well without beating around the bush, you can donate. haiti needs help and mission of hope (the organization we went down with) is there to offer this help. they already have the infrastructure to help these people. they already have haitian partners to get the food or aid where it needs to go. they are amazing. click here to donate and i can guarantee that your money will go straight to the people who need it.

why did we go and why are we alive right now? these are the questions i keep asking myself (usually in the middle of the night when i can’t sleep). why would god let us go to haiti just a few weeks before a huge earthquake? to teach us a lesson? to show us the fragility of life? to bind our hearts to these people so that when a disaster hits, we can advocate for them? i believe the answer is yes. i feel like it is my job, my duty to speak for these beautiful people who have nothing (and now even less than nothing). i watch the news and see buildings that we drove by – gone – crumbled to the ground and people that we met might be under there. this is not a world event that we are far removed from – i was there. i made friends with haitians that have lost lives, family members, children. this is not ok. this is not right?!?!?! the truth is we shouldn’t brush it off, we shouldn’t carry on with our day. we should help – because we can.

alex will hopefully be going to haiti again soon, to help where he can. obviously not all of us can do that, but if you feel compelled to give, please consider giving to mission of hope where people are lined up outside of the clinic waiting for medical care. click here to donate.

here is a short clip about mission of hope that was featured on nbc recently:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

">mission of hope haiti on nbc

haiti photo gallery

lifeimages — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:18:13 +0000

we went to haiti - it changed us.

i simply can not go into all that we saw and learned from haiti, but a photo says a thousand words. for us, it is easier to display photographs than try and put into words the beauty of haiti, the heartach, the landscapes, the people.

please join us as we display compelling images that tell the story of haiti. select prints will be for sale (all proceeds going to mission of hope haiti).

the text is pretty small on some computers so here’s the details:

wednesday december 2, 2009

7pm – 10pm (drop in anytime)

the meeting house – 2700 bristol circle – oakville