True Story

We all have our favorites in life. For those of you that know me well, they know that I love my starbucks. I did however marry an "Anti starbucks" fella. So I have also learned that a triple triple (when done right)still beats any coffee that I can make in my house. My hubby has started a very nice tradition of bringing starbucks home in the morning. Yesterday I slept a little later and awoke to a very nice hot coffee brought home just for me. I was working away at edits when I looked down at my cup. hmm, I thought, camp day is over, it's time for them to change their cups. I then looked at the lid that is usually marked with a 3 3 only to find that it wasn't. I looked at it closer and low and behold I read "i love you" What? Immediately I thought, isn't that sweet. I commented to Marty about how cute that was and he looked at me like I was crazy. He says "I didn't write that, they must have. They were fooling around alot when I was ordering. It looks as though my husband has a secret admirer. Maybe that's why he likes Tim Horton's better than starbucks! ;)

Grad Weekend Part 2

I have been speaking with Janice off and on for some time now regarding her upcoming nuptials. I am unable to photograph her wedding on the 28th of June, but if you are a photographer who is available, please contact me!

This weekend I got to finally meet Janice and Her daughter Lauren. Everyone in this group looked fantastic as they were going to the grad banquet. Again I want to state that 2008 was the year that all my grads were so mature and so gracious it makes me very optimistic about the future that they are all walking into. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.

Grad Weekend part one

This Friday I got to meet two great Grads. They were both sweet and mature young ladies. I met the this family through a previous client. Thanks for the referral Judy, you now have a 30.00 credit on your account here at the studio to use as you wish. I photographed Bailey in her Grad gown the previous day. It was a nice change from the regular cap and gown photos as we were outside instead of some stuffy studio. Baiey was nice and easy going and completely refreshing as she was "just being herself" We didn't put her into any stiff poses, but instead used her personality to guide the photos. The next day she showed up in the fabulous green gown which made the outdoors only prettier.

New Policies

Over the past year I have been hosting everyones online galleries indefinitely. This was great for my first year of official business, but it poses two problems.


1. The event page is cluttered and slow to use and upload upon. This is because I had over 2000 images hosted on the site. Most of these order had been filled long ago and from viewing the statistics I could see that some of galleries hadn't been accessed in months.

2. The galleries will get slower and slower as I add more to them. The studio has a ton of wedding coming up and they eat up alot of space on the website. Madchen Studios can purchase additional web space, but would have to pass those costs to our customers and that's something I don't want to do. The whole idea of Madchen Studios is to make portraits affordable and I feel adding to the overhead would be counter productive to what the studio is trying to do.

The new company policy as of June 1, 2008

All galleries will be online for two weeks. Once the order is complete the gallery will be removed. Any orders that are not completed in the two week time frame will be subject to a 20.00 fee to maintain their online gallery until and order is placed.


This policy will exclude all weddings. Weddings will be online for one year from the date of the wedding.
I hope this doesn't cause any inconvenience any of my clients, please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns regarding the new policy.

Annual Birthday Photos

I shot the Selwood's annual birthday photos yesterday. I have been taking photos of these kids for their birthdays for three years now. It's amazing to see how much they have grown. I must say that the session was quick, easy and fun! Both kids were ready to get it done!

Blair and Talitha's Big Day

It has become customary for me to post a teaser a few days after every wedding I do. Since I am becoming more organized we don't have to wait so many days any more. Because we are not done with Blair and Talitha's celebrations yet, I decided to post only a few "artsy fartsy" shots so that there will be still a ton of surprises to come.

I must say that everything was beautiful for Blair and Talitha. Talitha was absolutely glowing, Blair was happy, the bridesmaids were gorgeous and the groomsmen very proud. It was the perfect end to all of the waiting for this big day. And for anyone who knows them, we all waited for this day and knew it was going to be awesome. Even the children were super present during ceremony as if they knew something big was happening there. This day was special. I know this family very well and I was happy for everyone there. There were so many great shots, but I pulled these ones out as they stuck out and begged to be posted. There was a lot of love, care and genuine passion shared between these two which makes their photographs fabulous and another reason of why it was so hard to choose which ones made it on to the blog.

I had a second shooter for this wedding. His fabulous shots will be shown at a later time as again I want to keep some of these surprises under wraps.

On a business note: I want to thank my dear friend JP for helping me out on this shoot. It was an honor to work with you and I honestly believe that you helped out with a lot of the magic that happens when you photograph such a great event. Thank you for all of your support.

The Lovable Quin!

Yesterday I got to go a family shoot for Jenn and her family. She brought along her handsome hubby and adorable little boy Quin. He has gorgeous blue eyes that sparkled with wonder and mischief as he wandered around the park. Of course he was much more interested in playing and running than getting his photo taken. That's par for the course with toddlers though! This was a special shoot as Jenn also owns a photography business here in Medicine Hat. I believe her business is called A Day in the Life Photography. (Please click on the name if you would like to view her blog. )It was an honor to do this shoot for her family.

Samantha

Yesterday I got to meet Samantha, she needed grad photos done to celebrate the end ofh er years at McCoy High School. she had brought along her date for a few shots as well. We started off inside as the weather was very unpredictable yesterday. It was fantastic to get to meet her. She has amazing brown eyes and super creamy fair skin. We did manage to get outside for the end of the shoot. The overcast lighting really brought out those great features!

shootin for fun

As I was busy at work today, I noticed the clouds rolling in before the rain set in. I figured I had about 20 minutes before I had to pick up the boys from school. So I grabbed my camera and ran out to the car. I was surprised that it was so chilly out. I forgot all about my nice case of carpal tunnel, (I wearing my brace of course) and managed to get a few keepers. I must admit, it was nice to get out there with just me myself and I!

Mason graces my studio

On Sunday, the day after the wedding I got to meet sweet little Mason. He was just 2 weeks old and cute to boot. I spend the majority of the morning in bed and he was just the ray of sunshine I needed on such a day. I think that everyone can admit that there is nothing like a newborn to refresh the soul. Mason is so intune with his mother, it was amazing. I have never seen a newborn calm so easily when the mommy "shhed" We shot some photos while he was awake, the cute little guy frowned every time the flash went off. We did finally allow him to sleep and cuddled him up in a little seashell and let him get some shut eye. Here are some of my faves from his shoot.