Good Mother
Jann Arden is my absolute favourite person to follow on Twitter. Aside from being ridiculously funny, she will occasionally send out little poems to the twitter verse that make my heart stop. This should not surprise me. I have loved her music for as long as I have known about it.One of my favourite Jann Arden songs is "Good Mother". I had to post the video here with a few images from my Mother's Day Pop Up studio. It was so awesome to spend my mother's day celebrating with so many other fabulous moms!
I know these are all a little different for me. Same me...different feel. It's fun to try something new and I am grateful for the trust these families showed in me for allowing me to explore. I loved it. More studio stuff to come from me in the future for sure ;)
~ Dana
Friday's Favourites -- Soda Stream
Okay...seriously. I had my doubts. To me a soda--in particular a diet soda(OMG I know the horrors...it's okay, you'll get over it) is one of my favourite treats. And, my kids...well, we don't really let them drink soda at all actually. Trust me, I have heard the word 'hypocrite' dancing on the tongues of my overly bright 11 year old more than I'd like. So, the idea of buying a machine that would make soda more readily available to them(and to me) wasn't high on my priority list.
Then, a good friend of mine admitted to having one. I was shocked. Why? Why would you have one of these in your home? The answer surprised me. She said she just made sparkling water from her tap water and drank it on ice with a bit of lemon. It made increasing her daily dose of water so much easier. And, if your kids are going to drink pop, now you can TOTALLY control the sugar in it.
So, I caved and bought one. And, to be honest, I freakishly love it. It makes my boring water seem ever so fancy every day...and, it even has the kids tricked into drinking more water. I now buy lemons in bulk from Costco and make sparkling water a couple of times a day.
Here's a cool trick--you can turn wine into 'sparkling wine' too...at least, that's what I've heard. I would never try that as the manual says ONLY WATER. ;) The only thing it took me awhile to understand was that when you are finished with a CO2 canister, you have to return it to the customer service desk at Walmart(or where ever you are going to buy a new one). They'll recycle the old one and give you a new one there.
Just a little something you might consider treating mom to this Mother's day. That is...if you haven't treated her to a session at my Pop-Up Studio in Calgary. There are still two spots left. I can't wait to meet all the moms and grandmas!!! Going to be a super fun day!
~ Dana
Photographing Moms
With Mother's Day approaching, I was considering posting all the moms I had worked with over the last year...but, that would be a very large post ;) And, what images of them do I post? You see...I photograph as a mom. Even when they're not my kids, the pictures I take are heavily influenced by what I would want to remember if it were my family. So, I kind of feel like all of my photographs are photographs of Motherhood. What you see and what you don't see of your life as a mother--the kids, your husband, YOU in the middle of it all...little stories of motherhood.
My friend and client, Jennifer Chaney, recently posted a blog post about letting your pictures show what is in your heart. It filled my heart to see her post an image I took of her and her boy where you could see her heart. 
These are my favourite kinds of images to take. The ones where you can see how much love a mother has for her child. That is a universal emotion my friends. Mothers around the world know it. I like to show you what that looks like. I also like to show it to your kids. It's like proof positive that they are the centre of your world(as if the 52 hours of labour you went through weren't enough proof!).
As much as I love these images that show me a mother's heart, I also love capturing images that either show a mom 'in action' or views that I think they probably see on a daily basis at this point in their life. It is partly why I like to do my sessions in my client's homes. These mundane moments are worth remembering because chances are you are too sleep deprived to remember it without a little bit of help ;)
So, to me...if I really think about it...motherhood is a sort of photographic style which I've embraced. I want my photographs to speak to those moments of parenthood which you want to hang on to...the big emotional ones and the little, everyday ones.
If you are ready to have some photographs like this of your family, I would love to help you out ;) If a full session isn't in the cards for you this year, I still have two spots at my Mother's Day Pop-Up Studio in downtown Calgary.
And, to all of my clients over the last year--thank you for sharing these moments with me(and for those of you who are on my blog--the world). Motherhood is a tough, but incredible job. Slow down this weekend and enjoy it a bit ;) Happy Mother's day!
~ Dana