Rebecca Whitney Photography

New Blog!

2008-07-24T20:19:00.003-05:00

I have a new blog, it's so cool and I'm so excited about it!!! Thank you so much to Curtis for giving me the heads up about the wonderful and amazing theme developed specifically for photographers!!

The new blog is:

www.rebeccawhitneyphotographyblog.com

Now, starting tomorrow, I'll be finishing off my website so I can get that up and running within a week!!

ASHES dIVIDE

2008-07-15T13:30:00.004-05:00

Last week Wednesday, Jody and I went to see our first live musical act together - yay so romantic!! :) The band is called ASHES dIVIDE, fronted by Billy Howerdel, who wrote all the songs and also played almost all the instruments on the album, and was, prior to this, in the band A Perfect Circle. I of course just learned all this, but Jody had followed A Perfect Circle because it was fronted by Maynard James Keenan of Tool, and Jody loves him/them.

Anyway, last week Monday Jody was checking out any new news on some of his favorite bands and performers, and I happened to go over when he was checking out Ashes Divide and I saw that they were playing in Winnipeg in two days, so we bought tickets and went! It was at a cool little bar downtown called The Pyramid Club, and unfortunately there weren't many people there - Billy thanked everyone for coming to "their secret performance". It was very cool though, and although loud and with very heavy bass, my throat and esophagus got used to the bass after a few songs, and their music was really very good (I've listened to it on iTunes since then and really like many of their songs) and I love watching performers play the guitar and bass cause it's incredibly cool for me to see how good they are at it!

I called before the performance to ask whether I could bring my camera and they said yes, so of course I loved that! It's not every day that I get to try taking photos of a moving band in super low light! I had the ISO boosted to 1600 so all the photos have a super-cool grainy look, and I'm so happy with how almost all the photos turned out so it was hard to choose the best ones.

Before the band went on, we met a couple who told us they came to see the band for their friend, who was in a car accident a couple months ago and just recently emerged from the coma. Ashes Divide is his favorite band and he had actually been, I think, fiddling with the CD in the car so the two of them could hear the band when they got in the accident. Anyway, they had come to see the band in their friend's honor, and had both forgotten their cameras so asked if I could email them some photos of the performance to show their friend. It gave me much more incentive to try to get some great photos, so I hope their friend likes them and I hope he's okay in the long run and hopefully is able to make a full recovery.

EDIT: I've decided to add a few more. Thank you to Jaimie from ashesdivideonline.com for finding my photos and linking to them, and for all the lovely things she said!!!

Tammy, Joel & family

2008-07-13T18:32:00.004-05:00

Last month I photographed my friends Tammy and Joel, and Joel's two daughters, Simone and Katrine, after they attended a family wedding (so they were all dressed up and looking gorgeous!)! We first took some photos outside the church, also with Tammy's mother, step-father and brother, and then I went with the four of them to the Legislative building for some more photos. Joel is a virtual encyclopedia of knowledge with regard to so many things Winnipeg, so he was giving us all kinds of cool tidbits regarding the Legislative building and history and what-not. It was really cool!

The day was absolutely gorgeous, all four of them were looking wonderful, and it was good fun and great experience for me. We also saw lots of wedding parties at the Legislative building so that was cool as well. I loved so many of the photos from that day so it was hard for me to widdle them down, but here are some of my favorites! ::

Simone, Joel, Tammy and Katrine all looking wonderful!

At the fountain behind the Legislative building

I love this photo of Tammy and Joel!!

Sweet kissing shot! :)

Portrait of Joel

Fun retro look :)

I absolutely LOVE how silly they're all willing to be!!! It's so fun!!!

Inside the Legislative building, on the main staircase

This was a little earlier outside the church - getting ready to kiss dad's cheeks...

...and cracking up during it! :)

Katrine and Simone

Tammy's mom and step-father right after I had them kiss, this is so cute! :)

Tammy and her brother, Rod - so cute! I also have a couple photos of her fake beating him up beforehand, to get him ready for the camera (he HATES being photographed, even though I think he photographs pretty well!)

Family hand-in-hand

Beautiful portrait of Katrine

Beautiful portrait of Simone

And one more shot of all of them together!

Spencer's Dedication

2008-07-10T21:51:00.005-05:00

These photos are from awhile ago and I am finally getting around to posting them.

I was honored to be invited to photograph baby Spencer's Dedication at his church and the family get-together afterward at his grandparents' (Marilyn & Tom's) home. The event was in Kenora, Ontario, and it was so cool to see the topography change from the flat plains around Winnipeg to the hills, lakes, and granite of the Lake of the Woods area. It was so beautiful and peaceful there and there were bodies of water all over, and little inlets and tree-covered islands all over as well. Tom and Marilyn's house overlooked a quiet little inlet (I don't know if that's the right word), from which they could get by boat to all the other lake areas as well. So cool and so lovely!!

The day started when everyone met up at Tom & Marilyn's house, and then we all went to the church for Spencer's Dedication ceremony. He wore the same gown that his dad, Sean, and his aunt, Sue, wore when they were babies. After the service and ceremony, everyone went back to Tom & Marilyn's where we took more photos, enjoyed the company of Spencer's large family, and ate a wonderful lunch. Marilyn also bought the cutest little white suit for Spencer, which he wore for the pictures at the house. I don't think he was fond of the little hat, but he looked so adorable!!!

Here are some photos from the day, and I'll finish the slideshow soon and post a link to that as well.

The church before the service began

Spencer and his mom, Stephanie

The proud parents, Sean and Stephanie, with Spencer

During the baby dedication ceremony

After the dedication ceremony, Spencer got to visit with his great aunt

I so love photos of dad's holding their babies!

Back at Tom & Marilyn's house, with Spencer changed into his new outfit for photos

Dad and baby

Stephanie, Sean and Spencer

The little family again :)

Spencer with his grandma, Marilyn

This is such a cool portrait of Sean! :)

Little Spencer, who has the biggest eyes ever, he's so cute!!

Holding daddy's finger (I love this photo so much! I also love the b&w version I made, I'll have to post that as well I think.)

Spencer and his mommy

Stephanie and Spencer again, look at his big big eyes!!!

Little baby shoe and sock

The love of a grandma

Okay, I had to post the black & white version of this photo, too. This version speaks so much of innocence, strength and love.

And finally, the beautiful view of Tom & Marilyn's backyard

I'll post a link to the slideshow very soon!

4th of July Cherry Pie

2008-07-09T09:48:00.003-05:00

Being in Canada, there weren't any big 4th of July celebrations, at least that I was aware of. So Jody and I had a little mini celebration by barbecuing burgers, and I also boiled some corn on the cob (which we actually ate the next day cause we had too much food) and cooked up some potatoes and onions. The onions I was sautéing for the burgers turned black in two minutes while I was slicing the tomato so we had to throw those out. I'm bad with doing more than one thing in the kitchen at a time.

AND, I also made a cherry pie, cause first of all it's my favorite, and second, isn't there some saying about nothing being as American as a cherry pie? Or is it apple pie? Anyway, I like cherry better, and I made an apple pie for Jody's birthday but I wanted him to see how good cherry pies are, too! For the cherries I used pitted tart cherries, mixed them with flour, sugar, almond seasoning and lemon juice, and Jody loved it cause he'd never had a cherry pie that didn't just use the cherry pie filling out of a can. Also, the dough this time worked out perfectly and it was all so yummy!!!

Here are two pictures of the pie:

Yummy!!!! I love that second picture!!!

Unfortunately, Ferdinand liked the cherry pie, too. On the morning of the 6th we woke up to find the pie looking like this:

Ferdinand is the only one who can reach up on the counter, and he's eaten other things off the counter now and then, so we knew he was the culprit. I was really pissed at him for awhile. Also, the brown burned stuff was on the underside of the dish because the cherry juice overflowed like mad while the pie was cooking. Luckily I had put the pie on top of a pan so the juice didn't go all over the oven.

We did still eat from this pie. I cut out a piece in the middle, and Jody ate all the stuff I wouldn't eat, except for some of the edge stuff. Ferdinand kisses us all the time, so he figured it was just like eating while kissing Ferd at the same time. :)

Okay, that's all for now! I have lots of other photos to post so I need to go choose them and resize them for the web!

Canada Day (July 1st), Part 1

2008-07-03T15:44:00.003-05:00

Jody and I got up really early on Canada Day, not to have a leisurely breakfast, but to go to work! It was my fourth and final day for now of helping him at his current reno project, which started as a simple bathroom renovation and ended up being a major bathroom renovation and also whole second floor (where the bathroom is) renovation. The family was out of town from Saturday through Tuesday and Jody wanted to get all the painting done before they got back, so I got to be his helper!

It was very cool because I learned to do new things and also got better at doing things I already know somewhat and love, namely, painting. My first job was to apply mud in a few of the rooms to all the nail holes and on any little breaks between wood pieces, and then when it had dried I sanded it off. So cool! I've heard about it and even seen it done on HGTV, but this was the first time I got to do it myself! And now I also see so many places around our own house where I could use the mud, cause the guy who renovated the house before we bought it didn't do the best of jobs.

Then I did a lot of taping around the floor in rooms, first with a thin green tape as close to or even under the moulding if possible, and then I followed with taping brown paper all around the perimeter - so Jody could follow with his paint gun and paint all the moldings and wainscotting. I was a really good taper! Even Jody said I did an amazing job. :) Of course, I took my time, but I had the time to make sure I did it really, really well so it would all come out perfectly. Around the radiators was the hardest, but I have little fingers so I had everything covered! :)

And then I got to help with painting!!! When I used to paint my former apartments I would use the blue painting tape, but Jody never uses it because it takes too much time. Instead, he uses really good brushes and a steady hand and cuts a line with the paint along all edges. So I learned to do that! And I got really good at that, too! Yes, I was about four times slower than Jody, but I still did a good job and that's what counts. I love painting, it gets me in a zone and I love seeing the different colors! Jody did the cutting along the crown molding (I find both "molding" and "moulding" online, I don't know which is the correct spelling), and I did the cutting along the bottom moldings and around the door and window frames as far up as I could reach, and then Jody would roll the room, and then we would do a second coat of everything. I'll come clean though and admit that I only helped with two out of the five areas because Jody finished two of the areas before I got to work that day, and did the fifth area on the last day.

And then on the last day, on Canada Day, we knew we'd be there for just half a day and I spent that time cleaning and straightening while Jody finished painting, and then I helped Jody bring stuff out to the trailer, both tools he wouldn't be needing again and also trash and such. We left the whole second floor painted (including ceilings) and cleaned, which included three large rooms, the hallway, and a two-part bathroom, and I was so proud of us, and of course especially of Jody because it looked amazing!!! I love seeing how rooms are transformed by new paint, and with the semi-gloss on all the moldings and flat white paint on all the ceilings, the rooms just popped and looked so fabulous!!! Also, I love seeing the work that Jody does and love seeing it all come together. He's done so much work at this house already and it looks AMAZING compared to what it looked like before (I saw it but didn't take any photos, unfortunately).

I'll include a few photos, two from during and three from after. I won't bore you with photos of each of the rooms, so just a little overview. And I'm going to wait until the bathroom is completely finished to show photos of it, because it's such a work of art and I want to show it when it's all perfect!!

This was on Sunday, Jody using the paint gun to paint the new wainscotting he built. The brown paper and green tape on the ground is from me! :) And of course all the walls and ceilings have yet to be painted. All the moldings you see, from crown molding to door frame moldings to wainscotting to molding along the floor - Jody did all of that. He also had to rebuild three doorways to make them standard-size, and he drywalled over the old single doorway into the office and cut out and framed the double-doorway you see into the office.

Jody while painting the trim areas of the bathroom.

On Canada Day before we left - all beautifully painted and clean! (The stairway railing up to the next floor isn't yet part of this job.)

Inside one of the bedrooms after we moved all the furniture back and cleaned. I started out hating this color but then when it was all on it quickly grew on me. Oh and I did the cutting along the bottom edge and along the door frames and window frame in this room!

Looking down the hall toward the bathroom, which I'll post final photos of sometime in the coming couple weeks. It's so beautiful! I also really like this hallway paint color. Also, the doorway into the office (room on the left) used to be right next to the closet at the end of the hall - it looks so much better in the new location and as a double-door!

Okay, so that's what did in the morning and left feeling very good. We both showered when we got home, and then we went for a long-ish motorcycle ride. (Warning to Mom - you might not want to look at the last picture of this post.) We first rode to our friends' Tammy & Joel's house to finalize plans for the evening, and then we rode north along lovely country-ish rodes for awhile, along the Red River, and then crossed a bridge at Lockport (see the pictures below) and rode back on the other side of the river.

I haven't been a big fan of motorcycles throughout my life, and I'm not going to say I'm in love with them now because I still worry a lot about the risk. But I also know that Jody loves them, and I do trust him to be a very good and careful driver and I know he's always watching out for other drivers. Also, I liked riding on the not-so-populated and more country-highway type of rodes. I wasn't so nervous then.

We stopped just before Lockport for a little bite to eat at a little diner, and it was cute and fun. When I got off the motorcycle I was at first walking like I'd been riding a horse for 12 hours, my inner thighs were so sore! It would get better after a few minutes but was very intense at first! It was of course the same thing when we got back home and I got off. If I were watching myself trying to walk I'd have been laughing!

Anyway, it was a wonderful time and a perfect day and I loved it being just Jody and I riding with the breeze! It was very romantic to me!

Here are a few photos from a little stop we made at the Lockport dam, just after we crossed the bridge over the dam and before we headed back south along the other side of the river.

Jody and I at a park by the Lockport dam

Lockport dam park (oh, there's a lock there for boats as well, which is why it says "lock & dam")

On the other side of the lock & dam. There were a lot of fishing boats there, and also lots of pelicans which were so cool to see!

Crop on a pelican

Jody on the motorcycle (with me reaching the camera around all sly-like!)

Self-portrait of the two of us :)

That's the first half of our day, I put our evening in the post below because I had so many photos!!

Canada Day (July 1st), Part 2

2008-07-03T14:41:00.005-05:00

Part 2 of our Canada Day photos

In the evening, Jody and I went to Tammy and Joël's (I think that's the French spelling, with the accent - at least that's what it said on a baby name google search) house in St. Boniface and from there we walked to The Forks. Tammy had the wonderful idea of getting a seat outside at a restaurant there and then staying there to watch the fireworks. Jody and I were sure that everyone else would have had the same idea, but we got a booth right away (and there were only probably ten tables total outside) so from now on we're listening to Tammy!

We first sat down at 8:30 pm, and the fireworks weren't until 11 pm, so we had a wonderful leisurely time, and took our time ordering appetizers, our meals, and then dessert. We were on the third floor directly overlooking the activity in the plaza, and I really think we literally had the best seats in the whole area! And we had such a good time - it was so wonderful hanging out, we had good food, great conversation, I got to take lots of cool photos, Jody was so wonderfully affectionate the whole evening, and Tammy and Joël are both hilarious and wonderful at the same time! It was a perfect way to experience my first Canada Day!!

Here are some of the photos from the evening, to tell the story!! :)

Walking on the footbridge from St. Boniface to The Forks

Aboriginal demonstration of costumes, drumming, dancing, etc. (I know you can't see it here, but there were people of all ages in full costume.)

Our fabulous view from our booth on the third floor, overlooking all the activities below.

Tammy and Joël

Ha!! Tammy and Joël again, being very silly!

Picture of the perfect red sun, as taken through Joël's sunglasses by Jody

Jody - taken by me in spy-camera mode! :)

Joël, again me in spy-camera mode!

Tammy eavesdropping on the table behind us. :)

Cool lights and wall!

Cool building across the plaza.

Zoom in on one of the fire-throwers in the tent below - and they were playing the coolest rhythmic drums during the whole performance.

Tammy, Joël and Jody in our fabulous booth!

Fireworks starting!

Me taking a photo of Jody taking a photo of the fireworks. :)

One of Jody's fireworks photos, it turned out so cool!

Fireworks

Our desserts came literally in the middle of the fireworks, so Jody held up our cookies & cream cake with the fireworks in the background!

Jody getting ready to take a fireworks photo, I love this photo!

Fireworks

Our fabulous dessert - we waited until after the fireworks were done to eat it.

And finally, a self-portrait of Jody and I on Canada Day, just before we left.

Westview Dog Park (and Grasslands Park)

2008-06-26T22:10:00.003-05:00

Last night Jody and I took the boys, Ferdinand and Enzo, to Westview Park to watch the sunset. There weren't any clouds in the sky so the sunset itself wasn't anything special, but the light it sent over the grass and hills was so magical!! By the way, I say "hills" because this is, as far as I know, the highest point in Winnipeg - it used to be a garbage dump years ago and the city made it into a park. It's really, really pretty up there, so green and with kind of rolling hills, and the edges of the big hill are covered in long beautiful wild grasses - I was enchanted!

The park is also an off-leash dog park, and Ferd and Enzo were soooooo excited to be running all around! I get such a wonderful kick out of watching dogs meet and greet each other by sniffing each others' butts, it absolutely cracks me up! The other dog owners up there were really nice, and all the dogs were really nice and cute, too. We saw two dogs who looked so similar to Ferdinand that I kept thinking they were him.

We'll definitely be going back to this park, and especially when we see a good sunset coming! I can't wait until one perfect day when we see the sky all gorgeous red and pink!

Here are a few photos, just for fun. :)

Dog owners and happy dogs!

Ferd getting a bum scratch

A girl and her dog, Nina

Adorable Nina (and a little fun flair!)

I sooooooo love this photo!!!

Ferd and Enzo posing on the way back to the car

Very blurry but I love the action of Ferd and Enzo being so happy and having so much fun!

MPAX Workshop at the Railway Museum

2008-06-25T10:07:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, from Thursday, June 19 through Sunday, June 22, there was a photography exhibition at The Forks (called MPAX - Manitoba Photographic Arts Expo). Every day there were various workshops and keynote speakers, and some photographers had display booths of their work, and there was also a main stage with various presentations. The whole thing was really, really cool. I attended four workshops and one keynote speaker, and I met a bunch of photographers and connected with some very cool people. I'm so happy with everything about the event. And it also gave me a reason to visit The Forks and especially The Forks Market, which is such a cool place!

I posted in backwards order of the events I attended, so that the last event would be the lowest on the blog and thus would actually be in order. So this is my final post on the MPAX events. On Thursday, the first day of the Expo, I attended a workshop where we got to shoot at the Railway Museum. There were so so so many cool things there, such cool light, so many textures and wonderful peeling paint and old wood, and they also had some old cars there (some in fabulous condition, some in pretty bad condition) and old bicycles, and of course lots of old trains. I can't say that I learned anything from the workshop, but I did find inspiration in the museum with all the textures and wonderful details, so it was very worthwhile.

Here are some photos from the museum. Some of them don't look very sharp resized and saved for the web, and I'm not sure why because they're very sharp in the originals. However, I'm not going to go back and try to redo them all, so just know that the originals of all of these look wonderful!

This train looks alive - I can see why children's books had trains as characters!

MPAX Child Portraiture Workshop & Birthday Love

2008-06-25T08:22:00.004-05:00

This past Friday I attended the Child Portraiture Workshop with Rodney Braun, who I'm quickly hearing is one of the most well-known and well-respected photographers in Winnipeg (he's especially known for his mastery of light, which is of course SO IMPORTANT), and what was so cool when I met him is that he's so young, for sure in his 30's, and so cool and almost kid-like. I would so love to get to know him better and learn more from him.

He has three children of his own and showed us some wonderful photos of them, and also told how he discovered various lighting techniques just from photographing them all the time. I can't even tell you how helpful and informative his talk and the subsequent photo shoot was, because he showed us how we can get great photographs of children even in the harsh light of the middle of the day. And he told us so many little tricks, and what lens he usually uses, and what focal length and aperture, and just so many little things. And the best part was that he was such a fun speaker and seems so so cool, and just like such a fun and good person.

I have all his lessons in my head so much and I'm very excited about trying them all out. And he's also made me really want a second lens (Craig Koshyk from the next day also uses the same lens, and Rob Bye from two days later uses the same as well (although the more expensive, lower aperture version)). I created my "photography wishlist" on Sunday night and priced out all the various things I'd love on Amazon and also at a local photo store (WAY more expensive at the local store). I do know that the next lens I'll be getting will be the Canon 70-200, f/4.0 image stabilization lens. It's just over $1,000 on Amazon. Holy crap. The non-image-stabilization version is only $560 on Amazon. But I think the image stabilization would be a really good thing.

Anyway, I absolutely loved this workshop. I learned so much. And of course I really want to photograph children so this was so relevant for me. We had two little girls, sisters Kayla and Samantha, who were our models when we went outside. They were adorable, and I especially completely fell in love with the younger one, Samantha. She was both soooooo adorable and at the same time looked almost mature sometimes. And she liked me, too, and kept looking at me and smiling (not just for the camera), so of course I loved that as well!!! Here are a few photos from that morning:

After the workshop I headed home to start getting ready for Jody's birthday dinner!! The night before I had made an apple pie from scratch, and for dinner I made a baked brie appetizer, roasted potatos & onions, sauteed mushrooms, and Jody's favorite steak - rib eye (I actually had him grill the steaks but I at least picked them out and put the Lawry's seasoning salt on them!)! It all turned out pretty good! The apples in the pie were a bit too crisp, I'm not sure why, but they tasted good and the homemade pie crust was fabulous!!! :) I also bought some new little flowers for our kitchen cause the old ones were looking a little, well, old. It was a good night, and Jody had a happily full stomach, and I was so happy to cook a whole complete meal for him!! Happy Birthday, honey!!!

I put a heart in the middle of the pie! :)

MPAX Studio Lighting Keynote and Pet Portraiture Workshop

2008-06-24T17:52:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday, I went to hear a keynote speaker on an Introduction to Studio Lighting. It was fabulous. Before this I knew very, very basic things, like what a backdrop was and that you could have softboxes or umbrellas reflecting your light. I'd heard terms like ringlights (or is it rimlights?), and strobes (I still don't quite understand those because I know they're a different breed than the studio lights we talked about). But I didn't know how you got the lights to work together, I didn't know what wattage you should have or how many lights you should have, and it was basically all foreign territory to me.

It's still pretty foreign, but now I feel like I have a basic understanding of all the various pieces and how they work together, and the lecturer, Dan Harper, went through all the basics from even camera equipment we should have to the minimum lights we should buy, to what types of backdrop material he prefers. He gave us a handout with it all written out, too, which was wonderful and I have tons of extra notes written in the margins and between paragraphs.

I don't have the money yet to set up a proper studio in our house, but it's also summer so I can happily shoot outside. But this was the perfect introduction mini-course to let me know what I'll need to get eventually.

We all were able to hook our cameras up to the lights and take a few shots of the model, I was so in love with how the light turned out! Here are one in color and one in a tinted monotone:

After the Studio Lighting lecture, I walked back to the main area with two women I met at the lecture, Sharon and Marian, and the three of us had lunch together. It was fun and of course we had tons of photography stuff to talk about! Also, both of them grew up on farms and I was so interested to hear and imagine what daily life was like for them.

After lunch, I went to a Pet Portraiture Workshop, taught by Craig Koshyk (who also started and runs the Prairie View School of Photography). I took tons of notes as he was talking about getting good dog portraits, good dog action shots, and also ways of getting dogs' attention. I loved that he told us exactly what settings he generally uses, I like hearing what seasoned photographers do for their own photos. And I also discovered some new settings on my camera that I need to learn how to use much better. It started raining during class, but the rain thankfully let up for just a little while so we could go outside and shoot photos of our model dog, the sweetest black & white Border Collie!! I need to review my notes from this class, practice with my new settings, and then get Ferd and Enzo outside to practice with them! And I'll try using some of the same tricks and techniques with James and Emma, too!

Here are a few photos from that afternoon:

MPAX Sports/Action Photography Workshop

2008-06-24T17:30:00.004-05:00

(I'm writing these backwards, from last workshop to first, so they'll be in proper order when reading my blog. So this is the first post I'm writing but it'll be last on the blog since it was the last workshop!)

This past Sunday I went to a workshop on sports & action photography, taught by Winnipeg sports photographer Rob Bye. It was a great workshop, first in the classroom because Rob talked so much and gave us so many tips and pointers and information, and I was being a big dork and writing down everything he said! :) But that's how I can remember it! Second, it was great because I loved being outside at the skate park at The Forks watching and trying to photograph the skateboarders and bikers. It's amazing what they can do and I was always to much of a scaredy-cat to even ride on straight flat ground on a skateboard (and I have terrible balance, too), so watching what these guys (and girls - I didn't see any girls doing it, but I know some can!) can do was incredible. I also talked quite a bit with Rob and with some of the other people in the class and it was really cool getting to know them, and hearing stories, and learning more.

So, I also discovered that it can be pretty hard to get a perfect action shot! These guys move so fast so it's hard to get a well-composed shot, and I liked to try to get shots when they were really close to me but then I had the problem of part of them being out of the photo. Still, I'm happy with a few of my photos, and especially of this one hard-core-looking skateboarder who had such an intense look, so I loved editing the photos of him even though none of them are technically perfect.

I definitely want to go back because now I so want to get some really cool skateboarding photos, and when I do I'll be so excited!!! :) Also, I know we can post any photos on the Winnipeg skateboarding site and the guys all go to look, so I'd love to be able to give them some great shots of themselves in action!

And this was a REALLY cool thing - these three older Amish couples came walking by and stopped to watch this biker, and they were all smiling and clapped for him afterward, and the lady to the far left in the picture turned to us and said she wouldn't be trying that. It was so cute!!! I won't forget that cuteness and sweetness for a very long time!

Pictures from my parents' visit

2008-06-14T10:48:00.006-05:00

My parents were here visiting us last weekend, and I had SUCH a wonderful time with them!!! They got here on Friday evening and left on Tuesday afternoon so we had a lot of time together. While they were here, we drove all over the city, took a drive up to Winnipeg Beach on Lake Winnipeg, played with the dogs in our backyard, went out for a wonderful dinner, and Jody and I cooked three dinners at home. My parents also came along on a family photo shoot I did on Saturday (I'll be posting a few pictures on here very soon!) and we walked all through the Legislative building and the grounds, which were so beautiful!!! I loved having them here, and I cried a little when they left and then it also took a couple days for me to get back to normal.

Here are some photos, and most were taken with my new Canon 40D!!! :) I LOVE the new camera - the feel of it, how fast it takes photos, the amazing depth of field on the 50mm f1.4 lens, it's all so exciting!! I still have a lot to learn about the camera, and I'm so excited to get to know it so much better so it's an extension of me and I'm completely comfortable with it (I'm not there yet, clearly!).

I also have my new MacBook Pro now - yay!!!!!! I love it but it also still seems so foreign to me. I've installed Lightroom and the Adobe CS3 programs, but I'm still in the early stages of learning how to use them. I'm in the middle of reading the pdf file about Lightroom, and last night I figured out a couple things that made me very happy. Today I'll finish reading it all, because so far I don't know how to take the photos in Lightroom and put them on this blog or anywhere else. So the photos I posted below were edited very quickly on my old computer. I also want to start learning Photoshop today because I am SO RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED about using all these new actions and I really want to use them on the photos I have left to edit from a baby dedication, and also on the new family photos from last Saturday.

Okay, I'm going to get to work with learning now!! I'll hopefully be able to post some more pictures either today or tomorrow as I learn!

My parents, so cute!!

I had my dad take this photo of Jody and I, I love it!

Little Enzo happy with a new toy from my mom.

And Ferdinand was busy with a toy duck my mom bought for them. :)

My parents in our backyard.

At the end of our Scrabble game. Jody won, I came in second (yay!), my mom third, and my dad was at the bottom, poor him! :)

Jody during the Scrabble game.

My dad concentrating hard.

A footbridge across the river, we walked across it after getting ice cream.

My parents and I on our back deck! They're so wonderful!! And I had such a good time with them during their visit!!!

My fiancé and one of my cats

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These are two of my favorite newer photos - of my fiancé, Jody, and one of my cats, James. I love that they're bonding, it makes my heart contract with happiness!!! :)

My parents are arriving this evening for their first visit to Winnipeg and I'm so excited!!! And so I'm very busy with cleaning and doing laundry and getting the house looking as perfect as possible. It's raining outside pretty hard right now, and there's rain in the forecast for the next three days while they'll be here as well. It's hardly rained since I moved to Winnipeg and is usually sunny and gorgeous, so I'm so so so hoping that the sun will come out and rain will miss us because I want my parents to see the city at it's best - in the sunshine! And I also wanted them to help me plant a little vegetable garden but that won't happen in the rain!

They're bringing with them my new computer and camera - yay!!!!!! :)

And also, yesterday I started building my photography website and it's just so incredibly exciting! I really want to be doing that right now but I have to keep myself away or my parents will get here to find our house only half-cleaned.

I'll get back to cleaning now. Have a good weekend!!!

A babyshower for Sue (and baby August)

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My friends Ryan and Sue had their little baby boy, August, on April 30, so he just had his one-month birthday! Here are some photos and a slideshow of a baby shower for Sue, it was a wonderful event and I loved meeting some of Sue's family and friends!

Please view the slideshow, it tells the story of a wonderful night! Thank you looking!!

First Post :)

2008-05-31T17:23:00.000-05:00

This is the start of my new blog, where I can detail bits of my life and of my venture into the photography business. It's very exciting! And now I can post some photos here and also slideshows, which is wonderful!

The blog is one part of my new computer and soon-to-be advertising presence. I have my website domain purchased (www.rebeccawhitneyphotography.com) and have a holder page there for now. I've also purchased a website design from bludomain.com, but before they can load the page onto my website I need to make sure of all these settings with my hosting company (like FTP and PHP settings, which I know nothing about). On Monday I'll call my hosting company to hopefully get them to help. And then I can start getting my website ready to go!

In other very exciting news, my parents are coming to visit next week Friday (I'm SO excited for them to see our new place and new city!) and they're bringing with them, for me, a new MacBook Pro AND a new Canon 40D camera with 50mm, 1.4f lens!!!! I am SO SO SO happy and excited!!!!! And I'll be paying them back of course, but I'm just so happy to be able to get these things now.

The MacBook Pro will replace my very old PC that runs so incredibly slow. It takes me FOREVER to edit photos on Photoshop Elements. With the Mac, I'll be learning to edit with Lightroom and Photoshop and I'm so looking forward to it, and it'll be fast and reliable and so so so good to have a good computer!!! And the Canon 40D will become my new primary camera, with my Olympus E-500 serving backup duty. The thing I'm probably most excited about with the new camera is being able to take pictures quickly and not have to wait for the camera to buffer after each photo. I'm so looking forward to reading the camera manual and practicing so I can really learn to use it well.

I want to write more, to post a bio on myself, to write out a list of goals for myself - both personal and as it relates to my photography business, to post some recent photos, and to customize this blog template. I'll do all those things soon. Right now I'm finishing up my first slideshow, of photos from my friend Sue's baby shower, and I want to get that completed so I can embed it here in my new blog, along with a few photos from the event.

Creating this blog is one of the many things on my mental list of things to do, so now I can check one thing off!!