When I was very young, there was a boy who lived two doors down from me who, I believe, thought rather fondly of the hyperbole as well. He was, if I may coin a term, quite the master hyperbolist, able to use exaggeration to create grand effect. Being young, and a boy, I really loved He-Man, so naturally my favourite toy was my He-man doll–I guess you could call it a doll. Well, this neighbour boy, being skilled in the use of the hyperbole, told me he was going to get Oracle, another character in the Masters of the Universe (I know, I’m struggling here–but give me a break, I’ve been gone a while), and the toy he knew I was very eager to get. I told him that I hoped to get it for my birthday too, so he in turn told me that the Oracle he was getting, wasn’t just the regular Oracle, but he was getting the special Oracle figure, the one that spit out candies in never-ending supply. Well, until I figured out that there was no such thing as a perpetual candy machine, this kid was the envy of me and my little circle of hooligans, because seriously, when you are six-years-old, what can you do that could possibly top a perpetual candy spitting Oracle doll?

Though I hope you find my use of the hyperbole far less self-aggrandizing, and more self-deprecating, I hope I did cause you to wonder, does he really have fans, and what could they possibly be clamouring about?  Well, I am glad you asked. If there were clamouring, it would probably be for some photographs, and what better photos to post than those from my most recent wedding? You know, to keep me relevant? Test my new blog?

No matter how much I wish it otherwise, our connection has nothing to do with our personal attributes. In the movie Quantum of Solace, you may remember the opening scene where James Bond is being chased through the Italian countryside, ending in a quarry. That quarry, the Fantiscritti marble quarry in Carrara, was also the favourite source of marble for Michelangelo.

How I fit in to this intriguing (I’m sure) account is this: my countertops also happen to be made of marble cut from this same quarry.

So, like many people who enjoy that their ancestry can be traced back to someone famous, I too can trace the ancestry of my countertop back to something famous: Michelangelo’s David. It is a very illustrious title to hold, being related to a statue, but my countertops are humble, immune to the effects caused by the prerogative of lineage.

I mention this, because it was one year ago this week, that I viewed my house for the first time and, during that year, one of the changes I made was to install new countertops, thus forever associating myself to Michelangelo and James Bond (top that, name droppers!)

I plan on blogging the progress of my reno, I really do (and that, sometime during my lifetime, preferably), but if my lawn did not require mowing twice a week, maybe I could get down to blogging some of the important happenings, things like renovations or, say, weddings I have recently shot. There have only been two times that I have not been able to promptly blog a wedding and I feel shame every time.

At least my blog is not the only thing being neglected; my children also have not been bathed in over two weeks. I jest. Sometimes, even I don’t know how to take my own humour.

Enjoy!

My strangeness really manifests itself, however, in my taste in photographs. For me, all a photo needs in order to  be good is that it evokes an emotional response. That’s it. If one of my photographs is able to convey a feeling, one in which I say to myself, “awwwwwwwww” as if I were looking at a basket full of newborn kittens, then it ranks as a good photo, regardless of the technical details good often connotes. 

That is the joy of being an artist. Your entire life’s work dwells squarely in, what Benjamin Bloom et al. have styled as, the affective domain–the realm of feelings. Don’t misunderstand me: I do not subscribe to Bloom or his Taxonomy. I find his Taxonomy to be hogwash. Anyone, Bloom or et al, who relegates knowledge to the lowest rung of the cognitive domain (the realm of the mind) and purports to tell us that the real goal of education is the modification of the affective domain, is a peddler of buffoonery of the highest order. You will get no support from me, as worthless as my support is, if you assume to tell me that because knowledge is so simply taught and simply evaluated, that it is frequently emphasized all out of proportion to the development of the individual. That is sheer and utter malarkey. But again I say, enough of that.

As I was saying, before I was gripped by a tangent, the joy of being an artist is you get to work entirely in the affective domain where all your work is governed by feelings. If a teacher of mathematics were to tell you 2+2=6, that teacher would be wrong. There is one answer to that question, and an easily measurable one at that, though Bloom would urge you caution that you not emphasize that knowledge out of proportion, mind you.  If that same teacher were to tell you they are not emphasizing the knowledge that 2+2 does not equal six 6, but the development of the student  feelings about that knowledge, then you will have before you a staunch Taxonomist, firmly entrenched in the world of the unmeasurable–the affective domain. Who is it that can say your feelings about that equation are wrong, let alone measure them? The same can be said about my feelings toward my photography; I look at a photo and it either elicits the appropriate emotional response or not. If it does, I like it. If the emotional response is significant, then I like it more than some others. I think it is properly said that the real goal of art is not knowledge, but modification of the affective domain. If Bloom had been talking about art, and not something as important as education, I would be inclined to cut him a little slack. As it stands, no slack for you.

Instead of all the previous, I could have just said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that statement does nothing to organize my thoughts, nor does it explain my greatest photography secrets.

I was recently asked, have I ever photographed Bridezilla, and my honest reply was, no, I have not, nor have I met any of Bridezilla’s distant relatives. That I have avoided Bridezilla and her kin is because of the way I advertise. I am very specific in that, and I run the risk of being called cold, or calculating, when I tell you how I advertise: I only post pictures on my blog that I feel have the best chance of eliciting the same emotions in my potential brides as they elicit in me. If I have a bride who likes the same things as I do, then I can safely assume that she has chosen as her groom a man who has similar feelings as she. Then, when the three of us get together for a wedding, I never have to worry that the bride, groom or I will be at odds.

In this way, I already know that I am going to attract a specific client before we ever meet. That’s why, I am certain, that I have managed to land amazing clients like Andrea and Jamie. I first met them for coffee months before their wedding, a coffee that for me, was just a way to confirm what I already suspected: they would be fun, and easy to photograph, as you will soon see.

But, before I get to the pictures, there is one more thing to explain: the first picture I have posted is my favourite from the day. Why? Well that is the joy of being an artist, I suppose: you can’t tell me that my feelings about my wedding photography are wrong.

You, however, may like which ever photograph you please; or, you may please to like none at all. This is, after all, the affective domain we are talking about here.

I am exaggerating when I say “desolation” because it was not that bad. Emotionally the devastation was far worse than the actual physical devastation; but the word “devastation” is just such a rich and illustrative one, invoking an intensely satisfying mental image wherein my house has been laid waste that I could not pass on using it in my hyperbole.

The week before Laura and Jeff got married, my wife decided to check our email account. This, in and of itself is not special in any way, but I feel the timing of this email is important and goes to show a general lack of responsiblity and “common-sense” on the part of the tenant in my rental house. You see, it was Sunday evening, my family had been over for dinner and just left and I was contemplating heading to bed when, Lisa turned on the computer to check the email.

“There is an email from our tenant,” she announced a moment later.

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“Apparently, our basement is flooded.”

“What?” I said in disbelief as I slid in beside Lisa and read the email. I thought she was joking.

Apparently, three hours earlier, our tenant had graciously taken the time to pen a quick email to us alerting us of the fact that the pipes in the basement shower had “cracked” and the basement was now flooded. I rushed to the phone and attempted to call her on all her phone numbers and received no answer so I jumped in my car and raced over to the house. When I got there I assumed no one was home because no one was answering the telephone, and was about to go inside.  To my surprise, the tenant came to the door.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” I said as she opened the door.

“Oh,” she answered nonchalantly, “I don’t answer my phone in the evenings.”

“Okay well, in the future, if an emergency like this happens again, you have to call me. You cannot just email me when the basement is flooded.”

“Oh it’s not an emergency,” she said again in her off-handed manner, “there is nothing you can do about it now.”

Let me pause here for some inner monologue. At the onset of this little incident I felt that being notified about a flooded my basement via email was a bit absurd; within two snippets of conversation with the tenant I could sense that things were quickly slipping in to the realm of ridiculous.

The situation progressed (or digressed, which ever you prefer) slipping fully passed ridiculous and landing squarely in the domain of idiotic when, while worrying about our tenants claim that a “cracked pipe” was at fault for the flooding, the problem mysteriously healed itself; and our tenant, holding fast to her explanation that no one had used the shower, could offer no reasonable answers as to how this could be.

Oh yeah, and then she complained about us to the Health Inspector and we began receiving calls about the living conditions in which our tenant was suffering. But that is beside the point.

As consolation, I kept two things at the forefront of my mind: the first was that I lived in that house for many years and know it is a good house and I am not a slumlord; and the second was the knowledge that our tenant was moving out the following Saturday, and I had only one week left in which to deal with her.

And, how am I going to tie this all in to Laura and Jeff? I am glad you asked. The Saturday that my renter was supposed to be out was the Saturday of Laura and Jeff’s wedding and noon was the time she was supposed to be out of the house. When the wedding was over I was going to go over to the house and have a look at the condition the tenant left it in. Before we arrived I said to my wife,

“I am going to have a heart attack if she is still there!” If our tenant decided to play silly and choose not to leave, it would force my wife and I to have to jump through all manner of legal hoops to have her dragged from my house.

Well, guess what. I drove up to the house, 10:30 in the evening, well past the scheduled move out time, and found that the tenant was still there. I did not have the heart attack that I predicted but in the olden days I could have been described, momentarily, as apoplectic. (Which, on a second side bar is almost the same thing as claiming I will have a heart attack, the difference being that in apoplexies, a person is rendered insensible due to a stroke. I am splitting hairs now. Since neither of these happened to me, it is safe to assume I am exaggerating. Again.)

Anyway, as it turns out the help our tenant was expecting did not show up and she had to empty the entire house almost single-handedly. She had taken all her remaining belongings and set them in the garage, and since no items were left in the house I discreetly locked all the doors, ensuring she could not change her mind and entrench herself inside if she chose, and, for the sake of the greater good, left her to her packing.

So, with a blink and a sigh, suddenly two weeks have passed and I am finally getting these pictures blogged.

On a positive note, my house is fully restored to its former glory and it is for sale.

Has there ever been any water in the basement? Well, yes, but it’s kind of a long story, you sure you wanna hear it?

Of note, this blog post is the first time that one of my wife’s photo or photos have made my blog. I will leave it to you to guess which one or ones it is.

Now I’m not claiming to have more experience  than I do, but this was not the first wedding I have shot in Fort Edmonton, and every time I go there I always love shooting there. There are literally dozens of different looks all within a ten minute walk of each other. This was, however, the first wedding I have shot without the help of a second shooter in (as my girls would say before they were taught about adjectives) a long, long, long, long, long time. It was just little old me and let me tell you, I had a rough go of it. I mean, with no one to carry my water for me, transport my extra equipment and having no second to anticipate my every need before I know I need it was extremely challenging ordeal to suffer through. But, being the kind of person I am, I was able to improvise, adapt and overcome the obstacle of my wife abandoning her post at my side and bringing our kids to their last soccer game of the season. I guess that qualifies as a good reason for missing a wedding gig as a second. Sort of.

So, before I get myself into trouble with my wife (who, incidentally, proof reads all my posts so if any of this makes it to the blog it means that she approves of every thing I say), and before I dig too large a hole for myself to climb out of, let me post some of the photos from Zoe and Jeremy’s wedding. I hope you the both of you are enjoying your honeymoon all the way in Taiwan!

Enjoy.

Let me interject here for a minute and say it is not every day you get to shoot at a wedding with guests all the way from Taiwan–pretty amazing day for me to be a part of.

Zoe’s aunt was celebrating her birthday so they were able to share a very special moment.

Like Crusoe, I have not been idle during my time away, I keep doing my thing, plugging along, building proverbial palm huts as it were. I do plan on sharing what I have been up to and will blog the “palm hut” I am currently building (another clumsy reference to the fact that I am currently renovating my house right now); today, however, I plan on blogging a recent engagement I shot in St. Albert with Andrea and Jamie just the other day. I had such a nice time with them I thought I would break blogging-silence and share it with you–the whole session felt more like a walk in the park interspersed with the occasional photo than vice-versa which made it extra nice. They were such an easy couple to shoot.

Anyway, I hope you (and by “you” I mostly mean Andrea and Jamie) enjoy the pictures.

There is a thing in photography now-a-days that the cool kids all call “chimping”. “Chimping” is done when you take a picture and look at the back of your camera to see how it turned out. It’s a habit I know I possess. Case in point: when I take a picture with my old film camera. I cannot count the number of times where I have caught myself checking the back after I take a picture, and hey, guess what? There’s no LCD screen there!

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that a little “chimping” is not a bad thing because I have been saved, countless times, by “chimping”. Inevitably,  during one of these sessions I will discover that I have made a terrible mistake in reading my light meter, horribly over or under exposing the image, and with the instant feedback I can have from the screen on my camera, I can solve the problem, lickety-split.

But I digress. Besides the technical stuff going on behind the camera, I’m also working hard to keep the people I’m shooting comfortable and relaxed, and mostly I accomplish this through inane chatter. I just talk randomly, asking questions, making casual conversation and, more often than not, saying things that, upon reflecting on the shoot afterward, I think to myself, “Man! They must think I am a total nerd!”

Now, the only reason I bring this up is because one of the strange and nerdy things I love to ask people is about the show, America’s Next Top Model. If you have every been on a shoot with me in the past, inevitably I will have asked if you know how to smile with your eyes. For some reason I love asking this question–well, actually I know the reason I love asking this question: because it generates some pretty hilarious reactions, especially when you ask a guy to do it.

I do believe that this question is not that difficult to answer, because either you know how to smile with your eyes or you don’t, making it kind of a yes or no type of question. Well, enter Raoul, stage left. With Sara and Raoul there was not a lot of ice-breaking needed, nor was it a lot of work to get them to start having fun together in front of the camera, but I still went for my old stand by and asked Raoul if he knew how to smile with his eyes. Like I said, simple yes or no question, right? Wrong. I wish someone was there to catch my reaction because I nearly dropped my camera in amazement when Raoul answered, ”Oh, man! I can never do this!”

“You mean you’ve practiced this?” I asked him, my mouth hanging slack with shock. Most of the time when I ask a guy to smile with his eyes, I get a half snort, half laugh and adamant “no”, but this was something totally unexpected.

At this moment, Sara chimed in and said to Raoul,

“This is probably going to make Jan’s blog.”

And guess what?

She was right.

In every wedding I shoot, there is always something special I am able to glean from the day. I’m not talking about myself growing technically with each wedding, I am talking about what I learn about the couple, or about people in general, as I am able to watch the whole day with my unlimited access. With Jenny and Byron it was no different–from this wedding I learned that speaking English as a second language can be a beautiful thing. During the reception speeches, Jenny’s father, who was here in Edmonton from China, gave a speech in halting and broken English, toasting his daughter. I found the emotion he was able to express through his limited English, was very moving, his pride in her so plainly evident that I could not help but take notice–even from behind my camera.

That was just one of the small jewels I found scattered throughout the day–but I know you would much rather see than hear about them so let’s just get into it, shall we?

Chronologically speaking, I know this next photo is a little out-of-order, but I decided that this would be my lead-off photo for a number of reasons. Firstly, it conveys, very succinctly, the general feeling of the wedding, and secondly, a “double fist-pump” is the perfect way to start the wedding photographs for 2012. See? Good on all fronts.

Now, since that is out of my system, back to the chronological flow of events.

Now, you all know I loves me either a good processional or a good recessional photo. In this case, processional won for obvious reasons.

After the ceremony we headed to the U of A campus to tour the grounds. 
After hijacking a green bench and putting it the middle of a snowy green-space, we headed to the Rutherford Library and disturbed some of the people studying there. I know it looks pretty empty in the picture, but trust me, there were some raised eyebrows.

However, crammed in between tearing down walls and cabinet installations, I have done a few photo shoots, one being with Heather and Tom for their engagement. I figured that since I have not posted in so long, I was in danger of having WordPress shut my site down completely–something that would strike me a mortal blow, should it ever come to pass. So, being the proactive guy I am, I will nip that problem in the bud, right now.

Besides the potential of having my blog deactivated due to lack of posting, I also wanted to continue with the theme wherein I photograph members of the high school basketball team I coached some years back. If you remember  back to the engagement and subsequent wedding of Cindy and Ryan, then you will remember the first of alumnus of my coaching days with Tom being the second. With Tom, the first thing that jumps into my mind when I think back to coaching him, is the time we were sitting as a team in the stands during a tournament watching a game just prior to us having to play. Tom is talking off-hand about how he has the strange habit of capitalizing certain letters of the alphabet when he is spelling, no matter where they appear in a word–beginning, middle or end, it did not matter, these three letters would be capitalized.

I leaned over and asked him what his initials were and he cited the three letters that he always capitalized.

“Problem solved,” said I, leaving him dumbfounded. “Anything else you need solved?” I added with a feigned look of haughtiness. The look on his face still makes me laugh.

Any who, to WordPress I say, “Ha ha! How’d you like to try deactivate me now?”

To Heather and Tom I say, “Congratulations, and please enjoy this little preview of your photos.”

I mean, I could take up hours of your time doing some “catch-up”, but I think it is time for me to admit defeat. I’m so far behind now, there is no way I can reasonably ever expect to get caught up now. It’s just time to start over.

So, that said, this past Tuesday I shot an engagement session for Jenny and Byron, one in which the pressure was sky-high. I mean, outside the norm, there was not that much pressure on me to perform; what I mean is that there was a lot of pressure on me to arrive on time. Let’s just say that in our first meeting, I was a little late (yes, I am again pointing out another one of my photography faux pas), and when talking to Byron on the phone I discovered how severely lacking my vocabulary is when it comes to synonyms for the word, sorry.

Well, on this occasion, I was not going to be late. When I left my house I gave myself so much extra time I could have scheduled a picnic in the park before Jenny and Byron arrived. As it turns out, construction, plus rush-hour, plus downtown equals near disaster. I ended up spending over fifty minutes driving, growing more and more anxious every second and when I arrived at the park, it was exactly at the scheduled time. So much for being early to make up for my previous disaster. The best laid plans…

Turns out Jenny and Byron had the same problems I did; and, since both of them are engineers, I would have complained about roadways and construction but electrical and waste engineers have little or nothing to do with roads.

Anyway, enough about me, let’s look at Jenny and Byron for a few minutes, shall we?

And, as always, I will end with my favourite shot. Enjoy.