Here goes …

These are some leftover photos from our Penticton/Summerland trip in July that I didn’t post-process until recently.

My flowers from Greg for our 4th anniversary! <3

They were stunning – and I recycled one of them as a hair accessory for a Hawaiian beach party we attended.

These next ones are from an excursion up the Chilliwack Lake FSR last weekend.

And one of me from that day, that Greg took (he’s getting really good!)

I have photos I’d like to share from an afternoon visit to Ross Lake, but I think I will wait and dedicate a whole post to our various Ross Lake adventures. Some of my favourite landscapes that I’ve ever taken have come from those trips. So stay tuned for that!

Thanks for reading!
- Kaiti

Sometimes I need little reminders of the amazing things in my life, and the promises that the near future brings. Some of my recent photos serve that purpose for me quite well.

Campbell Valley Park in South Langley, BC. Right across the street from my new workplace.

My beautiful gal Sugar. She always cheers me up.

And for your daily dose of adorable – this is “Leo”, a gorgeous Arabian colt, belonging to the Alves family. He is a half brother to “Lucy” and “Dinah”, the two foals from Chinook Stables that I’ve posted photos of in previous posts. Leo and his dam were visiting Chinook Stables for a couple of weeks while his human family was out of town competing in an Arabian show.

Thanks for reading!

Kaiti

Meet “Daisy”, the black and white goat, and “Mimi”, the brown goat. I don’t think I’ve ever been so thoroughly entertained by an animal in my life (and that’s saying something, because generally speaking I enjoy the company of animals over people). They always had me smiling and laughing at their antics!

When I get my dream farm, I am definitely adding goats to my list of must-have animals!

Thanks for reading,

Kaiti

Here are my favourites from my most recent developed roll. They were all shot with:

Camera: Canon Elan7n

Lens: Canon 50mm f/1.4

This is Isintok Lake in Summerland, BC – we camped there in July.

The kitty is mine, and the dog is Paisley, my farrier’s pup!

My parents at the local Show N’ Shine.

My dream truck <3

My dad’s dream bike.

Thanks for reading!

I had a variety of cameras over the years, mostly automatic toy cameras. When I was about thirteen years old I started to use my mom’s digital camera, which seemed very high-tech at the time, and saved enough money over the years to buy my own digital SLR, the original Canon Rebel, when I was sixteen. That camera was with me through thick and thin, until I finally wore out the shutter and upgraded my gear in 2009.

Anyway, my point is, I hadn’t touched a 35mm camera since I was a preteen – until last year, when my dad gave me his old film camera from the 1970s, the Canon FTb. It instantly fascinated me and I’ve had some pretty pleasing results from shooting with it. Using it is an experience in itself; it feels romantic and timeless.

My first roll from that old Canon SLR got me hooked. Shortly after, I purchased a beautiful new-to-me 35mm SLR, the Canon Elan 7n. I got it lightly used for a steal of a deal (under $100! Another reason to love film photography). I’ve shot a few rolls with it now and every time I pick up my negatives from the lab, I fall deeper and deeper in love with the world of film photography. Each frame has so much more of the photographer themselves poured into it – every one has been carefully composed and deemed worthy of being taken at all. Not many elements of digital photography hold the same the joy as examining 24 frames fresh from the lab, taken with purpose, each one unique and full of beautiful “flaws”.

I just had a roll developed from my Canon Elan 7n, with my 50mm f/1.4 lens – my first time using that lens on my film SLR. I’m so incredibly pleased with the results. Here are my favourites!

Those images were all taken at Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver, BC.

Rolley Lake, Mission BC. One of my favourite evening haunts in the summer. In fact, there was one of me on that day, photographed by Greg!

A truck stop in Chilliwack, BC – on our way to Penticton for the weekend. See our convoy?

We camped in Summerland -

Needless to say, I’m hooked on film photography. I’m not interested in the exclusivity and superiority that I’ve noticed runs rampant in some film circles – but I’m fascinated by the process and I highly recommend shooting film to improve not only your skill, but your appreciation for each shot you take.

I know next to nothing about it all and I have a lot to learn – but the best way to do that is through experience and experimentation! I can’t wait to develop the two rolls I’m working on now, and to experiment with the slide film I’ve purchased and the newest member of my camera family, the Holgawood medium format camera. I’m also eager to shoot horses on film – it’s my true passion and always challenging, even more so without the luxury of instantly viewing the results on the screen!

Stay tuned!

This post is a bit of a random mish-mash of photos from the past few weeks. I thought it might be nice to catch up!

My beautiful friend Sarah, at one of our barbecue parties. I’ve been enjoying a lot of those this summer.

Something else I’ve been thoroughly enjoying – a plethora of local berries in season. I could survive on fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries alone!

I was having a high-anxiety day, so I went on a drive with my boyfriend Greg to one of my favourite places in the Fraser Valley. This beautiful doe didn’t stick around very long for me to photograph her – they are a lot more wild out there in the bush than they are in my area. The wildlife in the Lower Mainland are far too used to us humans! It makes for some very dangerous situations. Recently, only a few blocks from where I board my horse Sugar, conservation officers had to shoot a cougar for killing pet goats at a property directly next to an elementary school and daycare.

I’ve been trying to make time for adventuring and exploring with my friends. Those spontaneous day trips always end up being the best memories when I look back on the year. This is at Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver.

Walking the Seawall around Stanley Park with Greg.

Greg polishing a scratch off of my dad’s motorcycle – and check out how clean Rupert the Ranger is! I’m not known for keeping my truck particularly clean.

Check how big Lucy is! She is a half Paint, half Arabian filly bred by Chinook Stables of Maple Ridge, BC.

This is Lucy’s half sister, Dinah. She’s looking so grown up compared to her newborn photos that I posted HERE back in April! She has the cutest face and is oh so curious.

Lucy and her dam, Callie. Below is Lucy’s half brother Jeffrey, now two years old and called “Phoenix” – he has sold to a wonderful family who love him dearly!

Now onto my favourite subject – my girl Sugar!

I hope my readers are enjoying a wonderful, sunny summer of their own!

Thanks for reading!

Kaiti

I often find myself wishing that we could live our lives with built-in blinders. How would we live them differently if we weren’t affected by the words and actions of others living their lives around us?

There have been countless situations in which I’ve based my choices around what others will think, what others have done, what works and doesn’t work for other people. What is the first thing we do when we have a big decision to make? We consult others. We ask our friends and our peers for their recommendations. We research the experiences that other people have had when faced with similar choices. We base everything around what others have succeeded or failed with.

This rings especially true when it comes to photographers. In this age, it is nearly impossible to stand out as a photographer. There are so many of us; the market is so saturated. The teacher of a photography course I took said that in order to be successful in your photography business, you need to be in the top ten percentile in your region. In a region like the Lower Mainland and Vancouver, that is a daunting task.

It is difficult to escape the tendency to view the work of the successful photographers who are in that top ten percentile and not model your work after them, even subconsciously. It’s only natural to look at their photographs and their way of interacting with their clients and thinking, hey, this is clearly what works – this is what I should be doing, too.

I’m not referring to plagiarizing or outright stealing of ideas, but the subtleties that photographers tend to pick up about other photographers. There are subtle details in shooting style, post-processing techniques, and interactions with clients that the clients themselves might not even notice. Stealing is one thing, but being affected by the style of another photographer – basing our own decisions on equipment, shooting, post-processing and marketing techniques on the success or failure of other photographers – is very difficult to escape.

It isn’t always a bad thing to be affected this way by our role models and our peers. It is entirely possible to gain a new perspective from another photographer that we admire and take it in a whole new direction, with our own twist. The trouble comes when you’re so overexposed to what others are doing with their work that you lose sight of what your work is, what your style is. How can you stand out in this saturated market when you yourself don’t even know what makes you unique?

The bad news is that you can’t search for what makes you unique. You can’t go on an epic journey of self exploration and hope to come back with some key thing or another that suddenly makes you unlike every other photographer around you. There is no such thing as a truly original thought or idea. I believe that. Billions of souls have lived and thought and created and there is nothing we can do that no one has ever considered before. There is only one truly unique thing in this world, and that is the collection of thoughts, ideas, flaws, talents, perspectives, mistakes, and successes that make up one individual person. Everything about ourselves, all those things combined make us a truly unique individual that no one else can duplicate. This is our only hope for standing out.

This is what leads me to the thought that it would be much easier to go through life with blinders on. If our only option was to do only what occurs naturally to us, to our self, most of us would be starkly different people than who we are right now. But of course, it’s impossible to live life that way one hundred percent of the time, and it’s probably a good thing. How other people affect us often makes us better people. However, my new goal when it comes to my art is, for one, to view my work as that – as art – first and foremost. Art is meant to reflect what is inside the artist; it comes entirely from our own being. For that reason alone it is unique.

My other new goal for my art is to turn on my blinders and start creating what comes naturally to me. I won’t be affected by what others like and dislike. I won’t be affected by what sells and what doesn’t. I won’t be affected by the techniques that other people use. I won’t be affected by what other artists consider to be art – or what they consider not to be art. From now on, the only thing that my photos will reflect is me.

She took many beautiful portraits of me that I will post a link to as soon as she has them online. For now, you can check out her website HERE.

(One of the photos she took that day can be seen on my ABOUT page!)

I took some portraits of her too on our adventure, as well as some shots of the interesting locations we scouted out for a future collaboration (stay tuned for that, I’m SO excited!).

Enjoy the photos!

Merissa’s feet after we trekked across the beach to get to the stone ruins we could see from a distance.

The ruins were worth the muddy feet!

Merissa’s coveted 50mm f/1.4, that I shot with for the first time on this day. I fell head over heels in love and promptly bought one of my own a few days later. Oops!

(I sold my Fisheye lens a few weeks ago, and had been debating what to replace it with! This lens fills a gap in my lens family quite nicely).

My own muddy shoes, after I put Merissa’s 50mm f/1.4 on my camera. Oh, the bokeh, the bokeh!

Merissa got to try out The Beast, aka my 70-200mm f/2.8L.

From what I’ve read, these ruins are the remnants of an old brick factory.

Thanks for reading!

- Kaiti

Meet Maelle, photographed here on May 23, 2010.

Don’t her eyes just make your heart skip a beat?

This was my first baby shoot and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Maelle is a very photogenic little girl, and so calm and content.

You can view the whole set HERE.

Thanks for reading!

- Kaiti

THIS news article ran on the barge earlier this month. I regret that I never did get to photograph it while it was still partially sunk, as seen in the photo on that link. When I saw THIS article in the paper later this month, I decided it was time to go see it and photograph it before it was gone altogether!

This memorial bench was on the dikes along this stretch as well.

This little photo adventure was also a grand time to debut my new bicycle. I’ve named it “Spumone”! Greg got a few cute shots of me riding it. He makes for a great assistant photographer

These photos were taken on May 20th, but lately all of my post-processing time has been dedicated to finishing the shoot I did recently for Rhondalee (previously photographed by me while she was pregnant, you can see the shots HERE). Her baby Maelle is a total angel and I can’t wait to show everyone the shots! Here is a sneak peak -

Thanks for reading!
Keep checking back for the rest of the photos from Maelle’s shoot.

- Kaiti