Take My Picture

“Take my picture, Mama”

This is heard frequently at our house now, but is a new- and likely fleeting- thing.  It’s a welcome change from the running and hiding whenever they saw me lift my camera to my eye, and I’m going to enjoy it while I can!

If you’re a ’serious’ photographer, you aren’t really supposed to call it a picture.  It is a Photograph, an image or a capture.  Kind of like when I was studying Interior Design, it wasn’t a room.  It was a Space.

Well, whatever.  She doesn’t know from image, and I don’t really care.  I’m just happy she’s a willing subject again!

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Yesterday I took part in a Photoshop training seminar with several other Ottawa photographers, several I’d already met, and some who I knew by name only.  Our instructor was a lovely woman named Roberta, who sure knows her stuff.

It was very informative, lots of new tricks, and a good refresher for the techniques I already had down.  I’m sure it will speed up my workflow- and that alone was worth being downtown by 8:30am on a Sunday!

So thank you to Roberta, and Dominic and Julie for organizing!

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Still lots of time to get your photos in for the Love Spreads Valentine’s Day Contest.  Send in your photo of someone or something you love, to info@lauraleemagill.com  by this Thursday, January 29th.  The winners will be decided by a vote open to the general public, so tell your friends to vote early and vote often!

Win Even More Stuff!!

NEWS!

The fabulous folks at Foundation Studio have generously donated a fantastic prize package to our Valentine’s Day photo contest.  Foundation Studio will be sending one of our lucky winners a gift package filled with chocolates, candles and other romantic Valentine’s Day stuff.

We’ve gotten some great photos entered already, and I’m so happy I don’t have to choose the winners- it would be impossible!  The voters will have their job cut out for them.

So get those entries in!  Even if you can’t come to Ottawa for a custom portrait session, this lovely prize package can come to you!

Deadline for entries is next Thursday, Jan. 29th,  by midnight.  Voting for your favorite will begin January 31st.

www.foundationstudio.ca

Love Spreads- Valentine’s Day Contest!

This year is starting out just right, and I feel like sharing the love in celebration of one of my favorite holidays!

So if you want to win something sweet for February 14th, read on…

Send me a picture of someone or something you love- it could be your partner, your grandmother, your kids, heck it could even be your cat.  Get creative, and try to capture what it is that you love so much.

Email your photos to info@lauraleemagill.com by Midnight on Thursday, January 29th, 2009.  Make sure you include your name, address and phone number in the email!

The TOP 10 will be posted here on the blog and voting will open January 31st until February 13th.  The winner will be announced, with love, on Valentine’s Day, heart heart heart, February 14th, 2009.

PRIZES:

The top 3, as decided by voting, will each receive a gift certificate for a COMPLIMENTARY SESSION.  Awesome, right?  Also, the top 3 will  receive an 8×10 gift print from their session, a total value of $155.00

The FIRST PLACE WINNER gets, drumroll… A complimentary session, an 8×10 gift print and a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR PRINT CREDIT, a value of $255.00!

The important details: winners will be decided on by the voting public.  I will announce the winners here on my blog (bookmark it!) at http://lauraleemagill.wordpress.com

(Prizes must be redeemed by February 14th, 2010.  Sessions include travel within the Ottawa Metro area.)

Happy shooting, send in some love!!

Working on Something

very exciting!

I want to do something to celebrate one of my favorite holidays, Valentine’s Day, and to pay back a little of the awesome response I’ve gotten so far.

Details should be finalized tonight and I’ll let you know all about it!

Lauralee Magill- Ottawa Photographer specializing in contemporary portraiture and fine art.

First, HAPPY 2009 EVERYONE!

I think it’s going to be a fantastic year, one for change around the world, and here at home.  My hope for this year is that everyone, no excuses, gets involved in something- big or small- and remembers that they have an impact on what happens in their world.  Could be as little and un-strenuous (is that a word?) as just signing an online petition or even just taking a few moments to educate yourself about issues we’d rather not have to know about, reading and listening to opposite opinions and coming to decisions for yourself without having them made for you via the media.  Or taking a couple of hours and volunteering somewhere- even if it only happens ONCE!  Imagine if the entire adult population gave an hour of their time, once a year, to a charity organization or any worthy cause.

This is an area that I need to be better in too.  And with my family, including the wee ones, we are going to be better this year. We’ve started making a list of everything we can do as a family, like donating our gently-used clothing and toys, helping with neighborhood cleanups, instead of buying something new- reuse or recycle, and givng a little extra when we can, and giving our time when we can’t give dollars.  Charity does begin at home, but consider that the entire earth is our home, really, and perception changes.

My New Year’s Resolutions, in no particular order of importance:

Get outside more, even if it’s freakin’ freezing!  I have long underwear, I can do it!

Read outside my comfort zone.  For me that means picking up the occasional graphic novel (like  ‘Watchmen’- husband got it for xmas and I picked it up and LOVED it), or casual bestseller paperback.  I still love my literature, but it’s kind of fun to zoom through a novel in a night.  And anything that brings me to Twilight can’t be bad…

Lead by example for my children.  Among other things, this means no Cola, at least when they are watching.

Through caution to the wind and set myself up for rejection.  I can’t tell you the countless opportunities I must have missed being afraid of rejection.  No more.

Drive.  When the snow is gone.  Baby steps.

Paint again.  Looking for Christmas decorations I found my old canvases, oils and brushes.  I miss them.

Kick @ss at Guitar Hero.  I’m not up to actual chords yet, but I’m getting there!  What? Not a worthy endeavor, you say?  Not so if you know the sublime satisfaction of getting through ‘Hey Man, Nice Shot’ without hearing the axe hitting a metal tree!

Give more.  Give more time, more love, more praise, more hugs, more credit, more forgiveness.

Lastly, go for ‘the shot’ without hesitation or apology.

One from our New Year’s Day walk  along the Ottawa River.  It was so cold, but so pretty.  And we got to go home to our New Year’s tradition of yummy chinese food.

My New Camera Love

I’m in love with my new camera.  She was pretty snazzy in her day- nice to look at, priced right, and beloved by many.  The Kodak Folding Brownie, model 3A launched in 1904-1909 and featured a f/4 Bausch & Lomb lens, a ball bearing shutter and a Watson reflecting view finder that flips for portrait or landscape orientation.

Holding this camera feels like I am holding the history of photography in my hands.  I opened it almost reverentially, thinking about the many photographs that must have been taken by this machine, and also thinking how a medium that was only for the few became attainable to the masses with Kodak cameras.  And it is echoed in the way digital has changed photography recently.  There are many who believe that with the advent of digital cameras came the ‘overnight’ photographer- someone who could now pull of a good photo without having to go through the expense and trial and error years of learning with film.  The most obvious scapegoat of this line of thought would be the ‘Mom with a Camera’- or MWAC, a term used to describe a person who after taking copious amounts of baby photos after having kids, suddenly discovers her inner artist and decides to become a child photographer.  There are other factors at work here, such as the need for a mother to be with her child and not forced back to work as she is now our capitalism driven culture.  The opportunity to have flexible hours and a second income is more than a little attractive to today’s parent.  But that’s a whole other novel that someday I might be tempted to write! In any case, established photographers who’ve spent hours and dollars becoming skilled in their craft naturally resent this implosion of fly-by-nights who are insistently chipping away at their market.

But it goes further than that, or at least that’s the way I see it.  Photography is a visual medium, and a form of communication.  Instead of being guarded and resisting others who are drawn to photography, how much more could we gain by being open to new views and ideas?  Can their ever be too many writers, too many books, too many artists?  Our world is constantly changing, evolving, and as new technologies arise, we will be faced with a decision: adapt or become irrelevant.  And by that I in no way mean adapt to digital and give up film; film is very special, but that said it also does not give a photographer any more credibility.  There were good and bad photogs back in the days of just film.  The medium is not always the message.  What I do mean is that we have to embrace the changes that are coming and find ways to make them positive developments (no pun intended) instead of feeling negative, dismissive, and threatened.  Which is why I have no problem answering questions from anyone who is just getting into photography, and I’m not afraid of giving away my ‘trade secrets’!  Those things are just tools that help me to create and compose my message.  My eye, my imagination, my history, my context– these are the soul of my work, and can’t be copied.  And it’s the same for every other person out there.  We all borrow from each other, but no two photographers are the same.

There is room for us all, and those yet to come.

Ta Da

www.lauraleemagill.com

New Website

It took me a little longer than I thought it would (isn’t that always the way?), but I’m finally happy with how it looks and we are ready to launch- probably by tonight if all goes as planned.  I’m running back and forth to appointments all day- this is a quick break for coffee and a little catch-up, so it will be another late night as I put the finishing touches on the new site.

It will be nice to have a place to direct people to, rather than just a blog.  I’d considered going with a BLOGsite, since they seem to be the way everyone is going these days, but I still haven’t managed to keep this blog updated daily, so it wouldn’t work for me.  And, I didn’t want to start up a website until I had the time to devote to my photography, and clients.

So, it’s a bit of a new beginning.  I’m excited about the future, and enjoying the journey along the way!!

Christmas Meme

This is making the rounds, so rather than forward to everyone in an email, which can get annoying, I’m just answering here!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Always wrapping paper- I have a thing for interesting gift wrap and try to get an unusual print every year.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real.
3. When do you put up the tree? I would like to have it up the first week of December, but my husband prefers to wait, so we compromise and do it the 2nd week.
4. When do you take the tree down? Jan. 3 or 4th
5. Do you like eggnog? Not so much.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? So many favorites, it’s hard to choose.  I loved the book sets my Nana would give, and the Easy Bake oven from when I was 4-5 ish, can’t remember exactly but I remember that oven!
7. Hardest person to buy for? My mother, she is hard to pin down.
8. Easiest person to buy for? The kiddos- they start telling me what they like in October.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.  A wooden creche with porcelain figures.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, not that I ever remember to get them out in time though.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? No worst gift really.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It’s a Wonderful Life, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, One Magic Christmas…oh I could go on and on, I love them all.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? October-ish.  I start picking a bit, but will still be out there with the rest of the nuts on Dec. 24th finishing up!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No. Never.  Absolutely Not.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Plum pudding.
16. Lights on the tree? I used to be very adult and had white lights to offset the colour scheme chosen for the tree, ie. green and copper, blue and gold, red and pink bla bla bla.  But I’ve since given in to my inner child and now want BRIGHT MULTI COLOURED LIGHTS, the more the better- and everywhere!
17. Favorite Christmas song? Um, I have two.  The Pogues  “Fairytale of New York”, and for gentler souls, Ave Maria.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home, with family.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? Of course  I have two children.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We always had a star when I was a kid, but my grandparents had an angel, so both are sort of sentimental to me and I can switch back and forth from year to year, and do.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Our family tradition is that everyone opens one gift on Christmas Eve, then the rest are opened Christmas Morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Nothing.  Honestly.  I even kind of look forward to seeing the first tv commercials Nov. 1st!
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Handmade, and handed down.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Roast Turkey, with all the trimmings and my Nana’s/mother’s stuffing.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? To have my family around me and see them happy.  And Guitar Hero.

Tag, you’re it!

Another Sneak Peek

I just love the spark in those eyes- I’m almost sorry to be finished proofing this session.  Talk about photogenic!