Hair Stories

My boyfriend is a hairdresser, actually a really good one. In fact that is how we originally met, he was my hairdresser for about 3 years before we got together… altogether interesting story but…

Anyway he works for one of Montreals leading hair salons, Local B (1221 Bernard Street Outremont). Lovely salon headed up by owner Veronique Beaupre. She is an incredible visionary and creative and I have an enormous amount of respect for her as a business woman and a leader in her field.

Local B will be celebrating 10 years very soon and Veronique asked me to come in and shoot some documentary images of the day to day events to capture the atmosphere of the salon so here are my images of the staff in action. There is an incredible amount of talent working at Local B, they strive to stay ahead of trends and be the leaders providing the best in hair care. I would highly recommend them.

And if you would be interested to know who is cutting my hair, its the cute dude with the glasses, little bit shy, hugely passionate about cutting hair… Nicola Torriero, you will not be disappointed. <3

Inspiration is everywhere

I am extremely lucky to own a great loft that also serves as my studio. One of my dreams in recent years was to have a live work space that would be inspiring to work in and cool to live in. In 2015 'BINGO' the universe answered me and I sold my house and bought a lovely industrial loft space. I am fortunate enough to have invested in property since I was very young and this has helped me work towards having the space that I now have.

But although I love my space and its amazing to be able to have lovely light and 17 foot ceilings, the reality is for a lot of photographers that owning a studio is not always a possibility, moreover many photographers work from home. My loft is also my home, its big and flexible as a space.

But having a studio in my humble opinion does not a better photographer make.. I think that creativity and inspiration can be found in any space. I say this but I too longed to have a lovely studio which indeed I now have, but has it made me a better photographer? The answer is no. It does give me an immense amount of flexibility and it is nice to be able to have clients come on set to work with me or brainstorm ideas, but when I lived in my house previously I could have done all of that too. I had a lovely three story period home in a cool Montreal neighbourhood, I had the basement completely dug out as additional space to use as a studio, but my favourite part of the house to photograph food was... in the garden or inside the full glass back door where the light was divine all day long.

There is a point to all this... do I regret buying my studio, absolutely not. Its definitely a cool space to live and own, I wanted that NYC loft living feel and I definitely have that but probably at least 3 times bigger than most in NYC. But the reality of it is, I get creative and inspired wherever I am. Last year in Italy I managed to photograph drinks on an old floor with glasses I found in a cabinet. I found the holy grail of old farm tables in an old shed and photographed on that. Now recently returned from England I bought some metal dishes at a carboot sale for less than $5 for the lot, used some old pieces of wood from a garage I helped a very dear friend clear up. And along the way I found she had some lovely old cutlery, and a selection of items she actually wanted to throw out. So now I have a little shelf in her shed with some old props that I will use when I visit, there is always nature that provides something interesting to shoot and with a few hours to myself on a lovely warm and sunny British bank holiday weekend I created a selection of images that will fill me with nostalgia for years to come. 

You don't need an expensive studio, fancy equipment, lots of props and hours of planning to create something, creativity is just looking and interpreting what you see in whichever style or discipline that you follow.

In honour of my little Moo

Someone once told me that as a photographer I shouldn't post photos of my cats as part of my social media, that it wasn't seen as professional and that some clients just don't like pets.

I do understand not everyone is a pet person and I fully respect that, the obligations of owning a pet are significant because they rely on us so much. For most of my adult life I didn't have any pets, even though I have always loved cats, there was a black kitten in my garden as a child that I convinced my parents to let me keep. In the end although my dad was not overly keen the cat liked him the most, to the point where little Sacha would sit in my dad's shed with him while he drilled and milled away on furniture pieces.

In 2008 I got my first kitten, a rescue of sorts, he was a kitten born in a barn on a farm and the farmer just wanted to get rid of some of the over population of cats. So hence why my kitten was called Barney. Then about 4 years later I took another little rescue cat called Nelly and that was it, I was good with two. 

But after I moved into my newly renovated house a black street cat started to frequent my garden, it was obvious he had been out in the rough for some time, his battle scars and the signs of winter wear on him. Naturally scared but he came and looked through my glass door. So I began to feed him and try to give him treatments to aid his ear mites and various other apparent ailments. 

A year of building trust and one very cold January day there he was again at the back door. The Christmas of 2014 had been a very mild one and January 2015 hit hard with the snow and the cold. I couldn't bring myself to leave the little manky cat outside, so I opened the door and he walked in, that was when Manky Moo joined my family.

He had obviously belonged to someone at some point as he used the litter box from day one and he was very good with my other two, I had him neutered and vaccinated, it was touch and go at first because he wasn't in the best of health but he bounced back. He was diagnosed with FIV and he had bad teeth issues but I kept him anyway because I loved him.

Two years ago he moved with us to my new industrial loft. Overall he had 3 wonderful years and he had such a little character. Now with all my cats, they fall victim to the camera. I take shots almost every day, of something that catches my eye, my cats, light and I love to capture my cats in their moments of peace or chaos. The photos here are the last photos I took of Manky Moo before he passed away at the weekend. FIV and non responsive anemia got the better of him and he became ill very rapidly in the last month. There was nothing the vet could do so I took some days to spend with him, photograph him, love him overall and then we compassionately let him be put to sleep at home.

Photography is my passion, my way of capturing light, life, beauty and time with my camera and that includes images of my pets, and I do not believe it takes away from my integrity as a creative to show how I capture moments of my life that are important. 
Rest in Peace my little Moo, I have lovely captures to remember you fondly <3

Fall in love with Autumn

So actually I shot these images at the beginning of September, it was a pretty hectic summer for me and I didn't really get to go out and make the most of our warmer months of the year because of work obligations. Just want to add, I am incredibly lucky to love my work so I say this more in the realm of not having had the time to just hang out, me and my Nikon and just chill with shots but that it was a summer filled with great projects.

Anyway I decided to escape Montreal for a bit as I had an opportunity to skip over to the land of Wine, Olive Oil, Pizza and Pasta, oh yes ITALIA you won my heart fair and square. But meanwhile back in Montreal while I was enjoying my Aperol Spritz and much good food, it was a heatwave back home so technically Summer got a second shot while I was out of town. 

I am not the most keen on flying so I did actually sneak out on the morning I was jetting off and took a few snaps to get me into the autumn mood, but its only now in recent days as the nights are drawing in and its got a little cooler that I suddenly remembered that I shot them. So I figured why not post them now. A little urban nature with the earthy tones that really are the beauty of that makes me fall in love with Autumn.

Super-Market

I love markets, being a London girl I used to hang about with my camera in many of my home towns exciting bustling markets so basically nothing changed when I moved to Canada, wherever I am I always try to seek out the hustle and bustle of a vibrant market.

Since setting up my studio in Montreal I have had locations close to three popular markets, for the first 10 years I was a hop, skip and a jump away from the Atwater Market, located on the Lachine Canal in the south west of the city, still one of my fave spots and many years of happy memories running on the canal in the mornings.

But in 2015 I relocated to a super new location which is about a 7 min drive from Montreals Jean Talon Market which is nicely situated in the Little Italy area. Today in amongst my heavy workload I sneaked down there for a little meander amongst the fruit and veggies as an Italian lady I know dutifully inspected the tomatoes she bought ready for the sauce making season.

Theses are a few of my colourful snaps, nothing spectacular but inspiring, for me, nonetheless. 

<3

Design agencies weak approach to photographing their work

Now here is a controversial subject... Design Agencies and the mediocre images they use on their websites to show 'Their Work'. Well that is my opinion anyway. I would imagine as a photographer you may wonder if I am qualified to have that opinion, however I know design agencies very well. 

Back in the UK where I am from I worked for only major named design agencies from 1994 until 2005, I didn't photograph for them, I was a senior production artist and retoucher. Although I studied photography at university, prior to that I went to college for graphic design. Even today good design is something that inspires me, especially packaging, which was my speciality way back then. My dream as a young 20 something was to work for the big named agencies in London and indeed my dream came true I was very fortunate to have worked for companies where I learned a lot. I always say to everyone when I discuss my working life experiences that I loved everyday of my working life in London, I worked hard, I never got out of bed not wanting to go to work and I have many many fond memories of all the years and people I worked with.

I actually believe that the immense experience that I gained working for those amazing agencies in London have a large impact on how I work now as a photographer. I often say that I look at photography in a more graphic way, how lines and shapes intersect.

Anyway enough of that... so since moving to Montreal I have unashamedly been very critical of the so called graphic design and photography industry in this town. That is largely because I realised I was extremely lucky to have worked alongside some incredibly talented designers and within award winning agencies in London. I have had no shame in saying how the graphic design industry in my hometown is one of the best, and indeed I feel it is but, there is a but...

The design quality, creativity and innovation in London in my opinion to this day remains excellent but the BUT is... why are so many of these super amazing agencies using such awful and mediocre photographs on THEIR websites as part of their portfolio?... Honestly I was shocked after recently looking at many sites of the great agencies I used to work for. Suddenly all my talk of how amazing these agencies are to people on this side of the pond sounds like a crock!

I am not going to name names of agencies, I would love to if I thought it would kick them into actually making an effort to hire a pro to take their portfolio images, like they did back in the 90's when I worked for them...... ahhh but wait, yes its the DIGITAL AGE and now every designer is also a photographer n'est pas? WRONG.

Please gorgeous, talented, amazingly creative agencies in London, stop with your dreadful in house taken photos that actually look like in house shots on a piece of foam board photos, and worst still stop using photos of your products in the store that someone from the office went to take and has a horrible urine yellow cast. Seriously what is up with this trend? 

Yes good photography costs money but can you afford for a potential client to visit your website and see these mediocre images and for that client to then think.... Hmmmm nope I think I will head on over to someone else who's work looks better! (Probably an Australian agency as they seem to be on the right track).

Sadly I do think there is an element of arrogance that makes some London agencies not realise how important it is to have great shots of their packaging/identity, on their websites or more worryingly, perhaps they don't realise how bad their images are, until now that is. HA.

I loved my London working days and all the people I worked with, I understand that times have changed and perhaps I don't know the industry as it is now, maybe budgets don't allow for good photography, but then how can they maintain their reputation of high standards if they themselves are not prepared to invest in showcasing to their target markets, their work in the best possible way.

NAMASTE

Going into the crowd

In 2016 I had a super inspiring discussion with the owner of Berendo, a small boutique coffee company that is full of passion and ambition. Berendo has been established for 9 years with their online boutique of fresh roasted coffee beans but a few years ago the business owners decided to embark on an adventure to create the 'Mercedez Benz' of coffee on tap.

But its didn't end there, they then also decided to develop the only draught tea on tap too and lucky old me has been able to sample these delicious developments since January of this year. 

So in January 2017 we had our first meeting to discuss photography. How much do I like these guys? Enough to make my way to their offices in a snowstorm, with a broken foot in a special boot to photograph their OTC unit.

Berendo are a super team, really splendid to work with, and last night they were out and so was I as they showcased their unique and delicious draught coffee and tea to the food loving crowd  alongside CREMY's food truck at Montreal's biggest food Truck event at the Olympic Stadium, I don't even need to add this but of course the drinks were an astounding success, everyone who tried enjoyed... 

Berendo.ca

Who's googling you?

Yes, that is right, are you thinking about who is looking you up online?
Because this is the digital age and that is what almost all of us do when we looking for someone or something. And lets be honest, we are all pretty judgemental when it comes to what we see in the first few minutes when we are on the search. 

People lead busy lives and now that we a click away from finding what we need, we need to see what will deliver in our search criteria pretty quickly or we are onto the next link in line...

This is where my opinion on corporate portraiture comes in, but before I get into it, I want to point out that this is not a pitch for me as a photographer to lure you into my studio, I am talking generally speaking... because there are still too many people out there with an online profile photo that is a selfie, or worse even a selfie from snap chat and then enhanced with apps that make skin look plastic.

Don't misunderstand I think these apps are fun and definitely bring value to phone photos and the like and unless your business can benefit from those sorts of images, other than that its not ideal for your corporate photo on you business website or linkedIn, neither is having a holiday snap with your other half cropped out, or ex, photo of your cat, shoes or even random shot someone else took in the office that you converted to black and white.

I still see so many people on LinkedIn who are looking for work or employers looking to hire people in their business who themselves have not taken the time to present themselves professionally. Moreover often employers or HR people with these bad headshot may also end up judging a prospective candidate because the person applying has a bad profile photo!

The reality is, there are so many photographers out there offering a pro-head shot, it does not have to be a shot on white in a studio with big lights, it can be a well taken environmental portrait in your work space that reflects who you are and what you do. In fact I very rarely shoot headshots in my studio with lights these days unless its a requirement the client has for a particular purpose.

And while we are at it, I think its time to end the crossed arms in front of the chest, it is mostly an unflattering pose for the regular person. There is a realtor in Montreal who once upon a time had all her staff photographed standing at a slight angle all of them with their arms crossed, absolutely dreadful, most of the images made the candidates look aggressive and unapproachable which is definitely not what a realtor wants to convey to the aspiring buying clientele out there. So lets end the crossed arm trend.

But what about the expense I hear you say? Well yes there are cheap photographers and expensive ones, however you must not underestimate the power of the image you are conveying your target market whether you are looking for work or an employer looking to hire. 
Personally I have seen people starting off on the career ladder with better headshots than managers and CEO's of companies. The cost is something you should think of as an investment. Corporate headshots don't take long and with a good photographer you should have your image delivered in less than a week and ready to go.

So go and get your hair done and hop down to your local photographer and make an amazing impression on the digital world with your new profile photo... you'll thank me for the advice :D

Lawyer Nadine Touma, taken for National Magazine, Yulian Pugachvsky YUL Yummy, DJ Alex Pycke.

24/7 Creative

For me having the luxury of a moment to myself is to be creative, yes I am creative as a profession and I consider myself to be very lucky to express myself creatively in a spectrum of fields through my years of experience, however I started to work as a professional in a creative field because I love being a creative overall. 

It is incredibly rare for me not to be doing something on a creative level most days, ok so tax season is probably an exception but most of the time...

So my quite and relaxing moments are... photographing things, be it my moggies or flowers, my props and irrespective of what it is I try to do something with what I have.

If you follow my instagram, lately its mostly been flowers, I often buy flowers and photograph them to send to the people I care about back in the UK. I can't really send the flowers so this way I am able to capture them and give them an element of eternity, immortalising nature in some way. I think its also a way for me to continue to compose, composition is so incredibly important, not only in photography but graphics and interior design, the three fields that encompass my life as a creative.

A little touch of spring 2017

Good grief it was a busy year, here I am back again hoping to write more and more frequently, I actually enjoy it, problem is, my best ideas are just before I got to sleep, when I am in the car or shower and time has been very tight for a while.

Ok enough with the excuses, its about making time, its something I preach and to be completely honest I broke my foot in January and was home more than ever for 10 weeks so technically I should have got with the program and written then.. but hey, better late than never huh.

Been in the midst of renovations and travels, a lot of corporate work but all lovely projects, but on the way home from a shoot last week, when I decided not to drive but to take public transit, I took some snaps of spring.

Springtime is like the rebirth of a new year, its almost telling you its ok to start over, or restart something from where it left off. Whichever way you decide to think of it, when the buds start to pop out from their winter hibernation its always a feeling of beginning something.

We have to wait until late April here in Montreal, back in my native England we are lucky enough to have buds and leaves, blossoms and blooms in March and that is definitely something I miss.

Nevertheless, it still inspires me and fills me with new ideas, knowing that the wait of warmer weather is over and that the longer days and tropical nights will be upon us very soon.

 

MARKETING YOU AND YOUR PRODUCT

Before the holidays I had the pleasure of photographing some beautiful graphic design pieces for a designer that I met here in Montreal. Scott Roberts of Studio Helm is originally from Sydney, Australia but he worked in London for several years before relocating to Montreal in 2013.

Simple clean lines, muted tones and delicate light. I shot these images with both studio and natural light. I am not sure if there are other photographers out there shooting products in natural light but I feel that it does work. Why not shoot a creative project by a client in an equally creative way. I believe gone are the days of presenting an item in a flat uninspiring way, its time to add depth and emotion to product photography. Make the images of whatever you shoot jump out and make the viewer understand the quality of what they are looking at.

As a photographer I consider myself a creative. I feel its important when discussing with a potential client not just the images that they require but also what they want their audience to perceive of their product, because after all we are a digital nation, more often than not, the first impressions we give our potential clients is our online presence. So its vitally important that those potential connections will view what we do and what we offer in the best possible way.

www.studiohelm.com.au

Its Gin O'Clock somewhere

Since January I have been collaborating with Nigel Allies of theloveofgin.co.uk. Nigel is a long time friend and ex-colleague of mine during my packaging design days in London. We go way back, 20 years or more in fact.

Well us Brits do appreciate a good G&T (gin and tonic) and Nigel decided to blog about it and asked me to come on board to contribute cocktail recipes and images. One couldn't refuse such a tempting offer. And we are off to a great start, the buzz is out there, he is receiving a lot of credibility and the following is gaining momentum at quite the speed.

Being that I love photographing food and still life, its not even an effort to have to conceptualise and make images and whats more to work with a friend once again is the greatest gift. So check out his blog and twitter pages to be in the know for Gin and mixers... there are so many in the UK and hopefully they will make it over the pond at some point too. But in the meantime we are soon hoping to be able to review and photograph some great examples of gin from Canada and America. Chin chin....

www.theloveofgin.co.uk  | twitter.com/theloveofgin

A DIFFERENT SPIN

For many years in London I shot for a lot of clubs and music events. I am a big music person, I still have all my vinyl and now listen and download a lot of music. I will choose music over tv every time. Music is a vital component during my retouching evenings. As all creatives, occasionally its hard to get going when its late and there are many images to be retouched but I turn on my music and BOOM I am ready to work all night long.

I have always been a big electronic music listener so when Nicola Torriero asked me to shoot images for his website to launch his radio show it was a great opportunity to do something different. From doing the photography, led me into getting involved in the show as head of creative. Its a great sideline to my work. Rhythm.isRhythm is the best underground electronic music show on an FM station in Montreal but the show can be heard globally through the shows website and all the sets from the show are archived on Soundcloud. Here are some images of Nicola Torriero, long standing Montreal DJ who was the mastermind that brought the BAL en BLANC to Montreal, amazing DJ and now radio host to a show that hosts the best DJ's from this city alongside some of the best established and emerging international talents.

Follow our show on:
SOUNDCLOUD    |   RHYTHM.ISRHYTHM   |   FACEBOOK

If you want to follow my playlists and see what I am listening to while I shoot and retouch here is a link to my SOUNDCLOUD.

Photography and the photographer

Ever since 'the invention' of blogging, I always had a fanciful idea of being 'a blogger'. But the idea was much more appealing than the actual task. But here I am in  the early part of 2016, reviewing what were my creative and business achievements in 2015 and where I want to go during this year. So....

I am not sure if anyone is going to be reading this, but I decided to write about my journey, successes and weaknesses of being a creative and how it affects me and my life. Who knows perhaps I am about to stumble upon a revelation in blogging, to be able to voice and share my creative brain. I have been doing photography for many, many years. When I talk about how I feel about photographing I definitely talk with a lot of passion. I also tell those close to me that photography is also sometimes like my achilles heel, much like milk chocolate is too!

I look at everything, every day, all the time in terms of composition. When I am on the phone with someone and I look around or through the window, or if I am in a location, as I talk I am continually composing things I see. Sometimes I have to move around to compose better even though I am talking about something else, I am focusing on the conversation but my brain is in creative composition mode. Yesterday I went for breakfast with friends to a new place and all I could see was all the possible images around me, the feeling of inspiration was so immense and I love it, its the best feeling, to be inspired. Remember the e-card that said a creative persons brain is like a web browser with 2879 pages open at the same time, well I would say that is exactly how it is. My personal creative frustration everyday is one of having so many ideas and not enough time to execute them all because I have menial tasks that must take precedence like tax returns and just other general shit that quite frankly according to my creative brain, just stifles my time and prevents me from just losing myself in my work.

In 2013 I took on the task of food photography and for a whole slew of reasons I had a year where I just let everything else go and all I focused on was food prep, food props, food styling and then shooting, all to build a body of food work. One year later and 40,000 clicks and I was pretty proud of what I had achieved. When I shoot I put every grain of passion that I have into it. I feel it as a full body experience, I absolutely know when I have nailed a shot that I want. You don't need all the best and fanciest equipment you just need a vision and the absolute determination to produce what your vision is. Occasionally when I work on personal projects and the result works so well I almost feel tearful. Trust me here, I am not a pretentious artist getting all emotional, I think its just that somehow I cannot believe that what I created worked out so well. Am I alone in feeling this way? Because the opposite is also true, I can feel extremely deflated when something does not work, however one thing about me, I will just try again because invariably I have to know why that shoot did not work. If I did not possess this sort of determination I wouldn't have a single food image on this site because at the beginning, my first food images sucked big time. Seriously, I thought after all the years of event and portrait photography, surely food would be a walk in the park. Well for me it was a rude awakening. But I persevered nevertheless.

But sometimes things can work out strange in a creative world. In 1997 I had an exhibition in central London of my music industry work. I had to hang 40 images. I only had 38 that I believed in as a collection. At the beginning of my career back in England I will always remember a statement from my first boss who said, 'always make sure your worst is your best because people will always remember your worst'. But I needed two more images and so reluctantly I chose two images that 'I felt' were not up to par. Opening night of my show and I am sweating thinking who is going to notice those weaker images and remember them? A journalist comes to speak to me and points at one of those 'weak' images and I am about to launch into some bullshit about why I included it in the show when he expresses how magnificent it is. I swear I almost peed my pants. HA!. Moral of this story, that image to date is one I have sold the most copies of. As the creative I am I have come to realize sometimes what I see is not what others see. Who knows how many other great images I might have stashed away that I personally don't think are good enough. One day, when I have no menial tasks and a fancy scanner drops out of the sky and lands on my desk, I might get around to scanning a bunch of negatives and discover something quite good.

So this is where I come to the part where I hope my blogging life may begin in this magnificent 2016 year. As a photographer, I strive to grow, change, evolve and diversify with my captures hoping they all contain my unique signature style. I aim to do my best and then do better but overall if there is one thing I can say to any creative out there that I have learned, is that as you grow, the one key ingredient that will always help achieve success is consistency. Lets hope I can be consistent with this blogging lark. Its a challenge I entertained the idea of, let see where it goes. JW.

Its all in the mustard....

I had the great pleasure of working with Quebec based olive oil importers Olive & Olives for their in store march campaign for their new own label mustard range. Five incredibly delicious mustards and a great client with a creative vision for how she wanted to showcase her brand and her product. Not only was our shoot for images to promote the mustards online, there was also an element of bringing texture to show the product in a food styled with an editorial feel. Here are a selection of images from the campaign. 

taking honey from the honey bees...

Last week I was back at Santropol for the first extraction of the honey from the hives. It was a fascinating as well as finger licking event. Everything was sticky but who cares when its all for a good cause.

The team of volunteers at Santropol are so much fun, everybody has a smile and a beer and together they make it seem like a social event. Not only was I lucky to be there but also super pleased to receive a straight from the hive, jar of honey as a birthday gift.

I am really pleased to have been able to volunteer my photography this summer for a really worthwhile local Montreal organization. Please check out their site to see what they do for so many people that need help. http://santropolroulant.org/

sweet like honey

Honey on toast, or in your tea, but have you ever been that close up and personal with where this delicious sweetness comes from? This weekend I had a great opportunity to photograph the first opening after winter, of the bee hives at Santropol Roulant in Montreal.

Its the very first time I was ever that close to what must have been literally thousands of bees and the sound was incredible. Have you ever seen the 70's horror movie, 'Killer Bees'? Well that is what they actually do sound like that but without it being scary (and without cheesy music to boot). The bees were flying all over the place however it seemed completely non-intimidating. I didn't wear a special suit , I was not covered in them and I didn't get stung, the bees just politely got on with hanging around the hives.

It was also incredible to see the experienced bee keepers making notes of the changes within the hive over the winter.

On my part I actually thought it would be difficult to capture any images but it was remarkably easy and I am super pleased to be able to have a new collection of images of what are some very important insects on this planet.

I am off to make toast with honey for breakfast...

Santropol Roulant

This summer I am going to be shooting for Santropol Roulant, following their garden and some activities, it will be a great chance to capture some candid lifestyle images.

Friday 25th April was the garden preparation, the sun was out and there was a good turn out of volunteers and many smiles, here are my images from the afternoon.

Click the image to go through the gallery.

Happy Easter to those celebrating

Easter, one of the most important dates on the Christian calendar. How many people still celebrate? I have catholic mother and a muslim father. I feel lucky to come from such a diverse and controversial mix, there was no religion in my family really. Well as I was born and brought up in European countries we celebrated Christmas but that for us as kids was largely for the food and the gifts, however my mum has told me some great stories of when she was a girl in Holland and going to the church on significant holy days.

I respect anyone's choice of faith, I have had a Jewish boyfriend and his family welcomed me and treated me as a member of their family for 11 years. I believe any national holiday is a time to reflect on the special people in your life regardless of their faith. 

And for those who are not celebrating in the religious form, its a time to gorge yourself on delicious foods, just because.

Happy easter, pass me the chocolate eggs and hot cross buns please...

Happy St Paddy's day

It was a chilly Sunday yesterday here in Montreal, but the sun was out, the sky was blue so I wrapped up and went downtown to capture a few images of the yearly St Patrick day parade. 

Lots of smiles and fun on St Catherine, a time when many people feel Irish for a day. I baked a traditional Irish Soda Bread and found an image of lucky clover that I shot last year.

Perhaps St Patrick could see his way clear to have a little tipple with mother nature and ask her nicely once she is a little tipsy if she wouldn't mind getting spring rolling here in Canada. There is still a meter of snow in my garden and I am chomping at the bit to see the grass and getting out in the garden for my food shots.