When we last left off, I'd just been reunited with the love of my life and I was about to begin my weather forecasting career in Edmonton. Things were awesome.
It was definitely a strange transition for me - I'd been living in a tiny room in a bunch of different houses for 8 years before moving into my seemingly-massive 500 sq ft bachelor apartment here in the city. Working full-time, doing shift work, having my own pad, and most importantly, having my girlfriend in the same city all seemed so surreal.
Heather and I had been dating for 4-ish years by the time I moved to Alberta, and at least 3 of those years were spent long-distance. I can't tell you how liberating it was not having to communicate mostly via Skype, FaceTime, text message, or telephone.
That summer, we had a few visits from our parents, plus a few trips to explore Alberta. I finally got to see the Rocky Mountains for the first time when Heather and I took a quick weekend trip to Banff and Calgary, followed by Jasper a month later with her parents. Drumheller in August was a hot few days, but the Royal Tyrell Museum was excellent, and I'm looking forward to doing some more exploring of southern Alberta in the coming years!
Since life was finally "figured out" at this point, it was time to take the next steps in my relationship, and I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this incredible woman whom I'd chased across the country for the last 4 years. On August 16th, 2014 Heather and I took a day trip to Jasper and while standing atop the Athabasca Glacier, I asked her to marry me. She said yes, although in my typical clumsy ways, I opened the ring box upside down and nearly lost the ring in the ice... I'm a keeper.
Fall 2014
My best friend Phil and his lovely wife Greer had their first child in October, and I was lucky enough that they asked me to create maternity and newborn photos for them. My brother-in-law and his wife were also pregnant with their first child in the fall of 2014, so when Heather and I flew back to Ontario to start planning our wedding, I was able to shoot their maternity photos as well! It was an awesome way to dip my toe in the water after having done so many weddings.
Work continued to be awesome, and wedding planning was taking up a ton of our free time. May 2nd, 2015 was our wedding date, and in our search for a wedding photographer, we were so grateful that Calla Evans and Stacey Kinkaid were available to shoot our wedding! Calla had taken me under her wing and became my mentor and super-awesome friend in Toronto, and along the way had introduced me to Stacey... we had assembled a wedding photography dream team for our big day!
Our wedding was simply amazing and I know I'm biased a bit here, but it was the best one I've ever been to! We got married in Barrie, Ontario and had our reception at The Gibson Centre for Community, Arts, and Culture in Alliston. It was a magical day, and a few days later we were off to our honeymoon in Cayo Coco, Cuba!
Fall 2015
Fast-forward a bit to a few months being married and life is really, really great. The learning about each other hasn't stopped, but the bliss continues to be there. I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do, with who I want to be with. Except there's one piece of my life missing - photography.
I decided a few months ago that I needed to dive back in to the world of professional photography. My shutter finger was getting itchy, and although my meteorology job does allow for a bit of artistic license sometimes (hold your jokes please :P), I needed my normal creative outlet. I've been doing some website development at work, so I put those skills I learned to good use and rebuilt this website from scratch.
Now that the website is done, I'm turning my focus to getting clients, connecting with other photographers in Edmonton, and doing creative work again. It's not going to be easy and it's not going to be overnight, but I'm looking forward to the challenges ahead and the memories I'm going to capture for my clients.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you in the future for your photography needs.
