Updated June 16 – 12:24AM
Today was relaxing. Got some images done that I shot alongside Alyssa in B.C. and got to edit some shots that I took yesterday while walking with my buddy Rich downtown. I’ll show you some in a moment.

Before we look at those photos, check this out. A sea-horse evolved within my coffee cup from coffee grains! Obviously, positive and incontestable proof for the evolution theory, I mean, of course, the law of evolution!

On my photo-walk with Rich yesterday I found this awesome orange poppy! I had never seen them in orange before, so this was most certainly a pleasant surprise!

Rich on the Iron Horse Trail, under the railway crossing near Belmont Street, is posing next to this interesting graffiti that we found. There’s always new ones up, shortly before the city erasing them

As for Uptown Waterloo, gotta love how they turned the big parking lot by the bus station into a nice area for people to walk, skateboard and hang out.

I totally love those blue bars. I wonder if they were put there on purpose because they look so good in photographs.

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Just finished editing the David + Mike Portrait Session, that I plunged myself into some more editing work. While in B.C. I had the chance to assist the lovely Alyssa Schroeder Photography in an engagement shoot. Of course I didn’t let the chance pass me by and I shot along. I am glad I get to give Alyssa some images and know that they will be used along with hers!

Here are some spy-views of Alyssa at work!

Check out the David+Mike Photo session images here!

Update: June 12

Today I finished editing the portrait session of Dave+Mike as well as the Family Portraits that I shot for Alyssa’s family. I can’t wait to get around to posting it all!

Andrew, Alyssa’s brother

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Update: June 8
I am back home again and once again submerged in photo work. In the past few days I’ve been editing Dave+Mike Photos from their portrait session, a family session I have shot while in British Columbia, an engagement session that I second-shot while in British Columbia and some images of my darling Alyssa that I shot for fun!

I also managed to find the time to completely upgrade my computer system the other day, which should make all of the editing even more fun and less time consuming!

Without further ado, here are some photographic samples!

This one is my favourite so far! I love the expressions Alyssa can offer. I can not stress enough how great of a model she is as well as a photographer!

Playing with backlighting

Alyssa’s graceful cat, Tiger. She is quite annoyed by photo taking most of the time, but sometimes she allows it.

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Update: June 2nd – evening
With quite somewhat of a sadness in the voice of my thoughts, I sit and ponder about how tomorrow morning I’ll be sitting in an airplane heading back to considerably colder Kitchener, Ontario. I guess the listening to Come back down by Lifehouse with the most lovable and needless-to-say-extremely skilled Alyssa next to me looking through photographs that we took in the past two weeks (a rough amount of 62 Gigabytes in JPEG + RAW on Alyssa’s Canon 40D and my Nikon D200).

It’s been absolutely great. In the past few days, more precisely between Tuesday and Friday of the past week, we rented a car from Enterprise and drove out to IKEA in Surrey, Gas town, Vancouver and Stanley Park in Vancouver where we enjoyed walking together and bonding.

Oooh! Can’t forget the engagement session we shot together of Alyssa’s clients Natasha and Grant (well more like Alyssa allowed me to tag along and shoot as well). They were a lovable couple and they look so cute together.

I feel quite sad leaving now that we’ve had so much fun together and bonded so much. What I can however look forward to is Alyssa comming down to visit me in Kitchener, hopefully in mid-July.

I really have to say that this trip has been a wonderful experience, spending time with a wonderfully skilled photographer lady, who is just as lovely as a friend as she is as a teacher. Thank you very very very very much Alyssa *big hug*!

As for everybody else reading this, STAY TUNED for I shall post some more images really soon, especially of Alyssa and how photogenic she looks while photographing!

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Update: May 23 – afternoon
WOW! Alyssa and I just spend 2 hours walking on the Trans Canada Trail with Revival Arts Studio! http://www.revivalartsstudio.com

Jason and Darcie Brown are not just amazing photographers, but they are also fun to hang out with, talk business, [the art of] photography and just matters of everyday life. Their kids, Xander and Roxy were there as well, and Alyssa and I had the opportunity to take some shots of them all as a family. It was great shooting with Alyssa, especially as the Browns are such a photogenic family!

I really feel like I’ve met celebrities today. I am very hyped! And I can’t wait to look over their portraits and compile a DVD for them with my pictures and Alyssa’s.

Thank you very much Revival Arts Studio for the wonderful afternoon! Hope to meet you guys soon again!

Twitter: @rastudio

Here are a few images that Revival Arts Studio kindly took of us all:

from left to right: Revival arts Studio: Jason Brown, Darcie Brown and then us, Alyssa Schroeder, Stefan Chirila

Engagement style photo of Alyssa and me. Haha gotta love this one!

Feeling like the luckiest guy in the world, what can I say!

(Left) – And a more serious one. Thanks so much Jason!
(Right) – I love walking hand in hand with you Alyssa!

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Update: May 23
Heres some photos I took yesterday of Abbotsford and the surroundings of where I stay here. Enjoy!

Update: May 20 – Photoshoot in the park
Today Alyssa and I went for a walk to a park near her house. An awesome little park with two swings, a slide, and most importantly a lot of trees, gravel, grass and Godly golden light!

If that doesn’t impress you, then you must have never seen Alyssa (from Alyssa Schroeder Photography: http://www.alyssaschroeder.com/) in golden light. Well, I have an update for you…

As of today, beauty has been redefined:

It felt interesting to do a photoshoot with another professional photographer, especially one like her who is just as great behind the camera as well as in front of it. I am really debating at times whether this young lady is following the true calling of her life, photography, or if she should rather pursue modelling! It was truly a pleasure photographing her!

Also being in front of the camera myself was quite an experience. Goodness …I felt awkward at times not knowing how to pose, where to stand, where to look, how to smile. Luckily this wonderful and enchanting photographer lady was there to guide me through setting up the poses that would bring out the
b
est out my unphotogenic self. Of course she claims to disagree on my statement and says I am not unphotogenic, but I choose to be modest about my looks and to claim that my calling is to be behind the camera. I must admit though, that she manages to make me look way less unattractive than I’d be in a picture shot by anyone else!

I can definitely sympathise with my clients now and I know they really mean it when they thank me for guiding them and helping them pose themselves propperly. And I used to think they’re just being nice HAHA!

Thank you Alyssa for the awesomely enlightening experience!!! You are an awesome person, an exquisite photographer and more of a great girlfriend than any demanding boy like me could wish for! *BIG HUG*

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Trip to BC – May 2009
As I write this I am with Alyssa Schroeder, from Alyssa Schroeder Photography (http://www.alyssaschroeder.com/), in the impressively scenic, non-polluted vista-town of Abbotsford, BC. I have the opportunity to spend two wonderful weeks here with her, one of my most favourite photographers as well as my darling girlfried!

Yesterday we visited the dykes of old Sumas Lake, which now is beautiful countryside and took some portraits there! Enjoy!

We shot this one after having had a waffle cone of coffee ice cream from the awesomely creamy Birchwood Dairy farm (googleMAPS)

Right after the ice cream fun, we stopped at this little park in the same area where there is a small (small looking) creek, which is apparently man-made and goes over 30feet down straight! Scary! Pretty cool though that the Trans Canada Trail runs through all of this and I have seen it. This means that if I follow the Iron Horse trail in Kitchener North, through St Jacobs, Elmira and so on …I eventually get to Alyssa’s area (some few months of biking and 3000km later).

Update June 13

–Where the streets have no name by U2

I have just posted the images from the Dave+Mike Photo-session! They turned out outrageously amazing and I would like to thank the both of them for being some of the greatest models I ever worked with!

Thanks Dave and Mike!

So what do you do when you want to make a portrait session “FUN!”? Well, one way to go about it is to follow the general and universally valid recipe for fun, which is as follows:

Which is exactly what we did. We were three friends, three cups of Starbucks, two of which models, one camera and a lot of fun!

The brothers are bonding: in Dave’s words, “Good times, good times”
Dave: “Do you still have coffee in yours?”
Mike: “You bet!”

Dave walking @Uptown Waterloo Market Square by The Shops

The old Seagram Distillery makes a fabulous backdrop. Thank you Waterloo City Hall for not tearing down this lovely old building!

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*tired sigh* WOW! I just got home a few minutes ago from an awesomely amazing portraits session with my friend David and his brother Mike. I’ve known David for about half a year now, through my friend Daniel and today I got to meet his brother Mike as well. Let me tell you, they’re twins and they look totally alike, speak totally alike and …well they don’t act totally alike, although they are both very likable, equally alike haha.

David just finished Conestoga college and is starting his own business in website design, while Mike is volunteering with the Waterloo Regional Police while studying at the University of Guelph. As you will notice in the photos, Dave is the more quiet one, while Mike is the hyper and sporty(er) one, I say sportier because Dave isn’t exactly non-sporty either, they both do more running than I do reading posts online.

The initial idea was for me to shoot a session with David only, his intention being to hand some photographs to his agent and eventually get himself into modeling and perhaps acting. David’s brother being around, we ended up shooting more of a family portraits session than anything else. It was great fun though! At one point Mike and Dave thought it would be funny if they were to jump over each other, taking turns; of course I could not let that opportunity go and quickly went into position, recording the moment for future generations to enjoy.

I believe the highlight of the day might have been when David saw the previews of the photos on my laptop and liked the ones of him and Mike so much that he got the idea of printing some out for his parents, as a random gift. It’s awesome when unexpected joys pop up randomly throughout the day like that.

Oh, and of course, we had Starbucks! A fun afternoon demands Starbucks, of course any fun-loving person in the world can second that …mmm white chocolate mocha. Enough talk, here’s some photographs to enjoy!

Dave

Mike

Mike on the left and David on the right. Yes it took me a while too to get over the amazement of how much they look alike!