A couple weeks back I was lucky enough to photograph a great event in Burlington for Robbies Rainbow. For those of you that don’t know Robbies Rainbow is a children’s charity that helps kids living with Crohns and Colitis access expensive drug treatments not covered by private or government health plans.

As most of you are aware Crohns is the disease that I was diagnosed with when I was 18. I remember what it was like to be a kid and have constant pain in my stomach as well as my joints and it was not fun in the least. I also remember people teasing me about faking being sick because I didn’t look sick. Well that was until I got really really sick. Thank God for my college room mate. She was the one who went to all the appointments in Ottawa with me. She was the one that explained to my college professors and classmates. She is the one who made sure I got the rest I needed. It wasn’t easy being away from home and going through these things as my parents were worried and non of us really understood what the disease was. We still laugh about the early years when my dad advised me instead of marring for money to just marry for a good health plan. I’m lucky to have found a man who loved me and cared for me and also has a good health plan.

While at the Hope Floats Gala for Robbies Rainbow I got the chance to listen to Taylor speak about living her life with Crohn’s and Colitis. The things that she spoke about bought back so many memories. At one point she bought tears to my eyes when she talked about speaking with her mom. I remember those conversations with my mom and dad. I was so moved by her speech that I asked her to record and send it to me so that I could share it as well. Please make sure to watch the video at the bottom of this post as it’ll give you a better understanding of what Crohns and Colitis patients live with on a daily basis.

No child should have to live with this pain.

To view all the photos from the evening click here

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I always have such a hard time when my family ask me what I want for Mother’s Day every year. To be completely honest there’s not a lot of things that I want. I don’t like clutter so nick knack things don’t appeal to me, the word tells me not to ask for appliances even though I love to cook – cleaning not so much, our new house as flowers and shrubs in the garden and to be honest I’m not completely sure what is all there yet, so see I’m lost…. that is until I seen an email from Pretty Presets today. They had a printable coupon book so I immediately fired the email off to my husband and asked for the kids to make this. For the record I’m ok if they  just use scissors and not the sewing machine

There are approximately 10 coupons in total.

Here is the link to download them

The post Mother’s Day Gift appeared first on CL Buchanan.

Well the weather has seemed to finally turned the corner in Hamilton so that means lots of great light and beautiful things happening in the great outdoors. It also means that I’m offering some Hamilton headshot photos on a great promotion. Grab a friend or colleague and come see me – it’s buy one get one at 1/2 price time.

So many times I hear “they look nothing like their picture” and it’s usually because a person is using an old photo. If you’re using a photo that is over a year old I suggest a new one. Lots of people are using online dating sites now as well a good photo of yourself makes a huge difference in how many people will view your profile. I’ve also said it many times to bloggers if you’re trying to work with brands they are looking for you online and again a good photo makes all the difference – it’s that whole first impressions thing.

 To book your sessions please use the contact me button above and use #HamOnt in the message.

Sessions need to be held before May 31st to qualify for the special price. 

The post Hamilton Headshot Photos appeared first on CL Buchanan.

Don’t Let Your Kids Grow Up To Be Jpegs

Most people who follow my blog or follow me on Twitter know I’m a huge advocate of printing pictures.hell I’m even know because of this phrase alone - Don’t Let Your Kids Grow Up To be Jpeg! Whether it be prints or canvases it doesn’t matter just get photos printed and in albums or up on walls.

I’ve written about this subject a few times now. If you want to read those they are here. I’m by no means saying that you need to go out and buy a ton of scrapbooking stuff to make albums although it’s pretty it’s really not necessary. When I was young one of my favourite things to do was flip through albums because not ono was it memories but before long the whole family was looking at those picture and rehashing the memories – the good, the bad and the ugly. My kids did and still do the same thing and they love it. Now images are sitting on hard drives doing nothing. Most people can’t find what they are looking for most of the time or don’t even bother at all. Lots of family memories have gotten lost because of hard drives crashing. Then they cry because there are no back ups let alone prints or canvases from the special moments. It seriously kills me every time I see a tweet, Facebook update or blog post about this.

PRINT YOUR PICTURES PEOPLE!

To make things a little easier I have created a pinterest board so clients can get an idea of what to do with their digital images from sessions. It seems somewhere along the line most people stopped wanting the prints and only wanted digital images. I’m happy to say that all my sessions now include at least one print because like I said above printing is important. One of the current trends is to make gallery walls with lots of family photos and I’ll admit I love this. It’s great in stairwells, hallways, and family rooms. It honestly works in almost any space.

I use a Canvas Pop for my canvases because supporting local companies is also something that I care a lot about and Canvas Pop is a Canadian Company. Even more than being Canadian I really like their products. As an added buns if you follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook they often post special discount codes. As for prints if it’s under an 11X14 you can usually get it printed anyplace. I use Blacks for my own small prints however anything larger I get printed from a professional printer (you can ask your photographer to recommend someone or have them order prints for you).

I’m curious – who do you display your photos?

The post Prints and Canvases appeared first on CL Buchanan.

I know it’s a little early but your Mom is worth planning for. I know I always scrambled at Mothers Day trying to figure out what my Mom wanted or needed. I usually ended up getting her something that I thought would be great to have. Now that I’m a mom I know she didn’t really want a new blow dryer or that sweater that was on sale because they were trying to clear the last of their winter stock at Tabi. Here’s what I did know about my mom. She loved her family, she loved looking at photos, she liked remembering the special moments in our family. Yes my mom was a sentimental woman who was in love with her family. I only remember getting family photos done twice in my life with my whole family (outside of our weddings). Once when I was 6, it was for the church directory, and once when I was 19 and both times it made my mom incredibly happy to have those images. In fact the last one is still hang in on the wall at the Farm. Even though the rest of us weren’t thrilled with getting family photos we did it because it made Mom happy.

Do something that makes your Mom happy for Mother’s Day. If she’s anything like my Mom she’d love to get some new family photos. For the rest of March and April you can take advantage of my Mom & Me sale.  If you really want to impress (aka be a rock star in your moms eyes) your Mom you can book an appointment to get her hair and makeup done before the shoot.

The post Mothers Day Photos / Family Photography ~ Hamilton, Ontario appeared first on CL Buchanan.

My current disappointment……. Dove Canada!

Dove Canada has created a new photoshop action – Beautify. Well what does this action do you ask. It reverts an image back to its original state. That is it nothing else. Oh I almost forgot it also adds a banner that reads “”Don’t manipulate our perceptions of Real Beauty.”  My issue with this is that that’s not what women want.

Want to know what the majority of women say to me when I’m photographing them? Can you make me skinnier? Can you make my ass smaller? Can you make my boobs bigger/smaller? I look at this woman and see these beautiful gorgeous strong women but that’s not what they see and you know what – what they see and feel that’s what matters the most. So if a little photoshopping helps then so be it.

Yup the tallies are in and the majority of woman want to be photoshopped!

I know I’m ok with being photoshopped. Not many woman want to see straight out of the camera images of themselves. I cringe every time I get a Facebook notification that someone has tagged me in a picture on Facebook. Does this make me vain? I don’t think so. I think it’s more that I don’t want to see a scary ass picture of myself. Therefore, I’m not going to do that to my clients either. A month or so ago I passed along a proof gallery that wasn’t edited – never ever again. Those women were hard on themselves. I won’t be making any other women feel that way again anytime soon.

I do not change things completely. I enhance or subtract with a light hand. The funny part is that things I’ve been accused of photoshopping in the past haven’t been touched. As I continue on my photography journey I am constantly learning tips and trips with posing. Posing women have a lot of benefits. Lots of women say after a session “ok maybe models do work harder than I thought”. Make no mistake there is a lot of stretching and awkward movement involved. Getting good pictures isn’t easy we all need to work a bit.

When we are correcting an image there’s a lot more done than nipping and tucking. We add and subtract light, we colour correct, we change the feel of an image with the temperature – these are all parts of enhancing an image. The term photoshopping does not only mean changing someones appearance.

The thing that I find really ironic is that fact the Dove pushes out this Real Beauty campaign but yet they are owned by the same company that makes Axe body spray. Have you seen the Axe commercials? Maybe Dove cares but it would seem that Unilever certainly doesn’t about their costumers body issues. One of my other huge issues with Dove is that they focus their Real Beauty campaign on girls and woman. Do they not think boys and men have the same issues? I know a lot of guys that suffer just as much from poor body image.

For me beauty is a lot more than what photoshopping can do!

Dove I haven’t used your products personally for a long time but I now won’t have any of your products in my home either.

You Are Beautiful!

I’m curious to know what are your thoughts on this Dove action and what do you think Real Beauty is?

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I’ve been with my same website provider for a lot of years and I’ve always liked the site I was able to create with them. Recently I decided I needed a change. There’s been lots of changes for me lately so really what is one more.

I’ve always used ProPhoto for my blog so I just built on that. I a template that I liked and I started customizing it. I’m sure there will be things to tweak over the next bit but all in all I’m happy with it. Is it as flashy as my old site- no. There’s actually no flash in my site period – I hear it’s better that way anyway.

So naturally I was changing my website I needed to update my blog as well.

You will notice on the home page there are links to all the information that you need to find information about booking a session with moi. Now keep in mind I’m still updating the pages that connect to those links. On my blog there are three galleries that you can view easily right within my blog. All the menu buttons are to the right of the galleries and again everything is there to find out about booking a session or reading blog post. At the bottom on the right you will see a subscribe button – you might want to click on that so you don’t miss any of the great stuff that is coming up. There will be some camera tutorials, give aways and other good stuff. You might as well go click it now, I’ll wait. ………………………..

See easy peasy. Thanks for checkin in and I look forward to seeing you soon. Also because I’ll be going a Headshots and Happy Hour soon I thought I’d include a gallery.

Also leave me a comment and let me know what you liked and didn’t like about my new blog site. Was it easy to get around? Was it easy to read and find what you were looking for? I really want to know!

The post Something New appeared first on CL Buchanan.

Well the new year is here and I’ve been slowly getting all my stuff together to start working again. The move is in the past and now it’s time to focus on the future! So I figured I’d start the year out with LOVE mini sessions. Love mini sessions can include up to two people ($10 for each additional person). It can be you and a bff, you and a partner, or your kids it’s completely up to you.

A great idea for these sessions are to do a couple of poses to use for your child’s school valentine cards. Think something like this…….. 3D Photo Valentines Day Cards or this one . Both links are courtesy of Pinterest, ya gotta love Pinterest. I also have some great companies that I can recommend canvases and large prints from (with your session price you will automatically save 25% on any product you purchases).

To Book your session please head over here and complete the contact form. Your session needs to be paid in full at the time of booking.

The post Love Mini Sessions | Hamilton Family Photography appeared first on CL Buchanan.

So hard to believe another whole year has passed by. For me there was some good and some bad but thankfully the good far out weighed the bad. As you know we recently packed up our house and family and headed west. Well South West to be honest and not as far west as you’re thinking – Hamilton Ontario to be exact. We rushed through the process so that we could ring in the new year in our new home and it was well worth the whirl wind. Two weeks in and the house is mainly unpacked and put away so that means we are starting out exactly where we imagined we’d be.

This year instead of resolutions I’ve decided to follow in a my dear friend Sharon from Speed Skating Mom’s footsteps and instead have decided to pick a word for 2013. This word represents how I want to live for the year. My word for 2013 is Focused.

I want to be present and focused in what I’m doing at that moment. To try to resisted the temptations to move on to something else just because I find something to be difficult or not completely enjoying what I’m working on . The creating stuff is the fun and easy part however that is not what takes up the bulk of my time. I’m thinking by being more focused I can

1. spend more time on the fun stuff.
2. live in the moment and not constantly searching for the next thing
3. provide a better service to my clients <—- very important to me
4. make more time for my family <—— the ones that believe in me and support me the most
5. put my phone down more and just be

Here’s to being FOCUSED in 2013 *clink*

And because being focused is my goal I’ve decided that making woman feel good about themselves is going to be a large focus of 2013. I love doing my Beautiful You Sessions mostly for helping to remind woman who have forgotten that they are so much more than their name. These woman are beautiful and their size, age, and marital status has no bearing on that. Seeing as helping these woman feel as beautiful and gorgeous as others see them is a large part of what I do I have decided to become and Arbonne Consultant. This product is like nothing I have used before. My skin has never felt or looked better. The makeup is light but yet the coverage is incredible. The fact that its certified vegan and gluten-free makes a huge difference. You all know that when I find something that I love I want to share it and Arbonne is definitely something worth sharing. (if you want to know more —> click here

I have so many things that I want to accomplish in 2013 and I know that without being FOCUSED I won’t be able to accomplish any of it.

Tell me did you make any resolutions or if you have a word I’d love to hear that as well.

Just an additional little video about why Makeup Artist love Arbonne Cosmetics.

The post New Beginnings appeared first on CL Buchanan.

Whenever I photograph a wedding I like to photograph it as if it was one of my own family members. The difference this time was that it was a family member getting married. In fact it was my brother! A brother that I of course love but I respect and look up to. For as long as  I can remember he has been the type of man who this world needs more of.

Jeannie is the woman that he married and she is awesome and all kinds of fabulousness all rolled into one. Jeannie and I drink lots of wine together and laugh a lot every time we’re together. Truth be told I’ve thought of her as my sister-in-law for a long time and her daughters Jessie and Erica as far as I’m concerned they’ve been my nieces from day one! These three mean the world to me. Honest I couldn’t be any more happy for my brother. I love watching how happy these three woman make him.

The day started off with heavy rains and wind but by the afternoon the skies opened up and the sun shone down on these two as they exchanged vows. It was if there were some people watching down on them and making sure that everything was perfect.

There were so many small details that screamed James and Jeannie and every detail was incredible. The day was very James and Jeannie. Nothing was included that didn’t have meaning for them which means every detail was thoroughly thought out.

Throughout the day there were tears shed and laughter heard.

James, Jeannie, Erica, and Jessie – I wish you all nothing but happy years ahead filled with a lifetime of memories.

And because every post is better with photos……..

If you would like to see more photos you might want to head of to James and Jeannie’s Wedding website…… Click Here

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