Stephen Kiers Photography

Emma and Sabino

2010-01-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

The story of Emma and Sabino has really bothered me since I first heard in a couple weeks back. The 'gist' is

Emma married a Mexican gentleman named Sabino about a year ago
Emma got pregnant
Sabino left the country when his visa expired
Sabino applied to come back
Emma is now almost due (Feb 5, I think)
Sabino's visitor visa to be here for the birth is beign repeatedly denied by the Canadian Government
Emma and Sabino eventually want to return to Mexico to live, not stay in Canada.

I have gotten involved petitioning the government to allow Sabino to come back. I believe he should be present for the birth of his baby.

I encourage you to get more info on Facebook, sign the Online Petition or write a letter to the people with power.
And don't forget to pray!

Toronto is Huge - weddingchannel

2010-01-11T18:03:00.001-07:00

Was looking at various wedding directory websites, and this one made me laugh. I am sure they don't mean it the way the present it, but it is visually pretty stereotypical of an American view of Canada!

Waste of Time

2009-10-07T10:25:00.000-06:00

Sadly I know many of these videos...

Super Creative Video

2009-10-02T08:19:00.001-06:00

Another great idea I wish I'd come up with and executed.

Dance Your Way through Life

2009-08-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

Another Wedding I would LOVE to be at, let alone get a chance to shoot. This is awesome!

Waffly Wedded

2009-08-20T07:55:00.001-06:00

This would have been awesome to be a part of.

Robin and Kent's Wedding

2009-06-21T01:20:00.006-06:00

Wow, this was a fun wedding. Robin was beautiful, and Kent looked sharp; what more could I ask for! And who would have known that Snow Valley would be such a great wedding venue, it was beautiful. And the food... great. I think it was one of the best venues I have been at. Surprising, I know!

If only they had rice :( <-Bride will understand

Here are a couple shots from the day!

(note these are pretty much straight out of camera pics)

And a couple from Morgan's Camera!

Wedding Coffee Table Books

2009-03-24T23:24:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to leave an update for everyone that the book development is going great. I have learned alot about the setup and printing processes this year, and am excited that I am doing the books alot quicker lately.
Currently it takes approx 10 days for me to complete one book from start to finish. So if you haven't gotten your proofs yet, I will have them out soon.

There are only 3 more to go! Yay.

New Wedding Website

2008-11-07T05:59:00.004-07:00

So after a number of comments from females in my life that the new site does not reflect weddings enough, I have reverted to having a separate (in design at least) website for my wedding photography.

It actually only took me 5 hours to get this website from thought to live site. I decided at 12:50 AM to get a new look for weddings, and it is 6:04 now as I make this post. So please check out the new look at stephenkiersweddings.com

I hope that brides find this new site easier to use.

Please let me know what you think.

New Website Woes

2008-11-05T13:39:00.002-07:00

So in the excitement and haste of getting my new website up and running I made a few beginner mistakes.

First of al, I forgot to change my advertising to stephenkiersweddings.com so many of the people clicking on my links went nowhere.

Then I added a passcode to my contact form to keep out robots crawling my site for spam. Problem is I didn't debug it perfect, and many of my would be customers got error pages.

My point? Sorry everyone who was messd up by the new site, I hope that things go smoothly from here on out.

Also, I am curious what people think of the new site, so please put your 2-cents worth in here!

Photoshop CS4 Lack of 64-bit Support

2008-09-23T23:50:00.003-06:00

So I don't know how many of you out there were up this morning to watch Adobe's online release of CS4, but it was an exciting moment. The smart resizing, enhancement of blending modes and non-destructive edits is awesome.
My one gripe however is the lack of 64-bit support for mac. Now I know this won't affect most users, but I personally am sad. I bought my computer for power-housing, and was looking forward to Photoshop being able to access all 9 GB of ram in my computer. Alas though, it will still be limited, at least until CS5.
Adobe does say that the 64-bit version in windows isn't that much faster, but it still leaves me pouting.
Overall though, I am excited for the new features.

Self Made Millionaire

2008-08-30T16:07:00.006-06:00

"The Millionaire claims he is self made, but when he is arrested for crimes he blames it on his parents."

I am no millionaire, and I don't really any other 'major' accomplishments in my life at this time worth bragging about. Still I want to take a second and give props to my mom, the person I most respect.
My mother is the reason I am who I am today. I would like to say every good part of me is thanks to her. These are a few reasons why.

As a single mother raising me and my little sister, she pushed through and completed both High School and University to become a RN. I remember growing up with her writing papers on her typewriter while we watched TV. I remember spilling kool-aid on her 50 page paper she had been typing the last couple days, completely ruining it (now it is a sorta funny story actually). I also remember playing with little toy machine guns, with those orange rubber darts, in the living room. We would flip the couches over and make a war zone. I don't know how she always hit me in between the eyes, but I won't play paintball with her now! I remember playing Super Mario Bros 1 & 3 all the way through with her and how ever though she accomplished lots in life, she always had time for me.
Now she is an accomplished RN with Edmonton Home Care, and the only one of her siblings with a University Degree.
Now my mom is not a 'religious' person, but I have also learned a lot about God through her. Her standing up for right and wrong has been inspirational for me, her advise to be a friend in order to make friends was dead on, and through her I learned prayers do get answered. In the hard times I know that her prayers are what brought us all through.

I have seen how the church can hurt people through her, and how she has reacted. She been stung by criticism of 'those welfare bums' in the church lobby, had pastors casting satan out of my sister for crying in a service and I have seen how superficial people can be. So wrapped up in their own great lives that they never notice a hurt sheep among them.
Through this all though my mom has stood strong. Sometimes for no other reason than to keep God in us children's lives. And through this abuse, I have learned what a Christian, and a church, should be. A perfection I strive towards in life, and in my own ministry.

She has also showed me that family is number one. My mother put me, and eventually my sister, first in her life. I grew up in poverty, but didn't really know it. My mom provided for us before she would think of providing for herself, she was the worlds greatest soccer mom, cheering me on for over 12 years, and even in her professional successes she never sacrificed family for success.
Now with two more children and a grandchild, I see that the pattern is continueing, and I am able to watch her parent as a relative outsider. I see the same love and sacrifice put into their lives. And I am excited as my simblings are growing up themselves.

It is the things in life as simple as teaching my, somewhat shy, youngest sister that she needs to be a friend to make friends ; that she needs to take a chance and get to know people at church before she gives up on them.
She now has friends!

That is who my mom is, and I owe much more than my existence to her.I owe my life.
And although I am not a millionaire, yet, I still want to make sure that everyone, and especially my mom knows, "I Love You and Thank You".

Website Updates and Credit Card Woes

2008-08-29T15:58:00.002-06:00

So the stephenkiers.com website is in the process of being updated. Major changes are

Client Login Area with online store
The Blog you are now reading
Prices are Online
The Wedding website has final been merged with the main website

For the last year I have maintained a separate wedding website, because it was already made and targets brides so great. Now however I find that I wanted to streamline my online identity, and therefore have merged it into one site.The only downside is that I have to wait a month or more to be able to accept credit card and debit on the website.
Anyway, hope everyone likes the changes.

Catching Up On Weddings

2008-08-27T02:44:00.002-06:00

Well this season has been quite alot busier than years past. With over 20 weddings I have has little time to myself, and no weekends at all. It has been a fun and stressful ride. I am finally getting ahead of the game a little though, and get this weekend off. Instead of shooting a wedding I am attending one.
I have also had some time to update the site, adding this blog and almost completing the customer login area over the last week and a half. By mid-September I hope to have Visa, Mastercard and Debit Online available for you and your families to purchase prints online. Check back then for more information.

Chase Jarvis Video

2008-08-15T00:37:00.002-06:00

Just wanted everyone to check out this awesome video about the business of photography and working as a commercial photographer. I wish I was as great as this gentleman here is. Chase Jarvis is a exceptional commercial photographer, and he is very transparent about how he got there.
(plus a boatload of talent and creativity)

Final Note: I love Seattle!

Going to California & AIRMiles woes

2008-08-14T18:55:00.003-06:00

When I used to work at TD Canada Trust a couple years back I always pushed our travel Visa card over all the other cards in the industry. I didn't just do it because I had to, I did it because I believed it. I especially made fun of those worthless AIR Miles cards. I mean who wants a card that blacks out dates, and that is so limited in travel.

Then I quit the bank, and when I applied for a Visa with them, they told me I didn't make enough money for the one I want (min $100,000/year in household). So, needless to say, I went over to BMO and got their AIR Miles card. I mean I shop at safeway alot, so I collect them anyway, and anything is better than nothing. I even paid for premium points.

Well I have collected over 1500 AIR Miles in the last 6 months. And was pretty happy.
Then I got.... the Letter.

I was informed that the special offer on my card was going to be discontinued. The offer was that I could fly anywhere in N.A. for a maximum 1600 AIR Miles. And the best part... it was ending the next day.

So I phoned AIR Miles the next day (the last day) and waited on hold 4 seperate times (was hung up on once, and disconnected once, and once I just asked for information). A total time on hold of... 6 hours. And during the actual talking time I found out that though WestJet flies everyday, only 'some' flights are for AIR Miles users. And since they only book ONE YEAR in advance, every flight is booked to the popular destination points.

Well, eventually I had to work (I was shooting a wedding that night), so my lovely wife called them instead. She managed to find two tickets to LA in January. Not quite where or when I wanted (Orlando in March)
but it would do.

So yeah, AIR Miles suck, and I am going to California in Jan!

New Stephen Kiers Blog

2008-08-14T01:17:00.003-06:00

So as poor as I have been at these in the past, I am going to reattempt to join the blogging world by creating this semi-professional blog.
I say semi-professional because though I will be mostly commenting on photography related things, I also want this to reflect my personality, and thus will be talking about life events, frustrations, random funny things, websites, current events and whatever else suits my fancy at that time.
I look forward to this blog, and hope this time I am more diligent!

Sunglasses Stolen by Discount Car & Truck

2008-06-09T18:00:00.003-06:00

So this is a quick little post about my frustrations at Discount Car and Truck on Yellowhead Trail. For the YC weekend (May 23-25) we rented a minivan from Discount to haul our youth group around.

Well, we returned the minivan on Monday the 26th and I was stupid (note: I accept some responsibility) and I left my sunglasses in my sunglasses clip on the visor. Well, I realized my mistake on my way home, and quickly called Discount (less than an hour later). They went out and got the sunglasses from the minivan for me. I went back in that evening to pick them up.

It was as I was walking out that I noticed something was amiss. I looked down at my sunglasses, and instead of seeing my expensive Oakley prescription sunglasses (~$700 value), my sunglass clip has a pair of plastic no name sunglasses in it.

To make a long story short, I spent the next 2 weeks trying to recover the glasses, calling head office, working with the stores manager, and distric manager and even 'forcing' them to let me watch security tapes (which in the end only saw the van for 2 minutes after I left. I guess they claim they don't need security cameras in the shop because they trust their employees.) only to get nowhere.

Discount was sorta polite. They said their policy is that it isn't their fault if anything goes missing, even in their possession, but they will try and help me out. Only that their help was asking if anyone in the shop saw the glasses. to which everyone said "no".

The thing is, if my glasses were not in the case, I would assume I dropped them somewhere. If the case was gone, then who knows... but that the clip had another pair of sunglasses in it means somebody (while it was in Discounts possession) switched them out.

So much for keeping it short. But that is my rant/warning.