I’m so happy that the National Association of Professional Child Photographers has featured my work today! I have been a part of NAPCP for a while now and I’m thrilled to be a feature photographer. It’s the most respected photography association for Child and Baby photography that I am aware of and has members world wide. I was very pleased to see some of my Toronto work on their main site. If you have a moment check out the post and find out a bit about NAPCP.

NAPCP is also a fabulous resource for parents with a wide array of info on everything from how to photograph your own children to how to choose the right child photographer for you!

We wanted to do something really special for the first baby of the family. So we called in my amazing event planner Crystal Adair Benning of Distinct Occasions to lend her help. What an amazing concept she came up with. Baby Kinley has an woodland owl nursery and so we thought that that would be a great starting point. Crystal works with some of Toronto’s finest event vendors and they brought the concept to life. They did such a good job that Kinley’s baby shower was featured on Amy Atlas!

Check out some of the photos I took of the adorable woodland theme!

The gorgeous sweet table design was brought to life by Paras and his team from Design2Decor. What a fabulous result. Our mouths dropped when we walked in the door to see this!! The owl cake was done by Patricia’s Cakes.  Each feather was made by hand and really gave the 3D owl cake a lot of personality! Have you ever seen anything like it?? No wonder she just did the baby shower cake for Entertainment Tonight Star Host Cheryl Hickey! The delicous treats were catered by Marigold’s and Onions. I have to say, with all of the weddings Dave and I photograph together we very often work with this talented company. After the first bite we can guess who the caterer is – Delish!!

What awesome shower invitations! Can you believe they’re printed on actual wood! I loved the menu too, it’s has such an interesting texture!

Since then Tricia and Kris have welcomed the arrival of healthy and beautiful newborn Kinley Ireland Madill home. She was born on our Grandpa’s birthday and was given the adorable middle name Ireland to honour him. Thanks to all of the amazing vendors that made the baby shower a huge success! Your talent and creativity is so fresh and vibrant what amazing work you do.

Sooo many little newborns in front of my lens lately. It got me thinking that with my busy schedule it’s been difficult to blog all of the adorable little darlings I’ve had the pleasure to photograph. This is part of the reason I love FotoMagico, it’s a gorgeous platform to display my work. It’s also a great way to see some of my favourite shots set to music! I felt so honoured when my favourite media software, FotoMagico, contacted me about doing an article on my mobile website. They wanted to feature my mobile friendly slideshow solution for all of the professional photographers that love this software. Here’s the post!

So nice to see you all back and reading the blog. I’ve been up to a lot of exciting stuff lately. It took a lot of work and many days of antique and prop shopping but I opened my new Baby Photography Studio in Perth, Western Australia! Woo Hoo! So stoked to have accomplished that just in time to come back to Toronto and work the busy photography season here. I also just got back yesterday from doing an amazing destination photo session in Great Exuma, an incredible island in the Bahama’s for a week. What an experience that was!! So exotic, I’ve never seen neon blue water like that and the soft white sand goes for miles. Best adventure ever!

Now that the Perth Newborn Studio is complete I have more time to blog and catch you up on some of some of the shoots I’ve done… Full blog posts coming soon of all of the adorable newborns and babies I’ve had the pleasure to photograph. In the meantime, here is a slideshow of some of my faves. Make sure you hit the HD and Full Screen arrows before playing

Have a fabulous day and check back soon and often!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was itching to use some of my new baby photography props too like my barn wood backdrop and this cute wicker basket.

Another thing I love are these teenie tiny head bands for newborns. Super adorable!

I’ve had this peacock feather headpiece for a little while now but haven’t had a baby girl with enough hair to hold it in place. Little Vanessa was blessed with some long locks so we could have some fun with this cute look. Very fashionista

I love this pose so much, such a cute way to see all baby’s fingers and toes!

Doesn’t she look so peaceful in curled away in this basket. I love how the little flower headband picks up the green in the blanket.

Neutrals are definitely one of my favourite shots, I love the soft look of this background and hat.

I loved this pink stripy set for a baby girls shoot and it’s so comfy and soft!

I’ve got so many shoots the next couple of weeks but I will try to post as many fun shoots as I can! Stay tuned to the blog for more of my fave baby photography sessions!

We had so much fun with his newborn session and I got to try a few unique and creative baby poses, like this one!

He looked so peaceful as he dreamed away, so sweet!

I thought it would be fun do do a bit of a holiday look. Desy looks like a little candy cane doesn’t he?!

I also love the amazing look my Canon 50mm 1.2 can achieve. I love most of my lenses but my 50 is super sweet.

Aww, another cute bundled baby pose

I love this new dough bowl I found, it’s perfect for tiny newborns.

And I love these cute baby smiles

Thanks so much to mommy Jessica for bringing little Desmond by for his first photo shoot! I had a great time and love this session!

I love how cute newborns are when they are curled up for a snooze. What a sweet little pose.

It was also nice to know that J.T.’s dad works in printing and his eye for print quality was a big deciding factor in their investment with me. I really love the fact that so many of my clients have a creative eye and appreciate baby art as much as I do!!

I had such a great time with his mom during the baby shoot, I loved how she called this set up the recces peanut butter cup shot, lol too funny!

I love this one, so soft and peaceful, just how newborn babies should be, happy and content.

This was a real treat, most of the wraps I use I actually make myself but this adorable little set was made by J.T.’s auntie. How cute is that?! Super sweet!

These two shots are both similar but I couldn’t decide which one I loved more… I thought I’d let you decide

Thanks so much for an amazing session guys. Looking forward for your Baby Couture Album to arrive, I’m sure it will be absolutely amazing!

I just wanted to post a few retouching before and afters for you all. I often get calls from parents that are concerned with baby acne standing in the way of their baby session, a very common skin condition most babies experience. As you can see you shouldn’t let redness or bumps hold you back from documenting this special time in your lives. Babies are beautiful, make sure you capture these fleeting moments with professional newborn photography.

I’m so busy around here but I wanted to post a sneak peak of little J.T.’s shoot from last week. J.T.’s awesome parents found my photography at the Baby Time Show here in Toronto. They were really drawn to me because I LOVE photographing my newborn babies in unique and creative ways! J.T. was the best little baby model ever and I had so much fun getting him into all my different newborn poses. I’m also working on a very special project that will be announced soon. In the meantime I’ve been working on updating my portfolio with my fresh fave images.  There are so many great newborn shoots this year that I’d still love to share with you all but haven’t gotten to yet! Check back soon!!

She was so cute and adorable, I couldn’t resist putting her into this baby pose to emphasize her chubby cheeks. I thought the green and brown would be best for a newborn with a name like Hazel.

Almost every parent asks for this shot, froggy pose, and although it’s a real balancing act it’s so worth it when we get the pose to hold. I love the little toes sticking out. Super cute!

Mom fell in love with this little rabbit hat and loved having a shot of Hazel looking so cute!

Baby detail always look amazing in my newborn albums. I love to take shots of little details so we can remember how tiny they once were.

Hazel’s mom and dad had a 20′s inspired vintage wedding and loved the idea of incorporating the peacock feathers in to the shots. They had peacock feathers as a wedding detail so it was nice I had some feathers we could incorporate into the newborn session

Thanks baby Hazel for spending a photography session with me! I had a great time creating these timeless images and hope you love them as much as I do!

It was so nice that Grayson’s parents brought along this knitted blanket they had given to them as a gift. It’s really great to incorporate something custom, personalized and meaningful into the sessions.

Baby details are my favourite! i just love little baby fingers and toes!

Bright eyed and such a happy little guy!

His parents loved this bunny hat and had to have a picture or two of him in this cute little beanie.

When it comes to customizing the sessions to make them your own I always encourage clients to bring along something that special and meaningful to them . Grayson’s dad is a baseball player and loved the idea of showing Grayson’s size with his baseball mitt. Makes for an adorable shot doesn’t it!

Thanks for bringing newborn Grayson along for a session. I had a great time with you all!

He was such a fun little guy, full of expressions and had lots and lots of smiles for me

I really love a creative, simple, natural sleepy shot. Little Aethan loved snoozing away in this black wicker baby basket.

He has such adorable features. I love his cute little eyelashes in this shot!

I thought I’d try this unique baby pose. He looks like a cute little baby elf doesn’t he?!

Aethan’s mom, loved the froggy pose the best and wanted to try it out. Aethan relaxed right into it and stayed asleep the whole time, lol!

Something I love to do is just capture a natural, baby portrait with nothing but a nice crisp shot of my sleeping newborn subject. It’s just really nice way to remember how they looked so soon after being born.

I played around with a few backdrops and materials. Aethan really enjoyed this basket so I kept him happy while he was working hard modeling away

What a great experience it was to be a part of capturing these family heirlooms of little Aethan. I know he’s grown so much already so it must be so nice to look back at how he was as a newborn baby. Congrats again to you both!

I’m so thrilled to offer such a unique, amazing high quality heirloom to my clients. Not only are Baby Couture Albums unique with the luxurious imprinted leathers, fabrics, silks and velvets we can offer but there is also premium photographic prints used during the binding process… Something that only Rainbow Eleven clients know about You’d have to see it to believe how beautiful it is!!

The great thing about this to me is the ability to use so many different fabrics, leathers and textured materials in my custom design. I love being able to mix leathers with textures and do something creative and unique, something really personalized and special for your baby!

I love this design so much, I named it “Sabre” after the adorable newborn in the image. The leaves in this design are actually a raised velvet texture and there is a gorgeous strip of rich black leather down the middle. I LOVE the way it frames the image and creates this striking yet opulent look.

You can see the texture and the way the velvet leaves are raised here. Also the gorgeous quality of the spine. Such perfection!!

Look at the craftsmanship of this binding and spine. This is what a high quality album looks like! You can see the thickness and durability of the pages so the photographic print binds perfectly and seamlessly to the page. Baby Albums really do make me happy!

I think being based in Toronto means that I’m lucky enough to have so many amazing clients with so many different tastes and styles. Like for instance Makio’s parents, Funky music producers with an amazing sense of style. I always love to have my clients input and get a sense for what they are drawn to when creating my design. I love, love, love this texture and the way it plays off of the fresh lime colour of the baby sling. Sometimes my clients leave the creativity and design solely up to me and that’s so much fun too.  This texture is so vibrant and so much fun. I named this style after the featured baby as well, I call this design “Makio”

I love doing the less than obvious when it comes to my Baby Couture designs. I love playing with negative space and doing the unexpected. Having a single image on a page allows your eye to enjoy the image with ease, it really is a beautiful thing isn’t it?

And don’t forget about the adorable details… They grow up way too fast, don’t they.

These handcrafted albums truly are a dream…

I just got these albums in late yesterday afternoon and wanted to share them with you all before they go to their new home These are not Baby Couture they are our Premium Leather Albums in 10×14 and 10×10. Still uber gorgeous,  and in luxurious leathers.

Thanks for taking a peak at some of the awesome options we have to create fine art pieces of your baby’s first photography experience. To me this is my craft and a work of art, my vision is not complete until I can present my clients with a luxurious album to hold on to their memories of this very special time. Can’t wait to photograph your baby or newborn soon!

I’ve been photographing so many brand new babies these days it’s so had to keep them up to date on the blog! I think last month was our best month ever for Rainbow Eleven with lots of wonderful new babies to photograph. I was really happy to get a phone call for this baby session as these clients found my work from shooting the cover of the 2010 Baby and Toddler Guide. The Baby and Toddler Guide can be found all across Toronto at many of The Bay, HBC, Zellers, Thyme Maternity locations. Thyme Maternity also distributed copies to 45,000 expecting and new parents at the Toronto BabyTime Show. I’m so thrilled to be a part of such a resourceful guide for new parents! I’ve also been getting so excited over the fact that many of my amazing clients are bringing along so many meaningful items along to the baby sessions.

Ananda’s mom and dad thought it would be nice to customize their session and incorporate some very special fabrics from their wedding day. Her wedding lengha and sari were so beautiful and made the most unique backdrop for cute baby Ananda.

Ananda’s mom fell in love with this little white beanie I had in my studio. It was so cute on her. She looked like a little elf that had dozed away into dreamland

I also had this new flowy pink velvet flowered fabric that Ananda could snuggle in. Look at how wide eyed she is! Super sweet!

I was so excited that I could get creative and finally use my wooden bowls from Indonesia! I was waiting for a baby that was tiny enough to curl up inside. She was so content and sleepy that we had trouble moving her from this cozy nest. But we had no trouble getting many different angles and perspectives on this sleepy newborn Check it out!

I love this one, snug as a bug in a rug!

Happy as can be!

We finished off the session with these two cute little shots. I love photographing a sleepy, peaceful baby especially during these suspended newborn photographs, lol.

What an fun and amazing baby session we all had. Thanks so much Ananda’s mom and dad for choosing me and making the shoot so enjoyable for me. I really loved being the artist to create these cherished images of your new little girl! Congratulations to you both!

He is such an expressive little guy with so much personality, he was a lot of fun to photograph.

What an adorable guy! I call this one,  ‘Here’s lookin’ at you kid.”

Look at those stunning eyes! So shiny and bright!

See what I mean about the unique expressions! He had a few…

…And a smile for his mom and dad too!

Hani’s parents were really excited about the new baby couture album line that I’m designing. They live in Toronto, Canada and also in Jordan so once the album is complete we’ll be shipping it all the way to the Middle East so the whole family can enjoy the amazing album we’ve designed for little newborn Hani! We’ll be doing a custom 10×14 baby album that is creative and unique to really personalize  little Hani’s first few days in the world.

No baby album would be complete with out the tiny little details that really show how special newborns are. Every time I have the opportunity to photograph a new baby I always feel as though I’m creating a portal for families to visit their memories when their baby has long since grown up. Without professional images of your little one it can be difficult to really remember all of these beautiful little details.

I love this shot above. Such a peaceful, sleepy little guy snuggled up in this flowing fabric.

Thanks so much for bringing Hani by for his very first photo shoot. He was a great model and a great baby! We’ll post his Baby Couture Album very soon!

This post is from a few months back but I’d love to share it with you all. I’m very passionate about working with local Toronto Charities and Camp Oochigeas is definitely one of our faves. Camp Oochigeas is a amazing camp for kids with cancer, where they can go to play and have fun with other kids and still continue to undergo their chemotherapy treatments. Camp Ooch also provides kids with 680 year round programs at no cost to the families. It’s such an important, life changing experience for the kids that’s why this charity is so close to our hearts!

We were so honoured to be asked this year to cover the gala and auction at The ROM, Royal Ontario Museum. The lavish gala raised over half a million dollars in one evening and had over 700 of Toronto’s most generous in attendance. The evening hosted a very special spokesperson, child actress and cancer survivor, Heidi Hayes. Heidi spoke about how Camp Ooch changed her life and helped her through the really tough times while she battled cancer. She also spoke about all of the great friends she made while along the way. You may recognize her from her hit movies History of Violence with Viggo Mortensen. There were a lot of tears, laughter love at the gala and we were so happy to be a part of it all. If you’d like to donate to Camp Ooch and help a local child’s fight please do so here DONATE.

Thanks to our friend and amazing Event Planner Currie Ross for contacting us to help support Camp Ooch.

We thought we’d play with a very basic little digital camera we had shaking around. We made a family movie inspired by the Super 8 video’s my Opa used to make when he was a cinematographer.

It was a lot of fun! Let us know what you think

If you’d like to see more of these Super 8 videos, have a look at our new website – Super 8 Revival.

Music: “Brand New Day” by Joshua Radin.

It takes very special parents that want only the best for their baby and this is what Baby Couture is. A way to have something very custom that is as unique as your baby. I had so much fun with little Sabre and his mom and dad during his session, they really, really love this cute little guy.

He was a dream to photograph and slept all through the session like a little koala in a tree What a sweetie!

He even let me get him into froggy pose… Isn’t he so cute with his chubby cheeks!

It was so nice to incorporate some of the beautiful fabrics from his parents wedding day in his photo shoot.

When Sabre did wake up he was bright eyed and bushy tailed and had a good time peaking at me from behind my camera.

Look at those big sparkly eyes! He’s such a happy little guy

I loved playing with all of the vibrant colours but I wanted to do something a bit more creamy and neutral too. I think this goes so beautifully with his peachy complexion. Super cute!

This teddy bear hat has been a big favourite of almost every client that has come into the studio. It’s made it’s fair share of appearances on the blog. It’s so adorable everyone always wants one or two shots with it. I totally love it too!

Thanks so much to Sabre’s amazing parents! I really enjoyed spending the time with you and adorable newborn Sabre. I’m also very excited to share with you all the new Baby Couture line coming very soon… Who says babies and fashion can’t mix!

Glad to see you all back and checking into the Rainbow Blog! We’ve had a very busy shooting week but I couldn’t wait to blog this when it came in. I have to say, I was so excited when Makio’s package was shipped to the door. The anticipation was killing me as I tore through all of the tape and cardboard to see what was inside. I mean I already knew what was waiting for me… A gorgeous 10×14 Custom Baby Album and 3 Rave books (for Makio’s happy new family members), but I couldn’t wait to see how the final product turned out!

Since Makio’s parents are such cool people and are naturally very creative working in the music industry, I knew they would choose a unique design that would really showcase Makio’s newborn photography. They took it one step further and upgraded to a Metallic paged Album for their special little guy. It really  gives a richness to the book and makes the images pop off the page!!

Check out the quality of the binding, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen from any Album company out there.  All of our high end Baby Albums are hand crafted to perfection and it shows.

What a unique and creative way to do an Album cover. I love the way the black strip balances with the photo square. Very stylish and very modern! Who says Baby Albums have to be boring, frumpy and just like the guys next door. Why not go for  quality and style with a custom piece that compliments your decor and reflects your personality! Stay tuned to the blog, we have many more baby shoots to blog and lots of gorgeous Album options coming soon!