This week I’ve been working on revamping my portfolio. I started it yesterday by going back and copying every photo I’ve ever provided to a client back to my desktop… there were about 9000 total. So far I’ve got it whittled down to about 3500, which means there’s clearly still a ton of work to be done. It’s hard to judge my own work – I remember each client, the fun I had with them, little moments, and get emotionally attached. How am I supposed to whittle 9000 images down to about 100 images when it’s so hard to hit delete? Ultimately the goal is to reflect the kind of image I enjoy making, the kind of image I want to make, the kind of image I do make. It’s a tall order, but I’m getting there.

The YouTube video for this weekend is something completely different. We’re big Blue Jays fans in this household, as you know, and were watching the game a few nights ago that led to Brett Lawrie being suspended. If you don’t follow the Blue Jays or Brett Lawrie news, this probably won’t mean anything to you, but suffice I say I laughed for about 15 minutes after watching this. Enjoy it while it’s up.

So it may have rained every day for over week. That doesn’t mean spring isn’t happening! Yesterday after a meeting downtown, I took advantage of a break in the clouds to do some shooting. I’m crazy about blossoms, and I know they won’t be here long…

We arrived home around 10 pm Sunday, after a weekend that saw us spend a night in Woodstock, a night in Moncton, and then a day of shooting all along the Fundy coast. Needless to say I was wiped out, so after a post-roadtrip beer I thought it would be nice to get into bed with my book. (I’m currently reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. It is amazing, but it’s taking awhile to get through.) As much as I love travelling, I find it always takes me at least a day to find my regular schedule again once I’m home. Going to bed early could only help.

In the bedroom I was greeted – nay, assaulted – by the most vile stench. It turned out that one of our cats, Ophélie, had expressed her displeasure at being left alone for the weekend artistically through organic mediums.

AG set to work cleaning up the mess, stopping at times to catch his breath because the smell was so bad. This is when things started to go really wrong.

The first mistake was not putting Ophélie’s canvas of choice, a small duffle bag, directly into the wash instead of trying to clean it by hand.
The second mistake was putting the tissues that had been used to clean the bag into the toilet rather than into the trash.
The third mistake was flushing.

You see where I’m going with this. At 3 am we found ourselves with a clogged toilet, and that’s about the time we realized our fourth mistake: we moved last year, and left the plunger in the old place. Somehow in the ensuing 15 months we’d never thought to pick one up.

Well, we were certainly thinking about it now.

This is about the time I started google searching for home plumbing remedies, and we tried them all. Hot water poured high. A wire hanger. Baking soda and vinegar. If we owned a Shop-Vac we would have tried that, too. At this point we were really respecting the superior technology that a plunger represents. AG even went out to the nearest 24 hour convenience store… no plunger. By 4 am we’d exhausted the options, and even managed to get the shower drain plugged. Finally we gave up, and fell into bed.

At 9 am the next day, AG went to Home Hardware, bought a plunger, and the whole problem was fixed in under 3 minutes. Needless to say, the rest of Monday was a total wash on the productivity front, so now I’m recalibrating. Getting back on track.

The moral of this story: if you don’t own a plunger, go buy one now.

As for Ophélie? She remains unimpressed.

Between the deaths of MCA and Maurice Sendak, and the news that Parks & Recreation is maybe being cancelled (?), it was hard to know what to tribute here with a YouTube video, but finally, it had to be this.

After you watch that, put on “Sabotage” and rock your way into the weekend.

Last weekend I photographed a Valerie. That means that all this week, I’ve had “Valerie” stuck in my head. And now you do, too. Happy weekend! Oh, and May the Fourth be with you!

April,

Always on the move. I got my trip to Toronto (including ball game), and had one of my images appear in a national magazine, wiping three things off my 30 before 30. I also got to go to the sugar shack, and to spend an afternoon in Saint John. Things are winding down now on the travel front though, and I’m looking forward to spending the summer mostly at home and a bit about the Maritimes, photographing weddings wherever I find them.

With the warmer weather coming, portrait season is picking up. This month I shared four sessions, and I have four more to share in the coming weeks. (Until then, view Hannah & Theron, Jill & Fen, the Walker Family, and Laura & Ian at their respective blog posts!). In addition being in FASHION, two of my shoots were featured on blogs this month: Hannah & Theron on Champagne Sweets, and Paddy & Megs on When Geeks Wed. As an added bonus, Paddy & Megs’ geeky tablescapes were noticed by Cubeecraft and Geek Sugar… very cool! Plus, since I forgot to mention it last month, I also won an Editor’s Choice Award… Woo!

I’ve also, as ever, been doing a lot of behind the scenes work, ordering goods, preparing documents, and otherwise getting ready for a busy season… and getting ready to finally reveal what I’ve been working on! Hopefully it will all come together at the end of May and I’ll finally be able to show off all the work I (and others) have been doing. I’m SO excited…!

At home I participated in the CleanUpFred efforts, picking up 8 bags of trash (including nasty business ranging from discarded coffee cups and cigarette packages to permanent markers and a pair of underwear) in my area; got braces; and was sorted into Hufflepuff.

…Okay, maybe the professional sphere takes this one.

xoxo,

K

I’m having an indoor kind of day. An indoor kind of week, even. Today it’s raining and I’m taping up things with my new order of Cute Tape while watching another creativeLIVE/Jasmine Star workshop. Yesterday I was an editing machine, and I listened to pretty much Joel Plaskett’s entire catalogue while I was at it. Some of ‘em twice. This one always lifts me up… can’t wait until Harvest!

The back half of my trip to Toronto: the Distillery district, CN Tower, Blue Jays game, and a teppanyaki restaurant. Awesome.

We took a commuter bus into the city, and started the day with a quick trip to Eaton Centre (helloooo, Sephora!), followed by an engagement shoot in the Distillery district – I can’t wait to share that one.

After the shoot we ate lunch with Laura & Ian – the engagement couple – at Mill St. Brewery in the Distillery District. Great excuse to have the sampler!

Next stop: downtown, and the CN Tower.

After the adrenalin rush of standing on the glass floor of the CN Tower (eeek! That took awhile to work up to), we had to stop by the Jays Shop to get prepared for the evening!

Steam Whistle, where we met Jill & Fen for their shoot.

Last stop of the night: the Blue Jays home opener! YAY! Unfortunately the Jays lost, but the game was fun!

Last day: we went to Akasaka, a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in Markham. Fantastic!

And… that’s it! ‘Til next time, Toronto!

If you’ll forgive me, things are about to get pretty geeky up in here.

You see, something happened the other day that has shaken up my life. Everything that I know about myself has been turned topsy-turvy. I’m having a bit of an identity crisis.

I was on Pottermore and…

The Sorting Hat.

Placed me.

Into HUFFLEPUFF.

….

Okay. So this is a new reality. See, I grew up with this series (oh, we are talking about Harry Potter in this blog post, if you didn’t know, and from here on in I’m not going to explain anything because you either know or you don’t), and while I think that many of us who did harboured not-so-secret desires of getting into Gryffindor (aka GREATEST HOUSE OF ALL TIME), I thought for sure that my Hogwarts home would be in Ravenclaw, house of the smug nerds. I could even see myself in Slytherin if it really came down to it.

But I’m a Hufflepuff.

The “everybody counts” house. The “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game” house. The, in the words of my fellow newly anointed ‘puff, “house of mediocrity.”

I’ve had a few days to process the information, and maybe it’s not so bad. I do value hard work, tolerance, loyalty and fairplay, after all! Hufflepuffs are friendly and tenacious, and their animal is the badger. I think this is where public perception of the Hufflepuff goes deliberately blind, because… badgers are crazy. Badgers can run, badgers can fight, badgers are… well.

If the badget is my new spirit animal, I can embrace this. I think there’s more to being a Hufflepuff than I realized. Huffle badger don’t care.

Oh, and for the record? Vine with unicorn core, 10 3/4 inches, hard.

Okay okay I’m copping out a bit. I forgot to post a video for last Friday – when I was travelling to Toronto – and I mentioned on Facebook that it would have been the video to Call Me Maybe. Then I was away for pretty much the whole week and didn’t actually watch any YouTube videos, leaving me a little bit high and dry for this week’s video post. Until one of my friends sent me this, and kept the theme going…

(By the way, there’s some language and gestures in this video, if you aren’t into that. But now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go get an iTunes card…)