Merry Merry and Happy Holidays!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!!

Amazing images by my wonderful friend Jen at Jennifer Bailey Photography.

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Brand spanking new promotional video!

This has been a project months in the making. This summer I set out to have a promotional video made of myself. I had the pleasure of working with my favourite Ottawa wedding videographer, Jeff from Equivocality, for not only Genevieve and James‘ wedding this summer, but also for Vikki and Dan‘s wedding this fall. He is an amazing person to work alongside and I knew he was the one I wanted to create this video for me.

Special thanks to Tiffany & Phil, Elizabeth & Cooper and Genevieve & James for helping to make this video amazing – I couldn’t have done it without you! Thank you for allowing Jeff to tag along and film our sessions together – it really does mean the world to me!

You’ll learn some pretty great things about this video:

1. I shoot with my glasses on (4 eyes of the world unite!)
2. I attract dogs from miles around (and totally love it)
3. Thomas and I have some awesome dance skills

And without further adieu, my promo video!

The fantastic and adorably cute song in this video is by Mindy Gledhill. You should definitely check her out – I really love her stuff and am so happy I was able to find it for my video.

And now for some images captured during the making of this video.

First up are Tiffany and Phil and their stunning fall engagement session. These two got engaged in Gatineau Park so it was fitting to have their engagement session at Mackenzie King Estates in Gatineau Park. The fall colours were absolutely perfect and it was so beautiful.

Tiffany and Phil are getting married next fall and I cannot wait for their wedding!!

Next up is the adorable Cooper and his favourite human, Elizabeth.

Cooper is a golden doodle and at the time of our session this fall, he was 5 months old and VERY bouncy. We had the session at Bruce Pit Park and made lots of friends while having a wonderful time.

Where’s Cooper?

Nom nom nom…

Last but definitely not least is Genevieve and James. You may remember from their wedding that Genevieve’s hair was blonde. I asked her and James to get all dolled up once again in their wedding attire and they were so wonderful about it. We had such a fun time around City Hall and found some beautiful trees to photograph under. I just adore the colours in these images.

(for those who follow my blog, you may have seen these posted before.)

Have a wonderful day,

Liz – Contact Me, I would love to speak with you!

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The Importance of Photography ~ Giving Back

It’s no secret that I love dogs. I think Thomas would characterize it more as obsessed with dogs, but to each their own. This is not a new obsession, it began when I was quite little and was only perpetuated when Thomas and I got our first dog five years ago. Paddington was the cutest little ball of fur we had ever seen. She was very tiny and perfect… or so we thought.

A year after we got Paddington, she developed a limp. We took her in to the vet and discovered she had a really bad knee condition in both knees. It was so bad that the vet said both of her parents must have had this condition. We then we discovered the awful truth: that Paddington had come from a puppy mill.

Puppy mills are commercial breeding facilities that breed and sell dogs purely for profit and the dogs are held in abhorrent conditions and have awful lives breeding over and over.

After Paddington’s very expensive surgery, I realized I wanted to do something – no, I needed to do something to keep others from making the same mistake we did in unknowingly supporting such an awful place. It was then that I began the Ottawa Dog Blog, to educate Ottawa about local rescues as well as events in the city to fundraise for these amazing causes. I wanted to help out the rescues and the blog has grown into such a wonderful canine community.

Through the blog I have met some amazing people, and their dogs of course. Over the years I have helped raise money for local dog charities by hosting charity photo events.

Recently I’ve taken on a new endeavour that I wanted to talk about and share with you because it’s been such a huge difference in these dogs’ lives. One of the aforementioned amazing people I have met through the Ottawa Dog Blog is Mel, who also has a blog of her own, detailing her life being a foster family for a local rescue, Hopeful Hearts. She spoke to me a little while back about helping out by taking profile pictures for her foster dogs.

It is a proven fact that a great portrait can get a dog adopted more quickly. I can attest to this as each dog I’ve photographed with Mel from Hopeful Hearts, have received inquiries even before the dogs were put up on the website for adoption.

When we first found Wellie online, her photos weren’t great, but something in them spoke to me and that was it. Her little eyes looked out at me through the image. I know first-hand how important a great image is for these dogs. I’ve documented our lives with Wellie on the dog blog.

Willow was the first Hopeful Hearts adoptable that I photographed. She was quite nervous and ran in circles around Mel the entire session. But what a sweetheart. She was adopted in record time after Mel published these images on Twitter, Facebook and the HH website.

Dolly was such a wonderful little girl. She was very interested in the special treats I had for her and worked it for the camera. Dolly has also been adopted!

Millie is a beautiful young and exuberant pup and loved her session. Millie has also been adopted!

Newman, aka Mr. Cassanova, was a bit nervous and very underweight, so I made sure to give him extra treats. Newman has also been adopted!

Jazz was so scared. There is no before picture of her because when I photographed her, she had just been picked up by Hopeful Hearts. She is blind and was very unsure of what was happening. Because she was so nervous, we let her stay in the safety of her crate so she felt secure. I was very quiet and Roz, the founder of HH, talked to her gently to calm her. I used a very long lens and stayed far away while shooting so she didn’t feel unsafe by my presence with the camera. I made a small sound to get her to look at me for the top photo. I’ve been told that since this day, Jazz has gained a lot of confidence and is now a big cuddle-bug. She is a happy and sweet little girl that was just a bit scared when we had this session. Jazz is available for adoption!

Lola is the most recent foster that I photographed and she is such a wonderful girl. She has had quite a hard life and is very underweight, but is such a wonderful sweetheart. Hopeful Hearts had inquiries even before she was officially put up for adoption on their website because of Mel sharing these images on Facebook and Twitter. Lola is currently up for adoption.

There are wonderful people who work tirelessly at these rescues doing everything and anything, and I am so happy to be able to help out in this small way.

If you are a pet photographer, I urge you to look into doing this as well. It’s such a fantastic way to help out and help a dog find its forever home.

There are a lot of awesome photographers who are already doing this, Shine Pet Photos helps out with profile pics and portraits for national campaigns to promote adoption, Scruffy Dog Photography takes images for her local humane society’s calendar, Phodographer also does profile pics for Hopeful Hearts and is also a foster for dogs as well, Urban Dog Photog does several fundraisers a year for local rescues.

Have a wonderful day,

Liz – Contact Me, I would love to speak with you!

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Colour Moving and Still ~ a special project

Yesterday afternoon I had fun – a lot of fun. I can’t tell you everything about what this session was for, but I can tell you that it involved some pretty awesome people and we all had a great afternoon.

You may remember Genevieve and James from their beautiful summer wedding this past August.

One part of the shoot included some beautiful jewellery from Pearls4Girls which is a fantastic organization that fundraises for women’s’ leadership programs in Lesotho. I have been working with them capturing images for their catalog, and now also, for their bridal collection. I’ll post more about these beautiful pieces soon. For now, here’s Genevieve, the beautiful model!

Genevieve recently changed her hair colour and it matched the fall foliage so perfectly.

Love.

This one is so adorably awesome.

Happy romance.

The infamous Jeff from Equivocality Films hard at work.

So cute.

These images make me laugh – these two spun around again and again and again and didn’t fall once… but they were definitely very dizzy! haha. I also love how Jeff is doing some sort of sit-up behind them in the shot on the left. Makes me laugh. haha

This image is so fab that I had to include it ginormously large.

Genevieve and James – thank you a thousand times!!! It was so great to hang out with you yesterday. And a special thank you to Geneveive’s bestie, Katie, for coming along to carry stuff too – all of you rock my socks!!!!

Have a wonderful day,

Liz – Contact Me, I would love to speak with you!

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Featured in PAWSH Magazine

I love everything pets, as you well know, so when I heard there was a new pet magazine launching in Canada I knew I wanted to be involved.

The publication is called PAWSH Magazine and you can read the amazingly written and deliciously designed magazine online here.

I have three spreads featured in PAWSH Magazine and I couldn’t be more excited about them!! I am honoured that they featured my work so much!! The graphic designer in me is also completely in love with the layout and design. They did such a fantastic job – and this is their first ever issue!

First up is from Liz and Scott’s wedding a few years ago and features the handsome, Stewart.

Next up is teeny little Tia with her perfectly coiffed bow.

And last but not least is beyond-darling Macy as a puppy (who is A LOT bigger now). Macy’s Mom and Dad are getting married this summer and I am so excited to be their wedding photographer.

I have submitted some work for the next issue as well so I am really looking forward to seeing how everything turns out.

Follow PAWSH Magazine on Twitter and Facebook.

Have a wonderful day,

Liz – Contact Me, I would love to speak with you!

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