The Bravest Person I Know

Where do I begin? I’ve started writing this post twice now and each time it doesn’t seem right, doesn’t do her justice.

When she was 17, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She was a flute player enrolled in a music high school and was looking ahead to a possible career in music. Her diagnosis changed everything, flipped her life upside down and backwards.

And yet she handled it with a wisdom beyond her years. I know I would not have. She pushed forward and got into one of the best universities in Canada, all while dealing with the pain that fibromyalgia brings. Now she has started a blog – a daily account of the good, and the bad, that comes with this illness. I know her words will help others more than she ever knows, and she’s helped me to understand what she is going through much more than before.

That is why she will always be a better person than I – sharing her personal battles with her illness.
And she will will forever be the bravest person I know.

The bravest person I know is my sister, Jane. The other part of elizabeth&jane photography.

A few weeks ago, Jane and I dragged a white chair from my bedroom out to a field near our house and took some awesome photos. Jane needed a picture for an article she wrote online about her Fibromyalgia and we had been wanting to do a shoot for some time so the timing was good.

Once we dragged the chair into the field, I had to run back the the house to get my equipment and Jane sat with, or rather on, the chair to wait for me. A lady walking her dog came by and gave Jane the strangest look – but I bet it would be funny, she was just sitting in the middle of a field in a chair, somewhat randomly and seemingly for no reason. I probably would have stared too… haha.

It was one of the hottest, muggiest, days, but we got some great shots and stayed hydrated by drinking some really disgusting flavoured Gatorade (must have picked a random odd flavour because I usually like Gatorade).

Thomas wasn’t too pleased to see a blackish mark on the couch when we returned it to the bedroom – oops!

Jane likes standing on chairs in fields.

Jane has some pretty awesome glasses

Some yummy sun

Who is the bravest person you know?

Have a wonderful day,

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

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What I am Listening to…to write things and concentrate

I grew up with a musician. My mother is a wonderful piano player and studied music all her life. She taught music to children growing up and then became a music teacher in middle school. I was always surrounded by beautiful piano music every day and was very lucky for it. It relaxes and calms me and helps me to focus.

So now fast forward to today when I no longer live in the same house as a piano, I relax by listening to musicians who play the piano. My favourite artist to write to is Yiruma. I discovered him through YouTube and I don’t remember how, but I know it was this video that I stumbled upon and fell in love with his genius.

After replaying this song over and over on YouTube I knew I had to have his albums so I downloaded quite a few of his albums and they are quite often the songs I listen to when I write or if I need to concentrate. I have written before about how much I love a good tune to groove to, but when I need to form words I need songs without them or I end up writing out the words from the song into whatever I am attempting to write. Not very good when you’re trying to sound professional but instead write something about “getting down like the economy” (listen for it – you’ll hear it and laugh a lot!).

I am currently listening to Yiruma to write this very post and I hope you enjoy his music as well!

Have a wonderful day,

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

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The photos on this website are protected under the Creative Commons Canada License. You may share the photos on this blog with friends and family but you may not print, edit, crop or alter the photos in any way, the logos must stay intact and elizabeth&jane photography must be credited.

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The No Flash Challenge

I’d like to touch on my feelings about Flash on websites, which are actually quite negative. I studied web development in university, so I feel I have a justified reasons for my strong feelings against Flash. I would almost go so far as to say I loathe it. It slows down my experience, I am impatient and I hate having to sit there while a site loads, and people use it incorrectly. There are certain minimal uses for Flash but even then I am not sold. It angers me when an entire website is created in Flash that has absolutely no reason why it had to be done using that platform instead of in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Having said that, I do have Flash on my website – and I want to get rid of it.

With the recent announcement of Apple’s newest creation, the iPad (stupid name, but I definitely want one), I got to thinking about how a visitor experiences my website on mobile devices. Hand held devices such as smartphones, the iPod Touch, and the new to be released iPad don’t have the ability to display Flash elements and I don’t see this as a bad thing. Currently, there is a Flash viewer on my main home page, as well as my gallery page. For a while now I have wanted to combine the two into one viewing experience that resides solely on the home page. It is simpler and I wanted to do it without Flash, but still have the same dynamic sliding photos and automatic playing.

Enter my awesome code-man husband. Thomas, is a web developer and has his own company. I challenged him to prove to the photography community that a dynamic website without Flash can be done. Everything that everyone seems to love about Flash, cool transitions and movement, could be done without Flash. One major benefit of this is the fact that the site will work and function the way it does on a computer, on a mobile device, as well as having better SEO and will load a heck of a lot faster.

And he did it! The demo site uses my photos (yay!) and looks great! We will be implementing a gallery similar to this on the home page of my website soon and I am so excited about it! View the demo here.

Thomas also wrote a really informative article about the process and made a few great points. One in particular he touched on was music. I do not like music on websites, at all. When I am browsing, I am usually listening to my own music and don’t feel it necessary for the website I am looking at to be playing it as well. I find it almost obnoxious, especially when there is no way to turn it off. In cases like that, I leave the website almost immediately.

To quote from his article:

“If you are using music, make sure you have permission to use the music on your web site. You, as a photographer, worry about people stealing your photos, so why would you steal someone’s music?”

This point is bang on. Almost every photographer’s website that includes music, is playing a popular song by a well known musician. I doubt they have permission from them to have their song playing. As photographers we worry about our photographs being stolen and I am sure it’s happened many times – I know it has to me. So if you are using a musician’s song without consent, isn’t that the same thing?

A lot of people disagree with me on the music front, but studies have shown that on a whole, music is more detrimental to keeping people on your website than if you didn’t have music.

I’d love to see photographer’s rise to the challenge of creating a website that is viewable in all platforms, including mobile devices. A photographer’s website is crucial to their brand and if you would like to have yours be rid of Flash, contact Thomas – he’d love to work with you to achieve that goal!

Have a wonderful day,

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

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The photos on this website are protected under the Creative Commons Canada License. You may share the photos on this blog with friends and family but you may not print, edit, crop or alter the photos in any way, the logos must stay intact and elizabeth&jane photography must be credited.

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Music’s Muse

I had a lot of fun today taking pictures with Jessica. The concept for the shoot was something I had wanted to do for a while, so it was nice to finally get it done. Thanks for being such a good sport Jess!!

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

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What a wonderful year!

As we approach 2010 I wanted to take a moment to reflect on how wonderful 2009 has been to elizabeth&jane photography. I have had such a great year and I want thank each and every one of my amazing clients for allowing me to capture moments in your life.

This year has marked the official launch of elizabeth&jane photography. I say “official” because we have been photographing long before we launched the business. It was very important to me to make sure that this was something that I really loved beyond just a hobby. I spent a full year photographing for many MANY charity events. Spending time learning about the industry and figuring out where our place was within it.

We encountered so many wonderful souls this year, both four and two legged. We’ve been there to document the creation of new families, celebrations of love, laughter and so much more. We are so lucky to have such amazing clients and people in our lives who believe in what we do, and where we want to go.

I want to take a moment out to thank my wonderful, awesome, amazing husband, Thomas. He’s put up with me being away for shoots as well as editing until all hours of the night. He is the coding power behind my website and the driving force behind everything I do. I could not have realized my dream of launching this business without him, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I can’t mention Thomas, without mentioning our two little balls of love that cheer me up whenever I am feeling down. Paddington and Corduroy, our two dogs, are the light of my life and they also deserve a shoutout. Good dogs.

I would also like to thank the phenomenal Angela Hubbard and the outstanding Studio1948 for all of their help, advice and encouragement this year. elizabeth&jane photography would not be where it is today without the help of these two amazing photography studios.

And last, but certainly not least, my wonderful sister and second shooter, Jane. Thank you for always pushing me and helping me to get the very best shots.

2009 has been so wonderful, I can’t wait to see what 2010 brings!

Now, to sum up the year in pictures.

Have a wonderful day,

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

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The photos on this website are protected under the Creative Commons Canada License. You may share the photos on this blog with friends and family but you may not print, edit, crop or alter the photos in any way, the logos must stay intact and elizabeth&jane photography must be credited.

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