November Boudoir Shoot

This month, I have teamed up with Holly Farris (who owns Serendipity Salon in the Brock Shopping Center) to do a three day long Boudoir Marathon.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Boudoir photos, you can think of them as sexy bedroom-type pictures.  Ladies get dressed up in their favorite lingerie (or nothing at all if that is their preference) and I take photos of them in various sexy poses. The pictures are tasteful, sexy and romantic and they make a perfect gift for a spouse or boyfriend.

Here are a few examples of some boudoir shots I’ve done.

Holly and I have teamed up to offer you an awesome boudoir package for only $299. It includes hair, makeup, airbrush tan and the photo session. My usual package for boudoir is $300 for the session only, so this is an incredibly good deal.

Spots are filling up fast, so if you are interested, please call Holly at 250-376-2777 (before 8 pm on weekdays) to book a session. A 25% deposit is required to confirm all bookings.

We look forward to working with you!

I Wrote You A Haiku

A few weeks ago, my friend Tara returned from her home in Honduras for a visit and, after much discussion and catching up and a little pizza, her and Greg and I settled in to watch Management - a new movie with Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston.  The movie was slow and a little bizarre, but it made us all laugh out loud quite a few times. The best part of the movie was one scene where Steve Zahn said to Jennifer Aniston, “I wrote you a Haiku.” The look on her face was priceless and I laughed until I nearly cried. When I finished laughing, I looked over at Greg and asked, “Who does stuff like that?”

Yesterday was my 35th birthday and, since I’ve been in bed going on four days with the H1N1, I was a little grumpy that I had to spend my birthday in bed. When Greg got home from work, bearing gifts of Tim Horton’s coffee and a donut, I let my grumpiness get the better of me and I asked him, “Did you even get me anything for my birthday?”  ”Well not yet,” he answered, all exasperated and put-out. “I wanted you to be healthy before I gave you a gift so you could enjoy it.” I was, of course, instantly annoyed. After all, he had an entire year to find me something special for my birthday and, in typical Greg fashion, he left it to the last minute. Normally, this doesn’t bother me because he’s always been like this and I am usually 100% okay with it. Yesterday, though, I was irritable and in pain and I couldn’t breathe very well, so it got my back up. I sat back against the head board, crossed my arms and pouted in silence while he got up and announced that he was taking the dogs for a run. Fine!  Whatev!

As soon as he left, I huddled back under the covers, trying not to feel sorry for myself, and fell instantly back into a deep sleep. I awoke an hour later to find Greg standing beside the bed smiling down at me with a Christmas Cactus and a birthday card. He’d had them all along, but when I got mad at him, he decided he wouldn’t give them to me until I stopped acting like such a child.  Okay, my bad! He buys me some sort of weird plant every year and I always love them. Last year it was a Money Tree, the year before, an Everlasting Pineapple, the year before that, a Christmas Bamboo, etc. His reasoning for the Christmas Cactus this year…because it’s prickly, like you are when you’re sick.  Gotta love a man who’s honest, no matter what!

Despite the cactus, I was still feeling a little cranky, until I opened the card. It was just an ordinary birthday card, but there was a piece of paper inside it that made me howl with laughter (and then have a huge coughing fit) when I read it. It said:

Cougar, I wanted to write you a Haiku for your birthday, but it is clearly over my head, so I downloaded you two.

COUGAR

I am a cougar.
I rub against your flesh trunk
Just scratching an itch.

COUGAR

Strong and graceful gait
Predator’s strength and wisdom
Queen of the mountain

Happy Birthday,
Love Greg

First of all, just the fact that he remembered how much the Haiku line in the movie made me laugh shows me that he actually listens to me from time to time and pays attention. Brownie points for that.

And, secondly, the first Haiku is so him that I couldn’t help but laugh – men!

Needless to say, I thought I would be cranky all day, but he made me laugh and the rest of the day was much better! I love the way he makes me laugh!

Did I mention that he was a Cougar Hunter and I was a Cougar for Halloween???

 

I Believe My Birthday Makes Me Sick – Kamloops Photographer

I’m sick. Fever of 103.6 (before it broke this morning, Now it’s sitting a nice ‘n toasty 101.4), brain pounding against my skull, aching muscles and joints, cough that feel as though thousands of tiny needles are being jabbed into my throat and chest full of enough phlegm to choke a snake. Lovely. The nurse on the hotline said all of my symptoms describe H1N1 – well, at least I don’t have to make any decisions about getting vaccinated!!!

The upside of being sick is that I have lots of time to catch up on blogging. The downside is that tomorrow is my 35th birthday.

I realized this morning that I have been sick for four out of my last six birthdays. I broke my neck and sustained a major concussion four days before my 30th birthday, so I barely remember it and, apparently, I vomited up all of the Chinese Food that I’d requested for my birthday dinner!  (It wasn’t funny at the time, but we laugh about it now). On my 31st birthday, we ate dinner at my In-laws only to have me rushing to the bathroom to puke my guts out because I had picked up some sort of bug from a coworker. Birthday #32 was okay – smooth sailing even. On my 33rd birthday, it was a repeat performance at the in-laws and my MIL told me she was starting to develop a complex about cooking me birthday dinners because I seem to just puke them up.

On my 34th birthday, my in-laws gave t me a card that had us all laughing hysterically. It had three round cartoon faces on it. The first was a smiling cartoon face that said, “This is you.” The second had the same cartoon face with a birthday hat on that said, “This is you on your birthday.” The third had the same cartoon face with the birthday hat on puking its guts out and it said, “This is you later that night.” Ha Ha Hardy Har Har. I don’t know where she found it, but it still makes us laugh and I didn’t have any vomiting episodes that year. Phew.

Now, here I am, about to turn the big 35 and I can’t even celebrate with my family and friends because I’ve been ordered to stay in my house for a week to avoid polluting anyone else’s system with this darn Flu.

So, if you had any plans to cook for me or bring me sumptuous treats for my birthday, don’t bother. I’ll probably just puke them up anyway!

Here’s a pic from an upcoming blog that I’ll be writing about my Auntie Letha’s annual pumpkin carving party. What a great idea.

 

Halloween Rocks! – Kamloops Event Photographer

I won’t get into too much detail, but I will say that it’s not a real party until Shannon and Jo get up on stage and start an impromptu rock band! Can we sing?  Uhm, not so much, but we looked goooooood up there! Good thing my hubby is good with a camera too!

Yep…fantastic night!

You can see all of the pics here.

Hey Jo, Are You Still Out There Somewhere?

Wellllll, yes, I am. I promised myself awhile ago that I would blog at least three times per week, but I confess that I’ve been so busy with fall family photo shoots that I haven’t had a chance to blink, let alone blog.

I have one more week of craziness and then I’ll be back on the blog waves, making you laugh, wowing you with my creative genius (said most modestly, of course) and keeping you all up to date on the goings on in the life and work of one Jo LeFlufy.

Thanks for tuning in!

Talk to you soon.

Gratitude & Attitude

Do you ever watch a TV show and, after a character has spouted off some particularly profound prose that leaves you teary eyed or feeling righteous and motivated, think Hmph!  If only real life afforded moments when words just flow like poetry from our mouths and leave people basking in the aftermath of our wisdom.

Although I have a good grasp of language when I’m sitting in front of my computer and blogging or just writing in general, my verbal skills are, in my opinion, decidedly lacking. Don’t get me wrong, you could ask me to write a speech or stand up in front of hundreds of people and wax poetic or make people laugh about any topic and I’d rock it (as long as I’ve had some time to prepare), but catch me on days when I’m running at full steam and being pulled in many different directions and I tend to say things, such as, “OMG, and I was like, ‘no freakin’ way’ and he was like, ‘dude, that s#%t is off the hook.” 

It shames me to admit that my mouth just spits out nearly unintelligible teenage-level slang while my mind is in the background thinking things, such as, “Oh my goodness, and I said to him, ‘You don’t say?” and then he quipped excitedly, “That is absolutely amazing’.” Sometimes this drives me a little batty because I know I am so much more intelligent than I sound, but other times, I’m too busy to worry about it and I think, Whatev, man, that’s how I roll. (Really, though, where did I learn to speak this way????).

In honor of the ever raging war between my internal and external dialogues, I’d like to start off this installment of Gratitude and Attitude with a  big diss to slang.

Today’s Attitude goes out to:

1. Slang…WTF man? Slang’s the sickest dude ever. Always getting all up in my face and f$%king up my s#&t and dissing my brain and, like, making me wig out all the time. Slang doesn’t deserve the props it gets and it should really just suck it and it really gives me a huge case of the redass. Slang may think it’s on the A-list, but it’s really a Monet and, on the ABS it gets about a 10 out of 10…now, anybody who actually has a clue what I just said deserves an A++ in slang recognition. 
2. Negativity (this includes negative people and just negative vibes in general). Lately, I’ve been trying a little experiment. Whenever I start picking up a negative vibe from someone, I immediately do one of two things – change the subject or just keep quiet and refuse to acknowledge the negativity in hopes that they will forget about it too. It doesn’t seem to be working – people either continue on with the same negative topic or they seem to switch to another, equally negative topic and start going off about it. This leads me to believe that we humans enjoy creating drama and suffering for ourselves because it feeds right into our egos and it makes me realize that I have my work cut out for me.  YAH? WELL BRING IT ON NEGATIVITY. I CAN TAKE YOUR WORST AND TURN IT INTO SUNSHINE AND LOLLIPOPS. BOOYAH!

Now for my favorite section.

Today’s Gratitude goes out to:

1. Miss Janna Fehr. An absolute doll who always makes me laugh and melted my heart when she said in her wee voice today, “Jo Jo, can’t you just stay and visit for just five minutes.” Her and her big sister, Alysha, are just adorable and can always make me smile and laugh. I love kids.
2. Little Nicholas for pointing to a huge mound of mud beside some bear tracks yesterday and telling me that it was the bear’s crap.  Kids say the darndest things, don’t they!!
3. Pictage.com because it has already made my life SO much easier and given all of my clients so many more choices besides prints and digital files. Now they can choose from prints, digi files, canvas gallery wraps (my absolute FAVORITE type of print), a huge assortment of photobooks and greeting cards, guest sign in books, dvd slideshows and a whole swhackload of other great stuff.  Now, if they can just open up a Pictage office in Canada, my life will be perfect!
4. Erin Bowker. Thanks for stopping to have breakfast with me while you were passing through town today. I miss you tons and love it when I get to see you. Too bad it took hitting a deer to make you get here, but everything happens for a reason!
5. Juno The Wonderdog. For farting in the living room this evening while he was sleeping and jumping up to look at his own butt as if to say, “What the heck was that?” before running out the dog door to bark at his own bodily noises. I laughed until I cried. 

Tomorrow’s going to better than today and, the way I look at it, every day is only as fantabulous as we make it. So, on that note, goodnight my friends. I wish you enough.

Meet The Walkers and The Zakalls – Maybe The Wazakalls – Kamloops Family Photographer

Sometimes I just don’t get the amazing weather I’m hoping for during an outdoor shoot – this was one of those times.

Ha Ha Ha…that reminded me of something my niece did to make me laugh a long time ago. This is totally off topic, but she was about eight years old and she was writing on sticky notes and leaving them all over my house. When I woke up, there were two sticky notes on my fridge. One said, “Matthew, sometimes you are not very smart,” and the other one said, “This is one of those times.”  Matt’s my nephew and, even though it wasn’t a very nice thing for an older sister to say to her little brother, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Kids are hilare!

Anywho, back to the shoot with the bad weather…

Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t mind doing shoots in crummy weather. In fact, I think that a rainy day shoot can be absolutely fantastic if I have the kind of subjects who aren’t opposed to playing in the rain a bit and I have someone to hold an umbrella over me and the camera to keep the lens from getting soaked and fogging up.  Unfortunately, the day of the shoot I didn’t have an assistant, nobody really seemed keen on hanging out in the rain and, well, the weather was really crummy. However, all was not lost and I managed to grab some good shots of the Walkers while we waited for the Zakalls to arrive.

I’ve known Kathy for a few years (we used to work together and I’ve blogged about her before on this post) and I’ve always thought she was absolutely hilarious. We need to hang out more, but just can’t seem to find extra time (I’m sure everyone can totally relate) to schedule play dates with ourselves!!!  I was fairly excited to do Kathy’s family shoot this year because it marked an anniversary of sorts for me (one year since I started shooting families) and she really liked her pics from last year. I hope this year brings a repeat performance, despite the weather.

Kathy’s hubby, Cory, is always so quiet that I never really get a chance to get to know him, but I like him anyway because it’s so easy to see how much he loves his family. And then there’s Calvin. What a doll.  Curly blond hair. Big blue eyes. Big smile. What’s not to like. I admit that I spent more time shooting just him than I did the rest of the family, but he was just so smiley and happy that I couldn’t help it.

Cory’s sister, Stacy, also came over to do a family shoot and I also did their family shots last year. What a difference a year makes. Their youngest daughter, Kessa, was about three weeks old last year when I did their pics and she’s grown up so much (and she’s crazy adorable to boot). Their eldest daughter, Maia, is beautiful and smiley and giggly – so fun. And their son, Talon, seems to enjoy making crazy faces as soon as I point the camera at him – either that or he doesn’t smile at all.  And, even though Dave and Stacy didn’t seem to enjoy our little excursion into the rain, they were troopers about it and I was grateful that they went for my suggestions!

Here are my favorites from our shoot.

Good times.  Thanks Cory, Kathy, Calvin, Stacy, Dave, Talon, Maia and Kessa. And, I must say, I’m looking very forward to shooting Kathy’s baby belly in December and to the new Walker arrival early next year!

Meet The Cookes – Kamloops Family Photography

Years ago when Greg and I first started seeing each other, he was living with his good friend Kris. It just so happened that two weeks before Greg and I hooked up, Kris starting seeing his future wife, Tori.  For a few months, we all hung out while Kris lived here, but the time came when Kris and Tori wanted to get a place of their own (probably because of Greg’s rants on Friday nights about the messy house, lol) and Kris moved out. At first, Greg and I were stoked to have the place to ourselves, but after a few weeks, we really started to miss having Kris and Tori around. I’d go so far as to say Greg was a bit depressed for a couple of months because he missed Kris so much. Awwww, that’s so sweet.

Luckily, Kris and Tori liked us enough to keep coming back (except on Friday nights ) and, over the years, they have become one of our best couple friends!  A few years ago they moved to Clearwater and, even though it’s an hour and a half away, we still manage to see them once in awhile. Greg and Kris have the same motorbikes (KLR 650) and they thoroughly enjoy leaving behind the wives for the weekend and exploring the province.  It makes me smile to think about how excited they get when they go off adventuring!  Like little boys with the best toys EVER.  Hilarious.

Last September, Kris & Tori were blessed with a baby son, Evan, and last Saturday we FINALLY went out to do a family session.  It’s been tough to coordinate it with them living in another town and trying to balance two careers and a baby at the same time. I must say, though, I am totally stoked with the results and some of the pics made me tear up because they really seem to capture what an amazing family dynamic they have going on.

Before I post the pics, I just want to say a few words about both Kris and Tori because they really are just amazing people.

Kris is super easy going and he always seems to be smiling (well, smirking a little actually). He has a way of making other people feel calm and I always feel like I should just take it down a few notches when I’m around him and just settle into his mellow, feel good mood. Kris is like a human Mandala (in some cultures, Mandalas are used in meditation for establishing a sacred peace) – he makes you feel calm and centered and just here in the moment. And Tori gets to live with him every day.  Lucky girl.

Tori, on the other hand, is a tad livelier than Kristian. She’s also positive and upbeat and loves to giggle. Greg and I love her giggle because it makes us want to giggle too. Tori is one of the kindest, friendliest people I’ve ever known and she has always made me feel good when we’re hanging out. I know she has days when she’s a big ball of stress, but no matter what happens, she never stays down for long and she’s always ready to smile and bring up that irrepressible giggle.  And Kris gets to hear that giggle every day. Lucky boy.

And then there’s Evan. I think he may have a bit of a crush on me. A few months back we went up to Clearwater to visit the gang and Evan seemed to be quite happy to let me hold him and tickle him and make him giggle (just like his mom, only smaller!). Maybe babies just have a thing for me or maybe it’s because I can make really good farty sounds to keep them entertained (maybe that reminds Evan of his dad ). Whatever it is, I’m smitten with him and, even though Kris and Tori insisted he was a bit cranky during the shoot, I still enjoyed every moment of it.

Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot. I have a lot of favorites from this shoot, but I don’t want to keep you all day!  Enjoy the pics, my friends.

I realize in this next pic that Tori’s eyes are closed, but I LOVE the expression on Kris’s face as he’s looking at her – like, Man oh Man do I love my wife!!!

He was getting pretty tired of my camera at this point. This pic makes me laugh. Tickle. Tickle. Tickle.

And who could resist the old “throw the baby in the air” shot???

These last two are probably my faves of the entire shoot. Evan was trying to share with his goldfish with me in the first one (even though his little hands were freezing). So sweet!

 

And my alltime fave, keeping Evan warm.

Kris, Tori and Evan, thank you so much for allowing me to shoot your family photos this year. We love you guys all the way up to the moon and back.

Good night blog readers. I wish you all enough!

Showit Tech Support and Pomegranate Seeds – Kamloops Photographer

Ugh!  I just heard from one of my potential Brides and it wasn’t good news. She told me she chose to go with another photographer who offered a Full Day package.  At first I was really confused because I do offer a Full Day package, so I whipped open my website packages page and had a lil looksy. Wouldn’t you know it, the way I have my packages worded sounds as though I only offer four hours of coverage for all of the packages. In reality, each package starts with four hours of coverage and the couples can add as many hours more coverage as they want all the way up to a Full Day. Oopsy Daisy.

Once I saw that, I immediately clicked on my Showit tab to open up my site and reword the packages, only to get an error message that I can’t get into the site because the program that runs it has been corrupted somehow and I have to reinstall it.  TOTAL PANIC!!! I spent a long time creating my site so that it is perfectly me and now I’m stressed that I’ll have to reinstall the entire program and lose all of the pages I created. I just can’t imagine having to do it all over again. And, even though I am fairly computer savvy, I just couldn’t bring myself to reinstall anything, so I sent in a support ticket to Showit with a plead for help. I know they will lay all of my fears to rest because their customer service is exemplary and rocks my socks (prrrrrrrrrr…)! Now I’m patiently waiting to hear from the Showit Tech Gods and I’m hoping against hope that other Brides and Grooms are not being duped into believing I would ever offer only four hours of coverage for a wedding. Egads!

I’m so cool that I spend Saturday mornings waiting for tech support and slowly chewing the fleshy parts around pomegranate seeds until all the yummy juicyness is gone. Yep, cool. That’s how I roll.

While I’m waiting…here’s a sneak peak of the upcoming blog about the Walkers and the Zakalls. Their kids are too cute!

Here’s Calvin, looking hard for Dora in my lens…lol. He just couldn’t seem to find her!

And here’s Kessa, who looks a lot like Cindy Loo Who…

And Maia, whom I think may have a touch of mischief in her!!!

I should be blogging about our crazy, rainy day shooting experience in the next couple of days!

Until then, I’ll just be hanging out here, waiting and waiting and waiting…;)

Meet The Kelly’s – Minus Dad – Kamloops Family Photographer

A couple of weeks ago, I headed out to Riverside Park to meet Barb Kelly and her kids for a quick shoot. I’ve known Barb since I was a kid in Logan Lake and I’d never met her kids, but I instantly loved them.  Mackenzie and Liam were adorable, hilarious and totally willing to do whatever I asked them…and then some! The shoot went by so fast and I spent a lot of it laughing at their antics and enjoying seeing Barb again after such a long time. Before I knew it, we were done and I was a little sad, but when I downloaded their photos later that night, I busted a gut laughing at some of their pics. Those kids are total hams in front of the camera. In fact, I wish all kids were as fun and easy to work with as these two were and I hope Barb and her husband love the hilarity of the pics as much as I do.

Here are my faves from the shoot.

And this one, which makes me say, “Awwwwwww…”

I’ll be posting the rest of the session in a few days when Barb and her family have seen them.

Thanks Barb and family, for hiring me to take your pics and for being such good sports during the shoot. It was really fun!

Good night blog readers. I wish you enough.