I don’t know about you, but I don’t like airports – especially when you’re trapped in them during stop overs. Recently we found ourselves in Amsterdam airport on the way back from India… The thing is, it occured to us that our next flight wasn’t for 7 more hours. Admittedly, Amsterdam airport has probably the MOST comfortable lounge seats for you to sleep on in the world, but that wasn’t enough to entice us to stay and relax. So we threw our carry-on luggage into a locker and headed out to catch the local train into the city.

We were both impressed by the city’s beauty. Stunning architecture, fresh air, clear waterways and an overall great vibe to the city. Almost everyone in Amsterdam seems to commutes via bike – between the 750,000 Amsterdamians (new word?!), there are 600,000 bikes!

We arrived and Central station and decided to explore the Old City on foot. We walked and walked for about 2 hours, and loved what we saw. We grabbed some fresh pastries to start our adventure off right!

The quirky shapes of buildings, alleyways and even doors seem to be defined by the winding paths the canals take through the city.

At the end of several hours meandering through the streets, we found ourselves at Anne Frank’s house. A little lost by now, we decided the sleek black mercedes idling in the taxi stand looked rather appealing, so we jumped in.

“How much will it cost for you to show us the sites for a couple of hours?” I asked.

“Eightee Yurows” replied the driver with a heavy Morrocan accent.

I can’t tell you how cool I felt at that moment, straight out of a movie! This guy had a really tough-guy image, totally shaved head, a strong face and looked a lot like The Transporter’s protagonist, Frank Martin/Jason Statham.

We headed off to see the city from the windows of our rather fancy taxi/Transporter. He showed us the Royal Palace, the Red Light District (all closed though, mum), some of the more famous Cafe’s (cough cough) and even some windmills scattered around the city. There was some really incredible architecture along the way, but I didn’t catch the names of a lot of the buildings.

On the way back to the airport there were some cool tulip fields and very sweet little cottages. It felt like the set of an old film to me.

I write this from Pearson Airport as we await boarding for our Paris/Greece adventures. This time we’re away for a bit of fun rather than business. A friend of ours, Jerry Ghionis is running a workshop in Paris and asked us if we’d like to be his models. Can’t wait to be photographed by him again with georgeous Paris as our backdrop!!

The Taj Mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World – and it’s no surprise. Spectacular  – Incredible – Awe Inspiring. I can’t explain the feeling you get as you approach through the south gate… but of course, I’m getting ahead of myself.

First things first – It’s Tuesday of last week. It’s HOT. Really hot. We’ve all woken up early to make the drive out to the Taj, do some shopping, then get back in time to make out 11pm flight. We’re all very excited – albeit tired from a busy few days of  gorgeous wedding ceremonies. Ankush and Lina arrive to pick us up looking bright eyed and bushy tailed (that may be an Aussiism!?). Charlotte and I on the other hand were still trying to re-align our body clocks to Indian time.

The roads are very clear early in the morning, so the drive to Agra went smoothly, with just a couple of stops – one to pick up fresh cut bananas and another for breakfast – Mmmm… We ate these amazing – non-spicy – paratas… the equivalent of a pancake lightly filled with mashed pieces of potato… I chose to spread jam on mine (hey, it’s breakfast right?) and it was goooooood.

Check out this cutie who danced while her brother played a citar style instrument. So sweet.

While the others were buying bananas, I nabbed this shot. We’re both big fans of trying to keep the environment healthy so it was a bit unsettling for us to commonly see this much litter piled up in places. So much of it was plastic water bottles.

With of population of over a billion people in a country that would fit 3 times into Canada, it’s no surprise that there is a waste problem (fellow Torontonians know what I’m talking about with our city workers union on strike this week!). I’m not sure how issues like this are dealt with in the long term, but I certainly hope there is a clean up at some point.

As we were traveling on the highway, we captured this rather endearing image of a little girl looking comfortably wedged into a taxi riding on 3 wheels… hold on everyone! Just amazing.

We got a giggle seeing a bullock going through the toll gate! He wouldn’t have to pay on the 407 ETR unless he’s got a transponder somewhere.

We also captured some pretty cool “happy accidents” along the way. I love this one Charlotte took. Cool composition!

And this interesting character… awesome right?!

This is what you call a traffic jam or “pile up” on the highway. Faster cars, mopeds, 3 wheeled taxis would just weave in and out, around them and give them a little honk.

As the driver was paying some type of toll, there was a monkey performing tricks for us. I have to say, we were pretty impressed with the backflip. He seemed like he was having a great time doing those tricks and got a bite of a banana for his effort .

Around the Taj Mahal, there is a no vehicle perimeter now to prevent further discolouration of the white marble. We all jumped in rickshaws and headed in to check it out. It was a downhill run going in, but coming out was a tougher trip. It was hot and he worked so hard we were happy to give him a huge tip!

As we entered, we were provided an English speaking tour guide that gave us an amazing synopsis of the incredible story behind the building of the Taj Mahal. I will surely mess up the facts slightly, so will quote Wikipedia instead:

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

The Taj Mahal is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.”

While the white domed marble mausoleum is its most familiar component, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures. Building began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, and employed thousands of artisans and craftsmen.[3] The construction of the Taj Mahal was entrusted to a board of architects under imperial supervision including Abd ul-Karim Ma’mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri,[4][5] although Lahauri is generally considered to be the principal designer.

And it’s quite a feat of architecture indeed.

Charlotte grabbed this amazing shot as you walk through the gate shown above, you get THIS view……….

When we arrived through the tunnel she grabbed this shot too… What an amazing power this place has!

We were snapping shots of each other there too, and the gardener offered to take one for us – how nice was that?

Hey, he knows how to use my 5D Mark II… who knew ??

This is Lina’s cute little girl, Marianna she was so much fun and kept Charlotte and I laughing while away. Isn’t she adorable?? I grabbed these while she was playing tag with me, you can almost here her giggling!!

This is the view from the grounds of the Taj. If you look really close at the shot below you can see some cattle crossing the river, pretty cool eh?

On our way back from the Taj, Ankush took us to a great joint on the side of the road, nothing fancy, but boy was it good!!

As the sun set, we headed home and grabbed this one on the way back. I love this shot of the baby riding along shotgun! Something you don’t see everyday… Thanks to Ankush and Lina for the great trip to the Taj, we had a great time. More pics of India and of course their amazing wedding shortly.

The phone rang, I answered (as I’m prone to do), and within moments it’s was clear that Ankush and Lina wanted us to be part of their wedding in Delhi, India. Lina’s excitement that we had their date available was evident – she’d seen one of our recent Hindu wedding slideshows online and from that moment knew we’d be the right photographers for her wedding. Ankush and Lina’s story is a beautiful one – they are both engineers – Lina works in food production and Ankush with the machinery used in food production… A machine broke down in Florida, Ankush was flown in, and the rest is history.

Charlotte and I are still finalizing the editing on their wedding photos, and we’ll have another post up very soon, however we’ve had many friends and family members asking to see our trip photos… So we’ve put together the shots from our arrival and a day trip to India Gate… The Taj Mahal trip will be a post shortly following this one

I was raised with bedtime stories told by my mum – of finding snakes in her bathroom, being held up a lone elephant while travelling in an open jeep on a lonely mountain road at night, helping her dad hand out medications at village leprosy clinics, and of amazing 2 day journeys she’d taken to commute to boarding school by train each semester. You see, my mum grew up in India. Her parents were doctors who ran a couple of mission hospitals there, one in Andhra Pradesh and another in Tamil Nadu. They were based in South India for a total of 17 years and my mum grew up speaking Telegu as well as English, from when she was a toddler. She, her sister and brother returned to Australia to complete their high school years in Melbourne.

During my first trip to India back in 1999 – I was visiting my brother, Mick who was living there at the time – I’d seen the poverty and lower standard of living that’s experienced by the majority of people. That experience had a huge affect on me – I no longer took for granted my suburban life, my hour long commute in an air conditioned train to university, or the fact that I had to work long days to pay for school. Simple things like being able to drink water from a tap, or have access to clean public washrooms were things that are considered luxuries to many people in the world. Even to have access to a car is an extraordinary thing to people in much of the world.

During the writing of this post, I thought it might be cool to show you some old India photos that I’ve scanned from my mum’s collection of slides. Here’s a cool old slide taken in India circa 1956 showing my mum, granny, aunty and my great grandmother (my Grandad’s mother), who visited the family in India that year. They were dressed up for a formal event I guess – all looking very cute in their saris.

Poor mum really must have stood out with her height and pale skin eh! Lucky she wasn’t a blond too! I love this shot of her chatting with the locals in the village.

So… on with the post! We arrived after a relaxed flight to 40+ degree weather in India. Even though it was 11pm, the humidity was incredible! Check out the fancy wheels we got picked up in!!! Ankush’s younger brother, Arapum, and his Dad, B.M, picked us up and helped us arrive safely at our hotel room. Thank you to both of you.

During our short stay, Ankush and Lina were kind enough to show us quite a bit of Delhi – both the street markets and some of the cool monuments – like the Presidents house, India Gate and The Taj Mahal. Below are a few shots we took while were checking out one of the local market areas. Isn’t this shot of Charlotte’s amazing. Transporting a load like that on a bike is incredible!

I love these used appliances! Previously owned blender anyone?

This guy was sitting in front of his store doing the hemming on some trousers. We chatted a little broken English with him and asked if we could take a picture – we just smiled, gave us a gentle head tilt and went on working. Very cool how easy going people are in India.

The reactions to the camera are always different. The guy on the left was being quite funny and playing up to the camera, whereas the dude on the truck was striking his best GQ pose! This worker on the right was chilling out and was pretty cruisy about Charlotte shooting him.

We often saw cows in herds of 3 to 10 cruising the streets. In most of India, cows are revered as sacred, and are therefore free to go where they please.

I interrupted this card game to ask if I could take a photo – and they all laughed as if to say “why wouldn’t you be able to?!”

Later on, we caught a cab with Ankush, Lina, their daughter Mariana and Lina’s parents to see India Gate as well as some of Delhi. The ride there was a little hectic, but we had lots more to learn! Wait till we show you some of the shots on the way to the Taj.

No matter how many people had to get some place, it seemed like they’d all take the one vehicle. Makes sense, but did make for some interesting photos.

The shot below shows the typical layout of the traffic in Delhi – cars in the right lane, 3 wheel motorbikes, cabs and scooter in the middle, and bikes on the outside edge.

Isn’t this a sweet shot of another taxi driver, taken as we were stopped at the lights. I turned the camera and showed him this shot and his smile was ear to ear!

These three wheel taxis are all run on compressed natural gas/propane. Notice the little bumper car style wheel protectors… you’d be surprised how little use those actually get considering the traffic conditions!

So after circling to take a look at the President’s house, we drove to India Gate – a memorial for fallen soldiers. It was so grand and beautiful all lit up, we had a lot of fun exploring the area.

As you can see, Mariana had a wonderful time blowing bubbles with Ankush, then chasing and catching them all! Ah to be a kid again.

Mariana may turn out to be a film maker I think. Everytime we’d turn around she had taken the camera from her mum and was filming something or other! And she’s only 3!

Charlotte saw these two girls selling bracelets and thought it’d be cute to make a collar for Greta (our puppy). You should have seen how quick they were – we were so impressed!

They loved the camera and were so excited when we showed them their pictures.

The huge spotlights that lit India Gate itself provided some pretty cool lighting on the vendors surrounding it. I really like this shot of the necklaces catching the light.

The pic below is actually a snow cone machine… I opted not to invite trouble by having one, although believe me when I tell you – it was very tempting!

More pics to come, stay tuned to the blog for Ankush & Lina’s incredle Hindu Wedding coming soon!!

I cannot begin to tell you how busy Dave and I have been lately… phew! We just got back from shooting an out-of-this-world wedding in India (pics to come!), tons of wicked eshoots, photographed a couple of amazing weddings and all before we strike a pose in Paris in a few days with Jerry Ghionis!! Yes, Dave and I have officially lost our marbles- hehe. One thing that I thought I might tackle, in the midst of all the madness, was my second newborn shoot.

For some reason I thought that newborn shoots would be simple… easy… a piece of cake. I mean how hard could it be, the baby sleeps, you pose them in a cute way, take the photograph and voila, instant adorable baby photos… Hmm, I may have been misguided by all of the cuteness. Actually newborns are a lot like us, they don’t like being disturbed while they are sleeping and cry when they are hungry making it harder than you think to get those super-cute, happy sleeping baby shots. But when they do shut their little eyes and drift off to sleep, so peaceful and cozy, there is nothing more beautiful in the world.

When baby Matteo’s parents saw the blog post of baby Caris, my last newborn shoot, they loved it and wanted something similar when their little one was born. When they contacted me for the shoot I was so stoked and booked in the session regardless of our schedule . I know it’s only my second newborn photography session, but after shooting little baby Matteo, I think I may be getting a knack for it. It’s so rewarding knowing that these meaningful photos will stay close to his parents hearts for years to come, and may one day become a family heirloom.

Lhin, Matteo’s mommy loved the first shot on the blog of Caris’ daddy holding her in his arms. I wanted to create something similar that they could enjoy for their nursery! Look at those little feetsies…. awwww so cute!

I think I mentioned before that I bought like a million little baby hats, beanies, wraps and blankies… Before the shoot I just received a new shipment of little baby hats from this amazingly talented lady in Perth, Australia. Her stuff is so funky and cool, like nothing I’ve ever seen as far as newborn hats go. I love the fuzzy hat at the top, I bought three of them lol, and of course this little bunny rabbit hat, so sweet .

Awww, I love macro photos of the little details – nose, toes and little baby fingers. What a cutie and perfect little newborn Matteo was to photograph. Thanks for being the best little model for me!

Us photographers are pretty spoiled here in Toronto. We have such a variety of shooting locations to choose from. No wonder so many out-of-towners head to the city of T.O. to snap shots of their clients in love. With the big city lights,  art galleries, universities, awesome cultural neighbourhoods and of course the Beach, the possibilities are endless. Nina and Igor – cool wedding photographers from Oakville,  knew what they were looking for when it came to their engagement session and it was right here at the Beach!

We’re always so flattered when our fellow wedding photographers hire us to document their special day. It’s such an honour when our peers admire our work enough to choose us for such an important event in their lives!

As we chatted about their engagement session we we’re all pretty set on shooting in the relaxed and trendy neighbourhood of “the Beach”. We were drawn by all of the funky little shops, painted alleyways and of course the rolling waves.

We drove through scattered showers with fingers crossed that the drizzly weather would clear. Lucky for us the rain, rain went away and we got to have a lot of fun with these guys! We started the shoot in the early evening by Leuty Lifeguard Station on Kew Beach and let these two crazy kids frolic by the waves. I think this sea gull wanted to keep a close eye on the situation because he kept circling Nina & Igor while helping with our beachy theme

Once the sun set, we hit the streets for a little night shooting… My fave!!! Dave found this cool little alleyway with green, purple and yellow paint which coincidentally went perfectly with Nina & Igor’s gear! Dave actually scaled the walls to hold the video light for me on this one… You’re the best Spidey, I mean babe .

I absolutely LOVE these shots Dave grabbed in the street. Especially the picture he caught as the streetcar went by… Ahhh, I’d love a shot of us like that… any offers??

Ohhh, I remember when we took this one. We were all drooling because we shot it right beside the most amazingly yummy smelling Italian Restaurant, it makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Thanks for giving us a great excuse to hit the Beach and for the AWESOME eshoot guys, we really had a blast with you both! We’re sooo looking forward to photographing your wedding this year- Can’t wait!

Wow, this was one smokin’ hot shoot! And what a stunning couple, meet Simon & Noel! While planning their engagement session, they mentioned that they’d love to have a high fashion vibe to the shoot to really give their images drama and elegance. With three wardrobe changes and some of the most beautiful gowns I’ve ever seen you can see how putting that little extra into styling the engagement shoot really does wonders! Honestly, with the gorgeous and style savvy couples who hire us, Dave and I should really open up a modeling agency .

Many of our recent couples have asked to shoot at the Berkeley Church. I guess they’ve been checking out our blog and all of the great wedding photography workshop photos we’ve taken there. Like us, they think it’s one of Toronto’s best photography locations! As you can see from this shoot we managed to get a totally different look to the shoot from Sara & Hami’s engagement pictures. There are just so many options… My goodness, I do love the Berkeley Church .

These guys were so fierce, the pic above could easily be used in a Chanel ad! What a dress. Noel, I must know where you got that turquoise number, absolutely stunning!

Oh, how awesome are Noel’s shoes, all of you shoe addicts out there know what I’m taking about… Christian Louboutin… Helllloooo!!! I am totally hitting up the Louboutin boutique when we go to Paris next week! Louboutin shoes, with their trademark red sole, are as desirable as they come. I’m pretty sure it’s an essential destination for any fashionista in Paris. I don’t know if Dave will actually let me through the doors with my credit card but looking is free, right!?!

Wow, another jaw-dropper! Love this one below, it’s just fabulous. You can tell Simon loves Noel sooo much I couldn’t believe how he proposed. Talk about popping the question… Simon and Noel had their first date down by the docks on Polson st, here in Toronto. When he asked Noel to be his wife he wanted to bring an element of their first date into the proposal. Simon arranged for a Helicopter to drop them at the helipad at the end of Polson street and a limo drive to a private table he had arranged on the beach. Awaiting their arrival was a 5 star chef with a fabulous meal for the occasion. Oh no, wait, it gets better! After the private dinner for two on the beach, Simon took Noel home for a surprise engagement party with all of their friends and loved ones waiting to celebrate the next chapter of their lives together! Wowza, good work Simon, now that’s a proposal!!!

Our high fashion engagement shoot wrapped over a cup of coffee in Toronto’s Distillery District. Thanks guys for another fab shoot at the Berkeley Church! Congrats to you both, you make an amazing couple!