Jennifer, Gord, and their six-month old son Jasper were in East Sooke a couple weeks ago visiting family. They had me along for a documentary family photography session at the beach at East Sooke Park and then some time at their family’s home nearby. I don’t typically do family portraits, so I was thrilled that they wanted to do a session documenting an actual day in their lives. Jasper is a very lively and expressive baby – it was actually tough to get him to stop looking at the camera (babies just don’t understand photojournalism). The weather was perfect and I had a lot of fun. I’d love to do some more sessions like these.

Back in September, I joined Wendy and Garry for a day at the Saanich Fair. They’ve been married for nineteen years and wanted to document something they love to do together. They spend a lot of weekends checking out different events in town and experiencing new things. The fair is an old favourite of theirs, especially the horses.

When asked to say something interesting about their relationship, Garry wrote, “We don’t have all the same likes and dislikes, we don’t watch the same media, or have the same politics (we don’t vote the same but we believe in the same things. We just think there are different ways to get there), in part because of the difference of age but we are very different.” Wendy explained “But on the important things, the age difference has really never mattered. We are just very different people in many, many ways. But at the end of the day, we are on the same side; looking out for each other.”

It was a lot of fun spending some time with these two, seeing how they enjoy each others’ company.

Last spring, I had the idea to do some photographs of marriage, rather than just weddings. I wanted to spend some time photographing married or committed couples going about their normal lives, particularly doing things that make them feel most at home or happy in their relationship. I thought it would be great to show that there doesn’t have to be a big white dress involved in order to celebrate your love through photographs.

It took me a while to find the perfect couples for this project and even longer to make our schedules work, especially once wedding season started. I found Karen and Lisa thanks to a tip from someone on my Facebook page and I’m so happy I did, because I think this session is absolutely beautiful, with the summery floral colours and couple’s bright style, sweet dogs, and the obvious love and friendship that come from this relationship of ten years.