Packages, Prints, Services

I've been getting more and more questions in the last few months about my photography packages and services, so I thought this would be a good place to spell out some of the shoots I offer (you'll have to check out photokat.ca for some pricing or drop me a note about your specific project).

Baby & We Make Three
-Document your baby's first year with three photo sessions of your newborn.

Wigglie Toes
-Kids are precious treasures at any age. Whether they're 5 days, 5 years or 15 years old there's a moment worth capturing and a memory worth having.

Cherish the Dress
-A two hour high-end post-wedding fashion shoot.

She Loves Me
-A 1 hour engagement session. You won't believe the incredible value in this!!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
-Book a Photography by Kat party for a birthday, bachelorette or a girls night out! Comes complete with chocolate fondu, bubbly and great times!

Ribbons & Lace Shoot
-A boudoir shoot that's as innocent or as racy as you want...

Trash the Dress
-For the adventurous bride who's not content just boxing up her wedding gown. Your wedding dress will never look the same!

Portraits
-Please inquire about your particular shoot. Discounted rates for artist/model portfolios.

Wedding Coverage
-Starts at $800 for 6 hours. Drop me a note to find out more about details and other available packages.

Sometimes it takes a while to find a company or several companies that you're really happing dealing with when it comes to getting prints and albums made up. The net is full of album companies and online storefronts offering discount deals on print jobs from places all over the world.

I've put hours of research into this, scouring the net for a company whose corporate values I like and who's work is impressive.

I wanted to find a full-service company who I could go to for if not everything at least most items. I wanted them to be Canadian based (that criteria made my search really hard), and of course their work had to be top-notch. I also wanted to develop a great relationship with the company, so their corporate personality really mattered to me.

I've managed to find all that in a Toronto based company, and after having a bunch of client prints ordered through them and two albums in the works through them right now, I've decided that all my print work will be done through them. OH... and you know a company is doing something right when they're featured on an episode of Canada's Next Top Model.

Any photographers out there, drop me a note/email...I'll point you their way.

I plan on sharing some pictures of my albums, prints and gallery wraps in the next few weeks and stay tuned for my custom designed line of cards!!

There's lots of awesome things coming down the pipeline right now and I'm trying so hard to contain it all!

More soon...

Back From the Woods

Yes, this blog has had it's share of crickets in the last few weeks, but it has been intentional and at the same time unavoidable.

Last summer I used two weeks of my vacation time to work at a summer camp north of Toronto, Fraser Lake Camp, and helped run their Leader in Training (LIT) program. Basically it's a two week session at camp for 14 year olds, with 9 days of that time spent on a backcountry canoe trip in Algonquin Park. To me, Fraser and Algonquin Park are like little slices of heaven and so I jump at any chance I get to head to both locations.

This summer I signed up to be an LIT Program Director again and with my friend Ted we worked hard to pick new canoe routes and plan out a revised program that would teach teenagers how to become self-confident, self-reliant and indepenent.

The trip is by no means an easy walk in the park. Mornings on this year's trip started around 7:30am with breakfast, breaking camp, and getting ready for the day. Usually we were on the water around 9:30/10am and didn't get to our next campsite until about 5:30/6pm on most days. The in between part saw us paddling anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours to portages that varied in length of 75 metres to almost 4 kilometres with our packs on our backs and canoes over our heads.

To some this may sound like torture, for me, it's heaven. Toss in 7 teenagers and it's an epic adventure!

So I am back safely from my Algonquin adventures, trying to kill a bit of a head cold, but otherwise no worse for the wear. Last summer I brought a point and shoot along, but this year I decided I wanted a complete escape, and so I have no pictures of my own to share from the trip. I'll see if I can snag a few from the campers to post at a later date.

Of course while I'm away ignoring the Internet and technology and giving up basic things like plumbing and electricity, the world marches on, so I was really excited to see today that this blog has been listed by the blog All Day I Dream About Photography as one of the 29 fresh blogs and photoblogs to add to your RSS readers.

SEE!?
WICKED!!!

I haven't done it yet, but I'm planning on looking through the other sites listed to see what they're also up to. Link lists like this tend to bring about really cool new connections, and it's cool to see that that's already happened with another blog listed on the site, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag until that happens.

So what's up for Photography by Kat in the next month or so? Lots. There's a family trip to PEI...you better believe my camera gear is going along on this adventure. I have some baby portraits to shoot for a friend, two weddings to shoot in August, and the possibility of some other sessions that people have been inquiring about.

I'd love to work some more on my Airport Abandoning project and maybe see if I can submit this to the Contact photo festival for next June. Even if it doesn't make its way into Contact, there's a fantastic coffee shop in my home town that supports local artists and I'd love to see if I could get the pictures up there and maybe have a party of some sort.

I'm also wanting to improve my editing skills so I'm thinking about taking some time in the fall to put myself through a self-study program of Photoshop and Lightroom Techniques. I'd love to go to the Photoshop World Conference in Vegas and also PDN's PhotoExpo in NYC in October...but I don't know if either or both of those trips are in the financial cards this year.

While on the canoe trip last week I did a lot of musing about photography and what I want to do with it, and where I want to go with it. I don't think I'll ever have that entirely figured out, but it felt good to set my head right about some things, and to step away from the camera for a solid two weeks.

So as one of my campers said (albeit in German): "Clench your butt cheeks, close your eyes, and push through!" Lets see what the second half of 2009 has to bring for Photography by Kat.

More soon...

PJism - Staged or Real & Me

I've been following a conversation on Chase Jarvis' blog about two French students who staged a series of photos and entered them in a photojournalism competition. They won the prestigious event and instead of just accepting the award and the money, they revealed that they had setout to show that the conventions of what makes a great photojournalistic piece can be imitated and in fact rewarded.

There have been some very candid conversations on Chase's blog about these conventions. Sorta the old newsroom philosophy of "If it bleeds it leads."

An interesting observation was posted by someone named Marco Aurelio:

"....Photo-journalism is hobbled by the exoticizing of the Other, and its perpetual marriage to shock and awe obsessions with viewers where only the victimization of Others is important, and nothing else. it sells a lot more advertising space to cleave at society's morbid obsession with Others' pain. Where are the stories of life's endurance? if it doesnt have pain or blood on the shirt, it isnt photo-journalism?"

Amen brotha!

I must admit to also be captivated by the lure of photojournalism (PJism). The idea that you can travel the world, see world events first hand, while capturing and transmitting those events around the globe all for money, is very seductive, as I'm sure it is for many. A life of travel and adventure and $$ too? Yes, please! But much like a Margaret Atwood novel it's all about exploiting the pain and the gore. The sufferring and the catastrophe.

Two weeks ago, when I was out shooting with Jodi in Fort Frances, we got talking about my dreams as a photographer. I confessed that I'd love to shoot portraits and weddings from April to early November and then work as a photojournalist from November to April (coincidentally right when Canada gets blasted by piles of snow...go figure :D ) but that I didn't see myself as the traditional taking pictures in a war zone sort of pj.

Really, what I'd like to shoot and tell is exactly what Marco says in his post. The stories of endurance. The human story of everyday life. The awesome thing about it is that sort of story is everywhere. I don't have to go to Rwanda to find it. Now that I have the luxury of not being in that moment, I can see that I had a unique opportunity when I was in Fort Frances to tell the story of that border town.

Affected by the US economy and the global economy, with the main industry being the pulp and paper mill (the only one still open between Sudbury and Winnipeg I believe) there was ample opportunity to show a place that is struggling to survive and the people who are making a go at it: hotel managers, truck drivers, school teachers, nurses, hair stylists, restaurant owners, pastors, first nation's school directors... such a varied cross section of those who live and work there and whose livelihood is affected by the larger world around them.

Maybe it's something I'll return to do some day, but I'm kicking myself now for not taking the extra time to grab images of the town itself since for a week I was invited into the lives of not just one photogapher and her family, but also the lives of everyone else that I had the chance to take pictures of. Not that there really was the time for that sort of thing while I was there. Regardless, there is a story there and it's a situation that I'll be more open to looking for in the future.

I've always been a story teller and I think portrait work calls to me because of the ability to get to know other people's stories, especially when you meet them in their environment. There are many stories in my area that need to be told. Not just the mainstream ones. The maintenance of farmland, protected greenspace and the natural aquifers in my area is an important story. I've started a portion of that story (at least image wise) by shooting pictures of some of the government owned property near my house (land purchased for the creation of a second major Toronto airport). I need to pick up that story again... Food for thought. At least for me that is.

More soon...

Ten Days of Shoots

Yeah I've Been A Little Busy

I apologize. I know I haven't written, posted, shared anything here in a while and I think it's that usual "OMG THE NICE WEATHER IS HERE!" reaction that I and a lot of other people get ...especially in Canada...when the snow is gone and you can actually be outside for longer than 20 minutes without the words "Holy crap it's freezing out" or "I'm cold" popping into conversation.

Things have been busy photography wise too. Spent 10 days out in Fort Frances, Ontario (it's right on the Wisconsin, Manitoba, Ontario border area. Some interesting things happened in those ten days.

1. I grew more confident in my photo skills
2. Got over my dependence on flash to help create an amazing portrait
3. Learned that I have a decent eye for edits
4. Found that isolating a subject on a background in the natural environment is important
5. Wood tick checks are an essential part of a shoot
6. Any light, including natural sunlight, can make a killer picture
7. Found what I think is my style
8. Discovered that I really really need to invest in some expensive glass

I'm sure there are piles of other things that I learned but I think those are the main ones that jump out at me right now.

So my suggestions. If you're thinking of delving deeper into photography, want to see if it's something you want to do more seriously, need to develop your portfolio, or need an affordable way to get a better photo education, then find a working photographer you admire and ask if you can be their second shooter, hold their light stands or sling their gear around for a week, a weekend, a month...

Okay, so enough of my waxing poetic. I'll post some selected images from my time away in the next post.

Allison Loves Luke - Redux

Movie director's often release the recut versions of their movies after the original. Sat my butt down on the couch for a few hours this afternoon with my coffee and recut some pics from last night's e-session. Here's some more of Allison and Luke:

Allison loves Luke

Last night I met up with Allison and Luke at the Rogers Centre (aka SkyDome) for some engagement photos. Mother Nature decided she'd roll in some big heavy clouds, so the nicely illuminated skyline that I was hoping for was nada. But the show must go on!

I know Allison from high school days, sitting in the trumpet section of our school band, plus all the band trips to Ireland, Chicago and New York...there are many good memories with her and it's awesome to see her with such a wonderful guy. Luke, I wish I could say I've got a lot of dirt to share on Allison...I don't...but ask about her job as a plumber (sorry Allison).





Also, I must say thanks to my friend Mike for joining in on the shoot and bringing along his Hasselblad. Things would not have gone as smoothly if he wasn't there to act as my VAL (Voice Activated Lightstand) and even though most photographers wouldn't appreciate someone showing up with a big bad Hasselblad, I loved giving him the opportunity to shoot some medium format film frames of Allison and Luke. That's a truly special privilege for a wonderful couple!

Best of luck with your wedding plans Allison and Luke!!