Great weather!

I am soo enjoying this wonderful weather we are getting. My bride for this weekend told me she ordered in straight from the big guy and it seems he got to filling that order in a big way. Realistically I am praying, myself, for a bit of cloud - it just gives the sky more interest in the pics :)
I went for a walk around Beaumaris Lake yesterday to get some exercise without going to the gym - it was just too nice to be stuck indoors. It was refreshing to have 75% of the people walking by say good morning. How friendly folks are when the sun is shining and they are enjoying nature. Once again I thought about how I would love to do some pics at this lake, there are some great little nooks around it that just call out for some photographing.
I have finished retouching Kim and Geoff's wedding pics and they are now in at the lab. Along with getting this APEGGA scrapbook done I will start up on Candace and Ray's pics.
Oh yeah, I wanted to give a little plug for Candace and Ray as they own http://www.carsgone.com - the fun way I heard about it was at their reception when the mc for the evening had decided that he needed to insert a minimum for 4 shameless plugs. It was all in good humor and everyone had to laugh when he threw the web name into his speeches.

another way to communicate...

Ok so I have now been inducted into the facebook community. It is starting to take over! Whenever my eyes get tired of retouching instead of walking away from the computer I check out whats new in the spacebook. I have hooked up with some really long lost friends which has been cool. I have even started up a Creationsphoto group within spacebook as well. So if you are a member, come on and join in! I look forward to seeing you online.

Rosangela and Gerhard

Another beautiful wedding. Rosangela and Gerhard had a intimate ceremony with family and a few friends at their home. As I always say, every wedding has it's own story. Sometimes funny, sometimes not, or rather isn't funny at the time and you may laugh about it years later as you remember :) Well, they only had one little mishap that I knew of - we were missing the marriage certificate - made it a little stressful for a bit but luckily our couple was easy going enough to shrug it off and go on with our photos. With everyone involved agreeing to get together and do the signing when it was possible, we continued on. I sure hope they found it when they got back to their search later. We had a wonderful time documenting their passion for one another at the Citadel Theatre. Thank you so much for including us in your day. I'm sure you will have an excellent honeymoon! One day I will get to Egypt too!

Here is a sneek peak of your wedding photos... Rosangela & Gerhard.

It was a nice relaxing long weekend. We spent alot of time at home just hanging out with our boys at home. Although I didn't seem to get alot done, except going through the wedding photos and creating the slideshow...well some laundry too...

Next weekend we don't have a wedding on the books, but we will be getting together with my family to celebrate "family day". A little party we do yearly with my parents to celebrate their wedding anniversary - although it isn't usually on the right day.

Candace and Raymond...

What a wonderful weekend. I was very happy for the nice weather!

Candace and Raymond were married this past Saturday in a beautiful little ceremony out on a farm. They kept it special by getting married on a giant rock. The luncheon afterward put us a little behind schedule but we had fun creating some wonderful photos! The party was great and the Aunties in the crowd really could dance up a storm. I thank the both of you for sharing your love with us and including us in your special day. It was an honor to work with the both of you! They are sooo excited to see their photos (Candace is a scrapbooker too :) ) that we are meeting tomorrow to go through the pics.

I have put a few of my favorites here for you to see. I also have made a little slideshow with a bunch more.... Candace and Raymond ... again, you may need to download some free software from photodex to view the show...

It's Friday

I am running my last scrapbook workshop tonight. It is a bittersweet occasion as the decision to let it go was hard to make. I will never let go of scrapbooking - be sure of that! Just the task of running the workshop (aka crop). After 3 years I am getting tired of persuing people to join in. I had started with the hope that a group of people would come together naturally but this never seemed to take place. The Church on 99 crop has been a great place to get some work done in a friendly atmosphere and I have always enjoyed meeting the people (men and women) that have attended. I do look forward to attending other scrapbook events run by other people in the future - probably after wedding season at this point.
I am praying for a beautiful day tomorrow as we have a country wedding to photograph. I am looking forward to romping down a dirt road and finding a field to frolick in :) weather permitting of course. This is Alberta so you just never know how it will be!
Kim and Geoff stopped in last night and viewed their photos. It was a pleasure meeting with them again. I will get at the retouching soon for that event.
It is that time again and I am currently working on the APPEGA presidents scrapbook. This is a fun task that I have taken on for the past 2 years. I enjoy putting their year in presidency into a scrapbook - each one a bit different from the others.
Have a good weekend!

Scrapbooking

I had a great National Scrapbook Day on Saturday with 6 new and old friends. Our lovely hostess didn't even realize that she had planned this little get together on a significant day! Here I thought that is why she did. It was a chuckle for all of us.
I finished up a display scrapbook that I was working on, so I felt quite accomplished. There was some great food (it was potluck), great company and great ideas going around. We got totally chocolated out with the chocolate fountain one lady brought, YUM! I look forward to next year....
I am hosting my last scrapbook workshop this Friday. If you'd like to join us at the Church on 99 please give me a quick email at contact@creationsphoto.com. The crop runs from 6pm to midnight with no cost just a request to bring a snack to share. I always bring some pop and bottled water to share.
We will be shooting another wedding on Saturday. I look forward to doing a few country shots with this one. I'll make sure I post some of my favorite wedding photos next week.

Kim & Geoff

We had a wonderful time participating at Kim and Geoff's wedding. It was a little bit of de'ja vu for Kim's family when the JP was a bit late - and we are taking that as a good sign. The wind kept us from doing alot of outdoor shots. Thankfuly the Jubilee was kind enough to extend our time as we ran a little late. I am sure this is one of the quietest groups I have ever met! Well we found some ways to work with them and got a little more formal with the posing and it all seemed to turn out great. Kim and Geoff, thank you for including us in your day!

I've posted a couple of my favorite pics from the day...as well I have a slideshow that I've put together with some of the day's highlights... follow this link - Kim & Geoff - ... I have got to figure out how to post the show right here on the blog...

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Coming Up...

This weekend we are off to shoot a wedding and I am so happy that we have some good weather predictions...of course this couple picked a good backup indoor venue as well so we may just have to do a bit of both :)
I am looking forward to putting some new images on the blog - so if you check back next week there should be some here.
We have been busy meeting and booking both 2007 and 2008 couples! What a blessing it is to meet such wonderful couples and to get to be involved in one of their most cherished days. I am so honored when we are chosen as the photographers. I do look forward to a bunch of engagement shoots this spring and summer as well, with alot of variety - from the ice rink to the farm. I am excited about each and every one! I guess I am just a sucker for romance.

Jolene and Fred's Slideshow

Alright this is my first slideshow and my first post trying to get the slideshow online....I guess we will see if it works!
I have used a few images from Jolene and Fred's wedding because they were the last wedding that I was retouching, lately.

Well uploading isn't working here so I will see if this link will work instead....

Jolene & Fred

Cool - at least that worked! Let me know what you think. Oh yeah, you may need to download some free viewing software to see it - I'm not sure.

Yippeee!

The new site is now live!!

Check it out and let me know what you think of the new changes please

Ready...

Alright after much work I believe the new site is about ready to go! Now I am switching up web hosts so that means that www.creationsphoto.com will be down for what I am hoping will be a short period of time. Please bear with me!! I'm going to wait until the last minute possible to do the switch and make sure everyone has what they need before I move anything so that all moves quickly. I will be placing the current html site at www.trinalewisphotography.com as soon as I hear back from the new host. There will be a link to both the new site and the current "old" site on a splash page that you will hit first. This is very exciting! I will keep everyone posted and I am really praying for a smooth transition.

While I was into the web names I had to buy out www.trinalewis.com and www.trinalewisphoto.com ;) they are going to all point toward creationsphoto of course but I just didn't want some other Trina Lewis getting them before I did....there are more of me out there you know....I was really surprised to find that there are some really well known Trina Lewis' and there is even a scrapbooker that has been on TV too! Nearly floored my DH when he heard a comment that Trina Lewis would be coming up soon with some new scrapbook techniques on the TV one day. He called me and asked if I have some secret life that he didn't know about - of course the woman didn't look anything at all like me but it was good for a laugh. I have come across a Trina Lewis in the US who is also the same age as I am - how freaky is that. I was totally wanting to purchase lewisphoto and lewisphotography but of course those ones are already taken - all this info is, of course, just for fun -

Have a great day!

Coming Soon...

I am working on a new website - it will be a flash site and I'm very excited to have it up and running. I will keep the current website for those on dial-up so there will be options for all. The new site has a completely different look than the one I am using now so I am anxious for some feedback on it. Let me know what you think when it goes live OK? Hopefully I will get it up and running soon - it is just soo much time to resize and input all those pictures :) but I know it will be worth the look for sure!
I want to thank the 10 ladies who came out on Friday night to join me for a few hours of scrapbooking. We had alot of newbies and it was fun to meet them. I look forward to next month's gathering which will be the last of the season as well.
Coming up soon is another wedding - next weekend - not this upcoming one. I'm excited as it feels like it has been awhile since I've been in the groove. I'm sure we will have a great time capturing those memories. In the mean time I have been booking weddings with 2008 brides already. Wow these ladies are on the ball! I am very impressed with how organized the majority of them are already.
I am also in the process of adding a slide show component to my business and I hope to get some of the shows up on the blog for you to check out as well....possibly the new way to view some samples from the current weddings....

Scrapbooking

The time of month has come again to gather for some free scrapbooking fun! I am only hosting 2 more sessions then I will close down for the summer (wedding season). If you'd like to join us please give me a quick reply through email or on the phone.
Come Scrapbook with Us...

Friday, April 13, 2007

6pm to Midnight
Free of charge, just bring a snack to share

Church on 99
(9908-67 Avenue)

Email Trina at contact@creationsphoto.com
or call at 710-0012 if you would like to reserve a spot.

Future Dates: May 11, (to start again in the fall)

My Space Site is gone...

I have contacted MySpace 3 times in regards to my site that has beenwithdrawn. I am very disappointed that this has happened and I haveno idea why it was taken down. I got a standard letter but I don'tsee any of the violations as ones that I have done on myspace. It is very frustrating that the letter also says that the account is nonretrievable as well. I am very relieved that I have a blog going here at blogger.com and have duplicated most of the files to both myspaceand blogger. All has not been lost - thankfully I didn't rely on myspace as my main source for blogging!! Beware to those out there that have a myspace account that it can be demolished at any time without warning and without reason! No one at myspace has replied to my concerns.I am sending this out to warn everyone else I know about this issue -hopefully someone at myspace will take some notice as well.

What at trip!

Well we just got back from our WPPI/spring break trip this morning! It was such a whirlwind of events I just have to share it. I even snatched up a bunch of pictures to go along with the story - they are with my point and shoot camera that I keep in my purse but I think they still turned out alright :)

First we started to Vegas - driving - we were aiming to arrive on Sunday am because I was signed up to do a photo shoot on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately Saturday night as we are clipping along we get a flat tire. We looked at it as a learning experience for the boys though and they had their first lesson on changing a tire. Nothing is open when we hit the next city though so we need to continue along in slow speed with the donut spare. We did come across a repair shop after much searching on Sunday morning but it was too late to get us to Vegas on schedule :( We did finally arrive safe and sound Sunday about 9 pm.
The boys did some sight seeing while I spent the next 3 days at the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International convention. It was really great! I came away with alot of information and I look forward to adding a few new ideas into my business. I loved seeing all the wedding photos all over the place and am inspired to enter some of the fantastic photos we have gotten with our couples for the next competition.


After the conference was done we had planned to go see the Grand Canyon. My eldest son was not feeling well though so we let him sleep the day away. I did have an ace up my sleeve though for the next day and luckily he was feeling much better. When I was looking on the map I noticed that it was closer to go to Disneyland in LA than it was to go to the canyon...so with a little persuasion I got my wonderful DH to drive us a little further south. The boys were clueless and thought we were on the way home until they saw the Disney signs. It was great! Although I may have enjoyed myself more than the kids - I was soo excited to bring them as I have wanted to since they were babies and never had the chance. My favorite ride was "it's a small world" and the kids was "star tours". The fireworks show at the end of the day was spectacular, the best display that I have ever seen.



We checked into a hotel for the night and my DH had plans to drive a little up the costal highway going back North. Of course we had to stop and get some pictures along the way. This is my all time favorite from the whole trip.










In a last minute decision we stopped at Venice beach for an hour and soaked up some of the sand and sun - the boys soaked up more of the water and sand than we did as they built sandcastles.




Calculating the drive back we realized that it was faster to go back the way we came through Vegas. With another last minute stop we checked out Hoover Dam on the way through.


Again plans evaded us as the drive turned really trecherous before we hit the border and stayed that way all the way back home. The snow was blowing and the boys thought it was great cause they said it looked like we were travelling in warp speed like in Star Wars :) Not soo great for the driver though! Finally we got back this moring 7 am. I let the kids go to bed and miss school - something they never get to do -

So this past week was action packed full of learning, fun and great memories!

successful weekend

This weekend was quite busy with a scrapbook workshop and the Kids 'n' Us conference back to back. Well I got pretty busy with all the last minute work to be done for the conference so I didn't get around to sending my monthly scrapbook workshop reminder emails. Thus we had only 6 people come on Friday evening. This was really nice though cause we got to sit, talk and really get to know some new people. I was working on finishing up some goodie bags to give out at the conference and I honestly thought it would take me all night so I didn't bring any of my scrapbook stuff. With the help of my dh and two boys - the work went soo quickly that I ran out of stuff to do half way through the evening. That worked out nicely though cause I did some scrapbooking done for a couple other ladies instead. It is fun scrapbooking on other people's pictures every once and awhile. They were happy to have the extra help so it was all roses. Even though we all went home early (10 pm instead of midnight) - I was still up till 1 am with last minute details. Off to bed I dragged to be awakened by the alarm at 6:30 am. With the adrenaline pumping I packed up all the stuff to go - including the boys and their stuff and we all headed out to the Chateau Louis. With so many fantastic volunteers (including most of my extended family) the day went fairly smoothly and I think that everyone was quite happy. We had a TV station show up part way through the day too. I had collected an amazing amount of door prizes from local business', so approx 1/3 of the attendees got some kind of prize along with their goodie bags and the samples given out by our 12 vendors. My kids were soo excited that Costco was giving out Star Wars pens - I think my one son went back 3 times to trade his for a different character cause he just couldn't make up his mind...I had to stop him from going again...
I am very glad that the day is done - I came home Saturday and crashed! It was a success and that is what matters. Now I need to coordinate the thank you cards and I'm told in a couple of weeks the planning begins again for next year! I would reccommend this event to any family who has a member dealing with Juvenile Diabetes!!
I have been meeting with a few couples booking into 2008 already! These young people are on the ball with their planning. I haven't had the contracts signed yet but I do look forward to working with them as each of their weddings sound really great!

Keeping in touch

I haven't blogged for awhile so I thought I should get something up here. I did finish up with the e-session I was working on and got Jolene and Jason to sign a model release when they were here picking their photos. There were alot of good ones but I will just post a couple of my favorites. They are running away to get married and I am sure they will have a great time. I enjoyed our excursion and meeting the both of you as well as your canine companion :) I am so greatful for the wonderful weather that we had that day!!

I am currently working on retouching Jolene and Fred's wedding pics from the summer - they just came and picked their favorites the other day.
The Kids 'n' Us diabetic conference that I am helping to coordinate has kept me quite busy as well as meeting with some really wonderful couples who are getting married this year and next.

Changes...

Once again I'm changing things up to suit my loyal clients :) I have had quite a few requests for more package choices as I used to have sooo they are now online. http://www.creationsphoto.com

How does that affect those who have already booked in 2007?? Well all the packages have actually stayed the same or have been upgraded for your advantage! So those who have booked in 2007, you will recieve the upgrades where applicable.

Those who booked in 2006 will still recieve the package elements that were in the packages they signed their contract with - no changes there.

Enjoy the even more choices - decisions, decisions LOL

Tomorrow I'm off to do an engagment shoot. I'm soo happy for the nicer weather as we are heading outdoors.

scrapbooking

We had a pretty nice sized group show up for Friday night's Scrapbooking event. I think there were 20 people who showed up at one time or another during the evening.
My youngest son joined us as well and did some of his own scrapbooking. It was pretty cute - he just basked in the attention from all the ladies. I found it a bit more challenging to complete my own pages with him there but I still did get 6 pages for our family albums.
I especially am thankful for my friend Jodi who is sweet enough to help me put away some of the tables. I soo appreciate the help!
I'm already looking forward to the next crop in March on the 9th.

Caught up again...

I am really enjoying meeting with the new couples who are considering using my company for their wedding photography. I want to thank again each of them for taking the time to come and meet with me here in my office.


I have Tina and Steven's photos into the lab and will be picking them up on Monday. I remember they had a wonderful ceremony at the school archives building downtown. They included the sand ceremony which seemed to become very popular this past summer. They made thiers unique by including more colors than the typical 2. I think the funniest part of the day was when Tina related the story of how the ladies needed space in the washroom so moved some of the flowers that were in there. To keep them fresh they put them into the toilet. We went to the Muttart grounds for photos afterward. There was alot of fun to be had with so many of their friends in the bridal party. I thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your special day and I wish you much happiness in your journey together.



I have also recently taken on the position of coordinator for the Kids 'n' Us diabetic conference. I am enjoying assisting in the putting together of this event and look forward to a smooth running day on March 10.

Just the other day I registered for the WPPI convention (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International). I always want to keep growing and learning and have heard that this event is fabulous. So off I go at the end of March to Vegas for 4 days chock full of wedding photography related courses! I am soo excited because I am sure that I will learn alot of new tips and ideas to impliment into my photography this summer.