After watching her work her magic for a little while, I naturally assume Audrey was a chemistry whiz in school. This artisanal chocolate business is part art, part science. But no, she says. She didn’t take chemistry in school. Her counsellor told her that she’d be no good at science. He suggested she’d do something more suitable. Like being a typist.

Spending this afternoon at the Toronto shore... It makes me miss the city. The scent of shawarma wafting through the summer air, the hum of traffic, the hiss and chimes of street-cars rounding corners, opening, and closing. Children somewhere, yelling, planes overhead, the pavement hot, the air - sticky.

Before I became a family photographer, I was a parenting researcher. I was interested in how parents behaved, and how their children developed.

However, most of the hands-on data collection and family visits were not done by me. They were done by research assistants who would collect the data and hand it over to us, the researchers. 

You've seen the photos social media tells you to have. You've seen it all.

What you might not have seen is that there is another way. Another way to document your days. Where the authentic is given full reign.

Ask yourself this: why did you fall in love with your life?

My studio photos from when I was a kid - I think I’ve got a couple of those - are empty vessels. They're fully devoid of context. Other than my cute pig-tails, and the virginal white dress, I can’t answer any questions about the time and place. What was I into at that period in my life? I didn’t wear dresses except on that one day my grandmother took me to the studio, and I didn’t wear my hair in pigtails, either, I know that much. I wore "boys'" clothes and played with sticks and stray kittens and I was afraid of frogs (which hasn’t changed). None of that comes through in my childhood studio portraits. Not even a tiny bit, though I wish it could.

We walk around and I see that the farm is far bigger than it looks. It presents a pull, too, to the visitor, a tug that makes you want to linger and inquire, and peek with curiosity at the seedlings in the soil.

She zips around the kitchen of St. Paul’s Church like a ninja. A ninja with muscled arms. And also a very friendly ninja. She’s making cheesecakes, and cheesecakes in a jar, and mixing, scraping, pouring, baking, cooling, washing. To the untrained eye, it looks like a lot of work is going on.

Recently I photographed three birthday parties in nine days.

One of them was a surprise party. Two of them were 50th parties. Two of them had cats. One of them had two cakes. One of them: salami whips. One of them had a fully consensual boob-grabbing shot that I took in a dark room

When my "Year-in-the-Life" family took their two sons bowling, there were a few predictable glitches. Having an older brother and two parents who are bowling Gods (everyone looks like a pro when you first start bowling) does nothing for one’s ego. Will gave it a valiant effort, then there were some near-tears, then a change in strategy or five. Afterwards, he ate some fries and gave it another honest go. There were double underhand throws, and squat throws, and rotational slams, and anguish and thrill. It really doesn’t matter what the scoreboard ultimately said: the kid persevered, and that’s all anyone needs to know about that day.

While you’re imagining all those other families have more glamorous lives than you, they’re just making dinner and having quiet conversation. They’re tired from a long day at work - just like you - and they, too, are looking to reconnect with loved ones.

So fall for your life. Fall in love with real.

There were wardrobe changes, girls getting ready with lots of hysterical laughter and good vibes, kids being kids (read: jumping off couches and playing pretend shooting games), and even some serious dabbing. There was Bollywood-posing outside by the tree, and delicious food and hot coffee and the inauguration coverage from the previous day completely faded into the background for a couple of hours.

I'm well versed in traveling with children, painful road trips, scrambling for ideas to distract the little people in the back, without being able to explain why it's taking so long, or tell a white lie like, "we're nearly there". 

But life is not a race. Make time for the pit stops. 

Today it snowed again. It's still not officially winter, but I've got a roaring fire going and some light music, too much coffee, and two sleeping dogs. Lots of inspiration for this blog post, a collection of my favourite images from 2016 depicting snuggle and smooch moments. 

While blissfully immersed in my stolen slice of time-space at Toronto Pearson Terminal 1, I was perusing the shelves of a bookstore, looking for a quick and painless read (I sometimes like my literature to be like my photography). I picked up a book called Dirty Rowdy Thing, by someone called Christina Lauren (actually two people), and bought it without hesitation.

I consumed it while on the plane, and that, my friends, was the beginning of my love affair with contemporary romance.

Photography shouldn't be like going to the dentist. Whether you're on the front or back end of that lens, it should happen painlessly.

I have tremendous respect for photographers who are good at posing their clients, getting the best angles of their faces, and achieving beautiful portraits as a result. It's hard to do it well, so it earns a huge tip of my proverbial hat.

Me? I'm maybe not one of those photographers.