Over the years, you have learned - without realizing it - that your real life is ‘ordinary’. You have learned that the everyday moments, those regular things that happen daily, are less than ‘special’.

What you have learned is a lie.

I just know, that as she grows, Selena’s daughter will come to view this special time with her mother as irreplaceable and magical. I’m sure it will leave really positive memories for decades to come.

The transfigurative moment that flits in with just the smallest change in circumstances - a baby descends a few inches through the birth canal into the open world - is a wondrous thing. One moment, there is no one there and the next - there is a being that demands all your attention. Of course that being was there all along, but it was encased, enveloped in warmth, and quite undemanding of his parents' time and efforts.

Behind the jokes and shooting the shit, Andrew seems to have a very solid vision for his shop. I get the sense he's naturally got all the components of successful entrepreneurship in a relatively small city: He's friendly and light-hearted with clients and friends, humble and supportive within the community, and steadfast in his approach to artistry and business-ownership.

The Elm Café is more than the sum of its (perfectly awesome) parts: it is a tiny hub of activity and community on the otherwise nondescript corner of Montreal and Charles St. If I'm having a dramatic day, I might liken it to the floodplains of the Nile amidst Egyptian desert. If humanity is what you seek, you can always find it at the Elm, lodged deep in a diverse community of hard-working people trying to pursue dreams or make ends meet, or both, in the Inner Harbour, who don’t often have the time to wish for things like this, but who very much yearn for them anyway.

As a young teen in the UK, I found a photo in a magazine. I cut it out and stuck it to the wall of my tiny bedroom and gazed at it every day. It was of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. I drew an arrow toward the very top of one of the towers. It was meant to depict where I’d stand one day, overlooking the entire world, arms out, free as a bird. That was 1993.

The images and stories and songs I yearn for are somewhere between beauty and dream. They don’t need to be coherent, in the same way dreams don’t need to be. Ever try to tell someone your dream? Yawn. Even if you’re a damned good storyteller, you’ll induce some snoozes. The thing that compels you to tell someone your dreams is the feelingyou’re left with when you open your eyes. It’s the emotion that grips you, but that's attached to an ineffective or half-baked story. That emotion is hard to put into words. But could it be done through music, sound, or pictures?

Two years ago, I walked away from academia. After pursuing it relentlessly and devotedly for some seventeen years (if you count my undergraduate degree), I walked away.

It wasn’t a dramatic, flailing arms and hair-pulling act...

Insofar as social media exacerbates social isolation because of feelings of inadequacy (think of all those ‘perfect’ people, places, lives), documentary photographs offer a way forward. They offer honesty. They tell a story of each person and each family just as they are, in all that makes them human, flawed, relatable.

When I first got into photography, I was fairly daunted by the mental image of setting up a studio in my unsightly aged farmhouse. But wasn't studio family photography the way it was done? The only way?

Sometimes the people, the scene, the seasons - it all comes together just right. It gives rise to beautiful colour and spectacular vibes. That was what happened that day.

You've heard me say it before and I'll keep saying it just as often as I can: every family is different, and the activities that fill your days are unique to your own family, and you should never ever try to compare yourself to any other, because comparison is the thief of joy. But all strong families have one thing in common and that is...

I made the trip back to Mississauga last weekend, during some kind of migraine-inducing pressure system that drove temperatures in mid-October to 24 Celsius. It was just as well, because Isabel's son was recovering from croup and the warm humid air was probably good for him. (Just guessing. I'm not a doctor.) They'd moved in to a new house only two weeks ago. Grandma and grandpa were visiting from Colombia, and they were hoping for some photos to take back with them. So, a busy time for them, and yet they made time for me.

Dusty and Fiona have an intense and enduring love. This is so hard to find, you realise. When you find it, you grab it and you stick with it. Eleven years ago, they found it.

Toward the end of September, on a clear warm Saturday, the United Way and Kingston Fire and Rescue teamed up for a fundraising day full of fun for families. You could try your hand at putting out a car on fire, walk through an inflated house to learn about fire safety, take a ride in a firetruck, and run a fitness course fit for a fire-person.

Midway through the month, I threw out my back. It might have had something to do with the 15-hour wedding I shot two days prior to that, or with my TERRIBLE posture when editing photographs. Or with the fact that I'm getting old. So old... :D

This is a photography experience that is as bendy and stretchy as your kids on the playground. It will give you as much joy as does hearing those two-word utterances your kids make when you ask them 'how was your day'? Ok, maybe more joy.

Having a photographer in the room while you're in pain, while you're facing your biggest fears (because let's face it - for me, the impending pain of labour was my biggest fear), while you're vulnerable and naked and possibly passing gas from strain... for some people it's just too much.

But there there is the flip side...

The event ran 12-6pm this Sunday, and the crew were ready to WORK HARD. There were boxes of complimentary donuts, tall cups of coffee for the artists, and a full waiting room of eager folks waiting to choose their piece and put it on skin. Oh, and an array of flash selections by each artist to choose from.

Go grab a handful of mud and plant a tiny seed. A bean, a pea, a cherry tree; and mark it with a stick.

Then watch it grow and weed it so. And eat it when it's done. And tell the world about your seed, and give them all some mud.