Star Shooter Contest

Yesterday I was procrastinating on getting some things checked off of my to-do list. What do I do when I procrastinate you ask? Twitter and Facebook!! While on Twitter I stumbled upon a posting by user johnnabrynn about a photo contest. It is called the Star Shooters Contest. On the Star Shooter organization website it states:

"Johnna is a professional photographer that has a passion to see hurting children healed. She uses phototherapy as a technique that will allow children to use photography as the catalyst for communication, change and healing. Johnna offers a unique therapeutic tool to aid children in their vital and delicate process of restoration."

Basically for the contest you submit a photo, $25 per photo submission, and the proceeds go to buying cameras for underprivileged children. I thought, what a grrrrrreat idea! I always see charities set up to help kids go to summer camps and sports camps and participate on sports teams, but I have never seen one that helps children get involved in photography. I love it!!! The prize for the contest is your choice of $2000 or a Canon 5D Mk II. Personally, if I win I'm going to the 5D. It's like my dream camera :)

So I then started thinking about what type of photo I wanted to enter. When I first started taking photos it was usually of friends and models in town. Just portraits. One of those models was a guy named Trevor. Trevor and I had so much fun working together that he asked me to photograph him and his girlfriend. It was something I had never done before but I thought "Hey, why not?". So we got together almost 2 years ago and had a really relaxed and fun session in downtown Halifax. This session is what inspired me to start taking photos of couples. It inspired me to capture love with my camera :) If it hadn't been for Trevor and his girlfriend Kara I wouldn't be doing what I do.

I went back through our session today and there are SO many photos to choose from. Trevor and Kara were so good at just being natural and interacting with eachother in front of the camera.

I finally decided on the photo below. I edited it again for the contest using my new Photoshop Actions from The Pioneer Woman. You can find these actions on her website here, and best of all, they're free!

And just for shits and giggles here are the rest of the photos I had originally edited from our session.

And oh yeah! Since I mentioned it already, if you want to add me on Facebook go here, and if you would like to follow me on Twitter go here.

Happy Wednesday!

CIBC Run For The Cure

One of the runs I will be participating in this year is the CIBC Run For The Cure. This is an amazing event. Absolutely breathtaking. I have participated 3 times and the amount of people that come out to show their support is phenominal. Everyone is dressed in Pink, lots of people with crazy pink feather boas, and I have even seen people dye their hair pink and their dogs fur pink! I love everything about this event.

This year I have decided to try raising at least $150 for this event and have my registration fee waved. Why you say? Well if I raise the $150 the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation will receive a lot more money than my $40 registration fee.

If you would like to help me support the CBCF please go here and donate :) Every bit counts!!

It's burnin' up!

Wow. All I can say is wow. Yesterday was the most beautiful day so far this year. It got up to about 35 degrees Celcius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Matt and I had originally planned on going to see Terminator Salvation but we decided not to waste such a beautiful day inside.

Instead we went to the Indian food buffet for lunch with my mom, ate our hearts out and then went home for a nap! Hahaha. It was just too hot out. When we were driving home I could fell my skin sizzling through the window, thats how intense the sun was.

After a nice nap in our cool apartment (our apartment faces east so we don't get the harsh sun :) ), Matt had gone to the gym and I went back downtown to meet up with a friend for supper. Andrea and I haven't seen each other since graduation day back in 2005. Feels like such a long time ago now. 4 years.. damn! We had a lot of fun walking around downtown, through the Public Gardens, and finally ending up at Your Father's Moustache for some food.

We talked about school, religion, the world, professors, the crowds we hung out with in high school, Matthew, her love life, family, pretty much everything including the kitchen sink. ;) It was so much fun just walking around doing nothing. We made an agreement to not wait another 4 years to get together again! Personally I hope it happened a LOT more often than every 4 years. Andrea and I have a lot of the same views on a lot of topics so we get along really well :)

And since this is a photo blog (right Ryan?), here are some photos of the Public Gardens.

Wake

This morning I thought I would blog about how I woke up in such an awesome mood. Weird eh? If you know me well enough to have seen me in the morning, I'm not much of a morning person (ok, so maybe that is an understatement). This morning though I didn't wake up to my own alarm, I woke up to Matt's. Matt being such a musical person had his alarm set to a song. "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. So now do you understand why I woke up in such a good mood? Woke up, listened to that lovely song, realized it is my day off and I was absolutely floating on cloud nine :) If you want to listen to this lovely song it is streaming below.

Amy & Mike | Sneak Peek

This past weekend I photographed a fabulous wedding! Although it was typical Nova Scotia weather with lots of fog and a bit chilly, the bride and groom were absolutely stunning. Amy's smile could warm the arctic.

I had so much fun assisting with Liam from Applehead Studio. And I can't help but think that this is just the start. Lots more weddings to assist this summer and I couldn't be more excited!

Here is a sneak peek :)

"To be the man, you have to beat the man"

What a crazy couple of days! I haven't been taking much photos and it almost seems like this is turning into a personal blog instead of a photo blog. But the seasons are changing and more photos are definitely coming! I'm just trying to get into the groove of blogging often. This past Saturday I finally went to get my knee checked out. A friend of mine recommended going to Medicine In Motion. They were great there! It wasn't busy at all which is always a bonus. The doctor twisted and bent my knee, made me walk back and forth a few times, asked me a bunch of questions. He then told me I have what's called Patella Femoral Syndrome. Basically, from my understanding, it is the roughing of some of the ligaments/tendons on the inside of the knee cap. I still have to go get an xray to make sure but I will be getting physiotherapy and also working on strengthening my quads on my own.

I probably won't hit my goal this month of 80KM because of it but I'm going to keep jogging and focus on recovery. :)

In other news, happy belated mothers day to all of the mothers out there! I didn't get a chance to post on Sunday but I had an absolutely fabulous home made breakfast with my family. I made the most amazing french toast ever! Matt and I should open a B&B, we would make awesome breakfast. lol.

As no post is a good post without a photo, here are some that I took when I went for a walk on Sunday. I love this time of year when the buds on the trees are coming out and everything becomes colourful again!

ps- I couldn't think of a title for the post, so I asked Matt for a quote and that's what he gave me :)

Wooooooooooohooooo

Photo Sessions

Lately I have had a super duper writers block when it comes to blogging. I asked Matt tonight, "Hunnie, what should I blog about?". His answer was, "Your knees". Reason being is because after going out an buying these awesome running shoes I am now having pains in my knees worse than with my original crappy shoes. But I have talked about my running adventures TOO many times in the past little while.

So instead I decided I wanted to talk about my photography as a whole. As my blog readers know, I will be assisting AppleHead Studio this summer to build my wedding portfolio. I also want to get a strong portfolio of portraits, seniors and couples. So if you are any of the above and want some photos done, EMAIL ME! (christine@christinenewhook.com)

I also worked a little bit more on my website and have decided to post an FAQ page. But I don't know what types of questions my clients/potential clients would have. I have asked some previous clients for some ideas but I want to really cover everything people can think of. So if anyone has suggestions as to questions I should post in my FAQ section that would be lovely :)

A friend of mine is designing a new image that will definitely help the branding of my business. More to come in the next few weeks on that.

And since everyone loves pictures and as Ryan would say "It IS a PHOTO blog", here is a photo I took not too long ago.

The World...

Yesterday was one of those days. Everything in life just kind of crept up on me and I couldn't handle it anymore. Work stress. Nervousness about this summer assisting. Yadda yadda yadda. I know we have all been there where life just creeps up on us. Well it hit me when I was waiting for some photos to load to my computer. I was just looking at a really old photograph I have on my desk. A photograph of a family vacation to PEI. I guess I was taking the photo as it was just of my mom, dad and sister. I won't post it for the benefit of my family because the 90's may not have been the most fashionable of times ;) But at that moment, for some reason the world tapped me on the shoulder and told me it's time to cry. And I did. And I couldn't control it. I was a blubbering mess while Matt hugged me and comforted me. That's true love. Ugly crying infront of your boyfriend and him telling you that you look beautiful. :)

Needless to say in one night I went from a 21 year old woman to a 5 year old child. We called my mom and woke her up, went to her place and hugged some more. The past 7 months has been this amazing adventure living on my own but I guess my home sickness finally caught up with me and I just needed one of those mom hugs that fix everything in the world :)

Matthew, I love you. Mom, I love you. Dad, I love you. Jessica, I love you.

And to my blog readers, call someone up right now and tell them you love them <3

ps- here is a funny video. Dane Cook talks about crying.

Dane Cook - Crying
Uploaded by Hanshi

Run Run Run!!

Unfortunately I didn’t meet my jogging target that I posted about. I got to 36.5KM instead of my goal of 50KM. On the bright side I bought real running shoes today that I am SO excited about. They are the Nike Pegasus. I started using them today with my Nike+ iPod and I LOVE the combination. I also got some new spandex shorts and jacket and now I feel ready to go! As my endurance has increased INCREDIBLEY in the last month I am going to up my goal this month from 50KM to 80KM!!! Hopefully with the new sneaks I won’t have knee problems anymore and I will be able to jog a lot longer! I’m also going to start going off road on trails and stuff so it is not that high of impact. To keep track on how I am doing you can go to here and search the username christinenew.


As blog posts aren’t fun without a picture, here is my new gear :) I was originally going to take some photos out at the track but it was pouring cats and dogs when we were there.

Mike & Amy | Engagement

Mike and Amy were suuuuuch a blast to photograph. As previous mentioned here and here, I assisted Liam from Applehead Studios last weekend for this engagement shoot. Mike and Amy were very comfortable in front of the camera and were full of smiles. On top of the benefit of meeting this couple, I was also shown how to use (and quizzed on my knowledge) a light meter and how to properly use the Canon Speedlite 580EX. Knowledge is the key to the world! Lol. Here are the photos I took from the session.