RAHEL + JO - SWISS WEDDING

The rain pelted down on the eve of the wedding and as the hours leading up to the wedding day advanced no one would have ever guessed that we would wake up at the top of Jajakobshorn Mountain to snow on the wedding day.
The couple took things in stride as people grabbed shovels to dig out the wedding venue and last minute details were re-arranged to accommodate a winter wedding.
People traveled from all over the globe for this Swiss wedding to celebrate the happy couple’s special day where they pledged themselves to each other for life through self written vows. The snow didn’t stop the couple from enjoying every moment of the ceremony that their friends and family had planned out for them and as I took photos of this wonderful couple you could truly see that their lives have impacted so many family and friends along the way and that their heart is to love and bless the people they come into contact with.
With snow on the ground the wedding ceremony, apero, dinner and dance were all held inside a tent at the top of the mountain. You would never know you were on top of a mountain with all the fog and winter’s mist in the air but that didn’t stop anyone from dancing their hearts out or enjoying each others company.
It was an honor to be able to be in Switzerland and to capture the beginning of this love story.

Adam + Josefine Sandvik - A Swedish Wedding

Friends, Fika and Family… All of this was on point for the wedding I shot in Sweden this summer!!!

It was such an honor and pleasure to be able to capture some moments between the gorgeous bride and her handsome groom during the Swedish heat wave.

I loved seeing how the Swedes all came together and put on such a stunning spread!! A fire ban prevented the original BBQ plans for the wedding but they rolled with it and soon many hands were making the tastiest food for the next day.

I have never experienced so much selfless love watching friends and family set up the wedding venue, folding napkins, cooking, place settings, music practice, etc. they all came together and laughed and worked until the days end on the eve of the wedding. Even folk that didn’t come to the wedding came a long ways to help fix the place up for the bride and groom, now that’s saying something about how much the couple means to others!!!

I don’t speak Swedish, I can honestly say that I wish I did know the language and despite it being a barrier in some ways, the Swedes stayed true to their known hospitality and kindness by including me in the wedding set up and making me feel right at home.

The bride and groom looked stunning and didn’t let the sweltering heat stop their beaming smiles as they walked down the aisle and committed the rest of their lives to each other.
It was evident that the families have already become one as you watched them joyfully pray each other’s children into their own families in a truly heart-felt moment!!!

The ceremony held precious moments of friends playing music and singing for the couple. As the happy couple left the ceremony they were greeted in the street by all their wedding guests with a joyous handful of rice which made for lots of laughs all around.

The reception was at a camp right at the edge of a lake, with so many tasty dishes handmade by family and friends and lots of special moments shared with stories of how the couple met.

Once the night and celebrations came to a close with the couple driving off in a green beetle, some of the guests who stayed until the end did what any Swede would do on a summers night, take a ‘Bath’ in the lake of course!!!! I loved watching that moment with the sun slipping to it’s rest behind the forest across the lake.

I can’t say that I understood everything that was spoken but I can stay that true love is recognized despite language barriers and what a wonderful thing to be part of the commencement of Adam and Josefine’s love story!!

A PICNIC IN WATERTON

South Alberta - Fields, farmers, cowboy’s flatlands are surely what spring to mind.
Although you can be sure to find lots of wheat fields, some wind turbines, flatbed trucks and wrangler jeans in this area, if you put your foot on the pedal a little bit longer and head adjacent to the Canada - US boarder you will discover one of Southern Alberta’s hidden gems ‘Glacier National Park’.
I remember being a child and going for picnics with my family and grandparents, just a short jaunt in the automobile from Lethbridge to the mountains. What always sticks out from those memories was the deep red colors of the rock surfaces, the wonderful smell of forest and the mountain goats that used to lick the exhaust pipes of your parked car!!!! We used to bring picnic lunches and wander the ‘Red Rock Canyon’ along the riverbed for hours on end.
Waterfalls, mountain trails, rocks, blue lakes like you’ve never seen, and adventures for days.
If we were lucky we’d see other wildlife like Moose, Elk, Bison, the cutest chipmunks and we hoped and prayed we wouldn’t encounter a bear (although secretly we wanted those photos…from a safe distance mind you!!!)
This summer I got to go on another picnic at the National Park, this time to show my Scottish friend it’s beauty. The memories arose and new ones were made as we sat at the shore of ‘Upper Waterton Lake’, chucking pebbles into the deep blue (or is it green you tell me!) water, basking in the sunshine. We found a shady spot to escape the heat and devoured our picnic lunch (I sure do miss those ‘All Dressed chips’ now that I am back in the UK).
After checking out ‘Cameron Falls’ and taking a dip in ‘Cameron Lake’ we encountered some friendly deer as we sauntered through the wee town exploring their tourist traps and taking full advantage of their wonderful ice cream shop ‘Big Scoop Ice Cream Parlor’ (trust me the scoops are BIG!!) then we ventured into the ‘Prince of Whales’ Hotel for a peek at what we could only dream of affording to stay at one day.
The Prince of Whales Hotel was fashioned sometime from 1926 - 1927, by ‘the Great Northern Railway of the U.S. to lure tourists during the prohibition time’ (1). It sure was amusing to see the staff dressed in Kilts serving guests in the fancy hotel nestled in the mountains!!!!
Although our time there was short I’m so happy to have been able to re-visit a childhood favorite and hope that if you ever get there you enjoy the stunning nature as much as we did!!!

References
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales_Hotel

Calgary Stampede

The dust is starting to settle on another adventure, my passport has been tucked away, within arms reach, and it’s time to reflect and relish the voyage that just happened and catch up on some blog posts.
The first landing point on my trip home to Canada, was Calgary, Alberta; a city where over 120 languages are spoken by residents in the young city that holds over 1.3 million inhabitants (1).
This is a city I used to call home and where I started my first job, learned how to drive, finished my high school diploma and started my love for traveling.
Although it’s ‘busting at the seems vibes’ don’t appeal to my love for smaller, quaint places, it still holds dear friends and my brother, his wife and the cutest nephew!!!
As we stepped off the plane wondering what time zone we landed in we made sure to search for Canadian Bacon right away (trust me this was top of the desired food list!!), and all sorts of memories started to pounce as though I had never left to study abroad, let alone been gone for two years.
I was with my parents and a friend from Scotland (a brave soul coming on a ‘crazy Canuck’ summer holiday!!). First things first, squish the wee nephew, catch up with my brother and his wife over dinner, but soon, sleep coaxed us under the covers and we dreamed of the adventures ahead and looked forward to our short time in Calgary.
We did what anyone who visits Calgary in July would do…. we went STAMPEDING. The Calgary Stampede is a 10 day experience you should try at least once in your life, that is if you can handle all the cowboy get-ups!!
From my recollection, practically the entire city gets into the spirit of things and dresses up for the occasion, you could be picked up in a taxi by a ‘cowboy’ driver or served a soft-serve ice cream from a McDonald's employee sporting a cowboy hat, over the span of the 10 days that the Stampede comes to town!!!
Something really neat about this fair is that in different parts of the city each morning you can find a free Stampede breakfast with pancakes, bacon, sausages, orange juice, maple syrup etc. The city really comes alive and serves together; hosting people from the ends of the earth that make the trek to take advantage of Calgarian hospitality.
The Stampede is known as “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.” It is the world’s biggest rodeo, you can see concerts with big name bands in the evening and throughout the day, there are lots of amusement rides you can go on, First Nations exhibits, agricultural shows, BMX shows, you name it, fireworks end each night after the chuckwagons' dust settles behind their hasty wagon rides (1).
It sure was something to see the Stampede through the eyes of a foreigner and getting to take my Scottish friend to her first rodeo was a great introduction to Canada for her and amusing for me to watch her reactions to things familiar to me yet foreign to her.
The broncos bucked, the bulls lashed out irrationally, calves were roped, barrels were raced, and horses were ridden bareback all in the nick of time before the buzzer sounded it’s alarm, marking the end of every competitors hard efforts established throughout the year in the prep for their big events.
Some of them cowboys sure were eye catching with their shinny belt buckles, blue jeans and plaid shirts, but we saved our drool for the mountain boys and left the stampede with our skin a deep shade of red from the summer heat, re-dried sweat dripping down our backs from the scorching sun, dust on our worn feet, photos on our memory sticks and greasy, overpriced midway food in our bellies.


1. https://www.hikebiketravel.com/30-fun-interesting-facts-calgary/

LAYOVER IN DUBLIN

Summer Vacation.
I don’t think I have had one of those in ages!!! My Photography Program finished in June, marking two years of study with a very anticlimactic end, but as I put the Google searches on the shelf and dusted off my passport I sure got excited to get on an airplane and looked forward to the adventures ahead!!!
I haven’t been to my homeland, Canada, in nearly 2 years!!!! Studying abroad doesn’t’ really allow for extravagant plane tickets, and it sure was a treat to have something to look forward to. You may think to yourself ‘but she lives in the UK, isn’t it cheap to fly to Europe from there??’…. Define cheap I’ll say, when the cost of living barely matches your part time work hours a plane ticket home isn’t always feasible even though you long to see family, friends and familiarity, but somehow you manage and the adventures around your local become more intriguing as you find ways to make the 'mundane' into treasured memories.

I am so thankful for this summer trip.

As most world trip plane rides go, there were layovers, lots and lots of layovers. The first one landed us in Dublin, Ireland for an afternoon of wandering in the sweltering heat. Our taxi driver was one of the kindest fellows I have met whilst in the UK and our journey from the airport was made more enjoyable/safe because of him - trust me, a taxi is the way to go in Dublin – spend the money - after my first time driving there with those nutters it was a must!!! His banter had us in fits of laughter and we learned some of Dublin’s current cultural situations and its history from him. For that type of service we made sure to snag him for the following morning on our way back to the airport!!!

After checking into our hostel, we grabbed the essentials; passports, some money, and our cameras and headed out to get lost on the streets, explore the city center and be tourists.
The heat was beating down on us and remained a topic of conversation throughout the day, the streets were jam packed with bodies walking everywhere, and the photo ops were countless. I don’t think I will ever understand why the people who line up like cattle to get on a city bus in their proper orderly manner, have no understanding of walking on one side of the footpath (sidewalk) but tend to walk as though in a jigsaw puzzle!!!!?????

There is a lot to see in Dublin, and I love how shops have flowers in their windows and the restaurants have wee patio settings with picturesque views and menus begging to be consumed. I could probably have taken photos there for a week and not become bored of exploring Dublin’s city core.

Our lunch at a Mexican stall is evidence that you need to hold deep pockets to eat at any of the cute café’s or restaurants, but I am so thankful to have been able to hold new memories and photos from this wee layover.

LONDON TOWN

The appeal didn’t hit me until perhaps our last evening.
London as a class college trip….. no thank you… but in the end it was an adventure.
After swallowing the fact that these UK dwellers don’t bat an eye lid at taking an 8 hour train journey (but freak out about driving more than an hour to see the natural beauty of Scotland!!!) I made myself commit to going on this adventure to seal memories with classmates, explore a city I’d seen only as a child, and to snap a few photos.

The main goal of the adventure was to see photography exhibitions and learn what is out there among the greats of past and present time. To me, this is not my choice of entertainment, which was also a hesitation in embarking on this journey, yet I suppose it’s something one must do while studying photography.
The exhibits themselves were mostly not my taste. I must admit, I had never heard of many of the photographers, nor will I choose to follow them as inspiration, but I did learn from the trip and can now say that yes it’s important to think of how one would put together an exhibit from coming up with an idea, attempting to create it, nailing your own take on your self-given brief to letting it be shown to the world.

Generally, things I learn on adventures are not what I usually set out to accomplish, one could say that I was meant to take away new photographic allure but it was the journey as a whole where I learned that yes, I can hobble around London with two blistered and bloody feet as well as stay in a room with 7 classmates - how can you have seen each other each week for one or two years but only properly bond moments before it’s all over??!
Despite my hobbling, the heat, my fear of the underground and the MANY nude photographs we encountered, London with all its hustle and iconic areas is somewhere I would nonetheless enjoy exploring on my own timeline at some point. There was a lot jam packed into each day and too much to explore in our wee time-frame.

As we rode a ferry on the Thames I thought to myself, “people save their whole lives to come here and do this, and I just happened upon this opportunity because of the program I chose…”. Since life is a journey and the journey is the adventure I am thankful that I can now say I have seen the Tate Modern and the Barbican, but I fear some would be disappointed that I was more taken by the architecture outside the Barbican itself than the content within, and that having to be evacuated from the Tate the moment we entered because of a fire in one of the rooms was more entertaining to me than the efforts of the artists.

This makes me wonder, how will all my photographic endeavors hold to other people’s value? What will they take from my work? What can I do to impact the photographic realm yet remain true to my taste of adventure?

We sat and laughed with our lecturers over disgusting coffee at the hostel we stayed at and saw them wearing hoodies and trainers enjoying the sun on their skin the same as us and realized how thankful we were to have had these souls speak into our lives over the last two years. Two short years that flew as though held by a kite string; always held at arms length but the wind could take our efforts wherever we let them fly.

One of my favorite moments, as I stumbled up and down the streets that so many have walked over before, was walking through the St. James park at dusk and seeing the sunset with Buckingham Palace in the not so distant pathway. But I sure was thankful we took the underground back to the hostel….

These photos are some that I took on our short stint to London I hope you enjoy them!!