The third installment of images of pipers and drummers for pipes|drums is online for subscribers. I’m currently working on the fourth part of the series with exciting plans for the project in the New Year. Many thanks to pipes|drums editor Andrew Berthoff, for allowing me to showcase these images. He invited me to start this project with the only guideline being that the images focused on piping and drumming subjects…pretty much a dream assignment for me! To see images from the previous two installments, head to pipes|drums (for subscribers), or check out my site for a few samples.

My sister is a midwife and while I was home, she picked some of the herbs from her garden to make some tinctures.

My sister in our Cape Breton basement.

My Ma is strong and independent and stubborn. She funny, tells great stories, and loves to laugh. She is fearless when it comes to trying new things, and surprises herself with just how creative she is. She is a fabulous baker and a wonderful mother. Above all, she is proud and loving. I figured it was suiting to take a few photos of in her kitchen, beneath the three fishermen since it was in the same window that I took the photos of her husband Steve, who looks quite identical to the pipe smoking fisherman.

Tis the start of the Xmas card season, a.k.a. the time of year when I take photos for Jamie’s cousin’s family. We met on Sunday at Saxe Point for some photos during a small window of dry weather…rare at this time of the year in Victoria! It’s always fun to hang out with the Magee family and we always seem to share lots of laughter.

I had a session around this time last year to mark Jordan’s first birthday. While I was on the East Coast, Jennifer emailed me wanting to set up another session for Jordan’s second birthday! This year we went to Fort Rodd Hill and had the entire grounds to ourselves, aside from a few photographers taking photos of the trees. I must say, Fort Rodd Hill is one of my new favourite spots for photos, and I was very pleased when Jennifer suggested it for their session. Head over to the Photographer Network blog to see one more image from this session that I posted as my Photo of the Week a few weeks ago.

A few weekends ago, I had my fourth session with the Carvell Family out in Colwood. These kids are a riot and it’s really great seeing them grow year to year!

It was pretty hard not to smile and laugh during my session with Deanne and Dylan. We had a great time spending the afternoon in Beacon Hill Park, and then we climbed (what felt like) 500 stairs to another location along Beach Drive. Their wedding is next August so Deanne and Dylan wanted to have some engagement photos taken for their save the date cards. Looking forward to the big day!

Each year when I go home, I put time aside to stay with my long, long, longtime pal Bonnie Jean. During my visit last October, Bonnie Jean and Michael invited me to their appointment when they found out that they were having two little girls. Rowan and Riley arrived a few months premature this year, but to see them now, you’d never know. Bonnie Jean and Michael make it look easy juggling two active, teething, on the verge of crawling babies. I guess it helps that the girls are very much like their parents. They’re easy going and they love to laugh…I can’t wait to see the people they become. Oh, the stories I have to tell them!!

Bhreagh had mentioned prior to her session that she’d like for me to take photos of her band Woven while I was in Halifax. Made up of school teachers, these five talented women needed some promo photos to get some gigs on the go. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for show dates in the Maritimes!

Jill was my roommate at university. We were sort of forced together a few weeks into the first month of school. For some reason, I was put into a French residence…meaning I had to speak French 24/7. I can’t speak French. I had to request a residence transfer, and as it turned out, so did Jill’s roommate. We had a basement room in our residence and were thick as thieves within hours. When we were roommates off-campus, we would skip class (sorry Mom) and meet at home to watch a really terrible soap opera, while drinking really terrible Irish Cream flavored instant coffee…and it was absolutely wonderful. She’s still the one person who beats me to sending an email when I’m thinking of her. Today, I sent her a link to the gallery of her images and the first line of her response was, ‘I was just thinking of you.’ It never fails.

This year, my Jill married her Kris. They’ve known each other forever, they’ve traveled and taught around the world together, and they finally had a surprise wedding in March. The distance made it difficult for me to attend, and I missed their wedding celebration party this summer as I was shooting another wedding in Victoria. My present to them was this rainy day session at one of their favourite places, Melmerby Beach.

I had a very quick session with Calum and Niall on my last day in Halifax. Their mom Chrissy, is one of my oldest pals. We played in the pipe band together and were always roommates on band trips, and together we had an acronym-based code language. Our session was the day before Halloween and by the time I arrived at their place, Calum had already been a Clone Trooper at his school party and had consumed enough sugar to turn him in to a tiny human tornado. He gave me my workout for the day as I tried to keep up with him through the piles of leaves, up and down the ladder to the tree house, and in and out of the house. Niall, on the other hand, was freshly changed out of his Darth Vader baby costume and was pretty chilled out…too tiny for candy this Halloween.

Lauren contacted me to take some photos of herself and her horses during my stay in Halifax. She’s an equestrian trainer and takes care of the horses at Maurway Stables, just outside of the city.

At the tail end of my trip to the East Coast, I got an email from Jamie letting me know that our good pal Jori Chisholm was on the cover of Piping Today. Piping Today is the National Piping Centre’s (Glasgow) bi-monthly magazine and Jori submitted the photos I took of him to accompany the article. Jori had a very successful year on the solo competitive piping scene as well as being a member of the current World Pipe Band Champions, Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. Based out of Seattle, he makes his living by teaching piping through his business BagpipeLessons.com.

Catherine is a piper from Pictou County, and she’s yet another friend from the Gaelic College days. We took some photos around downtown Halifax and were joined by her Dan at the tail-end of the session.