Welcome back from your honeymoon Mr and Mrs Lawson! There are many more where these came from, but I just wanted to welcome you back to Glasgow with a few images from your big day!

Whenever I have a session with a musician, I always ask them to play. It’s never really because I need them playing in the photograph…it’s because I selfishly want to listen. My dear friend Ben Powell is here performing in the Victoria JazzFest. This is a musician you don’t want to miss!! You should take a few minutes to devour his site (www.ben-powell.com). It has lots of clips and videos of him performing, and reading his remarkable bio will make any musician get out their instrument to start practicing…especially when you find out he’s only 24. It was lovely to spend an afternoon with Ben last week. Since he’s based out of Boston our paths don’t cross too often, but when they do we spend most of the time laughing (mostly at how he tries to mimic my accent and phrases with his English accent). Victoria JazzFest is underway…catch The Ben Powell Quartet playing July 2nd + 3rd at the Hotel Grand Pacific as well as July 3rd at Centennial Square!

Victoria musician Paul O’Brien has shown up numerous times on my blog. His wife Louise, requested a family portrait session for her birthday present this year. They live in a lovely area of Victoria overlooking the ocean, so we stuck pretty close to home for their session. Since music runs in the family, keep your eyes peeled throughout the summer for some super-talented buskers…the kids entertained me with their singing throughout the session and they’re definitely worth stopping to have a listen!

We’ve been lucky to have our pal Mike based in Victoria while he’s on course with the Navy. Along with being a Petty Officer, Mike is a fellow Maritimer, and a tenor drummer with the 78th Highlanders (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band. As part of my ongoing pipes|drums project, Mike took me behind the scenes at Naden for his portrait session. Stay tuned to pipes|drums for the upcoming installment which will include the images of Mike (with his tenor sticks).

I had another quick visit with Alexio, Amel and Pierre last week. Along with having a newborn, Amel and Pierre are new homeowners and Pierre is in the midst of renovations throughout the house. He arrived back from Home Depot halfway through my visit so I managed to steal him away from his handyman tasks for a few moments for some portraits of himself and Alexio.

We had a quick visit with baby Alexio and his mom Amel this week. At a week old, he’s full of personality, possesses super-strength, and has a full head of hair. I’ve known Amel for most of my time living in Victoria and it’s really lovely to see how much motherhood becomes her. She’s an absolute natural, and little Alexio is lucky to have such a great person as his mom.

Danika’s uncle gave her a portrait session gift certificate last year for her graduation present and she wanted to schedule it for sometime this spring so the weather would be ‘nice’. The weather was spring-like at times with beautiful sunlight, followed by a massive rain storm and high winds….just another day in Victoria! Danika brought her best friend Lindy along for the session and we hit up a bunch of different locations around downtown Victoria.

The Magee Kids are no strangers to my blog. They are quite comfortable around my camera, and little Callum agreed to have his ravioli only if I would sit and take photos of him eating. He calls his big cousin his best friend, even though Jamie’s almost 30 years older, and has his own set of pipes so he can be just like him. The entire family went to watch Kendyl’s dance recital, and I went over to their place early to take some photos of her getting ready and gussied up in her clown costume. Cuteness overload!

I met with Ambrosia, Adam, and Lisa for a Maternity Portrait Session in Beacon Hill Park a few weeks back. I met Ambrosia first, and she told me as she was walking toward our designated spot, that she was wondering how I would know it was her as we only chatted on the phone. As she looked down at her belly, she started laughing realizing it was a pretty obvious giveaway.

The grass is quite long in the park now, and due to my inexplicable fear of snakes, I was stomping and walking in the grass as if it were a bed of hot coals. Ambrosia, on the other hand, was a trooper, sitting and lying in the grass trying to convince me that the snakes (if any) would only be tiny garter snakes, settling into ‘mom mode’ already. We ended up laughing for most of the session, between my snake dancing and her wanting to take photos on ‘The Ridge’ in Beacon Hill Park (a location reference which left the rest of us clueless to where she had suggested).

In a few weeks, their lucky little baby will arrive. Thanks for the fun in the park…next time we’ll head for the short grass!

My fiddler friend Ivonne is home for a few weeks visiting from Boston. We try to spend as much time as possible while she’s in town whether it’s playing tunes or just hanging out. We met up last week for an afternoon at Caffe Fantastico followed by some casual headbanging in Esquimalt…just part of the regular Tuesday routine! I was pretty well hidden from public view while taking the majority of these images, which made poor Ivonne appear to be performing a silent, solo headbaging routine from her perch on the railing. We only realized how bizarre it must have looked halfway though our mini-shoot when a couple walking their dog tentatively approached us and stood to watch her headbang. When I popped my head out of the bushes, they realized I was taking photos and carried on their way but we managed to laugh about it for a good while after. A fun and windy session…never a dull moment with Ms. Hernandez!

Jamie’s article about CeltFest Cuba (accompanied by my photographs) has recently been published by pipes|drums. My fourth installment in the ongoing series “Photographing the Art” is well underway and should be online shortly! For subscribers only.

A short video clip of the Galician pipers at the session at Dos Hermanos is HERE on the pipes | drums YouTube channel.

CeltFest Cuba was held this April in Havana and Jamie and I were in attendance as musicians and visitors to the beautiful city. We were lucky to be included in the opening ceremony where Jamie kicked off the festival with some tunes on the Highland Pipes. Other events included teaching a Highland Pipes workshop to the Galician and Asturian pipers, a poolside BBQ at the Canadian Embassy, a graveside memorial for Newfoundland-born Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto, and Eduardo Lorenzo, ‘The Last Piper of Havana‘, a pipe parade, and a great concert at the Galician Society. There were sessions every evening at Cafe O’Reilly, and one session at Hemingway’s favourite watering hole, Dos Hermanos. We heard great tunes throughout the festival and managed to make a lot of new piper friends, despite the language barrier…as long as there’s music, there’s always an understanding. We spent a fair deal of time talking and comparing stories (many times through a translator) with the Galician and Asturian pipers….trading secrets and tricks. CeltFest Cuba will be happening again next year! Check out their website to see the list of performers from this year, and stay tuned to see who will be in attendance for 2011!

Amel and Pierre have spent a good amount of time in front of my camera. I took photos of Amel before she met Pierre, then I took their their engagement and wedding photos, followed by more photos before they found out they were going to have a baby, and now a maternity session a month before baby Alexio is set to arrive. I can’t wait to meet Alexio…I hope he’s as feisty as his mom and as charming as his dad. He’s lucking into some pretty great genes. An additional image from this session was my Photo of the Week over on the Photographer Network blog.

Stephen and Paula were married on March 20th and wanted to use Fort Rodd Hill as the backdrop for their portraits. Back in January, when I shot their engagement session, we went to the little lighthouse at the end of the breakwater, so the big lighthouse at Fort Rodd Hill tied everything together on their big day. Congratulations Stephen and Paula!

We just returned home from playing pipes at CeltFest Cuba. This was the first year for the festival and with venues all around the city, I managed to take a few photos traveling between workshops and shows. We spent the entire week in Havana, heard some great music, met some wonderful new friends, and are looking forward to returning next year. More festival related images to follow.