On August 21st I had the pleasure of shooting a beach wedding in Fort Erie Ontario.  John and Karen own a very old home on the beach which they are in the process of renovating.  I have seen the plans for the place and it is going to be nothing short of incredible.  The backyard at this property offered the perfect location to hold their very informal and comfortable reception.  The ceremony was help a few steps away on the beach.  To Karen’s credit she did an incredible job with all the details, everything looked great.

The receptions was set up in a series of cocktail area’s, which was so comfortable and informal.  It really encouraged the guests to mingle and converse more so than most receptions.

We were asked to shoot a lot of candids in a very informal style for this wedding, so we got some great group shots of people simply enjoying themselves:

Then we headed down to the beach for the ceremony:

After the ceremony and some more candids we took John and Karen for a quick portrait session around the house, and then out to the beach.

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Then we had more fun capturing hilarious moments and great details.

One of John’s long time friends gave a very emotional and moving speech about the way John had touched his life when he needed it the most.

The other particularly interesting speech was this one… I’ll leave the rest up to your imaginations.

I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to shoot Wakestock.  It is a little outside my normal type of shooting, but it was so much fun to stretch my talents outside of my normal comfort zone.  Wakestock is a huge Canadian wakeboarding competition held annually.  For several years it has been held in downtown Toronto, near the Toronto Island.  This year it was held in The Blue Mountains, Ontario, on Georgian Bay.  Unfortunately I was only able to make it up there for the final day, which offered the best wakeboarding but the worst weather.  Nonetheless, here are a few of my favourites:

On Friday I had the extreme pleasure of shooting a beautiful wedding at the McLean House in Toronto.  I assisted Amelia Thornton of Flirt Photography and once again had an absolute blast.  I started out my day out at the family home in Toronto which was absolutely gorgeous.  The boys spent the day hanging out, playing basketball, and enjoying the pool.   I say boys because between their previous marriages, Michael and Tamsen have 5 boys.  So I started off shooting the events of the day, which were a little more relaxed than most of the weddings I shoot.  Next I joined the guys while they got ready at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto which was tons of fun except for finding a parking spot, that proved challenging.  After that I joined Amelia at the McLean House at the Estates of Sunnybrook.  The reception was warm and inviting and Tamsen had done a wonderful job attending to the details, everything went off without a hitch.  So on that note, here are my favourites from the day.

The night ended like this, but let me show you how it began.

Michael definitely had his hands full with 5 boys.  At this moment he wasn’t exactly winning the battle.

The little guy couldn’t help showing off his best jump.  What a cutie.

The house was decorated to perfection.  There were so many awesome little details, but I really liked this clock.

I can’t believe that I got all 5 guys to sit for head shots for me, but they were awesome.  Some of the best behaved kids I’ve run into at a wedding.

The Groom; what a catch. Michael was an awesome guy to work with.

Then I got to meet Tamsen.  What a wonderful woman.  She was confident and composed and just thrilled to be there.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Grenville Pinto!  He played some awesome violin to contemporary music, and he was unreal to watch.  Check out the video at the end of this post.

The whole reception was surrounded by candles which made for a beautiful atmosphere.

Michael’s brother Kevin had quite the speech prepared for the reception, and had Tamsen nearly in tears.  It was very moving.

Here’s a quick video of Grenville doing his thing.  I’m no videographer so please don’t critique that, but check out how cool this guy is!  To find out more about Grenville check out his website at www.gpinto.com

Hello again, today I want to share with you some pictures from a wedding I shot about a week and a half ago.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The ceremony was held at Parkwood Estates in Oshawa, which happens to be where a good part of Billy Madison was filmed.  You know the huge pool that Billy was always hanging out in?  Yup, Parkwood Estates.  Then we went to the Liberty Grand in downtown Toronto which was a phenominal venue.  I shot this one with Jennifer Fahey and naturally she was wonderful to work with.  I always work with such awesome people, both in terms of the couples and the photographers.  I am a lucky guy in that respect.  But for now, here are the pics.

A few shots of the rings:

The guys getting ready.  A beer or two helps ease the tension of a stressful day:

It took the guys about half an hour to figure out how to pin on the flowers.  To be honest I was no help, I’m going to have to practice this!

The ceremony was small and quiant, but beautiful nonetheless on the outdoor grounds of the Parkwood Estates:

They are laughing so hard in this pictures because the guys had spent FOREVER trying to get those flowers to stay put, and sure enough, when he bent over to sign the marriage licence it fell off.

Such a stunning bridal party:

I loved the colours at the reception, so bright and vibrant.  The brown table clothes were a nice change from the standard white.

A group of my friends from high school have stayed extremely close as we get older, and have created an organization called the Lost Raccos.  As the Lost Raccos they put on several parties a year, one at Halloween, one at Christmas, and a Pirate Cruise in the summer months.  This year the Pirate Cruise fell last Friday, and I have a few pictures to share.

The party is held on the Empire Sandy, a large three masted sailing ship which departs from Spadina Peer in Toronto.  The tickets this year were $50 and included a buffet dinner, a great deal for such an awesome party if you ask me! The boat does a lap of Centre Island departing at 9:00 and returning around 1:00am.  In between there is a lot of dancing, drinking and good times.

Here are some shots of us getting ready for the party.  I didn’t bring my camera on board with us, so I will borrow some of my friend’s pics and update this post later.

View from the hotel:

Peter’s friend Kristie and myself before we all started getting ready.

I think Lisa’s eyes look amazing!  Gotta love north facing window light, so beautiful.

Peter:

Andrew and Urszula:

Me again, mostly in my costume:

Here’s the group, say Yarrr…!  Lisa is behind the camera for this one, and two of Andrew’s friends Charles and John were yet to arrive, and unfortunately didn’t make it into a group shot because there just wasn’t time.

Alright, so I ended up having no time at all to post later on in the evening, so here I am the next day sharing a few pictures with you.  The party was a HUGE success.  Total dollar figures haven’t been confirmed yet, but it looks like we raised more than $8K after expenses!  Everyone is thrilled with the results.  I have to extend my friend Andrew Davy and Stagevision a massive thank you.  Andrew brought a huge pro level audio system and although we definitely helped him with the heavy lifting, he did all the setup and audio control himself.  Dude, when you read this, know that we owe you huge for that effort!  Thanks man!

I know a lot of people would have loved to be here that just couldn’t make it.  Please, donate to the cause, its totally worth it.  You can do so online securely here: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2649243

This is Alanna’s brother James starting the festivities off by burning the makeshift barn the boys had built the previous day.  A little diesel fuel and a roman candle seemed to do the trick in style.

Yup, we had a retired fire truck on hand.  Full of water too, just in case things got out of hand.  It also doubled up as the source of water for the wet T-shirt contest.

5 local bands / entertainers played over the course of about 6 hours.  It was an awesome lineup.

This shot was taken from stage right, to give you an idea of just how many people were there.  This is probably a little over half of the total attendees.

My friends John and Eric trying to look like they know what they’re doing.  My buddy Andrew was the only one of us who really knew what was going on with that sound board.

The guys enamoured by the wet T-shirt contest.  It always proves to be a big attraction.

At one point these next two guys were locked in an AWESOME drum duel.  Its sort of like duelling pianos, but way better.

Tiff, Ren and Jack hanging out.

Alanna’s father having his beard shaved off.  The man hasn’t been clean shaven since 1989.  He raised more than $1000 himself for pulling this stunt.

Another family friend having her head shaved.  That’s Alanna comforting her on the left.  Alanna shaved her head last year at this event and raised a lot of money.  This young lady did incredibly well to support the cause as well.  She got $100 out of me for the cause.

Yours truly taking a bit of a break.  Because I was involved with the sound setup, it was pretty much a non stop day from 9am, until 6:30am the following morning.  It was so worth it though to be a party of this amazing event.  I can’t wait to be part of it again next year.

So as I mentioned in my last post, I am at my friend Alanna’s huge party raising money for breast cancer awareness tonight.  Here’s a couple of pictures of the setup, and hopefully I’ll most some more pics later tonight, or if not then definitely tomorrow.

Yup, a fire truck.  How else are you supposed to have wet T-shirt contest?

Yes, the speakers are LOUD .  HUGE props go out to my friend Andrew Davy and Stagevision for making sure we have epic audio

It has become an annual thing.  The bush party (or barn burner as its affectionately known) is huge.  Attracting more than 500 guests to the 49 acre property north of Waterloo, Ontario and last year raising more than $8400 for charity makes it one incredible event.  Pictures from last years bash can be found here http://adrianblakephotographer.com/blog/2009/07/the-coolest-party-ever/ but this year promises to be even better.   For one the weather will be better, warmer to say the least.  Two there is an awesome lineup of bands playing.  And Three, I’ll be there and I’m bringing recruites.  My good friend Andrew is providing the audio setup, equipment, and know how.  And the two of us are bringing several other friends to make our contribution to charity.

So I suppose I should mention WHY this whole event is put together.   It started as just an outdoor bash at my good friend Alanna’s place.  There was lots of property and therefore space for camping and parking.   But then Alanna’s mother passed away of breast cancer.  This happened just shortly before last year’s party, and in order to raise money several people including both siblings decided to shave their head.  They also charged a minimum of $10 to be part of the party (I donated $20 at the door).  The generosity of the people in attendance was incredible and everyone was so pumped to hear that more than $8400 was raised.   This year’s goal is $9500, and its going to be tough to hit.  We need everyone to come out, party, drink, celebrate, and most importantly contribute to the cause.

Here’s the link to the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125470927464771   Check it out and feel free to come out if you can make it!

The location is: 7907 Wellington Rd 45, Mapleton, ON

The event starts at 8:00 pm and runs until you can’t party any longer.

Bring your wallets and give generously!

Here’s a pic of myself with my good friend Ren at least year’s party.  I can’t wait for Saturday!

Hi again everyone!  I decided to do a video blog again, this time its pretty low class.  I hope you can appreciate me even with my crazy hair-do and overgrown facial hair.  I was camping this weekend with friends and wanted to make a post about it.  Here’s the video followed by  a couple of pictures from the weekend.

Andrew skipping rocks (successfully I might add).

Yours truely hanging out in the water, looking like a goofball.

Urszula had just splashed Luke who was avoiding getting fully into the water.  Hahahaha Luke… sucker….

mmmm dinner!  Beer Can chicken!   That’s right…  these poor birds are impaled on beer cans, but it makes for a tender meal.

A cute moment shared by Andrew and Lisa.

A feeble attempt to get creative after a few beverages.  Andrew spent the evenings providing audible entertainment.  He’s not bad though so we appreciated it.

Self portrait so everyone remembers I was there

Meet Tucker..

I cant believe I caught this moment so perfectly.  Check out Luke’s facial expression, and his hand position.  Good thing they’re married!

Luke’s lovely and beautiful wife Nicole.  This was taken out by the beach while we all went for an evening stroll.

Luke has many talents…   this one is my favourite.

On the last night it POURED rain just shortly before dinner was ready.  This is everyone chilling under Urszula’s epic tarp.  We were able to get the picnic table under there and enjoy a tasty (and dry) dinner.  After this we decided that the rain could be ignored from inside the tent.  We hooked Jordyn’s iPod up to my MacBook and watched a movie.  We watched Pirate Radio, about the pirate rock radio stations in Britain, a very funny movie and highly recommended.

All in all it was a great trip, very relaxing and enjoyable for everyone.  Thanks to all who came!

Hi again everyone.  I was lucky enough to book my first Indian wedding for the first weekend in October and I’m very much looking forward to shooting it.  Especially since I recently shot their engagements and we had a blast!  I’d like you to meet Shez and Rahim.  These two are going to be great fun to work with on their wedding day(s) I’m sure!  Here’s a few of my favourites!

We went into a random toy store to see what kind of props we could come up with.  I love Shez’s crown!