Sunny Panama - Family Portraits at the Beach :)

While we were in Panama recently, I had the pleasure of photographing wee Jackson and his Mommy & Daddy one morning down at the beach. In spite of weather that had me starting to sweat at 7:30am, Jackson was so enthusiastic in his exploration of both sand and sea that he kept all of us on our toes! Here are some of my favourite moments from our session..

I'm not sure how many of his shells got to make it back home in the suitcase, but for that morning he was the richest collector in all the land :)

How cute are these father and son hats?? 

I'm sure everyone will have fabulous memories of this week in the sun, and I'm so glad that we got to capture some of them on this morning at the beach :) Thanks to Vanessa and Jon - it was a pleasure spending time with you and your super-sweet little boy!

xo

Jessica

{want unique art for your walls and amazing memories for your family? We don't only do family portraits on exotic beaches ;) Email us now to book your family portrait session!}

Lauren & Michael's Awesome Panamanian Wedding Adventure (part 1 - pre-wedding fun)

 Right from our first skype chat, I knew that going to Panama to photograph Lauren & Michael's wedding week was going to be tonnes of fun - I've rarely met a couple as welcoming and laid-back as these two are, and they carried that through in all the planning and details of their wedding. Because they actually live in Panama, it was a bit different from most "destination" weddings - but it was at its heart an amazing relaxed week on the beach with lots of friends and family :)
Emily and I were fortunate enough to be there for the whole week, which meant not only a great chance to get to know everyone before the wedding day, but also lots of other fun stuff to photograph! Here are some of the highlights, including a "beersbee" tournament on the beach, and an early-morning surfing lesson..

I've never even attempted to surf before, so I was super-impressed by the progress made by all the first-timers - in spite of taking a huge beating from both surf and boards (including at least one black eye!), everyone stuck with it for the whole 2-hour lesson! 

 You've seen Point Break right? It was exactly like that - first everyone had to practice "surfing" on the beach, on boards traced in the sand..

 ... and then the real challenge came!

An awesome time was had by all! 

And that was just the first few days! I can't wait to share some of my favourite images from the wedding day - stay tuned!

{p.s. We love to travel! If you've got a destination wedding in your future, please get in touch!}

Livin' The Dream :)

As many of you already know, last weekend was my first time exhibiting at The Artist Project Toronto. It's an amazing show, and actually what inspired me two years ago to begin my own collection of personal work, so just getting accepted and being part of that felt like a big hug from the Universe. The experience itself was so great.. I met lots of lovely people, saw many friends both in the crowds that visited and in the booths around me, and had beautiful conversations. Someone cried in my booth (the second time that's happened), which I took to be the highest compliment. People asked me questions that ranged everywhere from "how do you do that?" to "where did you stay when you were in Nice?". People saw things in my images that I'd never noticed or thought of, which was inspiring.

And I basically got to spend 4 days surrounded by images and telling stories about art, photography, love, and the magic of chance. Because if you haven't had the chance to see this collection in person yet, I'll let you in on a little secret: it's about beauty, and colour, and texture, and layers, and all that good stuff. It's about the South of France, and Paris, and a trip that I took by myself just over 5 years ago. But for me, the collection represents something bigger..

The Absolute Magic of Chance.

What happens when you go as far as you can out on a limb, and then just jump. Without really knowing what you're jumping into, or what will happen, or if it's a good idea. But having a gut feeling that it's the right thing to do.

Because as well as taking about a million pictures in my 3 weeks in France, I also met a man. A handsome fellow with a great accent. He was from Belfast, and was in Nice to go scuba diving. We were staying at the same hostel, and met in line for dinner. That man is now my husband :) Those images have grown up to be my first collection of personal fine art pieces. That trip changed my life, and I could never have seen it coming.

So even when things are not working perfectly, or are much harder than I think they should be, deep down in my heart I feel so blessed at how things are turning out. At how the adventure of my life is unfolding. So if you see me in a booth full of images that look a bit like fairy tales, it's because that's how I feel about that trip. To see my work is to see how I feel about Love, Adventure, and Romance.

I hope that each and every one of you follows your dream - even if you don't know what it is yet :)

xo
Jessica

Baby Kayla's 9 month Valentine session :)

I've been photographing Kayla's mommy Kym since my first year of photography school about 17 years ago (!), and had the honour of photographing Kym & Adam's wedding almost 7 years ago - so even though she's just turned 9 months, I sort of feel like I've known baby Kayla for much longer than that. We were lucky enough to catch her *just* before she started crawling, and she was kind enough to show off her shiny new teeth for us :)

 In her little red tutu and heart-speckled top, baby Kayla was the perfect little Valentine :)

One of my favourite things about photographing a baby is watching the huge smiles on her parents' faces when they're playing with her :) 

I can't believe the next time we photograph her, she'll be 12 months already! Time flies when you're having fun ;)
Kym, Adam, and Kayla - can't wait to see you soon and show you the rest of the images from this super-sweet session!
xoxo
Jessica + Norman

{If you know or have an adorable wee one, we'd love to capture this amazing time in their life :) Please get in touch and we can chat about ideas!}

Getting ready for The Artist Project!

It's now less than 3 weeks away - my very first indoor show - so I'm busybusybusy finishing up some new pieces and designing my booth. This would be pretty exciting no matter what, but The Artist Project holds a bit of a special place in my heart and here's why..

Two years ago, my friend Carolyn and I heard about this art exhibition at the CNE called The Artist Project. We decided to meet up and spend an hour or two checking it out. We spent six hours there - eyes lit up and imaginations set on fire. We're both creative people, but at the time neither one of us would have dared to consider ourselves "artists". Since then, we've both set up studio spaces and started devoting time to explore creatively. To make pretty things for the sake of making pretty things.

One of the most touching moments in my life was at my first show (the Queen West Art Crawl), when Carolyn walked into my booth and started crying - because she was there when the seed was planted. When I realized that it was not only possible, but really important to me, to create and show (and hopefully sell!) personal work, it literally changed my life. Don't get me wrong - I love photographing weddings, and tiny babies, and kids being kids, and locally designed fashion, art, and craft - but all those things are other people's creations. And I wanted to make something that was just mine. To ask for advise and opinions and be able to completely ignore them if I wanted. To take the love and joy I have for colour and texture and line, and make it into something that someone else can love too. To take the thousands of images that I have from years of travelling, and turn them into pieces that capture the way it felt to be on those trips.

So - here we are - two years later. I applied for The Artist Project months ago, and held my breath. I feel so honoured and fortunate to have been selected to hang my work among a crowd of such talented artists. I feel excited. I feel terrified. And it's all awesome.

And to honour the occasion, I've been working on some new pieces - collections of sets of 3 small pieces that go together - which I'm totally in love with :) They are the cutest and most colourful pieces yet, and I predict that they'll be crowd pleasers. Each and every one of the "birch panel" pieces that I've made are one of a kind (because I hate how reproducible photography sometimes is), so if you love any of them be sure to grab them before they're gone!

 

Bonus: I have two pairs of tickets to The Artist Project show in Toronto February 21st-23rd - if you're interested, just mention this on facebook or twitter and be sure to tag me so that I know to enter you in the draw (here I am on facebook, and here's me on twitter) - like my facebook page and follow me on twitter to get 4 bonus entries!!

Thanks a million for all the support and hope to see you at the show!

xo Jessica

Re-branded!

Belated Happy New Year to you all!

I think this is going to be a great year, and to kick it off we've got a shiny new website!

We've actually been working for months on a complete re-branding and re-structuring of things over here at Jessica Lin Photography - new logo, new products, new services, even new team members! Norman and I are both still here (LOL) and we will still be your photographers, but we've been joined by our new cinematographer Emily and assistant Kristen. They are both great to work with, and it's made my life way easier finally learning to delegate some things ;)

Not to overwhelm you or anything, but we've also added vimeo, pinterest, and etsy to the list of ways you can follow us and see what we're up to (don't forget there's always facebook and twitter). We'll be continuing to add new content, so be sure to "like" and "follow" and stay in touch :)

We've been so lucky the past few years to work with so many amazing people, and we're happy to have collected many new friends as well. So give yourselves a pat on the back, because you're the ones who make it possible for us to keep doing what we love best, and for that we are eternally grateful :) And a special thanks to Dave Dick at Toy Rabbits Design for all the hard work on our great new logo, website, and everything that goes along with it.

So what are you waiting for? Check it out! And let us know what you think :)

xo
Jessica + Norman

My Perfect Wee Nephew at 3 months :)

I'm going to start this one on a personal note (it's my blog after all!)..

This past October I turned 37. In and of itself, that's no problem. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying my 30's, and wish I didn't spend the last few years of my 20's dreading them so much ;) But since then - in the short 2 1/2 months that I've been 37 - I've had pneumonia (which sucks even more than I'd imagined), I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was prescribed and ended up spending a day in the emergency room, we had our house broken into (while we were at home!), we spent a few days without power during the recent ice storm excitement, and both Norman and I have had bronchitis. So as the end of 2013 looms near, I can't say I'm sad to see it go. 

However. In and amongst all that craziness, we also spent a week and a half visiting with my sister, her husband, and their perfect new baby boy, Cooper. We were lucky enough to be there for his first trip to see Santa, his first experience of a Christmas tree, and his first time out in the snow. At three months, Cooper loves kicking, is *almost* rolling over, and loves to use his index finger to accentuate his cheerful chatter. Also, he giggles :) Years ago, a close friend of mine (also a first-time Aunt at the time) told me that nephew giggles could cure anything. I'm not 100% sure that Cooper's giggles actually cured any of the crap that was going on over the past months, but I am sure that they made up for it :)

And while I can't actually share his giggles with you here, I can share with you some of the fun we had together one afternoon..

My appologies to my brother-in-law, who isn't a huge fan of this hat.. I just thought it was totally irresistable :) A bit like Baby Cooper :)

We wish all of you a very Happy New Year, and many giggles!

xo

Jessica + Norman