Friends « Holly Sisson Photography

August 24, 2009

Summer 2009 Recent Shots/Out & About: Toronto Family Photographer

Filed under: Children,Food,Friends,Life,Out & About — Tags: Canon, Children, family photographer, family photography, lenses, on-location, photography, portrait, Toronto, Toronto Child Photography, Toronto Family Photographer, Toronto Family Photography, Toronto Portrait Photography — Holly @ 9:52 am

Time for a big catch-up on some recent shots from this summer…which I can’t believe is almost over!

Rebecca did some summer camp programs at the Sewing Studio on Avenue Road. For one of the camps all the girls had their hair and make-up done, so we took a few photos in the driveway next to our house (shot with the Canon 85 f1.2L lens):

Some recent, decent (except for the air bubbles!), latté art:

Got together with my photog friends at Rebecca Woods’ new studio/office. We were playing around with some off-camera flash, but these were taken in existing light. The sunset outside her studio window was too beautiful to not photograph…kind of wished we’d been out and about in the beautiful evening air shooting that night!

(Equipment Used: All of the following were taken with the Canon 50 f1.4 lens and Canon 5D. I thought I’d give it a try as it’s a much lighter option for carrying for extended periods over the Canon EOS-1D MarkIII and Canon 85 f1.2L lens combo, but the result isn’t nearly as good…but decent for the reduced weight of equipment. All of the following images were shot wide open at f1.4.)

Kids and I set off to do some back to school shopping, but first Noah had to buy a new frog:

Can’t beat the bokeh created shooting wide open!

Noah was happy as I treated him to a new Nintendo DS game, which kept him busy while his sister & I shopped:

Again, loving the bokeh:

Rebecca at a shoe shop, shopping for back-to-school shoes (wish I could have found something for Noah…no selection to speak of in the Yonge/Bloor area):

Afterward we had an ice cream break at Summer’s Ice Cream Shop in Yorkville. Especially nice as there was something Noah could have (he usually misses out on ice cream due to his peanut/nut allergy). We puzzled over the bizarrely worded sign in a dry cleaners window next to the ice cream shop:

Last week Rebecca and I went out for lunch and to run some errands. Her newly created sock monkey (made at one of her Sewing Studio camps), Fredrick, accompanied us. I think he’s just the cutest creation!:

On our journey through the Annex we came across some damage from that crazy storm we had last Thursday night:

After running some errands we stopped for lunch at Big Sushi on Bloor:

Loving their sweet potato sushi, just wish they offered a brown rice version:

Bokeh, baby, bokeh!

Loving the backlight of this shot, and the bokeh!

Rebecca is loving her new sunglasses:

Yeah! All caught up!

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May 27, 2009

Beach Shoot: Toronto Natural Light Photography

Filed under: Animals,Friends,Life,Out & About — Holly @ 6:20 pm

Had an AWESOME evening out with some follow photographers. Met up with Leigh, Nicole (Leigh’s friend/assistant) and Rebecca, and did some shooting on the beach before going for dinner.

Captured this shot of Leigh as we sat for a few minutes, upon our arrival, discussing our plan of ‘action’. I started out shooting with the Canon 24–70 mm f2.8L lens:

As we wandered down the beach we spotted this adorable puppy named “Trooper”, so CUTE!

This shot made me wish that I had brought along my Canon 70–200 f2.8L IS lens so I could have really zoomed in on him as he ran, unfortunately I left that lens at home (it’s rather heavy!), so had to crop in the frame for this image (but still, so CUTE! Look at those ears!):

Eventually Trooper had to go home, sniff, but we were not lonely for long as we came upon these cuties, who were obviously ready for their close-ups:

I really like this shot, angle, shallow depth of field, beautiful dog:

Like this one very much too!

Then we turned our attention to photographing each other, you can see Rebecca’s ‘bump’ in this shot, believe she said she’s just over three months along…her daughter will have a sibling soon to play with! I have switched over the Canon 85 f1.2L lens for the next shots:

We were enjoying the backlight, perfect light!

Caught a few more of Leigh:

And Nicole! I can’t believe this is the only shot I captured of you! Holding up the reflector! I’m going to capture your beautiful blue eyes next time…maybe I’ll bring the Canon 100 mm f2.8 macro lens! 😉

Whoa! Serious backlight! LOVE!

Then we brought out the good stuff, bubbles from Germany! (And now I know where to find them too!!!)

After all the fun of shooting we finished up with a FAB meal at “The Nose” (Gio Rana’s Really Really Nice Restaurant, 1220 Queen St. E.), the food is amazing! Think we’ll be going back there on our next outing as well! The restaurant has these amazing large images throughout the restaurant, very cool!

Looking forward to our next get-together Leigh, Rebecca and Nicole!

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February 8, 2009

Food & Friends!

Filed under: Food,Friends,Life,Out & About — Holly @ 8:43 pm

I am completely smittened with smittenkitchen, great food and great photography! And it’s motivated me to photograph some food around my kitchen.

Freshly roasted coffee beans:

Getting ready for the morning latté:

Great crema:

Steamed milk (filled with bubbles, I hadn’t swirled it yet):

Nothing better then the morning latté!

Salad dressing for the yummy Red Grapefruit and Avocado Salad:

This Saturday I had a wonderful Winterlicious lunch at Il Posto with my sister, Monica (whom you may remember from an earlier blog post):

And the brains and beauty behind imabeautygeek.com, Janine:

Great food and great company! Next time we’re going for Bibimbap!

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November 27, 2008

Catching Up!

Filed under: Children,Food,Friends,Life,Out & About — Holly @ 9:12 pm

Looking back through my database of photos I realized that I missed posting some to the blog!

Oh, don’t we all wish it was this warm outside now? Love the bokeh of the out-of-focus trees in the background in this shot and the one below:

My children, showing some sibling love!

As I recall I couldn’t get Noah to sit still for long, or even look at the camera!

He did want to scooter though!

Refreshed my look this fall, and took some self portraits, I was happiest these two:

I’ve been trying to perfect my latté art, here are two attempts:

Now, don’t confuse these photographs of my sister, Monica, as more self-portraits! We do look alike, because we are twins! When she was over for Thanksgiving dinner I suggested I take a good photograph of her because she just looked fabulous, don’t you agree? 🙂

The first two images were taken in my front hallway, which gives great light for this, you may remember the photograph of my friend Diane that I took in the same location:

This one was taken in the driveway beside my house. You may remember photographs of my friend Jeff, taken in the same location almost a year ago:

That’s all for now!

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August 8, 2008

Holiday Monday and Yesterday

Filed under: Children,Friends,Lensbaby,Out & About,The Natural World — Holly @ 5:33 pm

Kids and I went to the park for a bit last Monday. Our second trip to the wading pool this summer…but no bunnies this time.

Noah is enjoying his swimming goggles this summer:

Rebecca, wet from the wading pool:

I thought I’d do some lensbaby shooting, since I haven’t shot with it much lately:

Sunflower, that I saw over a fence, so was a bit tricky to shoot…especially with the lensbaby!

Rebecca, with that lensbaby blur:

We came back home and I caught this quick shot of Rebecca while I BBQ’d some sausage for dinner:

After dinner we went back to the park for scootering and skateboarding:

Noah hanging upsidedown from the monkey bars:

Almost home, and caught this shot of Noah with his scooter. I didn’t notice, at the time, what appears to be a reflection on the sidewalk from the lights hitting his scooter…which is the only thing I can think that it could be (???):