We believe that you shouldn’t have to wait for your wedding photos. We understand how much more meaning photos have when you’re able to enjoy them as soon as possible after such an important day. With all that planning and love that goes into a wedding day, we know that you want to relive it through your photos right away and over and over again. If you have to wait for ages then we’ve found that your photos don’t have as much meaning as they would have if you were looking through them the week or two after your wedding day. That is why we set intense deadlines for ourselves so that you can see your photos right away. We work on our favourite photos from your day and get them up on our site within 2 weeks of your wedding. We also finish all of your wedding photos within 8 weeks of your big day. If you’re like Roger, you hate waiting around. You don’t have to with us.

Happy Monday, everyone! What is bringing you joy these days? For us it was having fun at Playground.Is last night. What the heck is Playground? Well, it is this amazing idea where they put together a band and an audience and we record a song together in an hour. We were a little nervous about going since neither of us are very musical at all. We absolutely love music and we always push ourselves to try something new so we jumped at the chance to go last night. And boy oh boy did we have a great time. The experience was amazing. The environment in the room was welcoming and joyous and we felt immediately at ease. We sang our hearts out (even with a microphone a meter away from us) and we played our instruments with all that we had. Roger’s instrument was a big garbage can and I hit a plastic tub with a wooden spoon. We had a blast as we sang, hit our drums and danced in our seats. The band, the Human Statues, were so fun and did a great job at leading us. It was a really wonderful feeling to create something together and we can’t wait to hear the recording.

Thank you to all of the incredible organizers of Playground. You guys rock!

What’s bringing you joy these days? For us, it is thinking of our time in Switzerland last May and finally finishing our photos from that amazing trip. We still talk about that trip fondly with Roger’s parents. We were so lucky to have many unforgettable moments during our two weeks there. You know what the amazing thing is? We’re going to go back this year to celebrate Roger’s grandma’s 80th birthday and this time Roger’s parents and his sister and her boyfriend are coming too. We better start dieting to prepare for all of the amazing food and beer we’ll be having!

Roger’s kindergartenRoger’s Dad’s hilarious swimming trunks. You have to watch the slideshow for more priceless photos of Peter wearing these.On Mother’s day we went for an incredible meal with the lovely family friends, the Metzgers. We still drool when we think of the food we had.We went for lots of walks along the pretty Rhine.Roger and his parents played tourist with me, visiting the gorgeous BallenbergWe also went on a beautiful boat ride on Lake Thunand toured pretty Thun.We walked around the village where Roger grew up and here is their old family home.
We drank lots of delicious beerWe ate so much good food.And drank more beer. I love how Roger is sticking out his belly in this pic.The beer was so good that we had to tour the Feldschloessen brewery.Mmmm beer!On our last day in Switzerland Roger and I enjoyed walking around pretty Basel

The weekend before last we met up with the lovely Maiha & Michael for their engagement photo session in Yaletown. It was our first engagement session of 2012 and we had so much fun with this truly lovely couple. It had snowed a little the night before and it was pretty chilly out. Michael did a great job at keeping Maiha warm.

Thank you, Maiha & Michael, for a great photo session. We really enjoyed getting to know you two better. We are so excited for your wedding.

Isn’t Maiha so pretty?We love how Michael makes Maiha smile

This is my favourite shot of Roger’s from this session. Isn’t it romantic? Don’t you love Maiha’s boots?

One thing that we feel very strongly about is that we need to give back, to share our skills with others. We feel so blessed to be able to do the work that we do and to live the life of privilege that we do. By privilege we don’t mean that we live in a giant mansion or that we have oodles of fancy things. We feel privileged just to live in a beautiful city where we are free to do what we want, to have a roof over our heads, to have the love of our family and friends and to be able to look after our basic needs without worry.

That is why we work with the Tiny Light Foundation locally. We also have been lucky enough to be able to donate our photgraphy overseas. Roger went on a trip to Northern Thailand in 2007, photographing hill tribesmen for a small NGO. In 2008 we went to Cambodia and visited a few different orphanages around Phnom Penh taking pictures to help NGOs with their fundraising efforts. The photo above is one that we took of an adorable little girl in an orphanage in Phnom Penh. We have it hanging up in our studio as a reminder to us to give back.

In February we are going back to South East Asia to visit Vietnam. The trip is a vacation for us, however we still wanted to find an NGO that we could work with while we were over there. We thought about going back to Phnom Penh to revisit the orphanages however we realized that we would like to help some new people. We were about to start searching for an NGO when we received an email from our dear friend, Craig, in Tokyo who we are going to visit at the end of the trip. He told us that he has a friend who is working with families who lost everything in the tsunami last year, taking pictures for them to help them rebuild their family photo albums. Craig asked us if we would like to participate in the Photohoku Project and without any hesitation we said yes. Craig is very kindly trying to coordinate our 4 days in Japan with the Photohoku Project. It will be an unforgettable experience for us for sure. The thing is, we’ve found that when we give to others, we are always blown away by how much we receive back.

What is giving you joy lately? For us it was taking the time to do a photo walk on New Year’s Day. We thought that since there was a break in the rain that we should take advantage of it and we’re so glad we did. In the fall last year we had a good friend come to visit who is a very talented photographer, Neal. When Neal was here he was constantly taking photos and we had so much fun with him walking around and taking photos too. Watching Neal, I realized that we needed to spend more time honing our craft and taking photos just for us. So, we both have given ourselves personal projects for the year: I’m going to focus on capturing the joy in my life and Roger has a goal of taking 101 personal portraits this year. We’re looking forward to pushing ourselves in our creativity and in our work this year and all the years to come after it.

On New Year’s Day we wandered around our East Van neighbourhood before heading home to have Pol Roger & poutine in our PJs. We are so so classy. Here are a few of our pics from our wander that day. Enjoy!

Happy New Year, everyone! Did you have a nice time over the holidays? We sure did. We did a whole lot of relaxing which was fabulous and a great way to end the year. What did you do for Christmas? We went to Roger’s parents for dinner and had fondue! When I first met Roger 9 years ago Roger’s parents very kindly made fondue for Christmas every year at my request until it became way too much work. So it was a nice surprise to have it for Christmas this year and was it ever good. Roger’s sister and her boyfriend celebrated Christmas with her boyfriend’s family in Salmon Arm so it was just the 4 of us. We had a lovely time.

The rest of the time I cooked, Roger did some renos to our condo and we spent time with friends. We feel totally recharged and ready to tackle the new year. We wish you all wonderful things for the new year ahead.

After dinner we played games and got a little silly.This photo I snapped with my iPhone cracks me up.Mmm… schnapps and cake!

After Christmas we were so happy to see our dear friend, Brian, who was in town for a few days over the holidays.After a while Roger got bored of lazing around and started some renos in our spare room.

In the afternoon on New Year’s Eve we met the newest member of our tribe, 3 day old baby Carter, who already is loved like crazy by his big brothers.
We were happy to ring in the new year with friends old and new. Thanks, Laura & Trev, for a lovely little party!Oh Bradley! How you make us laugh!Happy New Year!!!

Wow, how is it the end of the year already? Last year we started a new tradition of putting together a slideshow of our year in pictures. It is so wonderful for us to look back and remember all of the amazing people we have met and the joy we’ve experienced. We love putting all of our work into the slideshow: the weddings, the family photos, our personal work and even our iphone photos. We’ve had many dreams come true this year from visiting Switzerland, to working with Danielle LaPorte and winning an award at the BC Wedding Awards. 2011 has been good to us and we hope it has been for you as well. In the last few days of the year we will be savouring the year that was and we will start dreaming for the new year ahead. Our studio will be closed and we will be back to work on January 3, 2012.

We wish all of you a new year ahead that is filled with joy. Happy New Year!!!

We wish you all a very happy Christmas. We’re taking some time off to relax and enjoy the holiday. We’re going to unplug, sleep in, reflect on this amazing year and start planning for next year. Our studio will be closed starting on December 22nd and we’ll be returning to work on December 27th. Be sure to come back next week when we’ll share the slideshow we’ve created of our year in pictures.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Good morning everyone! Today is the day that we are participating in Epic Events 12 Days of Giveaways contest. We are giving away a Diana-Mini lomography camera (hurray for toy cameras that are so so fun to use!), a roll of film and a gift certificate to London Drugs so that you can get your film scanned & printed.

You can win this lomography kit by:

“Like” our Facebook Page

“Like” Epic Events Facebook Page

Leaving your ANSWER on both pages Facebook post:  What is your favourite thing/person/place to photograph?  

HINT:

·   “Share” each daily post on your Facebook page for an extra entry  (Epic Events and Union Photographers for 2!)

·   “Tweet” the daily sentence for an extra entry “I entered to WIN a Candid Photo Package w/ @unionphotogs and @EpicEventsVan #epic12days. Details herehttp://epiceventsvan.tumblr.com/”

The Contest Winner hereby acknowledges that they have granted permission for Epic Events and Union Photographers to use the winners name, biographical information, and/or contest entry, in any media for any commercial or promotional purpose. Each person can have a maximum of 5 entries (Both Facebook Page Comments, Epic Events Share entry, Prize Company Share entry, Twitter entry). Prizes are non-transferable and have no cash value. The contest will run daily from December 5^th, 2011 to December 20^th, 2011. Entries will be accepted from 7:00am PST to 7:00pm PST each day. Prize must be picked up (by appointment only) at our studio (Suite 313, 350 East 2^nd Ave, Vancouver) or provide payment details for shipping.

Good luck everyone! Hurray for a free camera!