Personality Inspired Calgary Wedding Photographer | tlaw photographer

As the blog title says, this is my absolute favourite image I took while in New York City recently. Nothing fancy, nothing mind blowing, but full of meaning. I love every bit of this image, and the person in this image.  I love the simplicity and the smile on her face.  Sunday morning brunch at Hell’s Kitchen

Taken with my iPhone 3GS – but who cares, its the image that counts ;)

Years ago back in University I was a health and fitness nut.  I’d hit the gym no less than 5 days a week lifting weights, doing stairs and running lap after boring lap.  I despised riding the bike – it hurt my butt too much.

Then after I graduated, I just stopped going.  No real reason why other than I found it inconvenient since I couldn’t just walk across the campus and hit the gym.  Now I had to pay a gym a monthly fee and drive there every day after a full day of work.  And quite frankly this interrupted my social life. Boorrrring.

I’ve lamented the fact that I gave up working out for years, watching my body take a slow decline to “woah, that ain’t cool” levels.  My sporting ability took a hit too.  I could no longer jump as high, swing as hard, lift as much and my endurance was the pits.  So while wallowing in self-pity I forced myself to pay the fees and make the drive to the gym.  No excuses right? And for another 3 years I was back on track and I felt fantastic.

And then I got married.  And once again the wheels fell off.  Now I’m not blaming my marriage for causing me to quit the fitness regimen, but there was this part of me that said “hey, you’ve found the person you’re spending the rest of your life with, whats with all this extra effort to look good?  Goal achieved. Go eat a pizza”.  The wheels fell off once again for 3 years.

This week, I just signed up at the gym again and I’m doing something I’ve never ever done before.  I’ve hired a personal trainer to help me achieve exact goals in mind.  These goals are to reduce my body fat % down to 12% and to gain 10lbs of lean muscle.  I’m not as concerned about my actual weight as that would only be a fitness indicator if I were only looking to lose weight.  Since I’m looking to add much more muscle I know that my weight should stay relatively static.  I have a 3 month timeline to achieve this goal – which makes it just in time for the big wedding season rush.  And in-line with this goal, I’m expecting this to make me much more nimble and even more energetic for all the beautiful weddings that I’m lucky to have been commissioned to photograph.   I’ve also been told that accountability is key, so here I am telling my faithful blog followers that I’m as committed as ever to reach my goal.  This will be key to keeping me honest.

Day one of the my fitness regimen went ultra good.  My trainer told me I need to eat more. MORE. Not less. Is it too early to declare my love for her?

Most blog entries are best when they include a picture so here you go

What? you expected a “before” photo?  Please, no need to lose your breakfast/lunch/dinner over my desire to thrash my body into better shape…  Actually, this is a picture that I took when I lived in Brussels, Belgium.  This photo was one of the reasons I started my love and career of all things photography.  I believe this was an open air elevator shaft near the Justice House (court) near where I was living at the time.  This was take with a simple 2MB point-and-shoot camera at night.

One of the ports we stopped into was Falmouth, Jamaica.  A small developing port town between Ocho Rios and Montego Bay.  We tried to book an early morning excursion off to just cruise around the area but after waiting for over an hour the bus never showed up.  That was a complete blessing.  I ended up asking one of the tourism ladies where a good place to go for lunch would be.  I wanted her to be clear that I didn’t want no trumped up tourism food (Jamaican Jerk Chicken KFC what?!).  I needed the real deal… tell me where YOU go to eat and tell me what you order and I’ll order the exact same thing.  She just looked at me like I was some crazy tourist with some freaky weird hat on.  She was right, I was some crazy tourist with a freaky weird hat but I still needed food.  Good food. Good Jamaican food.  She checked with Terra to make sure I wasn’t smoking some of the local delicacy before she whipped out a map and said “if you’re sure, then this is where I go… it’s called Peppers, but it ain’t pretty”.  Music to my ears.  So, what to order? Jerk chicken, jerk pork, bammy (a really dense flatbread) and sweet potato.  And of course, you never ever forget the Red Stripe.  And since it was 34 degrees Celcius…lots of Red Stripe.

So we wandered our way through the poorly labeled streets of Falmouth until we found it.  A shack with a corrugated tin roof and no tables, just an old wood bar a girl working behind said bar, and 2 men the working in the 50 degree kitchen amidst the sickly sweet stench of the local blend of Mary Jane.  Jackpot.  My saliva glands created an instant waterfall.   A place that looked like this had to serve some incredible street food.  And it did not disappoint. Jerk chicken? The BEST I’d ever had. Tender, juicy, jerky.  Pork? No man should ever live without roast port. Bammy?  As dense as advertised.  And simple as it should be.  Sweet potato? deep fried deliciousness.  All of this, of course, accompanied by the most ridiculous house made hot sauce ever.  If I could I’d have smuggled that coke bottle of sauce back with me if it wasn’t for the security search that took place to get back on the boat.

We sat at that shack called Peppers for 3 hours engaging a local taxi driver, who took today off as he just left court after fighting a driving ticket he received, about the history of Falmouth.    A slowly developing town thanks to being a newly minted cruise port.  Once a town run by the slave trade and property prospectors that suddenly lost the interest of investors due to the rise of more popular resort towns like Ocho Rios and Montego Bay.  One of his daughter’s came to visit him.  An adorable little girl of 16 months.  He has 5 kids in total, by 3 women.  We bought him a “half-Q” of rum and we became friends.  This was one of the highlights of this trip.  Being able to learn and explore on my own.  Not being touristed. Not being told where to go.  I kinda feel that eating real local cuisine / street food is one of the absolute best ways to experience a new culture.  The locals you meet will tell it like it is.  The good and the bad.  And you don’t leave with some silly fridge magnet that says “Ya Mon!”

Some images from that day

 

The colonial courthouse

 

Peppers occupies the place of what was one a slave house

Jerk Pork!

Look how they spell “Upper Level”. I LOL’d!