Rob's Sente

My bedtime ritual...

2010-01-26T22:30:00.000-06:00

99% of the time includes a delicious cup of coffee.

Not usually in a snifter, but my corny hockey cup wouldn't make for a nice picture. :-)

Hopefully this is the start of me getting back into shutterbugging after a long hiatus...

Now, off to bed. :-)

The Offspring Turns Two! Or how my son has achieved a level of epic cute I can barely take!

2009-12-08T21:19:00.000-06:00

On November 23rd, Alex turned two, and we had a whole bunch of family over for a birthday party. It was great; he was in a good mood and was having a blast, he got a ton of cars which made him in an even better mood and he had more fun, and I got a bunch of great pictures!

Here's where the epic cute starts; he's been getting used to posing for pictures without giving me the terrible grimace-thats-supposed-to-be-a-smile I was expecting when he reached this age. :-)

Alex, pre-birthday. Car in hand, as always.

The Beagle above, Bowzer, was our gift to Alex. The other day, Bowzer sat right on Alex's lap and he had just a huge smile on his face and gave Bowzer a big hug. w00t!

He got cars, trucks, trucks to haul other trucks, semis to haul cars, front-end loaders to haul blocks... and cars... you get the idea.

More cute... slight grimace... but we're working on it!

He was fearless once he we put these goggles on him, like a little super hero! Epic Cute!

Ashley and Gerry

2009-10-31T10:36:00.000-06:00

Ashley and Gerry got married in her parent's amazing back yard in Swift Current on August 29th. They were a lot of fun to work with; super relaxed and enjoying their big day. Here are a few of my favorites from their wedding. Hope you enjoy them!

Quiet, snowy winter nights.

2009-10-29T22:49:00.002-06:00

They'll be here soon. :-D

Bye, little girl.

2009-10-28T19:55:00.003-06:00

Today, one of our family's dogs had to be put to sleep. Keesha had recently dislocated one of her back legs, and unfortunately, it wasn't able to be set properly again. Due to the seriousness of the injury, she had to be put down.

She's been in the family since she was a pup, about 13 or so years, I think. She was always friendly and had to make sure she greeted you at the door, even with a dislocated leg.

She was almost never without her steadfast companion, Eddie. Eddie is a bit younger, much bigger, and much dumber (but oh-so loveable). And she never, ever let him forget who was in charge of this duo. :-)

Originally, I think the idea was that she and Eddie would make for good hunting dogs, being Labs. I think Mom's lovin' got to them and they became a little unruly for hunting.

I don't have much more to say, other than that we'll miss her greatly. Bye, little girl.

Underneath the sun.

2009-10-25T23:17:00.004-06:00

Just some photos from some of the shoots I've had throughout the summer and fall. I can officially consider myself caught up now! w00t.

Grad 2009

Caleb and Brad were the only guys I shot this year for Grad, but they were both very cool. It's nice shooting a couple friends at the same time because they feed off of each other for energy and smiles. :-)

To the left is Brad. This was at the CP Rail buildings on North Railway in Swift. As it turns out, Brad's father works for CPR and kept a close eye on me to make sure I didn't get schmucked.

Here is the aforementioned father.

Here I was just testing out the lighting for the next set of pictures. Turned out to be one of my favorite shots out of the whole shoot.

Here's Caleb. He's a fun guy with a great sense of humor. I did a photo shoot for his family (as you'll see down the page, and he always kept everyone smiling.

With these shots in Elmwood Park, I finally had a chance to use my off-camera flash and umbrella; overall, I'm pretty happy with the results.

Family Photos 2009

I did a couple sets of family photos, one with the Lenz family on an old farm, and one with the Adams at their beautiful creek-side home in Swift Current. These are some of my favorites.

This old farm had lots of character, perfect for pictures. One cool thing that happened when Cynthia took me out to scout this location was that her son found a news paper in one of the buildings, and on the front page was an article about mayor Robert Dahl.

Some kids survive by being cute. I think these kids thrive on it!

These guys have a beautiful character home right overlooking a wide open area over the creek. I think this place would be sucha cool place to grow up because there are so many little paths and areas and whatnot to play in. All these photos were taken in various places of their property.

Weddings 2009

I had the great opportunity to shoot a couple weddings with Corla Rokochy from Lasting Impressions Photography as a second shooter. As it turns out, one of them was for a cousin of mine I hadn't seen in forever, so that was pretty sweet. His name is Dustin and he's the big guy just below! :-)

This poor little girl was just worn out.

This beautiful couple was braving some biting cold winds for pictures.

Whew! Thats it for now. I do have one more wedding to post, but I want to make sure the bride can see the photos before everyone else does!

What Brides will go through for a photo.

2009-10-22T23:32:00.003-06:00

Corla Rokochy, a very talented and energetic photographer in town here, was nice enough to ask me to come along to a wedding recently, and it was really damn cold and windy. Don't let the veil fool you - it actually was windy!

Liz here didn't seem to notice much though! :-)

Busted up and broken down.

2009-10-16T19:52:00.001-06:00

Here's the photo I was mentioning. I took this photo when I was on a road trip for work. There was this old, seemingly abandoned farm yard on my way back in to Swift with lots of things like this to take pictures of; though, this is probably the only one I really liked from there.

Oops - wrong photo!

2009-10-14T13:10:00.000-06:00

As it turns out, it wasn't the fox photo they picked for the Real Saskatchewan Photo Contest, but a different one I had submitted. I'll post it later on. :-}

The Real Saskatchewan Photo Contest

2009-10-06T20:14:00.002-06:00

I just found out that one of my submissions into the Real Saskatchewan Photo Contest has won a spot in the new Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan 2010 calendar. It's not much, but I'm pretty pleased. :-) Here's the pic.

More of Brad & Jess

2009-09-10T22:56:00.006-06:00

Well, I'm getting close to being finished the pictures for Brad and Jess so I figured I'd post some of my favorites. I'm having almost as much fun going through them as it was to shoot them in the first place! :-)

The ceremony was beautiful... very touching, full of tears of happiness. I thought this was a cute moment...

They had to do a lot of snuggling that day! They don't seem to mind though. :-)

This shot was for the Maid of Honor, Mare, who Insisted that there be a shot including Jess' shoes.

The reception was at the Logpile Lodge including a wonderful meal, lots of laughs, and heartfelt speeches by the Best Man, Brett, and the Maid of Honor, Mare.

Man! I wish I could post them all. It was such a great wedding I want to tell the whole story. Anyway -enjoy!

Got smoked like an expensive cigar.

2009-09-07T23:30:00.001-06:00

So, finally decided to play some online Go on KGS. This is a game I played with a 1kyu player named LengJai who was nice enough to play some tutoring Go with me. At first I was doing pretty well, but then my lack of reading ahead paved the way and he smoked me bad. :-) Anyway, here's the game. (Note: this is probably just an excuse to use the fancy Go game player I found for my blog :-)

As a side note, the teaching chat and the game chat are intermingled, so if you see me thanking him for saying that he didn't like what I was doing, that's why. :-}

Next time I'm in China...

2009-09-03T01:07:00.007-06:00

This is a chess pavillion on Hua Shan Mountain. How cool would it be to play some Go there? It may go on my list of things to do before I die. :-D

Wow...

Looks safe to me...

If you go when the weather is nice, perhaps it'd be a bit safer, though they do have a lot of safety equipment installed (you can see the cables you can hook a harness on to in pictures 4 and 5). That said, there are people who trek these treacherous trails in the winter snow and ice. My wife is across the house sleeping and I can already feel her disapproval of this idea, nice weather or not...

Next time I'm in China...

Check out more info here. A cool story from a few years ago about a couple travellers who took on the mountain.

[photo credits] 1. hceis.com 2. 6m9m.com 3. blog.ningin.com 4. tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com 5. blog.hotelclub.com 6. www.outdoorsmagic.com

Brad & Jess

2009-09-01T17:10:00.006-06:00

A bit of a sneak peek for my friends Brad and Jess. They had a beautiful wedding in Smithers, BC and this is one of my favorite shots out of the whole bunch. Hope you enjoy...

This is by the Bulkley Valley River (I think) in Telkwa.