Damien and I have recently become involved with a wonderful organization called the “Invermere Companion Animal Network” or ICAN for short. It is a not-for-profit organization that is solely run by volunteers. Since there is no animal shelter in Invermere and area, they take in unwanted or found animals and find them new homes. They also help return lost animals to their homes. They have no central location so all animals are fostered by the volunteers until they are adopted. ICAN also helps with vaccinations, deworming, and spay and neutering. We think it is a great thing these people are doing so we decided we would try to help as much as we can.

We are now doing the mug-shots for all of  ICAN’s animals. It is not much, but if we can show people an animal’s personality through photos, perhaps we can help find them loving homes. Before we purchased our new lights we did photos with a few kitties:

The first batch were three brothers who are about 6-7 months old. They were a little shy at first but after a little while the really warmed up to us. We had them for a sleep over and when I went to see them in the morning they all cuddled and licked my hands. It was so cute. One of these guys, (I’m not sure what his name is) is already adopted but the other 2 are still in need of permanent homes.

The next kitten we photographed was Victoria. What a monster! I mean that in the nicest way possible though. We love Victoria. She  is totally curious and full of energy. She loves to play and I thought it was so cute when she came and slept right in front of my monitor while I was at the computer.

Now that we have new lights we are on a shooting spree! We have had 16 kitties in within the last couple of weeks or so. They are:

Wilma – What a sweetheart this cat is. She is so licky. You are almost guaranteed to get a face wash if you get too close to her. She also loves human companionship. She will stay in the same room as you and keep you company all day if you let her. This is not to say that she is needy though. She won’t get in your face at all unless she is invited. She is a very beautiful cat. I envy the family who brings her home.

Greggie, Patterson, and Greyson – These three brothers are adorable. Damien and I both would have loved to adopt them. They are so cuddly and they all have these cute little pudgy bellies. Two of them, Patterson and Greyson, are already adopted. No surprises there.

Next we had Sega and her three kittens. We didn’t get to know these guys very well but they were all sweet and quiet. Mom and kittens all loved to play though.

Then came Wilson and Enya a.k.a ‘Shoulders’. We dubbed this kitty Shoulders because she loves to walk on your shoulders or perch there like a parrot. She is such a pretty cat but she is also so cuddly and sweet. She is very quiet and will flop in your lap to have a nap. Wilson is also a big sweetie. He loves chasing things and will do well in his new home as a mouser/companion.

We are now doing some shooting for the ICAN calendar so we have had in a few repeat guests in the last couple of days. Brynnie was one of them. We brought her over here a few weeks ago but our lights malfunctioned so we didn’t get to do any shooting then. We were very happy to have this little purr monster back though. Just look at how cute she is! I am surprised no one has adopted her yet. She’s just awesome. We also had Fynn back for more shots. He is still such a laid back little sweetie. While we had Brynnie and Fynn in, we also had Dew here too. He is so affectionate and he loves to stick his wet little nose on your face.

Currently we have three kittens here anxiously awaiting their photo shoot. They are Victoria again, and two of Sega’s little ones. One, Yoda, who we did not have in before, and the other Ferrari who is a repeat guest. Little Yoda is so precious. He is a very gentle little guy who loves to crawl into your lap and just watch what is going on, when he isn’t following Victoria around and tackling her that is.

Wow, that is a lot of kitties! Here are some photos of them.

I hate it. The only comments we have had so far have been spam. I can’t wait until someone actually visits our page to view it’s content

Mini-rant over. I will try to post a real blog later if I get a chance.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Kozel family today as my uncle Matt passed away yesterday morning.

With a new home and opening a new business we thought it was time to change up our equipment. Our lights are out of service thanks to a busted camera sync and we knew we wanted to change our setup dramatically with better lighting and we wanted to convert from Canon to Nikon.

With a little planning and many thanks to Brian at the Cranbrook Fotosource we are now free of all our Canon gear. We have a new Nikon D80 body and we are waiting for our new Alien Bees lighting system to arrive.

Despite all this good news this week so far has been a hard sell for me. It started off pretty cool, Shawna and I drove up to Panarama for the first time. We stopped to take some river and lake shots. Light was low, we shot mostly at ISO 1600, but it was mostly a scouting mission, next weekend we know where to go to do our shooting. Also this was our first adventure with the new Nikon D80. It was a little hard to get use to the controls again since we’ve been shooting with the Canon Xti for the past year but I must admit it feels more natural in my hands than the Xti ever did.

We ordered our lights yesterday. If you’re in love with photography the way we are you’ll understand our excitement by looking at the specs here. We were told they would arrive by Wednesday but when looking at the UPS tracking system it seems like it’s being held up for some reason in Richmond or Fredriction NB and it looks like we’ll get them on Thursday. So now we play the waiting game and we’re both itching to get to shooting in the our space again.

Damien

DNS Photography is now open in Invermere, We bring with us 18 years of combined experience in photography.We are looking forward to capturing the beauty of the area and its people.

As a team we began shooting together in 2003. It was a hobby we both took seriously, particularly event photography. We branched out to model photography and in 2006 we took our photography to the next
level, selling our shots through stock agencies for marketing use. We opened a studio in early
2007 in Edmonton but when given the opportunity to realize our dream of living in the mountains,
we closed our doors and made preparations to move.

Now here we are, opening up our doors again to a whole new world of photography. We have always
focused on advertising and model shoots in the studio. Although we want to continue to improve and grow in these styles, a large part of our new mandate is to built a more local client base. In the past we have not been able to work with our buyers on a one on one basis, however, personal relationships with clients are where we feel our future in photography lies. Our new focus will be on meeting the individual desires of our customers. We plan to start by offering custom pet photography in our home studio. Once we feel we have perfected this art, we plan to offer wedding and family portrait photography as well.

We are launching this website/blog to chronicle our photographic lives. We could spend hours going through past photo shoots and uploading our best work, but we feel that this is a new start for us and thus we would like to use this as a platform to display (for the most part) our newest and freshest work. We will try and post our favorites from every shoot so be prepared for a  lot of kitties and puppies! Please feel free to comment on any post. We love feedback!