It’s officially December and we are once again offering our portrait sessions at exclusive holiday rates! In keeping with our holiday tradition, there are 10 sessions available for a lucky few.

Whether for yourself or as gifts, if you’ve even been *thinking* about getting portraits done – do it now! Grab yours before they are gone – buy online now (below), or email us to get yours. 

Blue Olive Portrait Session Sale

One Hour Session $195.00 CAD Two Hour Session $295.00 CAD Family – Day in the Life $395.00 CAD 3 Session Baby Plan $395.00 CAD

Sessions can be for an individual portrait, couple or engagement, newborns, kids, or families. We offer our standard session at around 1 hour, an extended session at 2 hours (perfect for hitting a couple different locations), a day in the life family shoot that gets us together for a few hours while we plan activities to keep everyone busy, and our 3 session baby plan which can cover maternity/newborn/1 year or newborn/6 month/1 year shoots!

Each session comes with an in studio reveal session to view and order from your session and one of our custom 8×12″ enlargements. Sessions may be scheduled anytime in the 18 months following your purchase. When redeemed, we’ll work to finalize the session details including date and time, location, and ideas. We are currently booking January portrait dates.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Our live/work studio will be open tonight (Friday) from 5-10pm, and again tomorrow and Sunday from 11-6 each day. All of the Blue Olive stuff you’re all familiar with of course will be on display so if you’re wanting to meet up with us it’s a great time to pop in for some casual browsing through our work, and more importantly you’ll be able to check out some of the other creative stuff we do. Reilly has a large collection of his art photography on display, I’ll have some of my ceramics and typography line (http://www.etsy.com/shop/sassycontessa) out, and there will probably even be an impromptu performance or two on Sunday by Reilly’s band and some other musical friends. All in all, should be a great weekend!

Our studio is at 25 Gore Ave, as North as you can go on Gore just one block East of Main St.

Hope to see you here!

http://eastsideculturecrawl.com/buildings/25-gore-avenue

Long time, no chat. How has your summer been? Did you go places, see new things, play in the surf?

We’ve had an AMAZING summer – so many new babies to photograph and carefree happy kids to chase, a couple dozen wonderful weddings, laughter laughed and tears shed for touching vows, memorable speeches, and sunny days. Seriously, I believe we have the best job on the planet.

We’ve also tried really hard to have some balance, so the occasional day at the beach with a great read on my kindle and a guitar in Reilly’s hand has taken priority over our blog, so we could recharge and be ready to do what we do best each day in the office – from shooting through to editing and designing stunning albums for our clients. This time of year is always tough as we’re heads down working through the culmination of months of shooting, but we’re close to winning so we’re happy about that.

I have to say though, I’m SO EXCITED about fall! Sweaters and scarves are two of my favourite things, and I love the crisp cool air. We’ve spent time in the kitchen canning for the first time ever (can’t let the delicious farmer’s market & csa organic veggies go to waste!), and I’m dreaming of pot roasts in the crock pot and apple crisp in the oven. And, of course, many cozy nights around the table with friends.

We’ve got two big things to share before I go, but I’ll be back soon with all the oh-so-delicious stuff we’ve been keeping to ourselves for the past while.

First up, babies & kids! So many of our wedding clients come back to us when they start a family, and I melt a little each time that I get to meet and cuddle any new arrival. As babies become kids and trade sleeping soundly for running around as fast as their legs can take them, we join in on the fun. So, on that note, we quietly launched our babies & kids division over the summer. We are currently offering 50% off any of these sessions as an introductory offer for our blog friends when you mention this post, but it expires in one week so get in touch ASAP to get in our schedule for anytime in the next few months. Check us out online at http://kids.blueolivephotography.com.

And – the second thing I wanted to share – we are deeply thankful to each and every one of our clients and friends who voted for us again in the Georgia Straight reader’s choice awards! To be honest we completely forgot to even remind anyone to vote so there were no tweets or newsletter mentions at all (Reilly didn’t even fill out his own ballot!), which made the call to let us know we had won again that much more a surprise. We’ve been named the Best Wedding Photographers in Vancouver for the third straight row, so a giant THANK YOU to each of you.

We’ll be back soon with lots of eye candy to share.

XOXO!

Miranda (& Reilly!)

It’s my favourite time of year!

This Saturday we are pleased to present the third annual Indie I Do – Vancouver’s Alternative Wedding Show.

Whether you’re planning a totally offbeat wedding or just looking for a few unique details to add a splash of personality to a more traditional event, this show is the one to attend.

Indie I Do is produced by yours truly – Blue Olive Photography – along with our friends Andrea & Rob over at Lotus Events. Come down and say hello, and check out the awesome lineup of 35+ vendors we have in store for you.

Tickets are still available on the website at http://www.indieido.com/ at advance rates

Despite being *much* more comfortable behind the camera, Reilly and I had fun filming our segment and hope it will shed a little light into what we do and how we do it. Hah – and it’s a chance for you to see us on screen for once! Cheers!

Has everyone been enjoying the holiday season, and this week the GORGEOUS weather? I think I’ve eaten my weight in chocolate and we’ve been spending lots of time with close friends and family. We’re officially back in the office Tuesday but I wanted to stop by with a couple of updates, as I know already from the emails we’ve been getting that there are lots of gals with brand new rings on their fingers!

One of my favourite parts of each shoot we do is the video – the highlights of the wedding all pulled together, including (new for all of our 2011 events) a few snips of moving video thrown into the mix for added effect. These videos are the first look for our clients and more importantly the best way to share the wedding as a snapshot, and we’ll be sharing more of these with our blog readers going forward.

The full blog post is yet to come for these two, but with the sun today I’m reminded of this gorgeous fall wedding on Hornby Island and thought this was the perfect video to share – joy is contagious, and I adore these guys. Enjoy!

This time of year is a whirlwind of parties for many people, and that’s what I love about December – I’ve been looking forward to another opportunity to wear something nice. That, and sparkly things and a birdcage veil for my hair. Can never turn down an opportunity to wear a birdcage veil.

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We are just back from the backstage tour and I am completely in love with the set. Borrowed from the San Francisco Opera, everything came together in around 8 hours last Saturday when it was put together on stage (with just one missing piece, although that was easily rectified.) While there are no moving parts it is looking like projection will also play a part in this production – although I imagine it will be quite different from Lillian Alling (the first show of the season).

I try to make it a habit of not knowing the story ahead of time – I’d rather be surprised than be waiting for something I’d heard about for the entire show. From the props, however, I know things are set in a castle, there will be some blood, and there are a lot of weapons ready to make their way onto the stage. Sounds like a good setup to me. On with the show!

One of the few things I knew ahead of time was that this was somewhat of a dark story – and it lived up to the title.

What starts as a love story quickly turns to a tragedy – although that certainly could have been predicted. I was, however, surprised by how versatile the set was made by the projection – with sheer screens in front of the set at times the stage becomes completely magical. Kudos to the set designers, I know in many ways this is a simple set but I love how it comes alive, it really is fantastic.

And then, of course, the voices.

I was told ahead of time I was in for a treat with Eglise Gutiérrez playing the part of Lucia, but I was not prepared to be so completely blown away by her performance. I don’t want to lessen the work of the rest of the cast as it really is beautiful – particularly that of Gregory Dahl who plays Lucia’s brother Enrico and of course Michael Fabiano’s performance as Edgardo, especially in the final scene where the power of his voice really shines.

That said – Eglise has my heart. I think I could listen to her for hours, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any more incredible Act 3 started and…well… if you’ve been on the fence about heading out to the opera, this is absolutely the show to see. She will blow you away.

Lucia is a more traditional opera – sung in Italian with English surtitles (follow along! no foreign language required!) – and I have to say that out of the handful of performances I’ve been to with the Vancouver Opera, this is hands down my absolute favourite. I just can’t get over the magic of the set and the voices… oh the voices. Simply – go. You won’t be disappointed.

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Lucia di Lammermoor is playing December 7th, 9th, and 11th, and tickets are still available for the remaining shows. The best seats are at the higher end of the scale, but with seats further up starting at $29 the Vancouver Opera doesn’t need to be reserved only for special occasions. It’s definitely earned a place on our regular night out list.

I’ll be back in February for the 3rd show of the season, with tickets already on sale for those looking ahead. The perfect holiday gift, perhaps?!

And now – final prep for Got Craft? which is happening first thing tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

For anyone who hasn’t been to a craft show in the last couple of years, you have no idea what you’re missing. A room full of crazy talented handmade vendors is the perfect place to start and end your holiday shopping, so come out on Sunday to check it out at the Legion on Commercial Drive.

I’ll be there with my crafty pursuits… look for typewriter key bracelets, button necklaces, leather cuffs featuring the pages of old books and a few more goodies from me, 3 tables in directly to the right when you come in the door.

Hope to see you there!

This show couldn’t get much better – two gorgeous fashion shows to choose from, delicious passed food & wine, and even an opportunity to win an engagement portrait session from us (among other fantastic prizes)! Reilly will be there all day along with a couple swanky new products in the Blue Olive lineup, so definitely come out and say hello.

Tickets are available online now. Are you already a Blue Olive Bride and have yet to get yours? I have a couple tickets for the first gals to email me!

We’re less than 2 weeks away from our trek over to the island and we’d love to see you while we’re there. We’ll be chatting with a group of photographers about what we do. Let your island photographer friends know, and if you’re in the area yourself don’t miss it! We’re looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones for an evening of info and open-book Q&A.

Cheers!