2017... what a year

The highlights, from Winnipeg Family Photographer, aliciaTphoto

Winnipeg..... wow. What a year indeed. It was filled with both new and familiar faces, and many memories made and captured. More of you than ever have invited me into your lives and trusted me to come into your homes and capture your real and honest selves and I could not be happier or more grateful. The biggest compliment I could ever get from you are your referrals or you sending me pictures of your pictures on your walls. Thank you for this year.

I've also grown immensely in my craft. I invested some time in education and discovered and became involved with some incredible photography communities that have helped me learn and grow and see better. All of these amazing things will in turn help me to capture memories for myself and for you even better than before!

I teamed up with my dear friend Catherine from Catherine Brown Photography & Doula Care, for my annual mini session fundraiser for You Can't Spoil A Baby (<-- you can learn more about them by clicking there! They're an amazing project and I love that I'm able to support them this way!) and together we raised almost $500 to help their budget.

2017 was also the year that I got to cross one incredible thing of my personal bucket list. I had one of my day in the life sessions featured on Fearless and Framed. This is an achievement I'm very proud of, not only because it's been a personal goal of mine for almost 3 years, but also because the session they asked to feature is one that is very close to my heart.... [if you click on the image below it will take you to the feature article. If you click the collage below that you can see the original blog post]. Thank you M Family, for letting me share your story with the world!

This year also brought a pretty epic occasion to our family. I got to witness my Dad become a Canadian. After 40+ years living, working and raising a family in Canada, he never actually became a citizen until this year and I'm so very proud. [again, click the collage below to read the full blog post]

Our family also took our second trip to Holland together to visit my Oma and Opa and celebrate their 90th birthdays. We are so incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to go overseas with our children and have them spend precious time with our European family not once, but twice in the past 3 years.

And while my rock'n'roll days are long over, I did get to attend a few amazing concerts & shows this year. For nostalgia sake, I even brought my camera to a couple including a fundraising show called the 90's tribute show and an incredible ode to a friend gone to soon, put together by my BFF.

I also had the humbling experience of being selected as one of the photographers for Beauty Revived's "50 Beautiful Children" campaign. If you don't know anything about Beauty Revived, it's a magazine and blog that showcases REAL beauty. The kind that comes from spreading love and kindness and showing inner strength and determination to overcome life's obstacles. I was so happy when my friend Dayna nominated her amazing daughter Belle, and allowed me the opportunity to share their story surrounding her brother's heart transplant and her advocacy for organ donation. You can read the full write up by clicking the picture below.

This past summer, my sons and I tried our hand at something new to us as well, and it was incredibly amazing, fascinating and rewarding. We began our journey raising butterflies. It all started with some cool looking caterpillars we found on our carrots in the garden... so we kept them, fed them, and watched them grow and transform into Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies. From there I continued to research, and educate myself and discovered the current plight of the Monarch butterfly... and discovered that my dad has milkweed (the Monarch caterpillar's only food source) planted in his garden, and that those plants were covered in caterpillars, so we stole 5. Of those 5, we successfully released 4 and I'm so obsessed that I have my husband building me a butterfly house this winter and I'm already planning my butterfly garden with my milkweed seeds on standby waiting for germination. In all, we released 8 black swallowtails and 4 monarchs, and have about 15 swallowtails overwintering in our shed. Should be a colourful spring!

And now for my personal recap. I hope you enjoy scrolling through the wonderful year it was for my family.

And to cap it off, here are my top 20 personal favorite photos from 2017...

Friends, family, clients and fellow photographers.... There are no words for me to express how grateful I am for all the love and support I received from you all this year. Your faith in my abilities, your trust in my lens and your words of wisdom push me to grow and make sure that 2018 is even better! I'm excited to share it with you all.

Cheers friends.

And thank you.

~Alicia