Weather's not helping at all - I had to cancel/reschedule a few family photo shoots because it's just been raining every single weekend. With all the wind from yesterday, trees are almost all bare so I'm guessing there will be no more family shoots with that great Fall look we all love. Luckily, I was able to shoot this amazing family and since this was my favorite Fall session of the year, I decided to stop my wedding editing to make this post.

Meet Fatima (mom), Daniel (dad), Jacob and Sophia. They know me from a couple of weddings I shot last/this year. It was great spending the morning with them - Jacob running all over the place (talk about energy!) and Sophia just being the CUTEST baby ever - she was ALL smiles and didn't cry for a single minute. I also have to thank Daniel's mom for helping us out - she kept an eye on the kids while we shot a few pictures of just Fatima and Daniel. :)

Let me share my favorite ones with you!

From this wedding, my favorite parts were definitely speeches - after going to so many weddings, I already know that MOST of the best men get their speeches from the Internet. Same old jokes, can't laugh at that anymore. But this time the best man speech brought tears to my ears. Actually, ALL speeches. I'm just talking about the best man in particular because it's rare to hear something actually nice and emotional from guys. I loved every single part of the day, but the reception was the spotlight. People were really having fun!! (sometimes dinner is so long it gets a bit boring - I can't take pictures of people eating!!)

Congrats, Bryan and Pareesa! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness. :)

This is Rachel and Mike - what a cute couple! I've been really lucky this year - getting all these good-looking couples! We decided to shoot this e-session at many different locations around downtown - must say that it was pretty hot that day. Good thing most locations we picked had air conditioning!

Our shoot started at the Union Station and from there we went to all interesting places we could find. We all have to agree that Rachel looks STUNNING in that pink dress - can't wait to see her in white! I'm sure she'll look amazing.

Our shoot ended at the Habourfront Centre for some more casual shots. It was crazy parking and walking around - could that place be any more crowded? Now I remembered why I usually tell couples Habourfront is a no-no unless we go during sunrising. Of course, I totally forgot with all these weddings happening this past month, but we were able to get some really cute shots. Please enjoy!

First I gotta say I LOVED my old website. I loved my flying pictures and I bet I was the only one that knew you could drag and drop them - I could play with those for hours and I would for sure if I had the time. I also loved the way my Portfolio was displayed. The whole thing was built using Macromedia Flash, so if you tried to view my site using an iPhone/iPad, you would see a boring version of it (= my blog). We needed to do something about it. And this is it.

Hello and welcome to my brand new website. :)

It's pretty simple but I like it. I love my new logo, my new colors, everything! It definitely reflects who I am today. I don't miss my old site AT ALL. Thank you, hubby, for doing an amazing job. ♥

My business cards will remain the same, though. Have thousands of those still. HAHA.

Now talking about this photo shoot - this was a gift Camila gave to her dear husband for Father's Day. I know! I should have blogged about it months ago. I wish I had posted their Maternity pics as well, but you can find a few of them on my Portfolio.

Since this is a Father's Day post, I gotta say that today is actually my dad's birthday. Happy B-Day, dad! I know you're an avid reader of this blog - every time I have visits from Japan, it's him for sure. lol Thank you for working 2 jobs most of your life to pay for food, school and buy me all the things I wanted. Yeah, I was a spoiled child.

E como estou postando um sessão de Dia dos Pais, preciso dizer que hoje é aniversário do meu pai. Feliz Aniversário, papai! Eu sei que você vem sempre aqui - toda vez que tenho visitas do Japão, tenho 99% de certeza que é você. Obrigada por trabalhar quase sua vida inteira em 2 empregos para pagar minha escola, comprar comida e todas as outras coisas que eu queria. Sim, eu fui uma criança mimada. ハッピー・バースディ！

Fabrice wrote Jennifer 12 - yes, TWELVE!! - love letters during the past year, one for each month. We had the chance to read one since they decided to share its content during their vows. I couldn't stop crying - good thing my camera is always in front of my face, so nobody notices!

Then, during the speeches, we learn that Fabrice, as a kid, reenacted the whole Disney's Aladdin movie - including songs! - to his sister since she couldn't watch the actual movie. Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever heard?? I'm a huge Disney fan (for a period of time I even was a cast member but had to gave up on that since I understand that I'm much better as a guest), so for me, that's actually the cutest thing I've ever heard.

Now talking about the wedding - this was so much fun. Jennifer definitely chose an unique location for their portraits: The Art Shoppe! When she told me about her plan, I thought that was extremely creative but I was a bit worried about all the price tags and how we would deal with some of the furniture around the store. Turns out that the staff was beyond nice and helped us hiding price tags and even moving furniture around. I just love the pictures - The light of the store made the pictures came out so dramatic! While I was editing I was thinking, "man, this looks like a movie poster!". Loved them! Can't wait to publish my next blog post so I can move them to my portfolio!!

Jen looked STUNNING! Interesting that before their E-Session they talked to me about being worried about not being photogenic, but as you can see, they have nothing to worry about! Such a cute couple. Loved her dress, the hair, her place (yeah, that has nothing to do with the wedding, but it gave the pictures a nice background) everything! That girl has an incredible good taste. I also have to say that the entire bridal party was really into the wedding. I wish I could post all pictures here, got to capture some really nice images because of them. They were SO upbeat!

Congrats, Jen and Fabrice! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness. :)

p.s.: Their last names and the license plate from the Jeep were intentionally removed out of the images for this post.

Another wedding book being shipped - decided to post some images of this one because it's different from the regular album I usually bring to my meetings! Instead of the leather cover, you have the hardback cover. I really like the way it looks so current.

Loved it!

p.s.: for info on pricing, please contact me at contact(at)yukinoda.com since this book is not available on my Price List.

And although everybody gets a "draft" on my blog, not everybody goes "live". It's not because I didn't like the photo session, it's just that since I'm editing your pictures during the weekdays and, as soon as I'm done with your photo session, there's another shoot to edit, it's really hard to find time to write a text for all these drafts. I tried not writing a text for some posts and I just don't like how the blog looks like with no text (and it also seems I don't care).

Some of these drafts are soo old that it doesn't make sense to post them anymore. Sometimes, because I don't remember the story of the people I worked with, sometimes because I already have a brand new photo session at that same location, sometimes because I do focus more on couples and weddings here, so families photo sessions almost never make it to the blog.

I'm talking about this because these past days I started cleaning up the blog and I decided to browse through some posts that were actually published. Then I just started wondering about all these faces I've seen: do they already have a baby?; he must be such a cute toddler by now!; I wish I had more e-sessions on different locations like this one; will she make it to Hollywood?; etc, etc. I meet so many people every year and I can only imagine where they are now.

That's not the case for Levente and Rachelle. I will be shooting their wedding next month so I still get to see them again. :)

They chose the Distillery District as their E-Session location and although I already lost count of how many times I've been there, I still love that place. It has everything a photographer could ask for - there's so much to look at that I still find places I have never used before. I'm completely in love with these images!

Going back to that park I was talking about - one of these days I noticed a bunch of teenagers talking, laughing, close to where we were. And all of sudden it hit me: I am getting old. When did that happen?! When I had a job from 9-5 I used to be the youngest of everybody. Now I get to shoot Bar Mitzvahs, sweet 16s and I just feel O-L-D. I definitely have to replace my Junk Food t-shirts for some more serious wardrobe soon. It's funny when I look at the mirror I still see that 18 year old girl, but I must have gotten old, I'm sure. I just don't notice the wrinkles. I wonder if that happens to everybody.

Anyways... here we have Bryan and Pareesa (just love the sound of that name!). They look like they came out from a clothing catalog - so cute! They match, but it's not that obvious match. It just looks good. I recently posted a winter shoot from the Brick Works, so you might feel a bit of deja vu seeing these images. ;)

I don't know if anybody noticed, but most of my Portfolios start with an image of hands, feet, etc. It's intentional - I think it's kind of neutral and I actually love photographing details. I've been using the same picture for a couple of years now, but I think I finally found a good replacement. :)

So this is Lena and Mohamad's wedding - it's actually their reception since I did not shoot their ceremony that took place in the US! They got ready together, headed to Glendon College for some portraits and then it was all about dancing all night long!

One really romantic thing about the two of them: their moms were best friends from a long long time ago and they actually met when they were BABIES!! Isn't that cute?! They became friends during their teens, fell in love and the rest is history. That is so sweet, just loved that story.