Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice!

Here's miss B in her sugar and spice outfit. As she doesn't know what she's having yet, we did scenes with both girl and boy outfits. Lollipops, ice-cream, sweets, and a "bun" in the oven (that looks more like a loaf here). We had a wonderful day and soooo much fun!
Thanks Laurie!

Snakes & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

Sure, we can play with trucks, froggies, worms and the like... whatever a baby boy wants to do, we'll work with it! Looking forward to mid March!
xoxo
Linka

Pregnancy Pinup Photo Session!

Here she is! Miss Laurie, all dolled up for our first official Pregnancy Pinup Session! She was soo excited and came over with a ton of bags, props, candy, clothes, and more (almost broke the record set by Astoria Superstar, Poppy Fields, with 14 garbage bags/suitcases full of clothes and shoes).
We had wonderful time, and it was nice to work with a "belly" as well. What an AWESOME smile! Talk to you soon Miss B!

New Website Up!

Check out our new site at: http://www.astoriaphotography.ca/
Enjoy!

Happy 2010 from Astoria Photography!

Happy New Year! A big Thanks to all our awesome clients from 2009 and a hearty Welcome to all our new brides, grooms and pinups.
All the best for 2010!

Christmas Kids

Merry Christmas! This year we had my wonderful, lovely, beautiful nieces for a week up to and including christmas day. We went to movies, playgrounds, Fish Creek park and of course hit the studio for some xmas day shots. Enjoy!

Santa Belly - Maternity Pinup

Whew... We cut it pretty close when Mel called and asked for maternity pics. She said she was 38 weeks pregnant and wanted to book a date in the next couple of weeks. Not knowing anything about pregnancy dates/weeks, I googled maternity baby schedule and learned that baby can come at 39 or 40 weeks! We booked her session for the day after her enquiry and got some great shots. Of course I had to Santa-ize her with a mini-pinup shot, and then we did the traditional shots as well. Baby Madison was born exactly 2 weeks later! Congratulations!

Santa Baby

How could we resist a shot a like this! This was the second time in the studio for Evan - first was with his beautiful mom for a pinup session and then they returned for family portraits. He was soooo well behaved, in such a good mood and full of curiosity. I guess it's a good thing I stayed up til midnight, wrapping fake presents, and finding santa hats. Actually, Mom pulled through coming prepared - as always with the perfect fitting baby santa hat.

Cool Dude Kyle

Here's the guy... Mr. Kyle - I forgot to add in my previous blog that this shot is one of my favorites from Cool Dude pinup shoot day. He looks cool, casual, completely relaxed, hanging out with Mel and Carlina.... No one would ever know that Sacha's watch was too big and he's just doing his best trying not to let it fall...

Thanks Kyle! :)

Cool Dude Pinup

The first Cool Dude Pinup Session Ever! Mel and I convinced our colleague Kyle to help us out with our portfolio. For the longest time, we were asked if we do "Guy Pinups" and we wanted to say yes, but had nothing to show for it. Well now we do! We transformed Kyle into James Dean, Buddy Holly, and the dude from Jessica Rabbit (Laurie B is going to add art to that one).
It was FREEZING cold, just -30 or something and I said to Kyle to just pretend he was cold to keep his shoulders hunched like JD. Not a problem. We got some awesome shots and he even ordered a 2010 Calendar for the girlfriend - just in time for xmas.

SuperGirls@ Astoria Studio

Superman? No way, we're uping it a notch and photographing the all-empowered Super Girl!
This session was sooooo fun for us. The poses look tricky, but we used, medicine balls, industrial fans, benches, boxes etc to try to get the perfect flying girl. We also only had one outfit, so for the BFF pic I had to merge them together in Photoshop. Where did the clouds come from? Astoria Photography stock file from my trip to Vancouver last year. yep, those clouds are from the true Rocky Mountain sky - somewhere over Alberta...




Again, these pictures can all be seen at the Calgary Comic Expo which will be at the BMO Round-Up Centre April 24&25. See you there! :)

1920's Vintage Vixen Pinup Session

We're mixing things up a bit! This year, we'd like to incorporate the 1920's look as well as Burlesque sessions to our packages. A different era, but just as sexy! Thanks Erica for doing such a great job modeling for us! You played the part perfectly!

Astoria BFF Pinup Magazine Cover

Here it is.... the first ever Astoria Photography BFF Magazine Cover! These two pinups came for the BFF session (Glamour Girls - $395 each) and left with a magazine cover. I must also add that they were in full training mode for the Internation Woman's Weight Lifting competition in France! They did so well there and they each came home with medals. Way to go Astoria Pinups Michelle & Andy! We're all proud of you!

Fairytale Pinups!

Want to add a bit of fantasy to your regular classic pinup session? Not a problem. We've got a few different themes that we can work with to suit your needs. This was our first trial with the fairytale characters. We're pumping up the portfolio for the upcoming Calgary Comic Expo which will be taking place in April. Some of these pics will be sent to Laurie B, local artist, who will add in a Big Bad Wolf, or a witch or one of the seven dwarfs etc... she'll work her magic somehow :)

2010 Pinup Calendar Girl!

Our 2010 new Astoria Calendar template is in and here's our first client to take advantage of it.She chose the Classic Diva full day session, so we had lots to chose from for the secret Christmas present.

Perfect Portraits - Mom & Daughter

It was the perfect day for portraits, not to hot, not to cold, just a bit of wind, but that's great for the hair anyhow - gives it movement :)

Recent Pinup, Michelle, returned to us for her Christmas portraits as well. We used our regular hot spots, catalogue corner at 24 Hager Place, and of course Glenmore reservoir for that outdoor feel. We ended our shoot with a hot chocolate and double-double or whatever the equivalent is to that in Starbuck Lingo. It was a fun day!

Pumpkin Pinup Party!

As tradition dictates, I got my favourite 2 girls (my nieces) for Halloween. The studio was already set-up for a shoot, so what the heck, we grabbed the pumpkins, a witch broom, opened the tickle trunk (closet full of costumes) and went for it. These are my favourites, and oh, the big one is Mel - of course, being "witchy".

Colour Change?

I usually just add and manipulate colours in photoshop, but this is the real deal. No, its not a joke, or part of my Halloween costume, I really did dye my hair red. Here it is, never done anything like it before, so we'll see how long it lasts.

Vargas Girl Photoshoot

How Lucky am I to have the a perfect Vargas Girl look-a-like for a friend and assistant! One of our pinup sessions was postponed for the day, so we took the chance to practice on ourselves! We thought we'd try the Vargas Girl and Melanie did an OUTSTANDING job! Take a look at our impersonations of the Vargas Girl Pinup.

Copy Cat Kari

October was a good month for Astoria, and we landed a super client, Kari, that came to us all the way from OTTAWA! As usual, we asked if she had any special requests, and she sent us a couple of pictures that she liked. Below left is the one she sent us, and, you guessed it, the right one is ours! Not to brag, but I think it's fantastic and even better than the magazine pic! Thanks Kari, for the inspiration and adding a new "pose" to our list! :)

Evening in Amsterdam

Trying to cut back on a bit of travel time, and just taking a couple of days to relax on our own, an Amsterdam Bed and Breakfast was the perfect place to accommodate us. We stayed at the Barangay B and B. It was close to Central Station, and all the canals - which I was on a mission to get some great evening pictures of. Problem was, every evening at twilight it started raining! Despite that we got some good shots and had a good time.