A Focus on Creative and Intentional Photography

Happy New Year!

I love a new year! I love starting with a fresh planner and wiping clean my erasable wall calendar. I love reviewing how my previous year was and making all the plans for the new one.

It’s a time to celebrate successes. It’s a time to change things that aren’t working. It’s a time to dream about the future.

Lots has happened in the past year. Some of it very challenging. Some of it providing new opportunities. It resulted a lot of changes around the world and in our individual lives.

I find that I am taking more time to read and to learn. I just tuned into a Live with Brendon Burchard, Mel Robbins, Jenna Kutcher, and many others. My big take aways were:

  • Every experience connects you with someone, teaches a lesson, or gives you a skill
  • Your life is not determined by chance but by choice
  • Fiercely protect your time
  • Don’t just do more, do more of the right things
  • Have a strong morning routine before you start work
  • Plan 5 major moves a month, write out the steps to accomplish each of the, and schedule those steps right into your calendar

I will keep those in mind as I create my plan for the year and for the first few months. I thought I would start with a fresh look to my website. It reflects the streamlining of my business, the maturity of being an established business, and the willingness to change with the times.

This year I will concentrate more on Photo Treks – connecting with people one on one, sharing some of the skills I’ve learned as a professional photographer, and just having more fun. I will spend less time running around being at all the events and capturing thousands and thousands of photos. I will slow down and focus on more creative and intentional photography. You’ll see more photos being shared on Instagram and Facebook for more people to enjoy. Please follow me on both those platforms so that my photos show up in your feed.

I’m sometimes asked if I still enjoy photography as a business now that it’s not just a hobby. I emphatically respond “yes!” Find something you have a passion for and the lines blur between when you are working and when you are playing – it all becomes something you enjoy. Happy New Year!

Social Distancing Photography

I hope everyone is keeping healthy during these challenging times. Our photography services have been modified to adhere to the social distancing protocols. We are offering Social Distance Photo Treks where we will meet one or two people in a location where we can maintain two meters between us and still work on photography skills. We are still taking outdoor portraits, so if your family is finally all together or you have time to update your head shots, please contact us. We are also able to do real estate and commercial photography by being a bit more creative, so if you are moving to more online services or need photos to update your websites, please contact us. We are doing our best to help flatten the curve. Stay safe everyone.  Cindy

Happy New Year!

I love starting a new year. You do a review of your last year and you make plans of what you want to do for the upcoming year. We have been doing some planning for 2020 and are starting to get booked for events, family portraits, weddings. Our Photo Booths continue to be a big hit, both for events and private gatherings so we will continue to offer them throughout the year. Our Photo Treks got off to a great start last year and we had a lot of fun doing them so we are creating more of them for this year. We have a list started on our Photo Trek page and will be adding more as the year progresses. We can also add custom ones so please get in touch with us. Our commercial photography continues to grow as our town grows and we look forward to offering custom photography to our local businesses. We hope everyone takes the time to cherish the memories of 2019 and plan for an amazing 2020.

Expanding into Videography!

We are excited to now offer videography services! Check out the fun video we created of this year’s Squamish Days Loggers Sports Festival on YouTube

Knowing so many of the people in this video, it makes us smile each time we watch it! Thanks to Darwin Cardiff @Goalie_Goose for the editing and Joakim Karud @joakinkarudmusic, soundcloud.com/joakimkarud, youtube.com/joakimkarud for the music “Great Days”.

Join one of our summer or fall Photo Treks

 

We are having a lot of fun on our Photo Treks! We’ve added a new series that will take us through the summer and fall. Check them out on our Trek page. All camera types and abilities are welcome. We have boat tours with Squamish Harbour Marine Adventures, Treks on location at Britannia Mine Museum and Loggers Sports, and Treks with bird experts. We play around with light, shutter speeds, apertures, and composing better photos, and most importantly concentrate on the joy of taking photos.

Cindy

We are now offering Photography Treks!

In celebration of 10 years in business as Double Shutter Images in Squamish, we have been working hard putting together a new service. We are now offering Photography Treks! Join local photographers on photography outings to prime locations, where you’ll go on an easy walk, learn some history of the area, and get professional tips for taking great images. Each Trek focuses on different skills and all camera types are welcome. Please check out more details on the Trek page of our website.

Cindy

Celebrating 10 Years of Business

Double Shutter Images was created in 2009 as a partnership between Cindy Cardiff and Michael Kanka. We merged our individual photography businesses and as a team covered many events and projects in the Sea to Sky Corridor. Our partnership flourished and our friendship grew to include our families and friends. This year Double Shutter Images celebrates its 10th year of business. We celebrate taking thousands of photos at our photo booths, photographing large and small races, taking photos for Sea to Sky businesses, creating and organizing community events, and capturing many special moments at events, weddings, and with family portraits. We’ve won several awards and had many images published in newspapers and magazines. It has been a very fun and successful 10 years.

We made many changes to our business over the years to keep up with technology, economics, and a growing community. This year is the biggest change yet, as Michael is retiring. He has plans to do more relaxing and travelling with his wife Monika. Michael and I come with very different skill sets which is what made our partnership so special. I learned a lot from him as his technical expertise is extraordinary and I will be forever grateful to have worked alongside him. I also thank Monika for being a huge part of our business, enabling us to cover large races and busy photo booths and for being an integral part of 10 fun years.  We will continue to see them around the community and might even see them coming back to help with some of the bigger photography projects. I will continue to see them on a more social level as we have established life long friendships. I wish Michael and Monika many happy new adventures.

So, it’s a new year and a new chapter for Double Shutter Images. Business will continue as usual as I take over the tasks that were shared between us. It’s a good time for reflection on the things that worked well and were most enjoyable as well as the things that were a lot of work for little return. Changes are inevitable, but I strongly believe change is good. I’m looking forward to taking many more photos in the next 10 years. Happy New Year to everyone!

Cindy

Summertime Fun

We have been having so much fun this summer that we almost forgot to write about it!
Just a few of the events we’ve been photographing have been SOAR and the BC Sailing Championships, Squamish Off Road Triathlon and the Squamish Youth Triathlon, Operation Trackshoes, Family Fun Day
at the Britannia Mine Museum, the Chamber Golf Tournament, the Sikh Festival and Canada Day.
All these great events on top of family portraits and weddings have been keeping us happy and busy.
The next big event is Squamish Days Loggers Sports and is one of our favourites with something for everyone!
See you out in the community.
Cindy and Michael

 

A New Year

A new year brings a fresh look at our lives as we set new goals and what better way to start off the year than a series of photos of Squamish as a winter wonderland with fresh air and snow. Check out our gallery for a set of our recent photos around Squamish. Get outside and enjoy our beautiful winter wonderland and have a very Happy New Year!
Cindy & Michael

Christmas 2017

We had a lot of fun in December and were kept very busy. We had photo booths at 6 public locations (The Ledge, Squamish United Church, The Library, The Squamish Town Hub with the Toy Corral, Britannia Mine
Museum, and Canadian Tire) plus some private ones and were able to capture many smiling faces as young and old visited Santa and Mrs. Claus. We are proud to be part of a group a friends that believe in the
magic of Christmas and have been giving back to our community for 13 years now through Squamish Christmas (www.squamishchristmas.weebly.com).
This year we offered three contests: a window decorating contest for businesses that had judges from Squamish Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association, a literary/art
contest where three students won a helicopter ride with Santa thanks to Blackcomb Helicopters, and a spirit of giving contest where we were duly impressed with the involvement of the youth in our community and
three high school students were able to go on a helicopter ride and were joined by Mountain FM. This year we also organized the Santa Parade for the Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association and raised money for the Squamish Community Christmas Care.
Please check out our photo gallery and look through the set called Squamish Christmas 2017 to see a few of the highlights of our Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all!

Cindy & Michael