Toronto-bound (sociable!)

At the Lower Deck in Halifax, that's what you yell when you raise your drink. Everybody gets raucous and stompy and that's the cheers. We ducked in there after birthday oysters, and it was a time machine and I felt like an apple doll, but the band played Tom Petty. The ceiling was low and the crowd was squashed and that was weeks ago already. Since then it's been nonstop: corporate stuff, shed renovations, the book, weddings, all kinds of goodness lined up for the fall. Frantic goodness. Vancouver and Edmonton in September, North Carolina in October, Labrador in November. Without a parka. Details.

But first: Toronto! One week from tonight, I'll be there. Will you? Impressed Photobooks is bringing me to the big city help them celebrate their launch, the first family photography roadshow event of several across the country. This means sociables and creative mojo all around. Fully expecting to receive as well as give, because talking about composition, light, and guerilla tactics revs me right up. It's going to be a fun night—and it's free—but it's a small-ish space so register quick to save your spot.

Celebrate the Everyday: An evening of inspiration and sociable know-how on turning family life into art

When: Thursday, August 15, 2013

5:30 – 6:30 PM  Sociable!

6:30 – 8:30 PM  Talk, discussion, fire-lighting

Where: 36 Distillery Lane, Unit 430, Toronto, Ontario

More here on what to expect. I'm putting it all together now and can't wait.

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I shoot shenanigans.

The trick of it is following the play instead of leading with the camera. And bribery.

And, of course, letting them be what they are. Ehhhhh—sexy-lay-day. Wup wup wup wup. C'mere monkey.

The beach roses around here are as sacred and unruly as cows in India. They wander around and do what they like. The highway is lined with them for miles. Three gnarly bushes are shoving their way up through cracks in my foundation. There are songs! Katherine and Piers live next to the village beach, that very one with the wall of pink. Sandy back, fragrant air.

(Moms always look so beautiful when they're gazing at their babies, unaware of who's gazing at them.)

The eels! The mink! They put on a show.

(our shore)

Told you I'd get you, kiddo. With thanks to your dad waggling around and making funny butt ha ha noises.

Piers is quite the renowned DJ, and he's constantly in Toronto for big flashy gigs. And so they have dance parties. Proper ones, with disco balls and twirly lights. Katherine taught me how to twerk. Better put: she twerked and I cat-called. Twerk-shop.

This shoot plus more coming up, and Lightroom open with hundreds from last Saturday's wedding in Lunenburg. Kilts, sailboats, lollipops... I haul myself back to the car at midnight with sore legs and arms, sandpapery eyes, and feeling weepy, but never out of sadness—it's the ten high-responsibility hours of intense sweetness.

Life is a messy, frightening prospect sometimes. As we age, we become devastatingly fine-tuned to this truth, and less able to evade it. Being invited to capture the opposite—present-moment love and play without future projection, either in black ties or flip flops—is a tail-wagging dog. It's exercise, figuratively and literally. Because I'm dancing too.

So Toronto! Register! Take an evening off with me. Then take me to the street food.