Learning Lifestyle Photography

I want to introduce you to someone incredibly special to my world.

Meet Mohsen Bayati,
My best friend.
A Persian Genius by day,
A “Lets Go on an ADVENTURE!!!!!!” free spirit by night.

Our conversations are a mixture of penguin emoticons,
Cat noises, Me teasing him about his english pronunciation,
We sing,
We dance,
We tease each other like crazy.
When he is around, there is laughter.
SO much laughter.

The curse of being a quiet introvert is the impossible task of finding friendships where you feel comfortable enough showing your true silly, goofy, outgoing self. He is one of the rare. His spark for life, adventure and his high energy is epicly contagious, that I find it impossible not to feel my mood immediately being lifted when he’s around.

He now lives in Calgary, with his Mother and Sister from Iran all living under the same roof, with his second sister and her husband in law living close by. They are a family made of so much love. I’m grateful they get to be together.

I got to spend a few hours with him yesterday while he was up in Grande Prairie for a work related trip. After fifteen minutes seated in a busy restaurant, he says “Let’s go to the river!!!!”
Ahh.. My kindred spirit! 

Sadly our adventure did not last long; We got rained out. Twice.
Fierce thunder & lightning storm.
Then devoured by mosquitoes.

We did have a stretch of 30 minutes of exploring Nighthawk as I made him be my guinea pig as I experimented with my camera + new lens (Canon Rebel, w/ 55-250 mm lens). I want to move into creative lifestyle photography, I want to move into edgy creative and dark storylines. But first I need to gain comfort and confidence in photographing humans. Who better to boss around than your best friend?

I am navigating this new lens and Adobe Lightroom like a true rookie. There is so much technique I need to learn, but I am grateful to share with you both these images and my best friend!

Cheers dear friends.
May you find the courage to create out of your comfort zone.