I was working this morning for Heart FM, one of our local Woodstock radio stations, shooting the Jon and Liz Show with special guest… Donny Osmond.

It was a really funny morning and Donny was such a great host to the 5 winners who got to have breakfast with him.

Woodstock Mayor Pat Sobeski giving Donny the key to the City and declaring today Donny Osmond Day.

Donny with the contest winners and their guests.

Singing Puppy Love on air with the contest winners.

I also want to thank the Holiday Inn Express for being great hosts and East Side Marios Woodstock for a brillant breakfast.

Last night we went to see our friend Craig Cardiff perform at the Woodstock Market Centre Theatre. It was a great concert, as expected, and it was really great to discover Teague Stanfield. Teague is a Woodstock-born singer-songwriter who now lives in Toronto. He was a brilliant opener for Craig.

Thanks for a great evening everyone!

Beth and I took a long weekend vacation to do some Montreal photography last week.   It was an awesome train ride together and we got to see some old friends, eat amazing food and buy bagels.   I’ll post our photos as we get to them but I also shot this timelapse of the sunset over Mount Royal.

Sunset Time Lapse- Montreal – April ’11 from Travis Jon Allison on Vimeo.

Congratulations to VON Sakura House (our local Woodstock palliative care hospice) for a great fundraiser – Handbags for Hospice. It was a great night!

The fundraiser was a silent and live auction of a couple hundred purses – new/used, local and celebrity owned with some great deserts and a candy table. Everybody had a really fun night and they raised $42 000 for a wonderful cause.

Congratulations to all of the women of the committee!

The winners of the biggest (and most exciting) live auction item of the night: dinner cooked by the firefighters, a hot airplane ride, and wine, steaks and shrimp from the Dickens.

If you would like to make a donation to Sakura House follow the link.

This past fall Beth and I travelled to the UK to shoot Joanna and Phil’s wedding in Shenfield, Essex. It’s hard to believe that a wedding could change your life but it certainly developed our passion to become London England wedding photographers!

This was my first trip to England and I loved everything about it:

• super friendly people
• great curry
• nice small towns like Shenfield and Billericay
• train travel
• the architecture
• the wonderful cosmopolitan-ness of London (most of the people we saw in the city were not Anglos)

Joanna and Phil were such gracious hosts to us and we really look forward to going back to visit them for longer!

England beside Canada on the bookshelf!  A match made in heaven.

Joanna’s Canadian moose.

Phil and his best mate Chris in the church yard.

The first recorded wedding in this church took place in 1536. I don’t have a lot of pictures of the inside during the ceremony because of a church policy but it was beautiful.

The wedding reception took place in this cool old orphanage dining hall called Poplar Hall.

First Dance:

Between Christmas and New Years I got a call from Monica from Heart FM.  They were looking for a Woodstock photographer to take a picture of their on-air personalities for the up-coming What’s on Woodstock.

Everybody was very gracious as I worked around them in big studio and the news room to set up and test my lights for this shot.  Getting the light right in a room this size involves a lot of testing and Liz Wismer had an umbrella and flash going off over her shoulder for half an hour.

Thanks to Heart FM for having me over!

It was a rainy day in pizza-ville…

It was, but it was still great day for Liza & Andrew’s wedding at the Gardiner Museum. I had a great time being a Toronto Wedding photographer for the day. When you shoot the wedding of two architects you spend the day around cool buildings. I was in heaven.

Letter-pressed and stamped invitations made by hand:

First stop Liza’s parents for getting ready pictures. Liza and the bridesmaids did their own flowers and the make up was done by Al Fortier from A List Beauty.

Second stop (after a little short moment of the small towners getting turned around in the big city…) Hart House at U of T – an amazing space to shoot!

And lastly the Gardiner ceramic museum for the ceremony and food.  The ceremony was held in (and catered by) the Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner Cafe. The food was brilliant!  The turtle tarts put me in chocolate heaven.

The ever beautiful Allison – her wedding was the first professional wedding I ever shot and some of those pictures are still on my business cards to this day. Allison and Ian are getting ready for baby #2!

Thanks to Liza and Andrew (and wee Maeve) for a wonderful wedding.

A couple of times a year I get to be a summer camp photographer – it’s one of my favourite places to be!

Vivian Maier was a Chicago nanny who was obsessed with street photography. Around the time of her death a Chicago real estate agent bought some boxes of her negatives and unprocessed films and discovered the most wonderful thing. Vivian was BRILLIANT.

This is such a great story.

John Maloof, the man who found the films has posted a KickStarter project to get some help to get a documentary made of Vivian’s photos. You can support it here (even $10 would help).

The one question that I get most from my clients?

What lens should I buy for my new DSLR?

I usually recommend the “nifty-fifty” lens that both Canon and Nikon have to offer.  It is very inexpensive (about $150), great in low-light and takes beautiful portraits.

I was pleased to learn that I now have another advice-option: the new website, LensHero, helps people pick the best lens for what they hope to shoot.  You can indicate whether you would like a zoom lens or prime, what your budget is and what your subject matter will be (portrait, macro, sports, etc).

Give it a try!  I think you’ll find some cool new options.