As the culmination of our 10th year in business celebrations, we are having 12 Days of Christmas promotions! This is your chance to get in on some photographic joy and celebrate with us. Keep checking back each day as we will offer something unique for a limited time!

When Darcie’s brother, Dan, was 15 years old, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cancer (Hodgkin’s Lymphoma). He immediately began aggressive chemo and radiation treatments that lasted for months. He was extremely sick during that time and was in and out of Children’s, Surrey and MSA Hospitals with his treatments and complications. It was a hard time for him and my entire family.

There are some perks that children with cancer are blessed with that bring light and hope to their difficult journey. He received a trip to a Canucks game and was given a hat autographed by the players. He had rides in hot sports cars. My parents bought him as many Triple O burgers as he’d eat. But the biggest blessing of all was that he was granted a wish from Make-A-Wish for a laptop.

That laptop was with him through every trip to the hospital and every day he was recovering in between rounds of chemo and radiation. It gave him something to do and a reason to sit up each day. Here’s what Dan has to say about it:

“Make-A-Wish’s generous gift of a laptop while I was undergoing chemotherapy at 16 years old was the perfect escape to entertain myself while admitted in the hospital. Their gift helped inspire me to pursue a degree in Computer Information Systems and to start my own web design and development company.”

Make-A-Wish makes a difference in many children’s lives and I’m sure we will hear of many more heart warming wish stories throughout this project. Our goal with our third Imagine book is to raise $6000 by June 2012 in order to grant a wish. To reach our goal, we are going to need your help to get the word out! We need many families to sign up for sessions so that we can donate their session fees to Make-A-Wish.

You can help us by telling your friends, posting a link on Facebook, tweeting about this project and by connecting us with media and people who can help get the word out. We already have families signing up through our website and are looking forward to photographing their children and featuring them in our book in the new year.

To sign up and to find more information, please visit www.imaginekids.ca.

Each image is evaluated by the board of review and must meet their strict technical and artistic criteria in order for the accreditation to be approved. The photographs are evaluated for: impact, creativity, style, composition, technique and story telling. When all images meet their high standards, the accreditation is approved.

Jason is also accredited in architectural, child portrait, commercial photography, executive business portrait and family portrait photography. Here are the images from his General Portrait submission:

Revival Arts is a portrait photography studio based on Eagle Mountain in Abbotsford, BC. They offer artistic and relaxed photography for home decor. To see more Revival Arts portraits, please visit www.rastudio.ca.

Each image is evaluated by the board of review and must meet their strict technical and artistic criteria in order for the accreditation to be approved. The photographs are evaluated for: impact, creativity, style, composition, technique and story telling. When all images meet their high standards, the accreditation is approved.

Jason is also accredited in architectural, child portrait, executive business portrait and family portrait photography. Here are the images from his commercial submission:

Revival Arts enjoys creating stunning photography that helps their commercial clients stand out from the competition. More Revival Arts commercial photography can be viewed at www.commercial-photographers.ca

Every year we take a photograph of our kids by the front door on their first day of school to capture their cuteness for posterity. This year was no exception. Xander is starting grade 3 and is excited about reading and playing at lunch. He’s heard a rumor that his teacher has some Lego so he is smitten. She also allegedly has Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

Lexi is going into full day kindergarten and is excited to go to her brother’s big school. Something that we are thankful for with Lexi is that her speech is caught up to a normal level for her age. When she was a baby, I noticed she didn’t really babble or make sounds. So we kept an eye on it and when she was 16 months old brought her in for her first assessment. She was delayed and got on wait lists at that point. She’s a pretty spunky little thing and got mad when yelling “AH-NA!” didn’t get her the results she was demanding. She started private speech at 2 years old and basically had to teach herself how to make every sound vowel, consonant and combined. Talking to her now you’d never know she had such a struggle to learn to talk. These days, she keeps up a stream of creative consciousness in the background while we’re working.

Working from home has been great as the kids have grown up. I’ll be the first to admit that it comes with its challenges but I wouldn’t change it. So what are we going to do now with all our uninterrupted work time? Well to start, I’m doing a little baking …

You’re probably looking at the above picture wondering “Why did she post a picture of a bun in the oven? Bun in the oven? Hang on! No. Couldn’t be. Or could it? It’s a bun and it’s in the oven.”

It could and it is! Surprise! We are having another child mid-March. Our family is super excited and I have spent most of the summer lying around with a slightly green tinge. I’m 13 weeks and hoping that the nausea and tiredness start to subside soon.

Lexi is insisting that as soon as the baby “comes out” she will “take care of it forever”. When Xander found out, he seriously considered it for a day before telling us, “I’ve been thinking of names for the baby and only have thought of one for if it’s a girl – Angelina.”

In early 2012, we’ll run a fun contest for our clients, friends and fans to guess the baby’s weight, age and sex (it’s going to be a surprise). We’ll have an awesome prize!

Revival Arts is run by husband and wife team, Jason and Darcie Brown. They specialize in artistic portraits and stunning commercial photography.

Over the past months, we’ve been watching my sister’s baby belly grow and waiting with anticipation to meet the little person who would be joining the family. On July 24th, Brody David arrived three weeks early weighing in at 6lbs. 14oz. He is adorable and big sister Melissa is very proud to show him off. Here are a few photographs Jason took of him …

You can see more Revival Arts portraits at www.rastudio.ca.

I had Bee Keeper Campbell as a teacher in high school when he was formerly known as Mr. Campbell the Socials Teacher. He still has the same ability to weave engaging stories out of daily occurances! For examples, did you know that the boy bees don’t work? They just whine until the girl bees feed them. I also didn’t know that bees can’t see white which is why bee keepers wear white to be invisible.

I think the most impressive part of the field trip is when we went out to the hives with 20 preschool kids and their parents, pulled out some trays (I’m not sure what they’re technically called) and the kids were close to hundreds of bees and not at all scared. They were even able to poke their fingers in the cone and taste some honey. Here’s a photograph Jason took then …

Agritourism is a growing industry in Abbotsford and it’s wonderful to see what farmers are doing to blend centuries old aspects of farming with cutting edge technology. I was impressed with the Campbell’s Gold mead wine and will have to get a bottle for our vacation. And probably some yummy honey. Mmmm. Now I’m getting hungry …

Revival Arts creates custom stock art for businesses to use in their online and print promotions. To see some of our portfolio, please visit our commercial photography website.