From Amitabh’s iconic words in Deewar to A. R. Rehman’s acceptance speech at the Oscar’s, if there’s one thing we all have in common, its that we love our mothers! And why shouldn’t we? “Aakhir Maa Tau Maa Hai!!!” … ok we’ll stop.

This coming Mother’s Day 2010, make your mom, ammi, maa, mommy feel special by giving h…er something very personal. AliphAurMeem can help you with that!

In the month of April, we will hold a one-day only session in Ottawa where you can come and get your pictures professionally taken by AliphAurMeem.

What you need to do:

- Email us at AliphAurMeem@Gmail.com to reserve a spot. There are limited spots and it’s first come, first serve.

- Tell us who you’ll be bringing for the shoot (just your mom, your mom and yourself, your mom, you and siblings, your mom and dad, yourself and kids, etc. … this is just so we can make things flow better on the day off). New moms and moms to be are more than welcome as well.

What you get out of it:

- Two 8×10 prints edited and retouched
- Two 5×7 prints edited and retouched
- A download link with all the pictures from the session
- “Maa Kaa Pyaar!” … ok seriously, we’ll stop!

Email us for more information.

And then there are friends who at times, you can’t stand, or they can’t stand you, but they are always there. You might not see each other every day, or breathe down each other’s necks all the time, or even like each other all the friggin time. You might even hate them sometimes because they tend to be loud and obnoxious when they shouldn’t be. But they are there. And you are there. And you are friends. And that is simply all there is to it. There is no drama. It goes kinda like this:

Friend 1: Get lost!
Friends 2: Go bleep blappidy beep blop yourself!
(silence)
Friend 1: So you wanna catch a movie?
Friend 2: Yeah lemme see what’s playing.

One such friend that’s simply been there is Yousuf who I’ve known for twelve years. I’ll write about him in detail some other day. But for now, I just wanted to make that distinction. Friends who outgrow you. And friends who don’t. Yousuf is of the second type. (I have a feeling that it partially might be because he’s hit his head one too many times and it’s just stopped growing altogether).

Last year, by some miracle of God, Yousuf found Annie. We couldn’t make it to their wedding in Pakistan, but we hope these pictures from their urban shoot at Dow’s Lake, Ottawa, make up for it.

If you haven’t yet seen/read part I of this family portrait, check it out here first. Then come back for part II.

We weren’t kidding when we said we took tons of pictures. We hope to have made one mom, really, really happy!

Here is part two of the family portraits.

When Judy first contacted us about doing her children’s portraits in Ottawa for her yearly christmas cards, we were totally psyched. Judy wanted to do the shoot in fall at her home in the serene and peaceful Greely near Ottawa, Ontario.

On the day of the shoot, though the forecasts promised rain, we headed over to Judy’s place taking our chances as it would have been too cold to reschedule for fall this year. Luckily, it didn’t rain at all.

As soon as we pulled up outside Judy’s house, we could see two little heads just jumping up and down. Before we had a chance to get out of the car and collect our bags and equipment, Sean and Sarah were already standing in the porch dressed in white shirts and jeans wearing big smiles. Moments later we were all standing in the backyard where Sean and Sarah, wasting no time, immediately began showcasing their stunts on the swingset all proud and beaming. For example, they can both jump off the swings, mid-air and, here’s the tricky part, make a very cool landing. Note to self: must try this on an adult sized swingset, when no one’s watching.

We were supposed to stay there for an hour, but we just had so much fun with Sean and Sarah that we ended up staying a little over two hours. Surprisingly, no one, including Sean and Sarah, got tired or bored and we came home with tons of pictures. Literally, tons.

Here are some of our favourite children’s portraits from this session.