Photographing and capturing the precious moments in peoples’ lives is what local photographer Alicia Armstrong does – and it’s as fun as you might think.
Alicia Armstrong sits at her desk at her home on Highway 7A in Bethany. Photo: Sarah Sobanski.
“I get to relive a bit of my wedding every time,” says Alicia of Armstrong Photography and Design. She says her best experiences come from watching and capturing a family from the start – engagement to wedding, wedding to pregnancy, pregnancy to newborns, and all the family growth afterwards.
Alicia started by studying graphic design at St. Lawrence College where she practiced dark room photography – something that caught her attention because it was different. There she met her now husband Marc Armstrong who was studying business. After she graduated, she turned an internship into a job, impressing the team at the Hamilton Spectator with her ability to craft, edit and calibrate media. Along the way, Marc’s engaged cousins asked Alicia to photograph their wedding, giving Alicia her first crack at wedding photography – they ended up liking her photographs better than those of the $1200 professional photographer they had hired.
Later, when she and Marc were married, a photographer friend from the Spectator helped Alicia fall even harder for wedding photography by photographing her own wedding and from there the ball kept rolling. Five years later, Alicia left the Spectator and the couple moved back home to Bethany to start a family. There, with Alicia’s skill and Marc’s business sense, Armstrong Photography and Design was founded – a career that has given Alicia the flexibility to enjoy her other full time job of being a mom to sons James and Benjamin, and daughter Clara. Both keep her working hard.
As an experienced graphic designer and photographer, Armstrong prepares beautifully unique and speical photos for her clients. Photo: Alicia Armstrong.
“If I have to climb a fence, or walk up to my knees in water [to get the shot], I’m game,” says Alicia of her determination to get the perfect photo. She says sometimes her customers’ vision of their wedding doesn’t always turn out as planned, but there isn’t a lot needed to capture something meaningful. While she still encourages props, recalling fun had with a fishing couple who brought rubber boots and fishing polls, and another who brought broomsticks for a Harry Potter theme, she finds the best photos come from people being themselves and being comfortable.
“There’s a special glow,” she says when subjects don’t know their photo is being taken or when they aren’t overly worried about the camera lens. She says she knows how chaotic a busy day like a wedding can be, and how nerve wracking. Alicia wants the day to unfold naturally, as if she wasn’t there, saying that when it’s your wedding, you know what you want, and you don’t need to be placed or tilted this way or that. She’s happy to help everyone enjoy the moment, and to create a tangible memory of it.
If you’re looking to capture a moment between you and your sweetheart this Valentine’s day, you can check out Alicia’s work and find her contact information at www.armstrongphotographyanddesign.com.
By Sarah Sobanski
