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A Celtic Family

9/30/2025

Jude and Grace's family usually spend most of their time as a more rugged Celtic family in my Medieval Fantasy world, and what better place to photograph them out on location than in the rugged beauty of Newfoundland? So, in addition to travelling as a contemporary family, I also took along their Celtic outfits. But it's a lot of work to change everyone - it takes me several hours - so I decided to only do it once, starting at Goose Cove at the top of the northern peninsula.
Then the next morning just after sunrise I took some group photos of them.

Photographing dolls in bright sunshine is always a challenge, but with the sun still so low in the sky, there would be less harsh shadows on their faces....

They fit in beautifully with the rugged landscape...

..while looking forward to some interesting adventures.

Breaking Camp

9/29/2025

It was a glorious morning when everyone got up. They had spent the night camped near the Captain Cook monument at Bottle Cove, on the western end of Humber Arm

They had arrived in the dark, and Winston couldn't help but stop and take in the amazing scenery...

But there were chores to be done before they could have breakfast and move on....

Saphira was airing out the blankets....

..while Emily rolled up her and Avery's bed rolls....

The balloon had deflated overnight....

so Winston had to get out a new one...

"Good thing you brought plenty of extras!"

"Yes," added Emily, "Or we'd be stuck here."

So they hurried to finish their chores...

...because they were having pie for breakfast...

Lobsters in Twillingate

9/28/2025

The dragons flew to Twillingate harbour....

...and landed on a wharf ...

Saphira wanted to show the kids some lobsters.

They had been seeing the traps everywhere in Newfoundland, and she wanted to show the kids what the fishermen were catching in them...

But Avery was more interested in the boats....and climbed into one...

Sparkle and Winston joined him...

Flying High

9/27/2025

Avery and Emily were continuing their adventures in Newfoundland with the dragons,

soaring high over the town of Durrell....

Getting a bird's eye view of everything far below...

Baby Seats

9/26/2025

Here I am barely half way through posting photos from our Newfoundland trip, and I'm working on props for the next one. I'll be taking Baron and Naomi and their twins as a contemporary family, and that means taking bikes. In the past when there were families with younger children, and I didn't have enough bikes to go around, the younger ones would sit on the traps at the back....

But Baron and Naomi's twins are too young to sit on the back like that. They'd need child seats. But how to make them? I had just emptied a bottle of bubble bath, and wondered if I could make seats out of it. It was a clear bottle and I'd have to cover it somehow. but then there was a large empty vitamin bottle, and it was even brown....

So I removed the label off the bottom, and proceeded to cut the bottom of the bottle into two seats shapes...

Then tested them out. They were the perfect shape but would need some work as the backs leaned forward thanks to the big dent in the bottom of the bottle....

The seats would get attached to the metal traps with a wide elastic, so slots were drilled into the bottoms of the seats. Then thin wooden shapes were cut to fit into the dents in what was the bottom of the bottle, and a small block of wood was attached to 'lock' the seat into place. I then glued a thin strip of leather around the edge of the seats, and used Aves Apoxy to fill in the space between the plastic and wood so the seat would angle back instead of forward....

The finished bicycle seats.

The seats may not conform to modern child safety standards, but then that's what child seats were like when my kids were that age. And the bikes themselves aren't exactly modern either. But I did include seat belts to hold the children safely in place....

the Dragon Skull

9/25/2025

My sister and I have been working on turning my Drako story from last fall into a book. She needed a photo of the skull for the cover....

We also needed some photos of the skull being in the museum store room....

One thing led to another, and the photo turned into an 'unpacking' photo....

Then we needed one last photo for the final page after the credits, and thought of the skull crated back up in storage, never to be seen again....

To revisit the original story - Drako

Tea Time

9/24/2025

I love the light as it comes in through my window, and was inspired to take a few photos of Lily and Winston enjoying afternoon tea together....

Lunch in Burgeo

9/23/2025

A few days later, we made the side trip to Burgeo. It's a small, isolated town on the south coast, and only accessible by boat, or by the single 150 km road through the wilderness...

Burgeo is a fishing village....

which is shrouded in fog on most days...

There's also a Provincial Park with one of the best beaches in all of Newfoundland...

The kids were on the main wharf when it was lunch time....

Alex had picked up a bucket of Mary Brown's chicken...

while Sara had a bucket of KFC...

But Bella wanted to try a freshly cooked local lobster...

Neither Sara nor Alex were brave enough to try one...

But Bella wanted to give it a try...

Bon Appétit everyone!

Canada Day

9/22/2025

The next day was July 1st, Canada Day, and it was time to start heading back westward towards the ferry. Now, there's only the one main road, the Trans Canada Hwy, across the 900 kilometres of wilderness between St. John's and the ferry in Port Aux Basques, so for a break from the endless driving we decided to make the side trip to Twillingate again to check on the icebergs.
It was evening when we arrived, and we headed to the nearby town of Durrell to take some photos at their museum to celebrate the day...

The museum is situated high on a cliff overlooking the town....

Happy Canada Day!

Then we headed over to Bayview, anxious to see what was left of the iceberg there...

Not much. It had broken up into several smaller pieces...

St. John's

9/21/2025

No visit to Newfoundland is complete without a visit to the capital of St. John's. We headed through the city to Signal Hill with the intent to visit the Cabot Tower, but it was mid afternoon and there were no parking spaces left, so we went down to the harbour across from the foot of the hill, near Fort Amherst where all the fishing boats are...

Sara and Alex went out on the dock to take a closer look around....

Across the harbour they could see all the colourful houses at the base of Signal Hill...

...and the city of St. John's....

It was very windy....

...and starting to rain, so it was time for one last look before getting back into the RV....

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