In Focus | Cassandra & Brad Heinzman of Candid Apple Photography & Design

In Focus is our gift to the community. A way for us to help show our recognition for the people, businesses and organizations that help make our city great. The team at KelownaNow.com is passionate about this community and the people that make it amazing. We want to show our friends, neighbours, family and colleagues that we notice them and the fabulous things that they do.

What is your name?
Cassandra & Brad Heinzman

What do you always find yourself saying?
In life: “It could always be worse”, we're always trying to find the positive to any situation. While photographing our beautiful couples and families– “Perfect.”

If you could spend one whole day with anyone in the world who is currently alive, who would you select and why?
Honestly, we get to do this every single day. With Brad and I both running Candid Apple Photography full time, we get to spend every day together and I feel so blessed to still want to spend every day together, work and play. Cassandra’s answer for why? Brad is so talented, smart and he brings me, and our business out of our comfort zone…plus he lets me boss him around.

If you were to receive any existing public award, what award would you like to win?
Any photography award would be amazing; however, when we book a repeat or referral client, it feels like an award every time.

If you could spend a day with any historical figure, who would you choose and why?
Frank Lloyd Wright…he saw and designed in such a beautiful way.

Who inspires you?
We are inspired by so many…our family and friends, our clients, fellow photographers and, of course, each other.

What are three things on your bucket list?
1) To ride our horses at a crazy destination;
2) Take our boys to Disneyland (we’ve never been either!);
3) A romantic trip to Australia (with each other, just to clarify).

If you had an enormous yacht, what would you name it?
Brad’s answer is Percey, but we’d be much more content with a new fishing boat.

If you could foresee a single day of your future in its entirety, what date would you select?
Impossible; every single day we have together and to watch our boys grow is a gift, and we look forward to every single day.

What are you passionate about?
Family, and of course, photography, which means we have more photos than wall space in our house.

What has been your favourite day of your life, up to this point?
We can’t decide; there are too many…the day we met, our wedding day, milestones of our older boys, the recent birth of our two month old son, there’s no way we can choose just one.

What has been your proudest accomplishment?
Our life, personal and business; not any one thing.

Where is your favourite place to dine in Kelowna? What do you like about it?
Our new favourite place for a lunch date is Il Tavolino Italian Bistro. The food is unique and delicious every time and the owner and staff are incredible.

What is your favourite activity or event in Kelowna? Why?
Basically anything outdoors; horseback riding, fishing, camping (and combining all of the above)...of course we bring our cameras EVERYWHERE!

What is the name of your business/organization?
Candid Apple Photography & Design

What does your business/organization do?
We photograph weddings, engagements, and families (including maternity, newborn, children and every milestone in between and beyond). We also specialize in equine and pet photography. We also offer our couples and families custom designed albums and other products.

Where can people find you or your business online?
www.candidapple.ca

What is your Twitter account?
@candidapplebc

How do people connect with you on Linkedin?
Search Cassandra Heinzman

What is your mission?
To freeze time with photographs; to fill walls with beautiful photos that you will love to showcase. To capture our subjects as they are, but at their best; great expressions, flattering angles, in beautiful locations.

If you could achieve one thing within your field, what would it be?
That’s easy! Happy couples and families, whose lives we are invited into to capture multiple milestones over the years, and who love us enough to refer us to their family and friends.

Where do you want your business/organization to be in five years?
To still be building Candid Apple together; we aren’t too high maintenance…we just want to keep doing what we love, with a good mix of work and family time.

Who do you consider to be a forerunner within your field?
There are so many amazing photographers that we look up to local and afar; local, we LOVE Karla Rosalin Photography, which is why we chose her to photograph our wedding day, as well as our engagement, family, and maternity sessions. Most recently, we chose Love By Krista Evans Photography to document the birth story of our new baby boy, Weston. Both Karla and Krista are AMAZING in their fields of photography. Worldwide, we love Sue Bryce and Sal Cincotta…they both differ so much but offer so much to the photography and photography business world.

What three qualities do you feel that your business/organization exemplifies?
1) Referral and repeat business; we are so proud to have so many loyal and new couples and families in our “Candid Apple family”
2) Our mini session events; we offer various themed mini session events throughout the year, our most popular and long running, being Springtime On the Farm, which is going on year six. What sets this event apart is we use our own family pets on our own farm. Safety for the animals and children is most important to us and the best part is that all the children love the animals as much as we do.
3) Quality images with fast processing time; we pride ourselves on quality, fully, consistently edited images that are delivered between one and three weeks. We are just as excited as you are for you to see your images, so we don’t let our workload “overload” us.

What would you like to say to your employees/volunteers?
“I love you”…it’s just the two of us, and we say it a lot.

How does your business/organization impact the community?
We support local small businesses as much as possible, being one ourselves. With Kelowna being such a destination wedding location, being Kelowna wedding photographers, we contribute to the tourism industry as well. We are also planning at least one mini session event fundraiser for the coming year.

If you were trapped in an elevator with several wealthy investors from any field, which field would you want them to be experts in? What would say to them/talk about?
For Brad, it wouldn’t matter the field; he would pick anyone’s brain. Not sure that he’d need to though…he is the Google MASTER.

If I could change one thing about Kelowna, it would be:
We both said simultaneously, “TRAFFIC” and Downtown Kelowna parking… we avoid it as much as we can. Although, “it could always be worse.”

What do you think makes Kelowna great?
The scenery, the weather, and how close it is to so many outdoor recreational options and countless photo backdrops. It really is an AMAZING place!

Our choice for the Kelowna In Focus spotlight is:
Darren Fraser with Manulife Securities Investment Services.

Some general comments I would like to share are:
We are Brad and Cassandra...two photographers in love...with each other, with our family & friends, with our career, with LIFE! We are the proud parents to three amazing boys, Jayden, age 12 and Ty , age 10, and Weston, born October 2015. We live in Kelowna and LOVE the vast photo opportunities our amazing province provides us with. We love taking photos and can't believe we have made a career of something so incredibly fun. We live, work, and hang-out together...which may drive some couples nuts, but we love it. We love camping, hiking and fishing and you can be assured, if we aren't shooting a wedding on a weekend, that’s where we will be. We love animals, which is probably why we have 17 acres full of all kinds. We love two-stepping, John Deere tractors, country music and Tim Horton's coffee. We love adventure, exploring new places, but are always excited to be back home. We were MARRIED on September 20th, 2014 and we are so excited to officially be husband and wife. We love to tell stories and we want to tell yours from your engagement session to the tiniest detail of your wedding day, to your new teeny additions to your family...we know, one step at a time.

We encourage you to leave your comments and words of support below, and submit your own nomination by clicking HERE. You are also welcome to submit a form of your own by clicking HERE. Thank you, Kelowna!