Special Moments in Time!

Being able to capture a fraction of a second of someone’s life might seem a little unimportant, however while this may be the case in some shots others hold a significant amount of personal connection with the people within the photo.

Has there been times in your life where you have been incredibly sad, excited, happy, mad or just in a special place, like when you meet someone for the first time or someone you look up to.

My job as an event and portrait photographer is to capture these moments, moments that pass at the blinking of an eye but a significant to the people that I photographed for and are in these shots.

I photographed equestrian events that involved a lot of children and in one case there was a child was bawling her eyes out as she was so frustrated with the pony at the time wasn’t doing what she wanted it to do. The mother of this child saw me snapping away and kind of shooed me off as she didn’t want to embarrass the young girl. My response to her was that the emotions and the tears something that her and her daughter would cherish for a lifetime. She heard these words, sat back and thought for a second or so and let me continue shooting. When I publish these photos in my online store you never guess who bought copies? 🙂

So for me sometimes it might be awkward or uncomfortable for some people to get the photo taken while they are in an emotional state, I know that once the tears dry and the excitement passes the only thing left be the special moments captured in time.

 

Special moments in time
Special moments in time

Its Not All Ice Creams and Fairytales!

There are some days in this job that a fantastic, I get to meet lots of people, go to lots of parties and are generally surrounded by people that just really want to have a good time.

Unfortunately sometimes in this job there are days and events which are incredibly difficult…… When I say incredibly difficult I don’t mean technically, I mean personally and emotionally.

The event I covered today was incredibly sad. It was a celebration and a memorial of a young man that was taken in the prime of his life through a motor vehicle accident, leaving a shattered partner and a two-year-old boy behind. 🙁

I don’t know about other people or other photographers but for me being able to capture emotional images I have two put myself in their position, I try and feel what they are feeling be it sadness or happiness.

So today’s event drained a lot of internal strength and emotion, all of which I knew was going to happen beforehand, so I made a plan that after the event I would jump on my motorbike, take my camera and go to a quiet place to watch the sun go down and reflect about all the wonderful things life has to offer.

I think we will need one of these special places and while I don’t necessarily have a special place as the world is a spectacular place are ready, I do like to be able to see a fantastic sunset or sunrise so that is what I did. I raced against the failing light to get to a location where the sun was reflecting off the water and a place where I could collect my thoughts and regain the inner strength that I’d given up to the event I had just photographed.

As a sun was setting I was wishing it would never end.  It was spectacular and beautiful. The calm across the water with the ducks and swans swimming in the shallows gave a nice background to the birds singing in the trees. It was a good way to end a day, a day that was full of emotion so I thought I would share last rays of my day today with you.

Final rays over an emotional day
Final rays over an emotional day

Angry Anderson Face Recognition – FAIL!!!!

Be working through some photos over the last few days (for something different of course) and part of my workflow is to use face recognition within Lightroom to identify people within photos so they can be tagged and easily located later.

Most of my photos these days are tagged in this way since it was available in the latest version of Lightroom and in doing this Lightroom builds up a library of people which I photographed and when it evaluates a new photo it has a guess at who might actually be in the image so as to reduce the time and effort that it takes to do this face recognition and tagging.

While it does a good job at guessing I’m pretty sure that this gentleman is not Angry Anderson!!!! hahahahaha

Lightrooms guess at angry Anderson
Lightrooms guess at Angry Anderson

I guess it just goes to show the interesting people I have in my Lightroom catalogue and people that I photographed. LOL

It’s -6° and We Are Having Fun!

Wee bit ago I had the opportunity to participate in a collaboration between myself, two models (Laurynn and Rhett) , a make-up artist – Jakki from “Makeup by Jacklyne”,  Jaemi as our talented stylist from DayDream Styles and my lovely work experience assistant Emily.

Now the time of booking this photo shoot we kind of didn’t take into consideration the Canberra at this time of year gets very cold and on the very morning we shot this it was -6°. brrrrrrr

Me I was okay as I had thermals, gloves, beanie, double socks and not to mention a scarf and jacket. The poor models on the other hand were not so lucky and I must say they did a fantastic job considering it was extremely cold.

On the scene when it is -6°
On the scene when it is -6°

The make up artist was not faring so well as I was not sure she was really prepared for what was one of the coldest mornings we have had for a long time.

When I arrived on just before day break I cracked out my thermos with freshly made coffee and offered it around. To my surprise no one at that point wanted any,  what I can say after they had stood in the cold for a few hours they were more than happy to have a cupa, even if it was just to hold the hot cup. hahahahaha

The same was true for the gloves I offered to the make up artist, at first she didn’t want them but after s bit she was okay with the offer..

I must say the photos turned out really nice and the stylist did a fantastic job.  Her fiancee also needs to get an award for helping her set up the scene in the dark and freezing conditions before we showed up. 🙂

Look at how cute these guys look!
Look at how cute these guys look!

All in all it was a great day and you wouldn’t know looking at these photos that it was actually freezing!! That is the power of photography my friends….  🙂

If you are interested in having a one-of-a-kind photo shoot for your wedding or engagement drop us a line and I’m sure we can make it something very special.

Sydney Harbour Is an Amazing Place!

There are many things to see and do in Sydney and one of the best places I think to hang out is in and around the Sydney Harbour and circular quay.

The sights and sounds and the people bringing unique feeling to this area and while it is all hustle and bustle during the day in the evening it settles down and is filled with people enjoying this open area.

Of course there are many things to see and photograph in this area but one is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I captured this photo from the intercontinental club Lounge which is situated on the 31st floor of the intercontinental hotel, and I must say if you ever want to stay in Sydney that is the place.

As I work my way through the photos or post them up for you guys to see and I love to see your photos of Sydney Harbour and circular quay, feel free to send them to me and I’ll put them in a blog post for everyone to see.

Black-and-white Sydney Harbour Bridge and Luna Park at night
Black-and-white Sydney Harbour Bridge and Luna Park at night