Patrick and Alexandra

Patrick and Alexandra have been married for two years, but never had the celebration they wanted for their wedding. Building their dream home meant not being able to have the wedding they wanted at the time. But two years down the track, and they are still very happy, and I was honoured to be asked to photograph the renewal of their vows and enjoy their day with them.

Humbug...

As anyone who knows me would understand, Christmas and I do not belong together. As a celebration, I reject it outrightly. It degrades teachings that dignify God and men and is in itself a complete fallacy. There is no recorded birthdate for Jesus, and Christmas is an excuse to commercialise something that should not be commercialised. In itself it stands as the antithesis of the very teachings it allegedly celebrates.

So, when my client, Vision Australia, asks me to photograph the annual Carols By Candlelight event, I attend with a camera in hand in the service of a long term client. To me, its like photographing a wedding in a church. I am not a fan of what so called 'Christian' churches have done in the name of peace and brotherhood either. But I enter a church to photograph a wedding for a client. I do not participate. I take pictures.

That is exactly what I did at Carols by Candlelight. I must admit to enjoying the photography. I love live performance photography. This year I also photographed the venue from a very high and somewhat wobbly cherry picker. It was raining too, and perhaps I should have put my rain poncho on before I strapped myself in....hmmmm...

Shooting for Tamron Ad

I was asked recently to provide an image for Tamron's advertisement for their 17-50 f 2.8 lens, which I have grown increasingly fond of. This lens is excellent, and is half the price of other lenses in its category. I don't know why, but it is.

The brief was to provide an image that highlighted the lens' ability to shoot in available light at f2.8 and also its minimal depth of field for portraits in that kind of light. I asked Kiera Ballis, a model with whom I have worked before for a Kodak shoot, to work with me again on this one.

Several poses, settings and styles were shot for the ad. I am yet to see the finished product but you can bet I will post it here when I get my eyes on it!

Roger and Maria's Wedding

Roger and Maria are perhaps the most placid couple I have ever photographed on a wedding day - especially one that almost hit 40 degrees! Yes, it was a hot one, but we all had a lot of fun.

Their wedding was a cross cultural event. Roger was born in South Africa, but with Chinese ancestry. Maria is an Australian with Greek heritage. It was a wonderful day and I was honoured to be chosen as their photographer. They even let me sing at their reception...ah, they're a class act!

Corporate Headshots

If there is one thing you will wind up doing - some time, somewhere - it is the corporate headshot. These are the staple of any commercial photographer, and we can only be thankful for them. Corporate management is constantly on the move, and new headshots are always required for internal publications, press releases and other corporate and marketing needs. For the photographer, they are not difficult, and they continue to feed the family.

When I say 'not difficult' I mean at a technical level. I take a portable studio with me and setup a standard lighting setup in some spare floor space somewhere in the client's building. Its fairly straightforward. The difficult part is sometimes getting your subjects to appear in their portraits as they themselves wish to. Like most people, they don't necessarily enjoy having their photographs taken and are far more talented in their professional endeavours than they are at sitting and looking dynamic, professional, friendly and interactive in front of a camera. Thankfully the guys at Rockwell Automation were great to work with.

Loy Yang

The life of a photographer is a diverse and interesting experience. One day you can be covering some gala event, the next in the highs of the Canadian Rockies and the next in a coal pit in Gippsland. But you can never complain that the job is boring and routine!

A long term client of mine, Rockwell Automation, asked me to come to Loy Yang Power Station near Traralgon, Victoria, to photograph how their technology enables the conveyer belts to transport tonnes of coal to the power station each hour. The technology is above me, and is of little interest to me really, but photographing the monster machines in a 100 metre deep coal pit was more interesting. These machines are huge! I returned home hours later, covered in coal dust, tired and sweaty, but it was an interesting day...although once, I think, is enough....