The Batblog by Photobat | Portrait and Wedding

I love magazines; there are a few piles of them at home. I’m always excited when a new one arrives in the post office box. Today’s delivery was doubly exciting. Capture is a great read for photographers, covers a lot of interesting and important things relating to the industry of shooting everything in Australia. The current issue is their inaugural Annual filled with what Editor Marc Gaffen describes as “a selection of the finest work produced in the last 12 months.”
Heaps of good photos, including the one above taken at Brad and Elisha’s wedding. There were 5 wedding photos chosen for the annual and I got one of them. Quite exciting to get an image in there, I can’t imagine how many were submitted.
I’m off to buy these doggies some treats…

The last few weeks have been a little crazy, seems like I’ve only spent a couple of days in the office. Actually, I have only spent a couple of days in the office. We have been all over the place, started off with a bit of speaking over in Perth WA. Great place, great photographers, great people, great food, great wine, great coffee and great grates too (you know I love urban shots!).

The whole reason for the trip was to do a presentation to about 80 photographers along side David Oliver, Christian Fletcher and Ric Syme. I really enjoyed the event and had heaps of good feedback. While out west I finally got to visit Jorgensen Albums, this is the place I get all my wedding and portrait albums hand made by a team of skilled and passionate people. I’ve been using these guys for about 6 years now, talked on the phone, emailed and sent Christmas cards to, but never met them in person. They were all taller than I expected.

I must have said a funny. Christian Fletcher, Me and David Oliver doing a joint Q and A at the end of the presentatioin, photo by Vikashni Moyle, she is talented!

It was fascinating to see all that went into making the albums and the amount of staff working away. I’ve got some images I’ll post soon. Then it was time for not working time. Summer is coming and I can see it’s going to be very busy so any time I can get at the moment is spent with Vee.

We managed to pack a lot in 2 day, both in things we did and things we ate / drank. There was catching up with photographers, checking out galleries, drinking wine, tasting cheese, waiting for sunsets that were always obscured by clouds, and then also some more wine tasting. The Margaret River / Dunsborough area were incredible, and I am looking forward to heading back there one day.

Some Holga action north of Margaret River

Clooney at Barwick Vineyard

Voyager Vineyard

Vikashni shooting the sunset, somewhere south of Perth

Then home for a couple of days and just as I got back into the swing of things it was off to Hobart. Hobart was a mix of Vee time, client time, learning time and speaking time. It was all based around a presentation I did for the Tasmanian Division of the Australian Institute of Photography. Vee also managed to into the talking spirit, doing a presentation to the happy snappers on social media. I was proud of her little talk! My talk was about evolving in photography from shooting body parts to shooting weddings and other stuff.

When that was all wrapped it was off to home for a few hours, a quick trip to the office and then on a big metal bird to the home of iconic music houses and water crossing structures. Yes, Sydney. A few days up there learning things, getting inspired and hanging around with some awesome photographers.

A shot of the back of a guys head with some kind of iconic bridge in the background

So I’m back now fully inspired and ready for action. There will be some changes about the place, nothing too major and all very cool. It may even involve some new products and saying good bye to some old ones. Looking forward to new ways of processing my images, getting new things up on the website, getting back to some old ways of shooting and catching up with all the clients who are coming back for their Christmas photos. Anyways, hope you are well and things are moving at a manageable pace in the right direction for you.

Oh and Congrats to Deb F for being the latest random Batblog comment prize winner! Some cool things are heading your way once I find out where to send them! Remember, big prize of limited edition art print will be drawn at the end of the month for a person who comments on the Batblog. Why not leave one now???

We did this head shot of Jeremy a couple of weeks ago, and now it has been published in ‘Inside Harcourts’, the magazine for Harcourts International.

Click if you want to have a read!

Another year and the Epson Tasmanian Professional Photography Awards have been run and won.

This year I managed to pick up 8 Silver awards over 4 categories.

In addition to this I also picked up

2009 AIPP Tasmanian Wedding Photographer of the Year (sponsored by Bride Tasmania)

2009 AIPP Tasmanian Portrait Photographer of the Year (joint) (sponsored by Fuji/Photoforce)

2009 AIPP Tasmanian General Photographer of the Year (sponsored by The Edge)

2009 AIPP Tasmanian Wedding Album of the Year (sponsored by Seldex)

And was named the 2009 Epson AIPP Tasmanian Professional Photographer of the Year.

Basically I’ve gone from no trophies to 5 in a day! Was kinda embarrassing going up to receive all the awards!

Big thanks to the AIPP for running the event, the judges, Zakk and Matt, Rocco, Phil K, and of course to my beautiful wife Vikashni. Plus thanks to all my fantastic clients, I am really lucky to have so many fantastic people to photography and share happy times in their lives. I love my job love sharing it with you all.

And well done to Zakk to for getting his first silver award! Click here to see it

The below images are the silver award images.

You may also hear me if you listen to ABC Southern Tas tomorrow morning and also HO FM tomorrow morning.

And my other entries that played a part in winning all the catergories are below

The last shot is of Tara Badcock’s clothing titled Theda Bara’s Cocktail Party, pink silk camisole top.

 I might blog some of the stories behind these images in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

The Laptop has met an untimely death. Storm damage. Window blew open. Rain came in. Laptop was on. I wasn’t in the office. More rain came in. More rain came in. Laptop was still on. More rain came in. Rain stopped. I came in. I swore. It is now in laptop heaven.

So all is kind of on hold. The laptop was the main comminication centre, so email is a little limited at the moment, plus accounting, plus newsletter that had just been written.

So we apologise for any inconveniance and slowness in getting back to you. We havn’t lost anything, just a bit of computer and a heap of time.

On the plus side if you are in Hobart this weekend pop into the Derwent Entertainment Centre and check us out at the Bride Tasmania Wedding Expo. We have somthing new to show you. Tell your friends, family, anyone who is getting, would like to or has a strange fascination with weddings to come and see us!

As most of you know, next Sunday is the annual best of slideshow being held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Inveresk. This year there will be two screenings, both the same show, but two different times. 2pm and 3.30pm. Rsvp to production@photobat.net letting us know which screening you would like to come along to. There will be wine, there will be cheese! Bring along some friends and family too, everyone is welcome.

So all next week on the Batblog I’m going to be giving some teasers shots of some that will appear in the presentation. Plus, I will be asking a question in both talks and if you know the answer you may just walk away with something very cool!

So RSVP, check the Batblog www.photobat.net/batblog and come and win stuff! (a hint to what is on offer may be a dvd)

Paint the walls, check.

Sorry about that, I kinda disappeared for a week or two there. I’m happy to say I’m alive, refreshed and ready to take a heap of photos this year. I will be digging into my emails and messages in the next couple of days, expect a call.

Over the last couple of weeks I did a few shoots, and also the weeks before Christmas were crazy, so the batblog is a feeling bit neglected.

Never to fear, it will be going completely nuts in the next couple of weeks to get updated. There may be a little less writing, that way I don’t have to think too much and the photos can get our of the hard drives and see the light of day.

Some photos of the animals from the break.

I got a cool, heavy based frypan for Christmas. It was sitting on the bench about to be washed and seasoned for the first time when I left the room for a second. When I returned, Kooshan was sitting in it. This is a photo of Kooshan a minute later sitting in his Laundry… or as we like to call it, his cell. He spends a lot of time there.

Kaba got a bone thing, and wasn’t sure what to do with it. He decided it was precious and spent a lot of time protecting it and not eating it.

This is an older one of Mouse I hadn’t posted yet. He is helping Vikashni with her sewing.

And this is my pretty wife.

So, what does this year hold for Photobat? Well, soon we will see what is behind door 36… Plus a bucket load of weddings this month, quite a few portraits and as usual, a heap of stuff that we have no idea about yet.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year, and look forward to talking, seeing or emailing you soon!

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