I met Jean at a wedding. He was in the band. I then re met him when he was in a wedding and then again when he was in another wedding. Along the way I met Amanda and now we have all got together with their two cute, awesome, fun, beautiful and playful Lira and Leo.

Lira and I had some time for her to show me her bedroom before Leo woke from his nap. She loved showing me all her things and especially showing me photos of all her friends. When Leo decided it was wakey time we spent a heap of time playing in the back yard, with Jean relearning the lesson of “holding a baby above your head just after it has had a drink, never ends well”

There was so much singing, laughing and so many beautiful moments that it was hard to stop shooting and it was certainly sad to say good bye, especially for Lira  who wanted me to watch the wiggles with her.

Thanks again Amanda and Jean on the really great session, can’t wait to get your artworks to you!

It’s always great catching up with previous wedding clients, especiall when they bring along their kids.
Abigail was at the wedding, it was also her naming ceremony. Edward is the new kid on the block.
We spent a great morning running about in St George’s Square just avoiding the bad weather that was threatening us from all directions. Abigail has turned into quite the runner and Edward has a very cool serious look about him.
Thanks again guys, i’m really looking forward to getting your artworks framed and ready for your home.

One of the best parts of being a photographer is meeting great people, and Brianna Tim and Annabelle fall squarely into the “glad to met them” basket. Locals who ran off to the big city and then are back to raise their little family. I dare you to not be a little gaga over how cute Annabelle looks in her grey hoodie. Brianna is also a fantastic make up artist, check out her facebook page here and if you are in need of wedding make up give her a call.

Dexter is their neighbour, like to pop over the fence to say hi.

I had such a fantastic time meeting and photographing Brad and Tenille, they are the proud parents of Aya (baby) and Millie (Cute mini puppy). Aya is such a beautiful little girl and full of life. Millie loves Aya as much as her parents, so cute seeing them together. Add in the fantastic home that Brad and Tenille have created and I just know Aya is such a lucky little girl.

Remember Brad and Elisha? If you don’t you should click here. But that is old news now as Willow is on the scene and calling the shots. She’s a bit on the cute side and i’m assured Brad has a shotgun so none of you little boys get any ideas ok.

Yep, they are all heading in the right direction as they were all a little smaller last time.

Sid’s a bit cool. I like him heaps. Why? Not only because he has cool parents, who’s wedding I shot a few years back, but also he just has a heap of personality. Big eyes and smiles, that what he has going on. He’s going to be one for the ladies to look out for… that’s my prediction anyway!

5 Silvers for some prints and another silver for a wedding album. The wedding album went on to take out 2010 Tasmanian Wedding Album of the Year. Second time in a row i’ve picked up that one. Very happy about that. I’ll post the wedding album in it’s entirety soon… maybe even make it a slideshow.

Thanks to all the great clients who he were involved in making these shots happen!

A couple of years ago I took a photo of Sara, Dwayne Ben and when she was expecting a baby and then we did some photos when Cameron had arrived. You can see those shots in the batblog post here. Well, about 2 years have passed and as up can see Cam is heading in the right direction!

It’s always fun to catch up a couple of years down the track and update the family photos. This time there was a bit of rough play, lots of jumping, wrestling, and a few head knocks, but nothing too much to worry about. We also hung out in Ben’s new tree house (or as I refer to it “tree mansion”) and also did a bit of jumping (and funny eyes) on the trampoline.

Cameron is at the perfect age, i love photographing 2 year olds. It’s a very cute time of life, the expressions and little things they get up to are worth capturing.

A confession, I did suffer a minor amount of vegetable garden envy during this shoot, their broccoli is doing much better than ours (I.e. not eaten by a bird or ravaged by caterpillars) But on a positive note it’s radish harvesting time tonight, going to be a good salad!

A couple of weeks ago I spent a fun afternoon with Molly and her parents Jack and Kellie. These guys went for a Lifestyle session which gave us heaps of time to take photos around the house, down the street, in the yard and also for a few changes of clothing. Molly was indeed the star of the shoot, but a very fine bit of star power went to Kellie and Jack too!
I like this bee! Way too cute to do any stinging!

We have had to pospose so many portrait session of late due to the weather, can’t have kids getting cold and wet. It was great to get back out and photograph Ava a couple of weeks ago. The plan was to shoot in the park across the road from her place, but just as we get started we noticed the familiar rain starting up again. We retreated into the house, got some more shots, then out into the backyard.Ava and her dad had bought a new cupboard, which was just Ava sized, so we made good use of it. It kept the rain off, well, off Ava!

A couple of weeks ago I headed up out early on a Saturday to shoot this gourgeous little family portrait. Little Liv was only about 12 weeks old and looking very cute, and if she is anything like her big sister Layla, the cuteness will be contunieing while she keeps growing.

Yes, I still have a thing for shoes, wedding season is nearly here so be expecting even more shoes being blogged soon.

She had so much fun just running around and around and around the curtain! So happy about it!

Mum Katy is a Naturapath and own Tonic Inspired Health up in Trevallyn, while Dad Jason runs around selling fantastic Pheonix drinks (the cola is my favourite)

Opps, nearly fell out of frame!

Yes, that is her nose.

How great is that vinyl birds on a wire, as soon as I saw this I knew it was going to feature.
Edit: I just found out it came from Wall Allure and is quite affordable.

Thanks again to all you guys for making a morning really bright.

email2friend]]> http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/08/26/the-girls-in-the-bedroom-with-the-birds-family-portrait-launceston/feed/ 2 http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/08/13/bird-family-family-portrait-launceston-tasmania/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bird-family-family-portrait-launceston-tasmania http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/08/13/bird-family-family-portrait-launceston-tasmania/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:43:07 +0000 Photobat http://www.photobat.net/batblog/?p=671

I was just searching through the Batblog and realised that these guys post didn’t go up! I’m sure Mum Belinda is out there thinking “my boys aren’t good enough for the Batblog, He must hate us”. And it’s not the case at all, this was a challenging shoot, but, as Ben Lee says “That’s the way i like it”. This wasn’t the first time we had met, these boys have such distinct personalities and it is really fun trying to catpure them all in the one photo.

And, while we are at it, let’s chuck into the session the cousins, Dylan, India and Zain. That was also a heap of fu, 6 kids, all in the one shot all looking good. As usual, rising to the challenge (like Rocky) we knocked it off in no time.

And while we are at it, let’s throw in another cousin! Lily won the prize for best 6 month old on the day! Go Lily!

It’s not a bad idea, getting all the family together and getting them all shot at the one time. Infact, we have somthing like that being launched on Monday, our Openday/Cupcake day. 11am – 7pm at Photobat World HQ, Level 3 Holyman House, 52 Brisbane Street. Come along and join the fun!

You may remember when Lucy was just a bump, but now she is a real life little girl. We had a shoot with her when she was 2 weeks old. The first couple of weeks are the best time for newborn shoots, genenrally lots more sleeping going on and you can get some really fantastic shots. I’m not sure what the dogs thought, but the kept looking in the window to see what we were up to.

 Congratulations again Lucy! You have found yourself some very cool parents who I can tell are going to be fantastic to you!

After a couple of postponements (sickness and weather, can’t wait for winter to go away with all it’s germy badness) we finally managed to get Em and Moosa’s engagement shoot done. Of course, this engagement shoot had the added bonus of the very adorable Tilly in attendance to add another layer of cuteness.

Trying to stop taking photos of Tilly was hard but we did managed to get a few shots of just the soon to be weds.

Em is a florist / interior designer and has done flowers for a few wedding and I’m really excited to be shooting the wedding later in the year. It’s also exciting as I’ll be tag teaming the wedding with the talented Belinda Fettke, we will both be shooting the wedding. Going to be a really fantastic day, full of beautiful vibes and beautiful people!

It was so hard to try and figure out what images from this multiple family portrait shoot to put up on the blog. So I decided to put them all up in a video.

These kids are all cousins and the photos were shot up on Greens Beach, right at the tip of the Tamar River north of Launceston. Hope you enjoy the video!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHpPp78JIDQ[/youtube]

I realy loved the colours in this session, going for the green and black clothing worked fantastically and gave a really fantastic look to the shots.

Thse two had so much personality, they where so much fun to chase around and always ready with a pose!

It really wasw a pleaseure shooting this lot, and I can’t wait to get the canvas’s back as they are going to look really amazing!

email2friend]]> http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/06/17/pier-ing-out-portrait-session/feed/ 0 http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/06/12/greens-beach-family-preview/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=greens-beach-family-preview http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/06/12/greens-beach-family-preview/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:11:48 +0000 Photobat http://www.photobat.net/batblog/2009/06/12/greens-beach-family-preview/

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together! And then runs away. We did get there in the end, more up soon.

 More next week

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!

I had a good time checking the wheat with George. I checked it a couple of years ago with his big sister Nina. This shoot coincided with George being the exact same age as Nina was when we did her session. I like that idea!

There are occasionally some posts that slip through the batblog-a-sphere and don’t get posted. Over the next few weeks I will be trying to catch up. So we will start with this shoot of the Young Family, shot just before Christmas. Vicki was a bridesmaid in a wedding I show many years ago, I think it may have been in my second season. The session involved was mainly about getting some shots of her two beautiful girls who were an absolute delight and a bit of fun to photograph. Plus the kittens, real kittens and a grown up one! 

The plan for the last few days was to get away. A weekend with out a wedding in the warmer months is a time to run away with the Wife for some quality time (as well as some business planning and photography!). Vikashni had not been to the west coast before so we changed all that with a whirlwind visit to all the major centers, Zeehan, Queenstown, Strahan, Tulla, Rosebury amongst others (Including Gormoston, which really doesn’t have a centre)

One of the best things of the whole trip was meeting Rod (last photo). Rod has a connection to my family past, much more of that in a later blog post.

Of course, Dr Frankenstein’s House of Monsters, also in Zeehan came close.

Some random images from the coast.

Emily and her girls were down for a little break over Christmas, so a little photoshoot was in order. Sara and Jaeda really know how to work the camera, they looked so cute! Again these shots were taken around the city near the office. As you can see, the girls were a little unsure to start with but we had them cracking up in no time!

Another shoot from way back that got missed in the batblog system. Its here now. Evie was great and so was that cool looking cat!

Last week we had the fun pleasure of teaming up with Kat form Frockyou.com.au for a little fashion shoot with her daughter Charlotte. It was a typical Tasmanian summer day, lots of rain and not that warm. Charlotte did very well to let us take some many fantastic photos of her. It was lucky that this is for the Winter editions of magazines so the weather was perfect. Check the podcast below for more photos from this session.

Charlotte was the model for the kids clothes at a little Frock You fashion shoot last Friday.
More to come soon…

The edwards family are growing up and moving out, leaving Col and Jill the tak of downsizing their home. So this shoot was the family portrait to say goodbye to the family home. We shot ont he stpes because all the kids had their first day of school photos on them.

And I had to take a few photos of Col and his other child who is called Harley. Col uses it as his transportation for fishing trips. I like the idea of just picking up the rod, jumping on the bike and zooming off to a nice spot to drop the line in.

Plus, as ususal… the dog shot!

 My View

Eleanor’s View!

A few weeks ago i caught up with the Marshalls some generational shots. It has been a long time since I had taken a generationa shot that wasn not at a wedding so it was fantastic to get 4 generations in the one shot.

Austin is just too cool, I could take his photo all day

‘

And Briar has  agreat smile when she isn’t being too serious!

It has been over a year since I first met Anthony and Amanda, at that time Amanda was quite pregnant and gave me a hand in updating my pregnancy folio. I have to say, both Anthony and Amanda are very special people, so friendly and I found myself staying a bit longer than normal for a chat at the end of the session. So now Ella is about and I have been back three times to photograph her so that we could put together an album showing her first 12 months. She is very very cute in both looks and in what she does, she is lucky to have such top parents who are completely in love and in awe of her!

 So below is the podcast that follows the Castray’s progress, from Pregnancy to just after Ella’s first birthday. It has been a preverlidge to spend time with this awesome family and I’m looking to catching up with them again soon, if only for a cup of tea!

This one kinda got lost in blog world, but it’s here now! We shot little Issac a month or so ago and he was very cute!

Darcey was also very cut and needed some shots with his bone.

And this is one of my favourite hand shots for a long time, i just love the yawn with the other hand.

Congratulationa again on your beautiful baby boy!

Hope you guys enjoyed your sushi, will be in touch soon to show you some more shots

This little guy can pull some dam cool faces… more soon

More in a couple of weeks

I took this shot of my fellow photographer Tom Putt and his cute son Oliver about 12 months ago. They just ordered a couple of extra prints and I while preparing them I saw this fun cropping.

Last Wednesday I got a call from Sherry, she was frantically ringing around photographers to try find someone who could not only shoot her partners kids, but also produce a canvas from the shoot by Father’s Day. That’s a 3 day turn around and generally not do able. So after asking a few more questions, I suggested that we take the shots and then surprise him with the viewing on Fathers Day so he could choose his favourite.

It was on. A couple of hours after the phone call we were, in alleyways, up a tree, exploring the duck island in City Park shooting Emily and Bill for the surprise.

We had such a great time, these are pretty cool kids, lots of energy, fun spirits and get along so well. We were nearly busted too, we walked straight past Rodney’s ute on the way to one of the locations!

It was hard to finish the session because there were so many more photos I could have taken of them.

5pm on Sunday the kids and Sherry lead Rodney up to the surprise viewing. He had no idea and he was lown away by the photos. We had his favourite drink for him, a bit of Johnny Cash playing and his kids on the screen.

I can’t say enough how much fun this was! Thanks again Sherry, Bill and Emily for keeping the surprise!

A few months ago we went off and shot Nicolette’s pregnancy session at her place, we got a few quite different shots.

And then a couple of weeks ago it was time to go and meet little Ava, who did alot of cute and not so cute baby things.

She’s a little bit angellic.

She kept playing with the white sheet we had set up for a background, and alot of the time made it so it was covering her face.! Makes me think she’s not going to like having her photo taken!

The cute looks and little baby noises and turned into some not so happy baby noises and the signaled the end of the session, but an over the shoulder shot calmed her down for that last shot.

To be continued…

Some baby are destined to be models, paying up to the camera, looking cute and even making cute noises. Lucky is one of those babies! Any one know a casting agent for Huggies?

When Zoe came in for her pre shoot chat I realised that her husband Simon was a few years above me at school and he was a prefect! Probably told me to pull up my socks a few times.

The poodle Poppy was great to, very photogenic!

Big blue eyes too

and Lucy loves to play with glases.. she nearly got a hold of mine.

 And how could I not take a photo of Poppy,she had to spend most of the shoot outside.

Way back in April Rob and Susan were expecting an arrival. So I went out to take some photos. I had heard stories about Rob’s childhood feline companion Arnie, so had to get him in a few shots.

After doing a pregnancy shoot for Susan and Rob we waited for little Max to show up so we could do a newborn shoot… we waited… he waited… we waited… he waited… and finally he decided to show his face well after he was supposed to. Max arrived the day before my wedding so we had to wait until he was a little older to do shoot. I’m sure you will agree it was worth the wait. He was a great little guy to photograph, pity about the dad (just kidding Rob!!)

The shoot ended with a very loud example of Max’s lungs. But by the time we got there we had the all the shots. I even got another one of Arnie!

Thanks again for letting us come and share some time you and your little boy! Also, help feed max by buying ,lots and lots of jewelry from Jim Hughes and Sons, Rob and Susan’s business. It’s where we got our rings from and ever one loves them!

A couple of weeks ago i returned to my favourite alleyway and did a very fun shoot with the Michael and his kids.

Michael was a former photographer in Launceston and it is very gratifying and humbling to shoot another photographer’s family. It can be a little scary, knowing the person in front of the lens knows what you are doing, but it was just a really enjoyable shoot.

It was so much fun that it was hard to stop everyone laughing at the same time to get a shot done. Thanks again for the great shoot!

I had the great pleasure of shooting little Ava’s first big photo shoot. Kylie and Travis have a beautiful little girl and an equally beautiful home and pets. The nursery was set up son nicely and included this big red chair which we dragged outside so we could get some good light on it.

And how could i not take a few shots of the furry kids. This little collection of animals were so much fun and very friendly The bunny has survived having a stroke and lives in the back yard with the dog, can you believe that!

I mentioned last week about the cool announcement card I did up for Nicholle and Brett to send out about little Thomas.

Well, here it is! Nothing says announcement like a post it note stuck to a baby.

And his teddy for the inside cover!

It’s been too long since the puppy Kaba has featured in this blog. He recently had a hair cut and so it was portrait time again.

I didn’t start out to take his photo, just some photos of his half eaten toys, but he didn’t like me playing with his things.

Many of his toys are won at various shows and carnivals, you know the kind of cheap toy that you win when you sucseed in getting close to your target number by strategically placing balls into a clown’s head.

 I can’t imagine what he would do if we actually won a really big prize on a sideshow….probably tear a hole in it and use if for a bed…. maybe…

Late last year I had the opportunity to head down to Howden to shoots some photos of Denise, Harko, the baby bump and the horse. I had never had such a large prop for a photo (the horse… not the bump!). It was quite nice to be in a field in such a beautiful part of Tasmania I hadn’t been to before. Plus I had never shot a pregnancy shoot with a horse before, he was very well behaved too.

It was interesting having a chat with Harko too, he’s a scientist working on saving the Tasmanian Devils from their facial tumor disease. It was fascinating to hear what what happening and sad to hear about the creature’s bleak looking future.

Skip forward and we welcomed little Niham to the family! Such a nice little baby and very well behaved. We didn’t even notice her when we arrived, she was a sleep on the couch.

I always love a good hand shot and can never get enough of baby expressions!

When I showed the photos to Denise and Harko, Harko was about to go back into the field and be part of a group setting up social networking for devils… Yes that’s right, the Tasmanian Devil population has their own myspace!

I caught up with the griffins last year when Melita and Paul were brewing a little sister for Vaughan. It was supposed to be a pregnancy shoot but that turned into an after thought as we got lots of photos of Vaughan playing and showing all his personality.

 He was a little shy at first but by the end of the shoot was showing me all his toys.

Flash forward to and little Ava is now around and full of wonderfully cute baby expressions and being loved by his mum, dad and brother.

Such a cute family, it was heaps of fun photographing them.

Thomas has arrived, you may remember the pregnancy shoot I did with Nicholle and Brett a little while ago.

All is going well with the little one, who did a bit of crying, sleeping and other baby things during the shoot.

I’ve always loved this hallway, nice floor, good light. This is the third time i’ve used it including for some pre wedding photos of Nicholle.

I can’t wait for the thank you card to come back, I’ll post the photos from it as soon as it has been sent out… don’t want to spoil the surprise.

I took a few photos in 2007, in fact, I took a few thousand.I always have loved showing off my work and am very proud of the way my images have developed in the last 12 months. So it’s time to show you all my favourite shots in an audio visual presentation. This is only on for one afternoon only, and not an exhibition that is hanging on the walls, so this is your only chance to see it.

Some of the highlights will include documentary work on the East Coast bushfires and backstage at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala, Holga images, urban and natural landscapes plus heaps of kids,families, pregnant bellies, animals and shoes.

In addition there will be a presentation of some of my favourite portraits of the week taken over the last 5 years. The POW started as a way of practicing and pushing myself by taking a different portrait each week. Some of these portraits are commissioned; others are self commissioned and feature comedians, musicians, brides, animals, fictional characters, photographers and everyday people I have bumped into.

The presentations will take about 30 minutes.

2pm February 10th 2007
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
Inveresk, Launceston

Entry is Free and there will be prizes!

Please RSVP here as we have limited seating available andmay have to reschedule more viewings.

PLUS FESTIVALE IS ON, SO YOU HOBART PEOPLE SHOULD COME UP FOR A DRIVE!!!

Remember Georgie from her pregnancy session? Well she has now welcomed little Stella into the world. There was a star theme to some of the shots as the name Stella means star and there wasn’t a shortage of star things about to use as props.

Stella behaved quite well for her first session, doing the model tantrum thing well and also doing the fantastic baby expressions. I love this last one, I think it really captures that bond between mother and child.

Congratulations again Georgie, i’m sure Stella will live up to her name!

I havn’t run this much since my last high school cross country! The plan was to get a nice photo of Bella and Xavier together… but te plan really didn’t come together with Xavier not coming within a couple of meters of Bella the whole session! There was so many places to run too and then run back from and then run to again and run… run … run so much running!

On the other hand Bella was great, and posed up a storm in the middle of the daisies. I can tell she will be a runer too, she kept crawling to the edge of the blanket!

This girl is such an explore! I met up with Allison, Ian and their daughter Chloe and new addition to the family Damon. Damon spent a lot of the shoot feeding which gave Chloe time to explore the gorge car park and probably would have gone off climbing down past the protective fences if we let her.

in the end we got some great shots, some a litle more posed but as usual my favourite ones are the shots that show the relationship of the family. Congratulations again on the arrival of Damon, I hope he grows strong quickly so he can keep up with Chloe!

Emma is one of my previous wedding clients and it was fantastic that her and Greg were expecting an addition to the family. So I made the trip down to Snug to shoot her a few weeks before the baby was due. I knew Emma loved horses and came on the idea of shoting in a hay shed. The above photo was the result. Greg was great in rigging up a tarp to add extra shade and other general photography assisting things!

A few weeks later Otto arrived and this is his first big shoot! He is so expressive, i loved so many photos from the session. I’m really looking forward to visiting again in 6 months when we are booked in for some more photos.

And how could i not take some photos of Zali, the dog who seems to always in trouble for running away!

A few weeks ago i had the absolute pleasure in meeting the Herbert family, they came all the way from Devonport to had some different family photos taken. I think we managed to achieve the aims!

We went down to the wharf area which is a bit run down and full of great opportunities. We even found half a boat which provided the perfect background for shots of the kids. Taylah and Chan.

The shoot ended up on some scaffolding with me balancing up high to get this fantastic angle. Thanks again to Tania and Pete for being open to anything when it came to different family photos!

I had he great pleasure of taking some very fun shots of the Bremner family a few weeks ago (yes, i know i’m behind on my blogging, i’m working on it) Michael and Caroline and the kids Lauchie, Dylan, Brooke and Zoe. Initially we were all going to head to the park but then decided somewhere a little different would be much more fun.

Michael and Christine won this session and credit toward prints at the Spring Africa Ball.

We all had alot of fun running up and down the alley and got some amazing photos that really bought out everyone’s personalities.

More blog posts on the way, trust me, i mean it this time!

I knew when Ros came in to have her pre consultation that these little girls were going to be fun to shoot, Ashlea and Chealsea were supposed to be asleep by the time she arrived, but they had their own ideas staying wide awake. Anyway, I went out and had a great session with the Rees Family, which also included dad Martin, and also Sophie and Maddy.

Maddy gave me a tour of the house at the start of the session, she was full of energy and loved showing me around. We got a great series of shots in her bedroom.

The twins are 9 months old and were very cute the whole session. These shots are taken on the floor near the kitchen where there was some fantastic light. We moved into another room a little later to get some more moody shots like the one up top of this post.

Sophie was great helping me out getting the babies to smile, and she had no trouble turning on a smile when it was her turn in front of the camera.

This is Angela and Chris’s new son Tim! Angela took up my pregnancy portrait special a couple of months ago (see here). So James has a little brother and we played a bit before the shoot, he was a bit more receptive to havening his photo taken this time and was dancing all over the place! Tim was great too, behaving very well for the camera. we got some really terrific shots, my favouties are posted below

And my favoutie little series from this shoot to finish up with…

Stay tuned, there are more before and after pregnancy/newborn shoots coming up in the next couple of weeks.

I caught up with Louise and Greg and their two little’uns Jamie and Grace in the Gorge a few weeks ago. Such a fun shoot! We went for a bit of a walk and Jamie did all his animal impressions, Grace did her best to sit up and they both played nicely on the blanket. We got so many spiffy shots, everyone looked so good and with big bright eyes, I think it’s hard not to take a good photo of these guys.

And for somthing a bit new that will start appearing alot more on the blog, a SLIDESHOW. Yes, i now have flash slideshow making tools, so ENJOY! It does have some music so make sure you turn your speakers down if you are at work.

This is little Mia’s first shoot at the ripe old age of 6 weeks. It was also the first real shoot I have taken in my office space. She was perfect, awake the whole time, no crying and lots of expressions and moving about, a dream come true for baby photographs.

So far in Mia’s life she has moved house and will be moving again in the next couple of months as her Mum and Dad have just bought a home for her to grow up in.

How can you not love tiny hands! I have a few more newborn shoots coming along in the next month, so stay tuned for more tiny human goodness.

This is Oliver, being held up by Tom Putt a photographer who was on the great outdoors a little while ago. Tom shoots landscapes, runs photographic workshops and is also a portrait photographer based in Melbourne. Oliver is a baby who likes to sleep in loud rooms.

Tom is a great reason to join the AIPP, well not exactly Tom himself, but the whole thing of meeting other photographers from around Australia is the thing. There are many great photographers about the place who I’ve become friends with and share knowledge about marketing, photoshop, equipment ect. We all help each other and it’s out clients the benefit. Plus the whole friendship thing is also fantastic.

This is Ella getting in on the action. I seem to be Ella’s best friend, she goes nuts when she sees me! She was responsible for waking me up 3 days in a row at about 6am when I was very jet lagged after getting back from the UK in 2005. Lots of fun…

Some shots from a fun shoot I had the other week, this is Caylan and Edan shot at their grandmother’s house in St Leonards.

Caylan has a habit of playing in the blue metal and making large pot holes in one spot and then little speed bumps in another.

Caylan was about to jump over a fence to show me the carrots in the garden, his mother and I persuaded him that we should go to the front yard… I was later informed that we were not heading towards carrots, but we were heading directly for the septic tanks outlet. So good save by mum!

It’s obvious that these brothers really love each other, Caylan actually took the time to get a few pieces of wood to make a seat for him and his brother.

The background shed is in the middle of a paddock and is a bit ugly. Edan’s mum couldn’t see why i wanted the boys over near it. Once she saw this shot, she understood completely! Matching colours and out of focus texture. My favoutires!

Little kids love to get close to the camera, most of the time they get too close for the camera to focus. Luckily i managed to snap this one off just before he got too close.

As promised… the dirty shoot! This is Sharron with her kids Caitlyn and Brandon. And it all started out quite civil… apart from the rain, but we were only hiding in the rotunda for about 5 minutes untill it stopped.

Notice how clean everyone is, Brandon is wearing a new t-shirt!

the ball that they bought along to play with ended up landing in some mud, and instead of cleaning the ball so there was no mud on it, Caitlyn decided it needed more mud on it and procedded to get alot more mud all over the ball her hands. She then expertly transfered the mud onto Brandon, who retaliated and the war was begun!

As everyone was dirty, there was no need to be precious about keeping clean, so some more dirtier shots were taken before it was mum’s turn to get a bit dirty.

So just to make sure that there was a full load of washing, Mum was attacked by both her kids with some dirtly leaves!

This was probably the dirtiest shoot i’ve ever done! And yes, i too had to wash my clothes afterwards as Caitlyn also took a liking to throwing dirty leaves at the photographer! I didn’t mind too much, we did get some brilliant shots!

I’m so glad that Sarah managed to win a silent auction for a portrait session at a fund raising trivia night last month! She used the session to get some shots taken of the family, including her husband Alan and the kids Ella-Jayde and PJ!

And how cute are the kids! They both have really great personalities and once they warmed up to the camera , it wasn’t hard to get some great shots!
PJ is only 6 months old and is getting so determined to get up and walk around! He spent have the session holding himself up with his arms!

Ella Jayde had a great time running around in the bubbles and also discovered how to use the bubble making machine!

There are so many brilliant shots from the session! Thanks again to Alan and Sarah for having the shoot, it was heaps of fun!