The Batblog by Photobat | Portrait and Wedding

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!

I’m really enjoyed working with Michael and Camille, they are a nice Melbourne couple who decided that Tasmania would be a really great spot to get married. And a couple of weekend ago they did just that. Almost everyone at the wedding was an import and Tasmania put on a great bit of weather for them all.

The day started off with some guys getting their fill at Zum, where Michael’s son met us then off to Zero Davey to get all dressed and pretty. I took one of my favoutie ring shots ever there and enjoyed watching four grown men attempting to tie the same tie at the same time.

We found Camille all pretty in pink hanging out with some family and friends at the IXL apartments. I’d never been to the apartments, quite a spectacular entrance. The girls all chowed down on various nice things before being ushered out so Camille could get ready with her Mum. I like a different coloured wedding dress, Zakk describes this one as fairy floss pink, which is a little better than my descriptive attempt red pants left in the wash with the whites. It was a great pastel pink colour that really suited Camille.

When everyone was ready it was time to meet up before the wedding. Michael and Camille arranged some time for family photos and come couple shots before the ceremony. Of course, the family shots were slightly interrupted when Michael’s dad got into a spot of bother we a few thousand bikers (he got stuck in the toy run traffic). We found a heap of different spots around the water front and took some of my new favorite wedding shots. I really liked the portrait I took of Michael’s son Zak sitting on the floor in T42. We then met up with everyone to get on board Peppermint Bay II and head down to the ceremony at Peppermint Bay.

I’m lucky that in my job I get to spend heaps of time photographing people like these guys, they are so nice! Congrats again Michael and Camille

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???

Sunday was a bit strange… There was this blue stuff in the sky and a big bright thing too. So Vee, Kaba and I, like the rest of Launceston, went out to expore in what seemed like a Spring day.

The most exciting thing was seeing a seal swinning up into the Gorge. The Gorge is still very flooded and we watched it fighting the water for about 20 minutes. Vee worked on getting some shots of it, while i concentraited on the little doggie at my feet. Kaba didn’t like being on the bridge too much but was happy for all the pats and compliments of the passers by.

Last week I was in Melbourne with some spare time and decided to just go for a walk. The above video is the result, a mini documentary of Brunswick Street in Fitzroy between Gertude and Johnston.
Let me know what you think, should I do more of these?

Friday night saw the BATBOOTH heading back to the spectacular Albert Hall. This time we were shooting people to raise some cash for prostate cancer research at Simon’s Cancer Ball. The organiser, Stuart, lost his Dad last year to prostate cancer and out of that sadness came this fantastic night of raising awareness and funds to help fight this cancer.

Some facts I learnt from Dr Harry, who was one of the speakers.

1: Each year more Australian men die of prostate cancer than Australian women die of breast cancer

2: Initial tests for the cancer is a simple blood test

and

3: Hearing about the further tests for prostate cancer while eating does put you off your food but inturn makes you want to run to your doctor.

So guys, if you are over 50 and haven’t started to have an annual test you better start as 1 in 11 men are going to get this. The odds aren’t great.

This was one of the best charity balls I have been to, organised by very enthusiastic and dedicated team who put in many hours of work to get this together. I have no idea what the amount raised on the night was, but we will be adding to it with $10 from each print sale heading off to add to the total.

And again finally, over 50, male SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

Learn more here 

Head over to see the rest of the photos here

Hey wow… this is my 700th Batblog post!

This first bit was written on Tuesday, 4.09pm Tas Time, 5.09pm Queensland Time

The weekend is over! I know it was over a few days ago but it has been a very busy few days starting in North West Tasmania, on to Brisbane and then to home.  I’m fealing exhausted but thought I should write a little post to update you on what is been going on.

Saturday was a long day for a great wedding. Hayley and Aaron tied the knot at Highfield House in Stanley, here is a preview, and a full post will be up in a couple of days.

 I managed to get back in the door after the wedding at 11.30pm and then packed for Queensland. It seems that I only had a couple of hours sleep before the 5am alarm went off so I could get to the airport for the 7am to Melbourne then up to Brisbane.

I had been invited up to speak at the Australian Institute of Professional Photography’s Hair of the Dog conference. It was my first time to this conference and I was impressed, a heap of speakers, lots of sessions, a big trade show and most importantly quite a lot of participants.

My talk was delivered in the late afternoon to about 100 or so people and I am told went quite well. There were a heap of people who hung around to have a chat afterward. There was a cocktail party afterwards where I hit the water and orange juice hard, where large amounts of others hit the jager-bombs hard and woke the next morning with drinking related issues. I was stuffed so headed home early and turned on the TV to be horrified by the fires.

I had been away from news all day and could not take my eyes off the TV. It is horrific. The next afternoon I realised that my old head lecturer Gale Spring lives in one of the areas where people have died. It took a couple of days but I did track him down and heard the story of the fire coming towards them and then turning away when the wind changed. They were lucky.

Back to the presentations and we heard and saw photos from about another photographer in north Queensland who has had 7 foot of water through his shop and studio. His computers and equipment were stashed in the ceiling to keep them dry.

It really is a sad time in this country.

Last night I had dinner with some of the remaining photographers before heading off to see Jason Starr, a photographer who was a great help to me when I was starting out and always a delight to meet up with to talk shop and life. This morning I was with new friends Todd and Aleda, we met after my talk and Todd asked me if I have photos taken of myself often. I try every year or so to have photos taken of Vikashni and I, it is good to be on the other side to remember what it is like. He and Aleda hadn’t had photos since they were married 8 years ago, so this morning changed that. See below for a little preview…

 After the shoot I had a mini studio tour through some inner city photography businesses, sharing ideas and stories. Photographers are a great group, most are willing to share for the greater knowledge of everyone. I know I have picked up things that will be used at Photobat and I know there are ideas I have given that are already being picked up by photographers here.

I’ll post some more shots later, for now it is time to catch a plane and get some sleep.

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Now, its a few days later and here are a heap of photos from the last few days including a lot of portraits of photographers.

 And on a hopeful and really cool note, I dropped off some clothing to the local drop off point which is some local parliamentary offices. I was early so I just though that what was left out the front was because they were not open. I was wrong; they were out the front because inside was packed. There was no room to move. It is a mammoth effort that made me feal really proud to be from Launceston. So much giving and I heard that people turned up with cash to donate but they couldn’t accept it, so the people went to the shops, bought clothes and donated them. Go Launceston!

Bruce Fairfax is a teacher at my old high school. He has been there for a while and is now moved up to the role of deputy principal. I guess the teachers that stand out are the ones you like or really don’t like. I really liked Mr Fairfax. He did not teach any classes I took, we only came into contact through other non classroom activities like school productions and when I hung about and annoyed friends on the debating team he ran. He also gave me my first reference that helped me get my first job, hand written on the school letter head.

What is even more fun is re connecting with teachers and having adult to wise adult conversations. It has been really great taking these photos for no real reason than an excuse to talk and listen to stories. You never really get to know teachers that well when you are a student, so I can highly recommend connecting with your favourite teachers.

(and hope that they don’t read your blog posts and correct your grammar)

So, i have new signage. Thanks to Chris at Fabric-Eight for designing them and also to Scott from Think Big Printing for installing them.

My laptop is currently being formatted due to be slow. Great timing for the laptop to be playing up too. I have a few days left until I head off to Queensland for my presentations. It means i’ll be spending some late nights in the office (like all of them) getting things ready.

The presentations are coming together. I just figured out how to work Mr T into one of them, so it’s all going well.

I had a call last week from the President of the Queensland division of the Australian Institute of Professional Photograpy asking if I would be interested in doing a presntation at their Hair of the Dog event up in Brisbane. Sounds like a bit of fun, i’ll whip something into shape for the presentation, I then asked the question how long do I have to present? 90 minutes… twice… on the same day…

…

I said Brilliant!!! and have started to prep a talk. I think it is supposed to be mostly on Portraits, but i’ll probably mix it up a bit.

I only just wondered who dropped out, who’s shoes am I filling, who is the person people have actually booked to see? I did a little searching and discovered i’m replacing Robin Selleck, a celebrity portrait photographer… quite a big name… seems like I have very big shoes to fill (especially since my shoe size is a 6).

Now unlike Robin, I haven’t had exhibitions tour nationally with sponsorship from big multi national companies, don’t have any books out and certainly have not been featured in almost every glossy in the country.

As I mentioned, i’ll be presenting a bit of a mix of things, most people will be interested in my work with comedians and musicians, i’m also hoping that most people will enjoy my take on the domestic wedding and portrait world. I’ll be adding in a little bit about my marketing and personal projects. So if you have booked in to see Robin, please check out my site and my work, I’m not a swish high flier, I don’t have a producer or manager. I have me and my mobile and some friends. I take photos because I love to do it and have met some fantastic people while doing it, some shoots take months to organise and last a few seconds, others take a few seconds to organise and last hours.

So, the shoes i’m filling are much bigger, but I WILL WEAR BIG SOCKS.

See you in Brisbane next week! Mention this blog post and i’ll give you a lollypop!

 Hair of the Dog site