The Batblog by Photobat

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!

 

 The Castrays [00:03:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Saturday, Sunday and even Monday saw me out of town and all the way down south in Hobart. We even transported the office so the viewings we had down there were in the hotel apartment where Zak and I were staying. We even took the espresso machine and Coco Bean Chocolates! If you were down in Hobart you may have seen that Saturday afternoon saw a huge range of weather in a short time, one minute it was nice, then windy, then a flash flood followed by locusts! (well, i saw a grasshopper). We had a shoot booked in for the early evening and there was no way to predict what would happen, so we decided to postpone this one (normally it would be all go with the amazing weather, but i was scared of the 9 month old flying away).

So Zak and I played a game in the hotel room. Basically we had to see how many unique photos we could get out of the one hotel room using only what we had in the hotel room. There was no video light or reflectors either! We tooko it in turns, shot for shot, if you stuffed up your shot, too bad, it was gone and the camera was passed over. I reckon we got at least 50 differnt shots in the one room. My favourite is below… i’ll have to get Zak to post his favourite of me in the next few days.

Sunday and Monday were spent in the company of many other photographers and students at the AIPP Festival of Photography. A couple of photographers from Sydney were down to share some insights into what they do and how they do it. Generally there was a bit of inspiration being thrown around.

I’m not sure how many others noticed the interesting occurrence that all the photographers ended up having lunch at Say Cheese..

Our speakers were:

Grand master of Photography David Oliver. I have known of David since I first became a member of the AIPP and he has no idea how much of an inspiration to me he is… well, he may know now… This was the first time I had seen him speak and I again got a heavy shot of inspiration. Check out his work here

Graham Munro was our other speaker, and it was the third time i’d seen him speak but the first time that I really had some time to chat with him. He is the only speaker I remember from the first AIPP National conference I went to… maybe because he told a few to many jokes, but also for the imagery. I guess you could say that you never know what you will get with Graham as a speaker, he pulled out the goods on monday and I have about 8 pages of notes to disect (and a few jokes to memorise). Check out Graham’s work here. Plus a different photo of Graham here as portrait of the week

And then on the drive home there were some clouds… so a work in progress below. So what do you think of it? Leave a comment if you like, i know i would like you to!

I headed back to my old school to catch up with one of my favourite teachers, who incidently, was never the teacher in a class I had. More in the next few weeks

I just found out a great man died. I’m very sad I don’t have a photo to post. Christopher Strong was my old headmaster at Grammar. I always liked him at school, but once I had moved back to Launceston and was a little wiser, I realised he was a really very kind and thoughtful man. Always said hello, was always interested in what was happening in my world and always full of encouragement. Plus I admired him for his dedication and passion for so many things, including the environment and humanitarian causes.

I have managed to take a family portrait of his son’s family. From that session I discovered that, as expected, he was a very much loved grandfather. I wish he could have been around longer to share his wisdom with them as they grew up.

The world moves too fast, I regret not getting out and visiting as we always talked about, and taking the portrait I always wanted to take.

I still remember being in grade 8, and after an assembly, i rushed after him, with my little camera and asked if i could take his photo. His equally amazing wife Sally told me many years after that he was touched that I wanted to take his photo. I’m going to go search for that photo later. I am really sorry I did not let the chance pass to take one more recently.

The Funeral is on August 15th, 2pm at St Johns in Launceston.

Ps, if you can, give your grandparents a call.

Sorry about the lack of blog posts last week, the image above was the reason. I spent a large chunk of last week putting together an application for an Arts Tasmania Grant. If I get the grant it will be fantastic, it means that i’ll be helping out some other artists who are in need of a bit of a boost because they are amazing. I’ll probably do the project anyway, just will not have he impact if the funding doesn’t come through.

We went for a drive on Sunday, first off to the River’s Edge in Longford where i’m involved in a boutique bridal expo in a couple of weekends. It’s grat spot to sit down on the couch in front of the fire and read some magazines while enjoying a coffee.

Next we went off to Anvers where I gave a small presentation to the Tasmanian Florist’s Association. It was fascinating to have lunch with a bunch of florists (yes, a group of florist are called a bunch). There was much talk about flowers and Vikashni and I learned a bit about some florist gripes with flowers at weddings. I will elaborate more in the next few weeks when I will have a guest post from a florist.

Then it was off to see The Dark Knight, which was pretty good, we arrived late so had to sit too close to the screen which really annoying.

And on the way home I took some photos of empty pallets on the side of the road.

So that was Sunday.

I like cats. I think they are cute and quite good leg warmers in winter.

Kooshan is not a cat. He is pure trouble.

Example 1

We had pancakes and left the bowl on the sink with some water in it. A few minutes later Kooshan comes in with half his face wet from cleaning the bowl.

Example 2 - 5 minutes later

I made a coffee. I put the milk jug on the bench. I sat down to enjoy some blog reading. I hear a loud band in the kitchen. Kooshan had his head stuck in the milk jug, unfortunately he managed to free himself before I got the camera. Here is the evidence on his face. Take a closer look to the right side of his face, now covered in milk.

Kooshan is now in the laundry. That is the place where he goes when he has been naughty. He spends a lot of time there. Once I found him in the cutlery drawer, it was only open an inch but he managed to get in. Dam cat. I had to clean all the cutlery. Then there was the time he broke the front window of the house, distracted me so I scrapped the side of the car, escaped out the fly screens and investigated the neighbours rubbish, amongst many many many other things.

We have another cat, he is quite nice. He spends very little time in the laundry.

More Snow People have just arrived down at Pocket Space in Hobart. Go check them out. And check out Vikashni’s etsy site too. heartvandana.etsy.com/

Yesterday was vet visit day for the cats. Mouse needed a booster injection and Kooshan, well, he needed to have a shave. We try to groom Kooshan but he does not really like it and we don’t really like getting scratched so it’s off to the vet to be knocked out and let them get rid of the matts.

Mouse was fine… well after I managed to get him out from under the couch and also the bed. I have no idea how he knew he was going to the vet.

And the final results of Kooshan’s hair cut. Remember he is the evil one and I have no problems about publicly embarrassing him. Both the kittens got a clean bill of health and Kooshan especially enjoyed his car ride, he sits on Vikashni’s lap and looks out the window while Mouse has to stay in the cat carrier on the back seat.

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!