The Batblog by Photobat

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting up with the Johnson Family for a family portrait with a little bit of a difference. The location for the portraits was the reason for the photos. Steve and Judy have been running JJ’s Bakery in Longford for years and decided to move on. So these photos were a farewell to be business as well as some family shots.

This shot is at Table 10. This is apparently where everything happened, from business plans to drinks with friends. It seems that this table was one of the historic parts of the old mill building.

Did I mention these guys are master bakers? Steve has won so many awards, so a quick photo with the trophy was in order. Steve is still baking, his Christmas cakes are fantastic and you can buy them up at K&H Cafe and Resturaunt on George Street in Launceston (Old Cafe Manfred).

Incidentaly, Kara (above) is one of the managing directors of K & H on George Street in Launceston!

This last shot is Steve at his favourite spot in the Bakery, next to his Pizza Oven. While these guys may have retired, they have not gone too far. Apparently Judy is still there everyday, While Steve is busy making those amazing Christmas cakes. I really do suggest you go and get yourself one to try and another one to try again!

A few weeks ago Cara had a ball to go to, this was just after we did her family portrait. So we decided to do some shots of her before she headed off. We took all these shots in the family home!

The dress wasfrom a dress rental place from the mainland (I didn’t know they existed!) and arrived the day before the ball. All a bit last minute and nail biting for cara but it all turned out well and it really was a fantastic dress.

The last couple of shots were taken in a coupel of minutes when the car arrived, had to get some cool shots with that!

 Thanks again to Cara for letting us come and play, and big thanks to Belinda Fettke for givimg me a hand holding the light. She also took some amazing photos because she is an amazing photographer!

From a shoot last night…

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!

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 is from the shoot with the Edwards Family the other day, I’m in a business group with Col who many people may him from L J Hooker in Launceston. When we were talking I found out he loves his Harley, so I had to take a shot with it and this is what we got.

When Andrew and Claire’s wedding comes around next year, Andrew will officially be the Groom i’ve known the longest. I can actully remember Andrew being a cheeky little boy in nappies running around their house. Not too much is changed, except he is not requiring nappies anymore and he now gets told off by his soon to be wife not his mum!

So this is an engagement shoot in preperation for thebig day next year. It was fantastic to meet Claire and see these guys have a bit of fun together, mostly at each other’s expense. We had a great time taking these shots and I know we are going to get some really amazing images at the wedding.

The next one was Claire’s favoutire… not sure why it wasn’t Andrew’s!