The Batblog by Photobat | Portrait and Wedding

Renee and Nathan may look familiar to a few people, you may remember there from this wedding photo. That was years ago and now they have added Lachlan to the family. As per the wedding, standard location was thought about and then dismissed for something unique and a bit more meaningful. Enter Salamanca Market, the biggest and busiest market in Tasmania. So along with a cute 11 month old and 2 adoring parent we also had a few hundred Hobartians and tourists to work with. It was a bit of fun, one point I was walking backwards up the hill into a throng of small tourists who really were more interested in looking side to side at wooden fruit than straight ahead at the rapidlt approaching photographer in reverse mode.

Lachlan was awesome, such a great kid. This is really the best part of my job, hanging out with clients on their wedding days and then coming back and meeting the new additions when they turn up.

We spent a little time at a village called Saama, it is located on the top side of Efate about 40 minutes drive from Port Vila. There are more photos to come from the village itself, these images are from the Chiefs (last image) chicken farm. It is encouraged for the men to stay and work in the village, and if possible to create some money. The chief is leading by example and has set up a chicken farm up the hill from the main village. It is only in start up phase but there are a heap of chickens running about and strangely, a cat. It seems that the cat does not each the chickens only the rats who try to get the eggs. He does love a treat of coconut, which is fed to the chickens in these photos by Irene the chiefs wife.

Thje first thing that hit us about Port Vila was how dirty it is. after that we noticed all the colour. It was everywhere and just added a feeling of fun to the city. These shots are taken around the main bit of Port Vila, there are lots of other bits but this was the main touristy bit.

If you think people are nuts about the world cup here, you should head to a developing country. Vanuatu was World Cup crazy when we were there. There were flags everywhere, some real flags some home made, the bakeries had flags on cakes, stores were decorated, soccer balls everywhere and people had wrist bands to show their team. Even the rubbish trucks had flags on them. We stayed in an area called Seaside, the suburb included the poorest area in the city. Most of these shots were taken around the streets there. Not everyone has TVs, we discovered many community TVs were set up and left on all night so that the locals could gather and watch the games. It was great to have something to discuss with the locals, sometimes we didn’t have a choice, it was the first thing they asked us. “What do you think of Harry’s red card?”  I’m not a football person but did pay attention to all the news so i could join in conversations. These conversations lead to some amazing things including a tour of the slum like area of Seaside. More on that soon.

Heaps of blog posts will be coming soon with shots from Vanuatu. Yes there are some tropical type of photos but there are also some social documentary shots from some of the poorer areas of the main island Efate. And there will be more tutles, including our sponsor turtle.

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!

Over Easter Vikashni and I managed to get a little bit of a holiday in Cairns to see the rain and Brisbane to see the hotel room and Alice in Wonderland (expected so much more Mr Burton…) and the Gold Coast to have a little look about. Here are a few random photos of places, animals and views that we saw.

Yes, I took no photos of the beach at Surfers, we got quite wet in the rain in cairns while looking for a waterfall we could hear but the fog/rain kinda made it invisible and also saw a 500 or so year old fig tree which was surprisingly cool.

Just back from Queensland, so here are a couple of photos of Canberra from ages ago.

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???

Helen lives just past the TinPot Café in Melbourne, I did managed to get lost finding her place, but I always get lost in that little cluster of streets. Once I found Helen’s place I got to have a close look at her bird creations. They are all hand made and mostly produced on the comfy couch where she is sitting in the portrait. At the moment Helen is studying to be a librarian and has an impressively sorted bookcase too.

For Van Wonderland, Helen has created a pair of Native Hens. I did manage to see these half created when I photographed her and I’m really looking forward to seeing them completed.

You can see examples of her birds in the bookshelf and you can buy some at her etsy store.

Van Wonderland is an exhibition of work by contemporary crafts practitioners exploring a mysterious world of not-quite-real objects and creatures, based upon historic western perceptions of Tasmania (‘Van Diemen’s Land’) as a distant and little-known island at the far reaches of the globe.

This ‘new world’, full of strange and exotic flora and fauna, could be by turns beautiful and sinister – just as the strange Wonderland explored so famously by Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

Step into Van Wonderland and explore the mysteries within. And don’t forget to take your teacup.

Participating artists include Tara Badcock, The Purple Finch, Erin Tappe, Hideyo, Cat Badcock, Ghostpatrol, Megan Perkins, Omar Misa, Helen Goninon, and Anita Dineen with accompanying photography by Alan Moyle (Photobat).

Come to the opening, Friday 18^th September 2009 at 6 pm, Design Centre, Tamar Street, Launceston, RSVP by email or by 6331 5505. Exhibition open until the 18^th of October.