Little Angels

A while ago I did a shoot for Little Angels, a childrens nail pamper party company. The girls were so amazing and made my job so much easier, they were fantastic to work with. And aren't they gorgeous?!?! Here's a few of photographs from the shoot, you can see more of them at the Imagine. Creative Facebook page.

Design portfolio updated

I haven't updated anything in a while and seriously need to. So I've started! Horray!! I've recently updated the graphic design samples within my Imagine. Creative online portfolio. Here it is:



I've added some of my recent branding projects: Maternal Touch, The Sexy Bookshop and Solequine. More to come but it's a start right? Will get onto updated the photography as well.

Oh and we've just recently received our first Queensberry album package too. It's gorgeous!! It's always scary changing suppliers, but this was made so easy by the fantastic follow-up and confirmation emails and phone calls from the lovely Queensberry folk. It really instills confidence in their service when you're not left wondering what the hell is going on and if they even received the job. Thanks Queensberry! You guys rock. I've found the change over so easy and way less scary than it could have been. Production was a lot quicker than expected too, which was fantastic. Gotta say though I was a little frigtened when I went up the driveway, on my way to a shoot, and found the box just sitting at the gate. Gulp. That's someone's very expensive wedding album just sitting there at the gate. At the very least the courier could have bought it down our 500m driveway and left it at the house gate, rather than right at the road. Luckily all was ok though and the bride was thrilled with it. HORRAY!

Weddings, weddings, weddings

We've been so busy with weddings lately. We had two in February and two in March as well as one a month since September - as a rule I think we should stick to one a month because it's crazy otherwise!! I'll post properly on them once I have a bit of breathing space, but while going through and editing the second to last one we had I found this photo. I think it's a great one of Chris getting down with the bride and groom. This is from the stunningly gorgeous Anne-Maree and Brendon's wedding. They we such a GOOD LOOKING wedding party, it really does make our job that much easier. As well as being freakishly good looking they were also heaps of fun and really alive and vibrant - this also makes fantastic photos, not to mention making it heaps of fun for us too. They were great - thanks guys!



I'm also still really busy with my design work. I'm still working on The Sexy Bookshop - actually that's nearly finished. Just a few final bits to do on the website as well as design an HTML e-newsletter and then I think that's it. Lisa has been such a great client to work for, I now consider her a friend. I love our phone conversations and am gonna love meeting her in person for the first time next month! That's pretty exciting - we've been working together for a year now and have never met, with her living in Granity (the west coast in the middle of the South Island) it just hasn't been possible. But she's coming up to Auckland and we meet soon - horray! As well as The Sexy Bookshop work I've got a few projects on the go with other clients and have more quotes to send out. One being for tattoo design - that'll be heaps of fun, though that client is also out of Auckland, she's in Wellington, so we'll have talk on the phone lots as well. I have a lot of product photography coming up and to quote on as well. So busy, busy, busy. Just gotta get this cloning right! hehe

Michelle & Josh's Album

This was done a while ago but I'm updating the online portfolio and thought I'd post this here as well. I've posted a few spreads from this album in a previous post but here's the entire album. Just click on each page to move to the next :)

Internet Blackout NZ

Some of you will be aware about the major proposed changes in NZ law that will have a huge impact on artists, businesses, and general members of the public: basically anyone that uses the internet, and I thought you should know about them.

The Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation and forces the termination of internet connections and websites without evidence, without a fair trial, and without punishment for any false accusations of copyright infringement. We should speak out against injustices like Guilt Upon Accusation being done in the name of artists and protecting creativity.

The countdown is on: we have until 28 February 2009 to influence government.

An organisation called the Creative Freedom Foundation has been set up to specifically represent artists voices on these issues. Check out their website: http://www.creativefreedom.org.nz , sign up and help our MPs make an informed decision about S92!

Thanks.

Photojunction

Why do you love Photojunction Remix some of you ask. What is PJ Remix the rest of you ask. WELL! It's a fantastic little program that enables me to design albums faster and better than I ever thought possible. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a die-hard Photoshop lover and user - this was how I did album pages previously and I thought it was the most efficient and effective way. Was I wrong! I was dubious at first, but being that I have to try anything once, I gave it a go. And I have never looked back! At first it was Photojunction Retro, which was good, but now Photojunction Remix *whit whew!* - fanfreakintastic! It has really sped up my workflow - like halved the amount of time I'm at the computer designing each album, actually lets be brutally honest it's probably quartered it!

But I don't feel like a traitor to Photoshop - they work seamlessly together (and really Photoshop was never intended to be used for album design... Photojunction was!). It's so easy - you drag and drop your images from the library into the album, a simple resize, layer as appropriate and voila! an album page. Well there's a bit more to it but basically that's it. There are also templates available - which to be honest, I haven't looked at, let alone used. But I'm sure they're great too! I work from scratch each time and love this (well with my design background you aren't surprised are ya?) - and most importantly I am not restricted in any way. Which was a lot of the reason I was dubious when I first came across Retro, but, although it was clunkier than Remix, I was still able to do what I wanted (most of the time!). Though, now with Remix I'm not swearing as much! LOL It's so easy for client proofing and changing images if need be - simple pimples and no drama. Truly, I love it! Any photographer who does albums and hasn't used it, really should, go on click here to download the free demo and have a play. You will love it too. Also, click here to check out the Photojunction Blog for heaps of great information and tips.

The following are album pages design in Photojunction that I've posted in the past, but had to post again.

Design, design, design...

I've been pretty busy lately - a lot of design work. Which is great! Had a redesign and freshen up of a brochure, some advertisements and I've just completed a brand and identity development for a new company called Belly Beyond, this was a pretty big project starting with logo and moving on through all their corporate stationary to packaging and promotional items. It was great, heaps of fun and the client was thrilled with everything! YAY! I'm now working on a big rebrand, they're totally different companies which keeps things exciting. I wont say too much about that one as it's a work in progress, but will post more about it once it's all been approved. Just getting back into it all after having our second baby three weeks ago.

I've embedded my design slideshow from my Viewbook (which is where I direct potential clients to view my work) below - this shows some of the Belly Beyond work. Take a look there if you're interested, as I can't be arsed posting photos here too! hehe

I do...

I did two weddings in December and they've been a great run for the Canon 5D and new lenses. The new Mac Pro has far exceeded my expectations and has been an absolute PLEASURE to work on. I LOVE it!!!! And my Christmas present this year was the super sleek new Apple Aluminum Keyboard - wow this thing rocks my sock! Not that I didn't have enough pressies anyway, hehe but I can't understand why Apple don't stock the new keyboard with the new Mac Pro's... It really confuses me. The come with the new aluminum iMac, so why oh why wouldn't they come with the Mac Pro which is the ultimate Apple machine???? I dunno - you pay way more, you should get all the sexy new toys with it. So it came with the standard plastic one, which just didn't look right with all this new sleek aluminum, I just HAD to get it. So that was my pressie this year, at $70 I think it's worth it (for something that's not a necessity! LOL). So everything is working wonderfully and has really sped up my processing and post-shoot work. I love it!

Adobe Lightroom is a lovely package and although I still haven't fully used it to it's potential it's been so great for dealing with the 2000 shots from the last wedding. Developing is a breeze and the way it works is so great, without touching any of your original files. It's fantastic and I would really recommend it to anyone who does professional photography and is working with bulk images. Actually I would recommend it to anyone who has a keen interest in digital photography and digital developing. It's not an expensive program for what you get and really works well with Photoshop (CS3 version).

The last wedding we did has a lot of absolutely amazing shots - they're great and I think it's down to a lot things; the lovely new camera, the gorgeous subject (the bride was soooooo beautiful!), the day, the props (I sourced some white umbrellas for them and told them on the morning that to be safe I think they should get them - just as well cause the rain paid us a few visits!) and the fact that Chris and I are both way more confident and comfortable doing weddings. We're producing some really good stuff now and I don't even feel funny saying that - I know it is and it feels good to know that. We have great tools and are making sure we're constantly researching and learning - this has paid off, along with doing more and more weddings too of course. So, I used to think wedding photography was embarrassing to do, but that was because I didn't like the traditional type of wedding photography and I didn't want to be associated with that. But there's a whole new breed of wedding photographers out there - photojournalists, a non-traditional documentary-style approach to weddings (which is what we do) - our method is capturing the day as it happens, using the photography to tell the story of the day, rather than dictate it, creating natural, relaxed, artistic photographs, yeah sure there has to be the posed shots, but we try to do these as naturally as possible as well - we're getting better at achieving this with each wedding we do. Of course, a lot is based on the subjects and how relaxed they are, which we work really hard at making sure they're as relaxed as possible. But some people just aren't comfortable (I'd be horrible!!) getting their photo taken, that's when it's really hard work for us. But I think we're doing soooooo well and getting a great name out there too, in saying that though I'm not gonna get complacent! We'll always strive to continue to improve and develop. I'm loving how I can combine my design experience with this as well, I think it gives us a point of difference in amongst the many incredibly talented wedding photojournalists out there. Hope so anyway!! We have another couple of weddings booked in and some meetings for more, which hopefully they chose us as well. It's all going so well, though the long days on your feet (11 hours for the last one!!!) when pregnant sure aint that much fun! I don't notice it at the time, it's when I stop at the end of it all that I realise how exhausted I really am. But the question is, do I enjoy doing wedding photography now? I do!

This is what we're using...
Main Camera: Canon 5D
Lenses: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, Tamron AF28-200mm f/3.8-5.6
Flash: Canon Speedlite 580EX II

Secondary Camera: Canon 350D
Lenses: Canon EF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5, Canon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6, Tamron 28-200mm f/3.8-5.6
Flash: On camera

Plus the tripods, reflectors and an assortment of filters.

Our next big purchase will be an upgrade to the secondary camera and lenses. The lenses aren't good at all, actually the Tamron is a good high range lens but the Canon ones just aren't up to the level they really should be. You sure can notice the difference between photos taken with the new lenses compared to the old ones! The clients can't though which is the main thing. What we'll ideally do is upgrade my camera (the main one) to the next one up, being the top Canon Digital SLR, the 1D and Chris will use the 5D. Then the lenses... GULP and at around $2000 per lens, this is fucking frightening!! Ah well, not something we can think of just yet anyway. We stick to the big wedding packages which includes two photographers because this is where the real money is and that's how it just about always turns out, but it doesn't always work that way. So sometimes I'm doing them myself if the clients budget doesn't allow for two. So at this stage the one main grunty delicious beast is fine, I spose. hehehe

The following are a few spreads from 12" bound storybook albums I designed after shooting the weddings, the first three are from the last wedding in mid December, the fourth is from a wedding back in February (you may remember a previous post with images from this one regarding retouching), the next is of the bride from the last wedding (my god she is an absolutely, stunningly GORGEOUS girl!). The last one is of pics of some storybook albums so you can see what I'm talking about. Really, super nice albums!! Wish we had one. Actually I wish we just had wedding photos *sob* :( My external harddrive shat itself when I got the new machine and in the process wiped itself - of everything I've ever done... all design work (even current clients), all photography work, our wedding photos (we hadn't gotten around to printing them or doing an album or anything yet), all photos of our son - his birth, everything, all software and things, all fonts, all fucking everything. I'd cleaned out the old machine in preparation for the new - everything was on the external harddrive - just the one copy. GULP. I should have known better. We all get a little too comfortable and relaxed and learn the hard way huh? FUCK IT! This is a sore, sore point for me as I'm sure you can imagine.