Family love

Last month I covered a good friend of mines Pop's birthday brunch. It was such a beautiful affair held at the Auckland Botanic Gardens; full of family, love and laughter to celebrate an amazing person. The respect and adoration the family had for "Pop" was so evident, at times I felt I had no right being there as I leaned forward to capture that special private moment. I almost felt like I was intruding, and stepped back to leave the moment to continue. The morning was beautifully planned right down to the cake which was a crossword (this is what Pop loved to spend his time doing) in which all the clues spelled out words describing him. Pop was then able to do the crossword with an icing pen before cutting - such detail! It ended in a train ride tour for the gardens for the entire family. I felt honored to be asked to capture the love the family have for Pop in a story of the morning.

She loves plums

I love capturing what's happening, seeing the beauty in the world around us.

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.