CJ and Sandra are friends of my daughters at Hervey Bay, they were after some family portraits near the beach recently to send to family and friend for Christmas.
I had made arrangements to travel to Hervey Bay to see my daughter and to photograph an event that she was holding, so made a booking to shoot this family on the following day.
After accepting the challenge, I was informed that 3 of the seven children had minor behavioural difficulties and began wondering what I had let myself in for.
I must say the kids were all perfectly behaved and were only to ready to do anything asked of them on the day, stand here, look that way, smile, move a bit, don’t move a muscle, they did it with what really appeared to be joy in their hearts.
The light was harsh, so I opted for using it as back light for the majority of the images, using my gold reflector to add an amount of fill light in when needed.
After taking pictures of each child individually, I did the group shots, with mum and dad, without mum and dad, all the girls, all the boys.
We then headed down onto the rocky foreshore for a few fun shots with the kids, man were they up for that, I don’t 
think I was number 1 on mums christmas list however, the kids had been told in no uncertain terms that they were not going swimming, then I turn up and ask the kids if they wanted to go splash on the water a bit, a compromise was reached and all was well in the end.
A great time was had by all and I felt very privileged to have provided a quality service to CJ and Sandra.
Thank You for allowing me to produce these images for you
I recently had the opportunity photograph a Youth Dance Party held by Widebay Mobile Entertainers, these youth events are dance parties held for the under 18 age group in the Widebay (Hervey Bay) Area.
Dance parties are held at the Great Hall, Hervey Bay High School, on Beach road from 7:00pm until 11:00pm and are fully supervised by trained staff who all hold current Positve Notification Blue Cards from the Queensland Government. The events are also attended by qualified and registered security guards to ensure that those attending are safe at all times.
Widebay Mobile Entertainers also take these events to the regional areas, regularly holding and underage event in Howard, with an early session, 6:00pm – 8:00pm for those up to 12 years old and then from 8:30pm – 10:30pm for 13 years to 17 years, giving the youth in the outer area a chance to have a supervised night out.
As you can imagine a dance party with all the latest lighting effects that go with present some challenges to try and photograph. Direct flash of the people at the events is just not going to work for many reasons apart from a total loss of the feeling and ambience of the hall, so I concentrated my efforts on capturing some of the lighting effects with just a touch of bounced flash to add a small amount of fill at the end of the exposure.
Mitchel
I was approached to capture the head and shoulders portraits of the students of Glemore State High School at the annual School Awards Ceremony last week.
Of course the last thin I wanted to do was to bang away with the flash on the cmaera so I took my light stand nad umbrella with me, the school was providing a back drop to shoot against. I set up the light stand and umbrella about 1 meter in front of where I wanted the students to stand as they passed through my mini studio one after the other.
Upon initial testing I was having a lot of trouble seperating those students with dark shirts from my background so I opted to set the second flash as a back / side light just to add some separation, this worked very well and my off camera flash triggers didn’t miss a beat.
After the initial set up the night was not terribly challenging, apart from getting the students to stand in the position I wanted so as to make use of the the way I had the lights set.
Congratulations go to all of the award recipients on the evening.
The CSR – HIA Housing Kitchen and Bathroom Awards are the pinnacle of recognition for builders and cabinet makers in Australia.
This year I had the pleasure of photographing the awards ceremonies for the Mackay, Cairns and Townsville areas, along with the North Queensland Regional Awards ceremony held at the same time as the Townsville area awards.
The awards celebrate the achievements in both housing construction and kitchen and bathroom construction.
Entries are judged on a range of criteria which include things like innovation in materials and processes, energy efficiency, value for money and actual workmanship.
As with previous years the level of the entries was absolutely outstanding, with winners for the North Queensland Regional Awards coming from all areas with in the region. This year Bentec Homes took out the prestigious Home of the Year award. They were joined on the top step of the podium by CCW Cabinet Works you gained the Kitchen Project of the Year.
Congratulation to all the winners
Kelly
I had the pleasure to photograph the wedding between Kelly and Adam on Saturday 17th October 2009.
Kelly and Adam were referred to me when their plans took an unexpected and urgent change.
They had to bring their wedding forward from the dates that they had previously been planning.
The lovely bride, Kelly, made her preparations at the Leichardt Hotel, assisted by her bridesmaids, Marie and Theresa, these girls were a great help to Kelly and only too willing to anything that was asked of them. Thank you gorld from myself and I am sure that Kelly is grateful for your help as well.
From there the ceremony was held at the Slab hut in Kershaw Gardens, as we all know Saturday was not the best day due to all the fires around Rockhampton, this presented it’s own challenge to photography with all the smoke and ash, the order of the day was keep in close and avoid the use of any flash.
Adam was assisted by best man Fabian and grooms-man Stephen, casual was the order of the day for these boys. Adam in a black open collar shirt with his boys in the same style shirt in a very nice purple colour couple with beige denim jeans. These boys looked very smart whilst remaining cool on very hot day out.
The ceremony was intimate affair with close family and friends gathering to bear witness to Kelly and Adams marriage and then to join them in celebrating this joyous day.
The Whole Crew
The reception was held at the Leichardt Hotel, the room looked a real treat. A lovely two layered cake completing the formalities.
It was a great pleasure to record this event for Kelly and Adam and I wish you both all the best for your future together
I was given Joe McNally’s book, Hot Shoe Diaries – Big Light From Small Flashes, for fathers day and I have just finished reading it.
This book is a wealth of information from Joe and some of the assignments he has completed using off camera flash. The book is very well written and presented with finished photographs produced by Joe and then a text to explain how he came to achieve the desired result.
The book works through from relatively simple single flash images to a massive image achieved with 47 flashes.
Although Joe McNally uses Nikon cameras and therefore the Nikon CLS system the theory of how he achieved the images should be the same no matter which system you use.
If you are even remotely interested in off camera flash I would suggest that this book would be a great investment and even so far as a resource to help achieve similar images, I myself will be blatantly ripping off a couple of his ideas for an upcoming corporate job.
I recently was approached by a fellow photographer, Sharon Mahone, to assist her at the wedding of Danielle Jones and Joshua Smith. I accepted her offer with open arms and was so excited about the opportunity.
Upon arrival at the home of the bride we did a bit of a recci looking for the light to make the photographs something special for Danielle.
There was some terrific light streaming in through the bedroom window where the flowers were patiently waiting, in the air conditioning, to play their role. The flowers arrangements were gorgeous and with the great natural light made perfect subjects.
Present of course was the brides mum, who was radiant and obviously very much in love with here daughter and also very proud.
The brides maids, four of them, were all buzzing around making sure that Danielle did not have to want for anything on her special day.
The ceremony was held at the Botanic gardens and apart from a brief shower as the happy couple were signing the register and certificate, the weather was great.
Formal photos were at the Heritage village and then on to the Leagues club for Dinner, the room was set to a “T” with a very formal black and red theme
I would like to thank Sharon for the opportunity and Danielle and Josh for having a second photographer at their wedding, I wish you both all the best for your futures.
I feel very privileged to have been able to attend Shelton
Mullers Trash the Dress workshop on his recent visit to Rockhampton.
The day started around 2:00pm at Yeppoon and whilst waiting for the tide to recede we set about getting our model, Natasha, into some of the shallow pools that formed around the rocks being exposed along the beach. Natasha is a great model and nothing is too much trouble, as has been said many times, along with her modelling ability she is also a very good photographer and was giving instruction along the way, this at times was invaluable, she would see something that you had not quite thought about in all the hype and get us back on track. Thanks Tash.
As the tide receded Natasha moved into the shallow water with the ripples flowing in around her, as the sun was getting low this allowed for some to take advantage of slower shutter speeds to get that silky smooth water effect.
The sun went down a bit more and we moved a nice rock that was blocking the wind as Natasha was starting t get quite cold by this point. In this sheltered position we also broke out a couple of flash guns for some off camera flash fun.
Whilst I did not set this shot up, I came away with another good image. Off camera flash adds some many possibilities when your light is less that desirable, it is a technique that I will be using a lot more.
Trash the Dress is becoming more and more popular these days and I think the addition of this to the workshop schedule was very well thought out.
The sun was well and truly gone by this point and all that was left to make our way back to the carpark.
I had the opportunity for some conversation with Shelton whilst Natasha was getting changed before they had to head off to find some dinner and I am sure Tash was looking forward to nice hot shower.
These photos here are not entirely my doing as the poses were predominantly set by Shelton and Natasha, though by walking the arc I have managed a different perspective to some of them.
That concluded the workshop schedule for this visit and I would once again very much say Thank You to Natasha, you know you are a legend, and to Shelton for making the weekend not only a great learning experience but it was so much fun.
Cheers
Mark
G’day and welcome to the first entry in my new blog.
Over the weekend of 22, 23, 24 August I had the pleasure of attending the Wedding photography Workshop held by Shelton Muller here in Rockhampton.
What a fabulous weekend, the weekend starts with a presentation on the Friday night and then gets very hands on from there, covering everything from lighting to posing to off camera flash.
Being very insecure in my people photography I was very hesitant as to whether I should, or would benefit from doing this workshop, let me tell you, I am addicted, I love photographing people and having had the chance to learn from someone so passionate about the genre, and the chance to actually photograph people, has been absolutely invaluable, it truly is the best investment ever made.
This is just one of the many photographs I was able to produce during the weekend.
A fabulous model that was only too willing to do anything that was asked of her.
I really feel for the models, 8 photographers, all wanting something different at the same time and it was never too hard for them. Thanks girls