Wedding Photography

My good friend from New Zealand & her  fiance are getting married next year in beautiful Queenstown, New Zealand. Last night I received a message that they would like me to be their photographer. What an honour! I've never photographed a wedding before but I am very excited to be a part of their special day. Now I am hunting for inspiration and ideas. Wedding photography comes in all forms & I believe some of the best wedding photos come out of spontanius moments - a sneaky kiss, a quiet chat between mother & bride or Grandpa Jo busting a move on the dance floor.

I love the idea of something unique and different for a wedding photo and using natural light really appeals to me. On the wedding photography hunt I found W. Scott Chester's photography through New York blogger Joanna Goddard & her own wedding photos were taken by Max Wanger . The thing I love most about these photographers is the vividness of the colours and the cute & fun props they use throughout the shoots.

 

photo courtesy of Max Wagner

 

photo courtesy of W. Scott Chester

 

Juxtaposition

sweets & sweet shoes

I spent the afternoon oogling and the things I love most: cakes & sweet shoes

The Satorialist

If you're anything like me and you're always gandering at street fashion when you're out and about, you'll love The Satorialist . For four years Scott Schuman has given his readers a daily fix of stylish street folk in Milan, New York, Paris & beyond.  In the middle of this year Schumann went from blog to print releasing a book version of his online photo journal. His non pretentious, easy going, polished & relaxed photography makes his blog and now his book  even more pleasant to click or flick through. 

Photo courtesy of Scott Schumann from The Satorialist

Hello!

I bought a camera card for myself...just so i can play with the insy binsy pink camera

cute camera cards

I recently went to buy a birthday card for my brother (also an avid photographer) and found these little doozies. They're by subarashi designs in Melbourne & I bought this one at Readings bookshop. The cameras can be detached & they even have viewmaster style slides inside!  Love love love it. 

A green horse

I was walking down the street today

when I heard a loud and boisterous "neeeeeeiiighhhh"

I turned around

And to my surprise

A green horse was staring at me, right in the eyes

an ode to chocolate

Chocolate consumption = heaven!

 

retro-new school

photo courtesy of Olympus America 

I'm in love with the design of retro cameras. 50 years ago Olympus launched a stylish and compact film camera with interchangeable lenses for those on the go. This year they re-launched the Olympus PEN for the digital age keeping with the cute old school design.

Panasonic have also combined this funky old school style with digital technology to give us the Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1. Now call me a big girl but I think I like the Panasonic better as it goes with all my outfits...but seriously these babies are compact enough for your handbag (or man bag if you're of the fairer sex) & have interchangable lenses to give you more creative freedom. The upside to the Panasonic is you can use the built in flash provided or attach a fancier one instead.

The only blunder is they're rather expensive for such a teeny camera-almost the same price as a digital SLR. But if I had money to burn I would buy this little piece of camera genius and have it in my pocket for occasions where I can't carry my SLR with me.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1 

photo courtesy of Panasonic

Paris Daily Photo

I've always been slightly obsessed with the idea of living in Paris. I've read enough novels about young 20-30 something girls moving to the city of love & lights that I could sink le batau. So when I discovered the blog Paris Daily Photo I was estatic that I could take a little trip to paris via my computer every day without spending a euro. Spontaneous observations of city life is one of my favorite types of photography.

photo courtesy of Eric Tenin from Paris Daily Photo

Médecins Sans Frontières

One of the best things about being a photographer is being able to meet people that you wouldn't normally get to meet or attend events that you usually wouldn't get to experience.

As part of a university project my classmates and I are putting together a multimedia story about the Refugee Camp in the City event which is taking place in Melbourne right now. It was my job to take pictures and conduct interviews. Doctors Without Borders do some fantastic work and it was a definite eye opener to see what life is like for the 15.2 million refugees and the 26 million internally displaced persons around the world. 

Here are some images from todays excursion:

Magazine Rack

I am a lover of magazines. I always have been since I first laid my eyes on Smash Hits, TV Hits, Dolly and Girlfriend at the teeny age of 13. Posters of pop stars & fashion shoots were the main attraction to these teen magazines. Now I read all sorts, from Frankie to Vogue to Conde Nast Traveler to National Geographic to Purple or copies of Elle that my sister sends over from the UK. I could spend hours flicking through the pages of these glossy purse friendly books oohing and ahhing over the photographs which is why the magazine stand is today's photo. 

I created this warped effect by decreasing the shutter speed to 1/13th then zooming in and out with my lens while holding the shutter release button down. Then I added a slight pinky tinge later on.

Movie Stills

Being a poor student I have to get my magazine fix from the library. An article in last year's French Elle had some beautiful stills of Coco Avant Chanel.I'm a lover of photography but also a lover of film so what happens when you merge those two loves together? Movie photography! Behind the scenes stills on a movie set give you an insight into the creative and the techincal process of film making. Number one films that I could watch over and over again:

Amelie, Marie Antoinette & Lost in Translation.

How gorgeous is this shot of director Sofia Copolla amongst the 18th century Parisian party goers?

Marie Antoinette photos from IGN

 or these shots from November 2008 issue of French Elle? Beautiful non?!

 

Read this article on the role of the movie photographer

Bokeh 暈け

What is Bokeh I hear you ask? Bokeh comes from the Japanese word "boke" 暈け which means "blurr" or "haze". You know how you put something out of focus and circles appear? That's Bokeh. Still not getting it? Maybe a photo could help explain...

I like this effect very much. It gives images a sort of dream like quality. The best Bokeh comes from something sparkley like this dress

There's a group for anything on flickr so have a look at the extreme Bokeh group for inspiration or for pure enjoyment : )

Side note: While researching for this blog post I came across this Bokeh project. It looks so cool so I want to try it. Stay tuned for results!

Photo albums

I've had a couple of family visits lately and it got me thinking about family photos. Family albums are becoming a thing of the past; flicking through that big old book of memories is now being replaced with clicking through our flickr/facebook or picassa page. What will become of the photo album? Will we rely so heavily on digital that our memories are in the hands of technology? I hope the family album won't disappear as there's nothing more relaxing and entertaining than sitting around flicking through the years that once were... Something deep to think about over a cup of tea...but for now here's a picture of my family circa 1983.