08.07.08 : Winter ...

Winter for the wedding photographer is usually a time to relax and take a break from the mad rush of weddings before and after. It's also usually a time to go on an overseas trip to somewhere warmer, take those shoes and socks off and dip your feet in cold water.

Unfortunately, it didn't pan out that way for me. For all my overt plans on a wonderful NZ trip on the back of a camper-van to take some landscape photography (I know it's cold there), I had weddings booked in June and July. A wedding in Winter!? If any couple is insane enough to have a wedding in Winter, then I'd be happy to shoot it and brave the cold and rain with them.

June was a great time for me. I managed to get my hands on an old Nikon F4 (pictured below) as I really wanted to get back into the groove of photography. Real photography where one uses film and each shot is thought out, composed and meticulously planned before taken. It's a far cry from digital photos, where you see your images straight away on the LCD screen. Digital takes away that romantic feel to it and that's the beauty of film, it feels romantic and old and it brings me back to why I love photography. Nothing is rushed, and everything is photographed on thought and feeling. Of course, I would hate to shoot a wedding in film... that would make it close to impossible to shoot for the sheer amount of photos I take throughout the day, not to mention the nervous wait to see how it'll turn out when developed! If you know me, I like to collect old film cameras and this is my third one that sits proudly on my camera bookshelf along with an assortment of old lenses that won't ever see any professional use.

Having only one wedding a month through Winter, although a most welcomed break, I tend to get bored pretty easily so I've been taking on some other photography jobs to keep me interested until my next wedding. Speaking of the next wedding, it happens to be of Mick and Allison this coming Saturday, so I'm really look forward to it. I've never photographed a Croatian/Australian wedding before and the reason why they're having a Winter wedding in Melbourne seems logical enough. That is, they want to have a Summer European honeymoon. Sounds good to me. I still think they're mad though :)

Anyway, as I was saying before I got side tracked, I've been taking on a number of 'different' jobs recently and thought I'd like to share them on this blog. All the images are watermarked and I do apologise for that, but they're for sale to media outlets elsewhere, so I don't want to be releasing these in any way that can be copied whilst selling them elsewhere.

My first shoot was to cover the Jeff Fenech versus Azumah Nelson fight. Wow, is all I can say. Shooting sports is so very different from wedding photography. It's pretty much take a zillion photos at 11FPS and then hope that you get the one good one when the punch lands, where the sweat flies off the face showing all the raw emotions of a fight. To watch and photograph a boxing match ringside is a great privilege. You get to hear the blows land, you hear the feet shuffling, you hear the team shout commands and advice from their respective corners, and you hear the muffled voices of the crowd cheering their man on. I say muffled, as the fight is so close to you that all these immediate aural pleasures take precedence over the crowd.. it's amazing. Well below are some of my favourite photos from the night.











Hey may have aged over the years, but he still looks pretty tough.









Although the boxing was my highlight of June, I also got to do some media work. Shane Warne was in Melbourne to do a promotion at the Crown Casino for his "888 Poker Competition". There were a number of celebs that night (see if you can spot who they are) ranging from the cast from the TV show "Underbelly" to footy players and models.













The following set of pics are from the ARIA Hall of Fame held last week at the Melbourne Town Hall. All the great groups and singers of Australian music were there and it was a good learning experience in Aussie rock music (most of these guys were way before my time). Rolf Harris, along with a number of others were inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was a strictly media photography shoot (so no arty photos) but exciting nonetheless. I also got to watch Tim Freedman, lead singer of The Whitlams perform live, which was great!











So where from here? The onset of August starts wedding photography at a fast pace again. I've got at least a half dozen weddings in Perth around September/October so there will be plenty flying back and forth there (I refuse to stay there, and always want to return home) and whilst there, I've got a number of engagement shoots lined up. It will be busy. Mid October will see a destination wedding in Bali which I'm looking forward to and I'm staying a few extra days to laze around whilst there. I'll be meeting this couple who are from Perth in September too, as introducing myself for the first time on the wedding day itself jut feels too weird, especially in a foreign country. I've unfortunately had to turn down a number of weddings for December (and counting!!) as I've got my overseas trip planned. Vietnam it is for the entire month! Apologies for those that requested their wedding during that month, but I didn't get my holiday June/July so December it is. I'm really looking forward to this trip, and I've been thinking about what cameras and lens combos to bring along :)

Well, I'll leave this blog at that for now. I've got a number of wedding shoots I've done that I've yet to put up as a blog and hope to do so soon. It's not so much a burden but more of finding the time to write these blogs and put them together - I'm not the best at html programming either so it takes me a long time! And hey, check out my latest camera below.. YAY!




back : blogs : next