Samm Blake Photographer - Blog - Fine Art Documentary Wedding Potraiture Photographer, Perth, Western Australia

Wedding season has officially come to an end! I shot my last two weddings on the weekend and now have the next seven weekends off! Yay! As winter starts creeping in, work settles down a bit, but not too much, I have lots of projects to keep me busy… new sample books and albums, working on client albums, trip to Brisbane and best of all a few weeks in the USA!

Im finally catching up on all my weddings and plan to have everything finished by the time I head over to Brisbane. To give my clients an update..

Christiane and Christoph - Finishing stages

Lorna and Michael - Finishing stages

Renae and Ben - editing

Merrin and Les - editing

Amie and Anthony - editing

Julie and Gary

Katy and Evan

Courtney and Matt

All I can say is… wow! =)

These little books are the latest edition to  my range of products on offer. They come in brown, red and black and they fit 24 photographs at 5″ x 3.5″. They are available for $280. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing one! They are great for presents for parents or for parents to have as a little parent album! =)

My inbox is clean!!!

Woo!!

I had over 100 emails in there this morning, its such a great feeling getting through them all! Wonder how long it can be kept clean for? hmm, probably only a day!

Fleur + Matt’s Wedding and Kellie and Todd’s Wedding are all finished and ready for viewing! Both weddings were over the Easter long weekend, both were fabulous! If you are a family member or friend, please head over to the slideshow galleries located at http://www.sammblake.com/slideshows
The passwords are the groom’s surname!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!

A few weeks back I put up a post asking who all of you are. 30 of you left me a comment (thanks to all who left a comment you totally made my week!) and all who left a comment were in the running for a $20 iTunes voucher! I had a hard time deciding who should win so Ive come to the decision it can be the first person who left a comment which turns out to be ‘Carlien’ - she goes to my old high school down in Albany!  So congatulations Carlien, please email me so I can give you the voucher!

Wedding season is almost coming to an end, only two more weddings until July. I am looking forward to winter so I can catch up on my work and blog some more!

To give my clients a progress report on the editing:

Sascha and Nick - Completed

Sat and Kuldeep - Completed

Janelle and Steve - Completed

Fleur and Matt - In progress

Kellie and Todd - Next!

Laura and Dan

Krish and Paul

Christiane and Christoph

Lorna and Michael

Renae and Ben

Merrin and Les

Amie and Anthony

Julie and Gary

I am also very behind in emails, thanks for your patience while I catch up! =)

I have just started editing Fleur and Matt’s wedding. All I can say these guys are way too awesome and too cool for their own good.

These are some shots we took quickly of Matt and his gang before heading off to photograph the girls getting ready. If you think these are great, wait til you see Fleur, her amazing dress and details!

more comin soon!

more to come soon!

Where have the last two weeks gone? Last time I posted a blog entry was over two weeks ago! arhh!

The past two weeks have been flat out photographing so many different things! My cameras have taken approximately 30,000 images in last fourteen days! 4 weddings, 3 portrait shoots, 1 corporate shoot, 2 days out on location shooting for a big advertising campaign.. all this work has left me with about two days in the office over the last few weeks so if I am a little late in replying to emails, returning phone calls, getting proofs up, thanks for your patience everyone!

I am seriously behind in blog posts! I have 25 weddings to blog! I only have three weddings to go before the end of wedding season so I will hopefully have a lot more time to catch up! However I promise I will blog a wedding tomorrow! =)

I will also have my office manager starting in May!  Yipppie! Instead of hiring just one, I have decided to hire two fabulously awesome girls to help me out in the office each with different tasks and responsibilities.. I will be introducing these two girls over the next few weeks..

So many exciting things have been happening lately.. the biggest most exciting thing is that I am heading over to San Fransisco in August for a photography workshop, I get to meet and hang out with two of my most favorite photographers, Jesh de Rox and Jose Villa for a few days, how cool! I am also heading back over to the USA in February 2009 for a big photography convention in Vegas! I will be away from the 9th February - 15th March 2009. I will not be accepting any wedding commissions during this time!

As I am now doing more advertising work, I have decided to cut back my wedding commissions to balance out the work, therefore I will only be accepting only 7 more bookings for the 2008/2009 wedding season, so if you would like to book me for your wedding during July 2008 - June 2009 please contact me as soon as possible.

I am also in the process of been rebranded, I am having my whole look overhauled and getting a fabulous upgrade, new stationary, business cards, boxes, paper, envelopes, everything! Its going to look fantasitc!!!!

I am also working with the fabulous Brock Martin at Infinet Designs over in the USA to custom design me a blog! Things are going to be changing big time round here round August time =)

Here are some of my favourites from the pre wedding portrait session I did with Christiane and Christoph last week. These two are getting married on the beach this Thursday.

I love how the wind is playing in her hair :) I really connect with these photos. They make me have butterflies in my belly.

Looking forward to Thursday guys!

I meet Heather and Cameron in February after Heather enquired about getting some maternity shots done, we did those in the middle of February (yet to be blogged!) and a few weeks later Ameera popped out! A little over a week ago Heather and Cameron bought in their new bub into the studio to be photographed. Ameera was not really in the mood to be photographed, and as the session was coming to the end, I felt like I had not got enough photos! However after looking at the photos and editing them I think they turned out great!

I think this is a fabulous way of displaying multiple images from a portrait shoot or wedding - I am going to be doing up a sample for my studio soon.

Ameera’s great grandmother knitted her this blanket!

.

One without the beanie on =)

Amie and Anthony are getting married in a fortnight! This week we met up to chat about the day and also do the pre wedding portrait session… I am super excited to photograph their wedding, it sounds like it will be lots of fun and the photos are going to turn out awesome if these are anything to go by! Cant wait guys! =)

Who are you?

Each day, every day, over 300 of you visit this little blog {some days are extra special and over 1000+ visit me} and me being the curious person I am, want to know who all of you are.As a incentive for you to leave me a comment, I am going to give away a $20AUD iTunes voucher to one lucky person. So blog stalkers come out and leave me a comment, or two. Comments completely make my day! Even my week!

So tell me a little bit about yourself… who are you? where are you from? how long have you been visiting? are you a client, a friend of a client, a photographer, are you my friend, are you my mother? I know she checks in a regular basis! hehe =) What do you want to see more of on this blog, more wedding photos? more travel photos, more of me or more portrait photos? Everyone please leave a comment and this time next week I will announce the lucky winner of the itunes gift card!

Happy Thursday!

happy easter everyone!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic break! I shot two fabulous weddings on Saturday and Sunday and today I had the pleasure of having a day off so Micki and I jumped in the car and went on a road trip up to York. I never seem to get around to taking images for myself anymore, so today I bought my camera along and had a bit more of a play around with my 45mm tilt shift lens.

and this is one micki took of me as we hanged out along the river bank.

Last week I received notification that I got a placing in the Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA) top 100 photographers for 2007! I am the only Australian that made it onto the list! =) There is twenty other photographers who also share the same amount of points as me, so I not sure exactly what number I fit in it, but I think we all share placing of the 39 mark. Not bad at all! =)

Today I was notified that I have recieved my full Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP) membership! I have been a emerging member for the last year and decided this year to finally go for a portfolio review and obtain full membership! This now means I can use the AIPP logo in my advertising, yay!

At the beginning of this week, I had over a 100 emails that needed to be reponded to, I now have that down to 0! It seemed like an impossible task, but its been done! (The last 5 hours this evening have been spent on the couch typing like crazy) yippie! Thanks for all your patience in waiting for my emails =)

To give my clients an update on my editing and to know where you are in the queue:

Monique and Oliver - Finished

Cher and David - Finished (as of today!)

Sara and Tim - next week

Angie and Shaun - next week

Sascha and Nick - ready in approx two weeks

Sat and Kuldeep - ready in approx two weeks

Janelle and Steve - ready in approx three weeks

Shannon and Neils - ready in approx four weeks

Interviewing is going to begin next week for the fabulous office manager position I have available on the moment. Incase you did not see it ealier, here is the post again, if you get a CV into me over the Easter break you will be considered =)

SEEKING FABULOUS OFFICE MANAGER / PERSONAL ASSISTANT

 I had a booth at the Bridal Fair this weekend.. I was very happy with the way my booth looked, much time and effort went in to creating the walls!

Much thanks needs to go to my dad and mum, my boyfriend Michael, my two sisters Kelly and Renee and also Sarah Perfrement and a bunch of others who also helped. You are all wonderful! xo

Come see me at the Bridal Fair this weekend at the Convention Centre!! xoox

I won!!!! WOOOHOO!

First up, this has been a totally awesome week… I got into work this morning and opened up my email and find out I got first place in the kids category of the Wedding Photojournalist Association!!! The photo was taken at Amy and Craig’s wedding in December. The shot is of Amy’s little sister looking at Amy’s ring. It was a totally beautiful moment. The Wedding Photojournalist Association is a international association promoting photojournalism at weddings.. many of the worlds best photographers are members and enter these competitions. It is a complete honour to get a placing, yet alone first place! I now get to have a blue medallion next to my name on the WPJA website and score an awesome camera bag =)

and on Wednesday night, I went to the Bridal Options magazine launch at the Bluewater Grill. They had a raffle going on the night and managed to win the grand prize, a beautiful pearl necklace set in white gold and diamonds! Its really beautiful! Many thanks can go to Charles Edward Jewellers for donating the prize! I will post a photo next week along with some photos of the new bridal options magazine, I have a nice big advertisement in it this year, two feature weddings - Michaelia + Alwins wedding and Sharee + Mick’s wedding! Also I have a few photos scattered through the magazine, one from Mikala and Scott’s wedding, Catie and Lindsay’s and from Amy and Craig’s which is the image below of Amy’s sister =)

have a good weekend everyone!!

One from Sascha and Nicks wedding on Monday!

Love this photo I took on Tuesday at Sat and Kuldeep’s wedding!! We were down at the Wool Stores in Fremantle which is a popular skateboarding spot. I have been waiting to do wedding photos here for awhile and was super glad Sat and Kuldeep were up for some nice grungy walls =)

I have had the honour of photographing 13 amazing weddings in the past two months. All have been so unique and beautiful weddings and I have captured some truly beautiful moments and makes me think of how lucky I am I get to do this for work. Editing all these weddings however has been a bit of a mission.. I really need more hours in my days, or a extra set of arms! However soon I will have a extra set when I take on a office manager in the next month (btw thanks to all who has applied, I will be contacting you in the next few weeks for interviews.. you all sound so good, so it will definitely be hard to choose someone! I am still accepting applicants so if you are interested in working for me, scroll down a post or two to find out more).

Anyway get back to the weddings… getting images ready for my blog takes awhile to do, so my apologies to anyone who I have not posted yet, I do love you! I really do. I am just trying my hardest getting all these weddings edited as soon as possible =) January weddings are now all finished..

Emily and Craig

Hayley and Jon

Anna and Jay

Megan and Craig

Jennifer and Andre

Mikala and Scott

Nancy and Greg

So if you are family member or friend of a January bride and groom head over to my slideshow site to see their photos. If you can’t work out the password contact the bride and groom or alternatively contact me =)

and I have started on February weddings…

Monique and Oliver

Cher and David

Sara and Tim

Angie and Shaun

I am off down to Busselton tomorrow morning for Sascha and Nick’s wedding:

and back up on Tuesday for Sat and Kuldeep’s wedding!

and to give you guys a taste of what is to come..

Kim and Peter - 29th December 2007

Cara and Brent - 30th December 2007

Emily and Craig - 5th January 2008

Hayley and Jon - 6th January 2008

Anna and Jay - 11th January 2008

Megan and Craig - 12th January 2008

Jennifer and Andre - 18th January 2008

Mikala and Scott - 19th January 2008

Nancy and Greg - 25th January 2008

Monique and Oliver’s wedding - 2nd February 2008

Cher and David - 9th February 2008

Sara and Tim - 16th February 2008

Angie and Shaun - 23rd February 2008

I am so excited to be photographing Kuldeep and Sat’s wedding this Tuesday… we have got some awesome spots picked out for photos! Early this evening I photographed Kuldeep and Sat for their engagement session as a warm up for their wedding this Tuesday. I was very excited from the photos we got at the shoot I came straight back to the office and have been editing them all evening.. today is my first Saturday I have had off in ages.. and I spent the night on my computer.. good thing I love my job!! =) I just want to say I have such awesome clients… I love when my clients give me full creative control and trust me enough when I ask them to climb through things, stand near random old walls and sit on not very clean ground.. sometimes I get a few weird looks when I ask them to do something but more often than not, the results speak for themselves! =)

We started the shoot off by wandering around the west end of Fremantle..

Today’s mission was to photograph in all new locations… I found some pretty cool new places.

Slightly Jesh inspired ;)

Finally have mastered my 45mm Tilt Shift Lens… its beautiful.

Freo has so many awesome spots.

I love Kuldeep’s sunnies =)

We did take a walk past my favorite car park in the whole wide world…

I found this new awesome spot last week… its my new secret spot ;)

After spending an hour of so in the West End we jumped in our cars and headed up to the old wooden bridge up near the Left Bank Pub..

The light was beautiful this evening.

I’ve been tagged and the rules of the game are to answer the questions, tag 5 other people, post their name then leave them a message on their blog letting them know that they have been tagged and so forth.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
10 year ago I was 15 years old.. I was in year 10 attending Albany Senior High School. It was about that time I started to really get into photography and started publishing photos online… did you know I have had a blog for over ten years? (lots of random ones) I made my first one way back in 1997, way before blogs were even cool. even before the internet was cool! hahaa. If you search the internet hard enough you can find some old stuff of mine on here still floating about.. when I was 16 I used to have a website called www.insert.nu which was a online photography collective where I would feature emerging photographers from around the world.

2.Things On My To Do list
1. Start my new year resolution by going back to the gym…
2. Finish designing my fine art photography website
3. Catch up editing all my weddings (6 to go!)
4. Get my blog custom designed!
5. Catch up on office work
6. Hire a assistant to help me out at work

3. Bad Habits
1. Drinking too much diet coke!
2. Not cooking dinner, or breakfast for that matter. I am never home!
3. I dont wash my clothes until there is nothing left to wear (I am never home to wash em!)

4. Places I have Lived
1. Kojonup, Western Australia
2. Albany, Western Australia
3. Perth, Western Australia
4. London, UK

5. Things Most People Don’t Know About Me
1. I am 25 years old this year!
2. I am a net geek. and i LOVE my new mac’s.
3. I am a perfectionist.
4. I have a thing for birds.

I tag……
Susan Yee
Arlene Bax
Kirsty @ Aksent
Jenn @ Anna Rose
Sarah Perfrement

I am seeking a fabulous office manager / personal assistant to help me with the day to day runnings of my business. Business is booming and it finally the time for me to have someone help me out and help me free up my life..

Must Haves:

great organizational skills
photoshop skills (I will train the right person if PS skills are not strong)
Experience in MYOB
excellent phone manner
good work ethic
fun to be around =)
1 year commitment

start date:  as soon as possible
15 - 20 hours a week with possibility to going to fulltime later down the track
very flexible schedule
Would suit photography student studying at university / tafe or possibly a stay at home mum looking for part time work, or anyone who really wants to work for a boutique photography studio (weddings, portraiture, fashion, commercial work) in a totally rad building in Fremantle.

please submit resume to mail@sammblake.com. I will be accepting applications until 15th March 2008.

Jennifer and James were married at Darlington Estate Winery up in the hills.. it was a beautiful day! =)

Ceremony and Reception: Darlington Estate Winery

Dress: Galleria Couture

Jennifer’s beautiful shoes and engagement ring:

Jennifer’s father and her niece waiting to get ready and Andrea Green from Perth Bridal Hair and Make-up doing Jennifer’s hair.

Jennifer and her father, Colin, arriving at Darlington Estate Winery:

Ava trying to open the door for Jennifer - too cute!!

Beautiful ceremony

One of my favorites from the day:

I love the look on both of James and Jennifer’s faces in both these shots, both full of emotion =)

Love this shot too:

Some formals:

Ring shot!

Last week I had to take some photos of my office for an magazine my business is being featured in.. I was in a bit of a rush when I took these as I was about to miss the deadline.. I have been being meaning to post some photos of my new office for a long time now.. so here you go!

My work desk where I spend the majority of my days editing all the cool weddings, portraiture and other work I shoot. My new Mac’s arrived yesterday so the layout of my desks are a little different now.. there are now four computers in here and things are a little crowded!

My client meeting area! Im about to get a rear projection screen thingy in soon too which will project onto the wall on the left hand side under the stair case. That flower sculpture is now gone, thinking about putting a bookself there to house my display albums!

These were the before photos during the painting stage… the big wall got painted a coffee / grey colour.

And this is the first post from my new macpro - its very speedy. I LOVE IT.