Exhibition is up! Great Southern Art and Craft Trail
29 . September . 07
I have been down in Albany for the past few days setting up my exhibition in Dylans on the Terrace for the Great Southern Art and Craft Trail. I finished setting it up yesterday afternoon and it will be on exhibition until at least the end of October. There is a total of 14 photographs on exhibition featuring images taken along the coastlines of Western Australia. All photographs are available to purchase and I plan on putting together a website for my fine art photography in the near future. I am really happy with how the exhibition is looking, below are a few quick photos I took after finish setting it up.. hopefully I will get a few more to show in the next few days!
Alison + Peter, 23rd September 2007
25 . September . 07
Alison and Peter are my first couple to kick off this wedding season, and were married this Sunday at the very beautiful Bishop Road Reserve in Dalkeith. For a late September wedding, Alison and Peter could not have asked for better weather! It was absolutely beautiful, with bright blue skies and warm sun! Alison and Peter were a awesome couple to photograph, they were lots of fun to be around and I had a great time photographing their wedding!
The day started off at the Mont Clare Boutique Apartments in the city with Alison getting ready. I love these shots of Alison!
Peter’s reaction to seeing his bride walk down the aisle..
The trees at Bishop Road Reserve are beautiful and provide a great backdrop!
The ceremony was beautiful, with lots of laughter and giggles!
This shot was taken immediately after the lady poured rice over Alison and Peter…
Peter is the brother of a old client who’s wedding I photographed last year. Dinah and Ian had a pleasant surprise to show me! I love getting to see my old wedding clients, especially when they have a new addition to the family!
We headed over to the grounds of University of Western Australia for the location shots, first up some classic portraits of the bride and groom.
Lots of fun and laughter with the bridal party, Naomi and Kevin!
I love Alison’s expression of her face in this shot… not quiet sure what Peter is doing to result in such a reaction!! ;)
I love these two shots, especially mixed with some fine art textures!
I am always a fan of trying to get the ring shot as candid as possible..
After we finished up at UWA we headed off to the Marmion Angling and Aquatic Club where the reception was being held.
The MAAC is situation right on the beach and is a great spot.. we had a few minutes to spare before the grand entrance so we headed down to the beach for a few shots, it was so sunny and glarey we couldn’t get a shot without some serious eye squinting so instead we had some fun with the shadows!
My photography featured in Australian Bride Magazine!!
25 . September . 07
Earlier this year, my sister Kelly got married at the beautiful Rocks down in Albany. Australian Bride magazine decided to feature Kelly and Nathan’s wedding in their latest issue… could you guess how excited Arlene and I were when we found out our photos were going to be published?? Well after much anticipation, the magazine finally arrived in the post today.. and poor Arlene who is overseas for another month will have to wait until she gets home to see the magazine! At least she can see on the images below!! =) You can click on the images and they will take you to a slightly larger version if you want to read the text!
My 101 List
21 . September . 07
Today I finally finished completed my 101 list - it has been a work in progress over the last couple of weeks and it was far more harder to finish than I would have ever imagined! After returning from London from at the beginning of the year and making the transition from being employed to self employed, I have gone through a interesting change in my personal life. Photography has always been my biggest passion and dream job and I am very fortunate and lucky enough to have photography as my career, however over the past few months I have come to the realization that I now need some other stuff going on in my life as for the past seven years I have devoted my life to my photography and setting up my career. Now that my career is in full swing and everything in my business is going really well, it is now time to have some fun and spend some time working out what else I want out of life. So here it is, my 101 things I want to do before I die, but hopefully I will achieve them before I am 30! (some things will have to wait until I am 40 though, like #97, I dont plan on having 3 kids by the time I am 30!!). As a little added incentive for me to achieve the things on the list, I have added this list on a separate page on my blog so I can check off items as I achieve them!
1. To travel to twenty different countries before I am 30 (6 to go!)
2. To update my blog everyday for a month
3. Learn Yoga
4. To learn a second language (preferably Mandarin)
5. Buy my own house and then spend time making it into exactly what I want
6. To go to the gym at least four times a week for four weeks
7. Make a photo book of my travel photography
8. To get my Advanced Open Water Scuba Diving Certificate
9. Get a dog
10. Learn to listen better
11. To travel to Japan again
12. To learn how to ride a motorbike
13. Swim with a dolphin
14. Learn how to complain effectively
15. Volunteer for a good cause
16. To put my photography and others up on my walls at home
17. To learn a instrument
18. To photograph someone famous and to be paid for it!
19. Be debt free
20. Win an award
21. To fly first class
22. Throw a dart on a map and go to where it lands
23. Send a message in a bottle
24. To do a massage course
25. Legally change my name
26. Drive across America in a convertible
27. To take a self portrait on my birthday every year
28. Teach a course part-time
29. To ride on a gondola in Venice
30. To laugh until I cry
31. Listen to the Dalia Lama speak
32. Have my own vegetable garden
33. To own my own studio / office space
34. To drive around Australia
35. To photograph a destination wedding
36. Learn to ski or snowboard
37. To be a mother
38. To get married
39. To mentor a young photographer
40. Witness a miracle
41. To experience what no gravity feels like
42. To smile more
43. To camp on a beach again
44. To travel to another country by myself
45. Skydive
46. To take my parents out for dinner at a really nice restaurant
47. Accept myself for who I am
48. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it
49. Understand the stock market
50. To not complain once for 21 days
51. Give blood
52. Spend three months getting my body into optimum shape
53. To write a to-do list each night and achieve everything on it the next day for a month
54. To own a digital medium format camera
55. To read at least 50 books a year
Books I have read so far:
- The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris (I highly recommend this book to anyone who is self employed or wanting to be in the near future)
- Dr Gillian McKeith’s Ultimate Health Plan by Dr Gillian McKeith
- Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
56. Go skinny-dipping at midnight
57. Go up in a hot-air balloon
58. Go dancing in the pouring rain
59. Run 10km
60. To get a tattoo
61. To live my life caffeine free
62. Get a Master’s degree
63. To travel to the USA for WPPI
64. Earn, save, and invest enough money to retire comfortably by age 55
65. To not talk for a entire day
66. To teach photography to high school kids
67. Build my own home and have it exactly how I want it
68. Get acupuncture
69. Engage in a large food fight
70. Surprise someone
71. Learn how to draw
72. Be able to do the splits
73. Be a bridesmaid
74. To have a photograph by Max Pam on my wall
75. To have a photograph by Richard Avedon on my wall
76. Read one book per month for six months to benefit my business
77. To inspire someone to become a photographer
78. Stop caring what others think
79. Save someones life
80. To make a snowman
81. Adopt a child
82. To get to my target weight
83. Watch no TV for a week
84. To meet my photography idols
85. To have an exhibition of my work every year
86. Befriend an enemy
87. Give something that is important to me to another person
88. To go rock climbing
89. Make dinner for my whole family
90. To have one of my photos in the National Portrait Gallery
91. To have an exhibition overseas
92. Do the Trans Siberian train journey
93. Volunteer for a good cause overseas
94. Sleep under the stars
95. To go to musical festival overseas
96. Go to Antarctica
97. To have 3 kids
98. To live overseas with my children for a year
99. To learn more about Buddhism
100 .To become a master of photography
101. Become a vegan
Back in Perth, but not for too long!
21 . September . 07
I am now back in Perth, well at least for a couple of days!! I am off again next week, heading down to Albany on Wednesday to setup my exhibition for the Great Southern Art and Craft Trail, which is taking place down in the Albany / Denmark region over the next month.
The AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photographers) Fuji Breakaway which was down in Dunsborough at Bunker Bay this week was awesome and I had a fantastic time! I had such a great time meeting other photographers and of course learning from the great duo, Montalbetti + Campbell, who are the Australian Professional Photographers of the year. Their work is amazing and inspiring to look at, but what I enjoyed most about listening to Dennis and Gay speak was hearing about the external influences from their personal lives that goes into their photographic work. They suggested to all of us that we should watch a documentary called Earthlings (you can watch it hear on youtube) which is about humans dependency on animals. I watched it first thing this morning and the documentary has profoundly changed my views upon the world, it has greatly opened my eyes up to an issue that most people choose to pretend is not happening in the world. The footage I watched will forever be imbeded inside my mind and I doubt I will ever eat meat again.
Wedding season officially starts for me this Sunday with Alison and Peter’s wedding on the Dalkeith foreshore. I have so many awesome clients this season, I can’t wait for their weddings! If you are going to book in for the engagement session I would highly recommened booking in a time slot soon if you want to do it on a Saturday / Sunday as my weekends are going to be extremly busy once November starts!
The below image was taken in Geraldton - it is part of series on sandunes that is in my exhibition. Hope you all have a great weekend! xox
Out of the office!
18 . September . 07
I will be out of the office until Friday as I will be spending the next few days down at Bunker Bay for the Australian Institute of Professional Photography Getaway! I will probably not be able to access my email while I am away so please expect a reply on Friday. If it is urgent please call my mobile and I will try to return your call as soon as possible! Have a great week!
michaelia + alwin - wedding slideshow!
11 . September . 07
Click on the above image to look at Michaelia and Alwin slideshow - a new way I will be showing clients weddings on my blog! Let me know what you think of the new style!
Maxie’s 4th Birthday Party!
10 . September . 07
Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day with Maxie celebrating his fourth birthday! A bouncy castle was setup in the backyard and there were heaps of kids running around hyped on sugar! Mick and I bought Max a Docker’s football jumper which you can see him wearing in a few photos.. Max is an absolute footy nut! He has over 15 different footy jumpers but he does not seem to have much loyalty to one team though!! (His dad or his grandpa might think otherwise though! ;) His birthday cake was of a St Kilda jumper, and his is wearing a Eagles jumper and the Docker jumper throughout the day… I think he changed into another jumper before I left!!
Portrait of Samm
10 . September . 07
Last week when I was doing the fashion shoot with my sister, Renee and my photo buddy Arlene, we decided it would be fun if I dressed up too and had some photos taken, we had not done this since uni does and it was definately a lot of fun, however I decided I like being behind the camera much more than I do in front of it!!!! Though I lovee this shot of me that Arlene took.
Photoshoot with Renee and Arlene
7 . September . 07
My sister, Renee Blake, studies fashion at Tafe. She is in her final year and has just finished her couture pieces. She is currently putting together her look book and asked if I would be keen to shoot some photos for her. I was definitely keen and called on my dear friend, Arlene Bax, to do the lovely modelling. Arlene and I studied photography at Edith Cowan University together (we also went to high school together), she would always gracefully accept to be my model in whatever crazy ideas I came up with for assignments! Anyway she was a perfect model for Renee’s outfits and we got some awesome shots. The above are two of my favourites. A lot to come soon!
Exhibition - Great Southern Art and Craft Trail
7 . September . 07
This photograph is part of the exhibition I have in Albany starting at the end of September. The exhibition is part of the Great Southern Art and Craft Trail. The booklet has just been released so if you see it, grab a copy, pack your bags and head down to Albany for the weekend to check out my photography up in Dylans on the Terrace! (Oh and check out the other 60 artists exhibiting their work throughout the Great Southern over the next few months).
8 things you dont know about me
7 . September . 07
I have been tagged by Scarlett for a blogging game. i have to share 8 fun facts about myself and then make 8 others do the same. find out about me and then go the the next 8 victims to see what they have to say!
1. i love love love being a photographer. I can’t imagine doing anything else for a career. I love my job and love the lifestyle it offers me.
2. Last year, I traveled around the world with my boyfriend. We traveled through Singapore, Thailand, China, India, England, Wales, Scotland, France, The Netherlands and the USA. My favourite place was New York. We were living in London for a bit but I missed my photography business so much, we decided to come home and now cannot be happier!
3. i am a perfectionist.
4. If I did not end up being a photographer, I would have been a graphic designer. Though growing up I always wanted to be a interior designer. I always always destined for a creative job =)
5. I was born in Kojonup and lived there until I was four years old, I then moved to Albany where I lived until I was 17 and then moved to Perth to study at university.
6. I went on a student exchange to Japan when I was 12 years old.
7. I am already planning my next overseas adventure. I am planning on heading back to Japan and also to travel throughout South East Asia more. I am just trying to find a four week period where I have no weddings booked which is proving to be a difficult task =)
8. I love dogs, I cant have one at the moment because my place in South Perth is too small. Hopefully I can get a puppy next year when I buy my own place.. hopefully she (I have already decided it will be a girl) will be able to come to the studio and hang out with me at work each day…
the victims:
Sarah Perfrement
Okay thats all the people who I know have not been tagged already… so if you have not been tagged yet, this is a virtual tag to you and consider yourself tagged!!
xoxox
samm
