An example of one of my christening books

An enquiry from a prospective client today made me to realise I should have images of books I have designed on my website. Whilst there is nothing like seeing one of my books to appreciate their quality, a photo is better than a description on the phone.


To the cover of one of my christening books, these can be leather, silk or in the photo below, buckram and I can also include a debossed photo on the front cover.

A good idea for the inside front page is to include the christening invitation.

Images on pages can fill the page to leave no border.

Or a single image can be laid out with a generous border

Two images can look terrific.

It can be fun having a 'lead' image with smaller images to the left.

Smaller images can also be placed to the right of the 'lead' image.

Or the smaller images can be below the 'lead' image.

In summary, when I design my books, I consider whether images 'belong' together, their significance and if there is sufficient difference between the pages to make them visually interesting to the viewer.

photographing dance classes

I was asked if I wanted to photograph a primary school dance class - well thirteen of them actually , to be photographed on a Saturday morning at a school in inner-city Sydney over 4.5 hours. I thought of all the boring photos that I had seen of ballet classes and thought why not give it a go- I decided to make the shoot exceptional by energising the kids and lighting them beautifully.

The kids were energised by one of the parents, Zoe, whose energy levels were contagious - she really sparked up the kids.

I provided the lighting - two Elinchrom remote controlled softboxes, lights large enough to allow the kids fairly large leeway as to where they wanted to stand. Since the lights were wirelessly triggered, it was safe for me, Zoe and the kids to move around. The lights were also 'fast' enough to freeze the kids in action.

The lights were bright enough to illuminate all the kids, not just those in front.

As for the individual shots, the kids choose what they wanted and that was fine because the lights were flexible - one girl wanted to do the splits on the floor, which meant the lights had to cover her - no problem - another girl wanted to leap into the air - again, the lights could easily deal with this.

Little fairies will always be little fairies!

Or rappers!

Or posed.

Or thoughtful!

In short, with today's lights, dance photography no longer has to remain stuck in the 1970's so if you want good dance photos, drop me a line.

Thoughts behind an image promoting a Blue Mountains B&B

In Sydney it was 26 degrees and gloriously sunny and with perfect weather there was nothing stopping an ideal shoot for Bilpin Springs Lodge, a terrific self-catering hotel in Bilpin catering for families. But as we drove closer to the blue Mountains, the weather turned - 11 degrees, cars had pulled off the road to shelter under trees to hide from the hail - the nets above the apple trees in apple orchards along the road were weighed down by hail. In other words,  a typical photoshoot that always presents challenges no matter how much you plan.

The photographic brief was to photograph interior shots including two family rooms, two bathrooms and some exterior shoots so initially I focussed on interior shots such as the image below to allow the weather to improve.

Normally I avoid shots like this when photographing restaurants and hotels - I call them Marie Celeste shots - beautifully empty rooms - my reasoning is if I saw an empty restaurant I would never go in so why do restaurant and hotel websites never include people in their images? However, bathrooms and bedrooms can be devoid of people, common areas such as hotel foyers and restaurants should never be.

Finally the weather cleared so I was able to work outside- the client wanted an image of the back of the lodge to show guests there was lots of grass for kids to play on.

I could have settled for the photo below.

But it lacks life though it does show green lawns and a car nearby to placate any guest who feared they would have to walk miles from the carpark.

To inject life, my client acted as a model.

This photo adds lots of value to the brief of showing the lawns behind the lodge. It shows that the lodge is dog-friendly, that cars can be parked nearby, there are horses but they are safely behind fences and that the proprietor is friendly.

But the photos is not without flaws since it was a spontaneous image taking only minutes to set up. There is light on the horse's foreleg causing the viewer to look there and not just on the happy (i.e. friendly) proprietor. The dog is in shadow, the man's forearm is too bright, the jeans and base of the shirt are illuminated, the horse's face is a little too dark, the fence post is intrusive, there is too much emphasis on the car, there is a distracting light on the porch and worst of all, the proprietor looks a little apprehensive and this is a bad message for if the proprietor is wary of the horse, maybe it would be too dangerous for families to stay there?

So with a little bit of photoshop, the image has been enhanced and the client can guarantee increased bookings for his lodge!

Why portraiture is usually superficial

A Macedonian christening in Sydney - lots of family and friends, a peaceful and kind family gathering.

 Until  the brother-in-law flips, maybe the booze, no one really knew.

A tragic event that bounded everyone present including me, the photographer. Consequently, the commonality of experience between me and the family gave rise to portraits like this one of the godfather.

I didn't create this portrait. The circumstances did.  

I also didn't create the portrait below which was taken when the christening was still an innocent gathering.

One of her nine year old cousins took this photo - I set up and then held the camera (a 2kg beast) but that was it - so the image is about the relationship of two girls who have known each other for a lifetime.

To sum up, most images I take at family gatherings are superficial  (how can they be anything else when I know nothing of the subjects) but occasionally they have meaning. To minimise superficiality, I avoid direct portraiture and focus on the relationships between key players at the family gathering, whether it be a wedding, a christening or a funeral. Possibly my greatest insight as a photographer is to understand portraits have true beauty when they reveal character and only rarely can my relationship with the sitter be of sufficient depth to bring character to the surface.

pro bono work

It's nice to do good. The cards below have photos on them taken during an afternoon in West Bengal. If you want to buy them, they are available at Kolkata, a fair trade shop in Brighton, England.

With many images to choose from, it helped enormously to decide the six cards needed a common theme to make them greater than their individual components. So I settled on the theme of joyful play and hopefully, they will do much to raise money for Suchana (www.suchana-community.org).

wedding album design - how to determine the size and number of images on a page.

One wedding, three pages showing three layouts. 

When an image is very strong, it needs no additional images.

 But sometimes it's fun to have a record of images leading up to the large image.

In the last page, the images are weak in their composition but strong in their emotion so there is no one dominant image. The images are placed to emphasis the diagonals to lead the viewer from, for example, the bride to the groom.

Wedding photography 101

A weekend in Sydney in the late afternoon, the guests are waiting for the bride to arrive. The light is harsh and sallow.

I walk three hundred metres from the garden to the awaiting bride. This is not the time to be fussy about the light or meticulous about posing her.  All that's important is her happiness and excitement. Any problems can be dealt with after the event. Indeed, given this is the first encounter between the bride and the photographer on her wedding day, it is vital for the photographer to appear to be confident and any fiddling with camera dials will cause the bride to doubt the photographer, and that look of scepticism could contaminate every subsequent photo.

This is the photo as it was shot.

This is the photo after tweaking it.

Before you take any photos, tell her she looks wonderful - she will, but it's nice and a relief for the bride to hear it from the person who is going to record the event for posterity.