These gorgeous young sisters surprised their parents with photos as a 25th Anniversary present. So thoughtful!
I am off to Sydney for a weekend of shoots and a workshop. Then next week is The Digital Show in Melbourne – a fantastic 3 days of everything photography. I will be speaking at the Seldex stand at 1pm everyday.
A little tribute post to all the sweet and loving mama’s I have photographed so far this year. There are about five little mum’s missing from this post, as their sessions are still being processed, so I will add them over the next few days.
Hope your day has been special. Happy Mother’s Day… xo
The weather has been pretty miserable in Melbourne over the last week, so blogging photos of these darlings on a dreamy St Kilda morning has brought a little sunshine to my day. Hopefully yours too x
And then it was May. As the days roll by so quickly, I have fallen in love with my phone camera even more. Photographs help my memory, and at times when I don’t have my big camera with me, I am still able to capture fleeting moments of ‘anything’. I am also loving following along with so many photo lovers on Instagram. A fantastic free photo app for sharing and enjoying photos.
Here is some recent phoneography from my Instagram feed (angiebaxter).
Also,
The Digital Show is in Melbourne this year. Three days of exhibition, seminars, talks on all things photography, and imaging and digital entertainment! Friday, May 25 to Sunday, May 27 — Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Friday is Industry Only, and Saturday and Sunday everyone is welcome. Register online now for free entry!
You can hear my talk, “The Art of Interviewing Children”, at the Seldex Artistic Albums stand at 1pm, every day. I would love you to come along and say ‘hi’ if you can make it!
And Jazzy working out her tie yesterday morning — so gorgeous
Eating out is one of my favourite things to do with the family. We do it quite often and here are a few things I ponder on.
I am mostly disappointed with kids menus. Fish and chips, nuggets and chips, margherita pizza, and pasta with napoli sauce? Why is this the standard? If I found a restaurant that offered an awesome kids menu, we would go there often.
We like the kids to order their own meals and make eye contact with the waiter. Jasmine does. Will and Imi are usually playing or getting into mischief, so miss the moment.
I always order a bowl of chips. I really just can’t resist them. And I feel happy if they are thick cut awesome chips. And then if I’m trying to be really good I won’t order the chips and then when walking back to the car I will say, “I can’t believe I didn’t order chips!” Dave will just nod or something.
Dave often wishes he ordered what I ordered.
Everytime a restaurant hands out a special “kids activity sheet”, I always dream about creating a “kids activity sheets for restaurants” business.
I don’t enjoy Eye Spy one little bit, but will happily play other kids games at the table such as hangman. With Eye Spy, I know that if I guess their item really quickly, they will change it in their mind and say, no, that’s not it.
Anyhow, after our last dinner at St Kilda beach we watched this glorious sunset before heading home. x
Kate and Mike (so gorgeous!) were married last November at a beautiful venue on the outskirts of Melbourne. Due to heavy constant rain on the day, we decided to go back to Emu Bottom for a honeymoon session to make the best of the location!
Photos for dear friends who have been wanting a family session for so long, and we finally got around to it on a glorious autumn morning last week. Tuesday wanted simple photos that captured where they are right now, with lots of love and cuddles thrown in.
There is so much I love about this family — but mostly I think it is their “take us as you find us” attitude. The Veldhoven door is always open, love and generosity flow in abundance, and I’m very lucky to be their friend. x
Yesterday, Dave and I piled the kids into the car and took a drive up to Shepparton to visit my sweet friend and incredible photographer, Liz Arcus.
Liz is a wedding and portrait photographer, and her first two exhibitions are personal projects that are being shown until the end of April.
“a part of me – the light within” and “hear my heart”
I don’t even know where to start. I want to say — please just go! Take an easy drive (2hrs) from Melbourne, and be gifted by her work. With so much of our art consumption being viewed digitally these days, seeing it in the flesh is such a treat!
We made a fun day trip of it — lunch at Letizia’s (which is where “a part of me – the light within” is showing), ice-creams, fantastic children’s park by the river and then home again!
This is Liz – such a truly gentle and gorgeous soul. (please excuse the restaurant lighting!)
And here is her happy face in front of the ‘a part of me – the light within’ exhibition.
I adore the way Liz has approached this project and the sentiment behind it. ”A collection of documentary style images of teenagers in their bedrooms, from a diverse cultural background within the Goulburn Vallery region.” Liz wanted to celebrate teenagers and the space that they call their own — the room they decorate, listen to music in, do homework in, chat with friends in — for many, the space where they spend a lot of their time. The diversity of the teens photographed is incredible too — some who have been challenged too much already, some who have a hard journey ahead, and many who have a room just like mine was as a teenager (minus the Bon Jovi posters).
I felt such an affinity with this project. It reminded me how precious our teenage years are. Dave and I ( and the kids!) were absorbed by each individual story told in each photograph. They are photographs that you want to stand in front of, for long minutes — my favourite kind of photo!
Each person photographed then wrote about their favourite things underneath the image. The sample above is Liz’s own daughter!
And then we moved up the road to see “hear my heart”, which is a brave journey of women who have suffered or are suffering abuse. This project has been part of their recovery — follow this link for more information on Liz’s collaboration with Relationships Australia Victoria, as I feel my commentary cannot adequately do it justice. In addition to the gallery of framed images, there is a book to look through that photographically tells the story of the work these ladies went through.
These exhibitions are both so inspiring and are exhibiting until the end of April here:
We took the kids to see Taylor Swift in concert last week. This was Imogen’s first concert (of any kind — she hasn’t even done a Wiggles show), and she was so excited. On the way there she couldn’t stand still for a second. Singing, dancing, twirling and going crazy.
And then her idol came on stage and she was mesmerised. x
x
