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
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
And there it is, another month behind us. This week I am redefining my ‘focus points’. With only so many hours in the day, and with those days passing quickly, I want to make sure my energies are spent wisely. When I look at the bigger picture clearly, I need to ensure any projects I am working on are feeding into the bigger plan. I feel so refreshed when I choose to let go of time-wasting tasks.
With this in mind, my exercise strategy has changed as well. Usually I would go to the gym, at random times to do random workouts. Mostly I would just mooch about working up a mild sweat. I changed that drastically this month and am now looking for bang for buck. With only ‘x’ number of hours available to exercise in a week, I want them to be high calorie burning, strength building workouts. Welcome high intensity cardio and strength training to the point of making embarrassing ‘working-out’ noises.
And… some photos from February.
We visited my brother and sister-in-law and had a picnic. We were at the park for hours, and Imogen wore her helmet the whole time? I find this very funny.
Then the kids rocked out with my brother in the garage.
We went for a drive down the coast.
The kids swam.
Will made dinner all by himself. Crumbed Zucchini and Eggplant Fritters, and Pasta with Tomato and Garlic Sauce.
While Will cooked, Imogen drew a picture of Tango Baxter – we don’t know who that is.
Hello Internet friends… so, I said I wouldn’t cry. Hmmm… sniff sniff. Well, I did cry (sob) and then it passed and I went out to lunch with my girlfriends and drank wine and all was right with the world again.
The big girl has started grade 5 at a new school and the baby girl has started prep. Poor old Will has been overshadowed by his sisters — but we all can’t have our important moments at the same time, and he’s taken it just fine.
In a lot of ways I have marked the start of the school year as the beginning of the year – so Happy New Year. For the last two years (or so), Dave has been a stay at home dad as my business was just getting to a point of ‘busyness’ that something had to give, and we didn’t want it to be the kids. So he has been home, helping me, helping them, and generally being a fab guy. We share pick-ups and home stuff, and it all works really well. And now, we have three at school, and he and I are ready to take on the world between 9 and 3.30pm.
The first thing we have put in place is a rotating fortnightly schedule (based loosely on Tamara Lackey’s weekly plan that some of you may have come across). We spent a few hours putting it together and it will be organic and flexible, however for now, to say we are the most organised we have ever been is an understatement. It incorporates my shooting days, allocated time for business development, processing, marketing and other fab business things. We have the kid’s extra activities, our gym time, who is picking up who and when – you name it, it’s scheduled and it feels fantastic. Already, we are finding more time then we had before! I highly recommend it
Here are our beauties starting school. Their three different personalities demonstrated so well in this pic!
And then a bit of extended love for the baby of the family on her first day of big school – complete with crazy hair and left over Australia Day tattoo on her arm. x
My baby turned 5 this week. Another milestone has passed.
I used to always feel sad at each of their birthdays. Lamenting how they were growing too fast. Longing for their chunky babyness to remain. Another year older marked the perfect time for me to drown myself in old video footage from the years before.
I have always referred to Imogen as “my baby”. Calling her “my best baby” to differentiate her from Jaz, who is “my best big girl”.
So at her birthday dinner when I called her “baby girl”, she said, “I’m 5 now, I’m not a baby anymore.” Historically this would have sent me into a weepy decline. Now I would definitely be dragging out baby videos when we got home?? But I felt just fine. I have wanted to get my head around their inevitable growth .. to feel good about it.
For me, the key to this acceptance is not feeling regretful about my parenting. There is no, “I wish I had done more of this… or less of that…” I am an engaged, happy parent most of the time. And for the many times that I am not, I don’t beat myself up about it.
Now Imi is 5 and starts school next week. And I just feel thankful for her 5 glorious baby years and am ready for the next stage. No tears required.
As I tucked her in after a long day of picnicking, bushwalking and celebrating, I tested… “goodnight baby big girl.” She seemed content with the new title, for now…
Jaz and Will pressing a finger in each others back to help them up the hill.
