Jenna and Michael

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new lens, a Sigma, 24-60mm, f/2.8. So when my sister-in-law, Jenna, announced a couple of days later that she and her boyfriend were going on a really dressy night out, I offered to photograph them.

I hadn't intended to use these shots for business purposes, just to do my best to give Jen and Michael some nice memories of themselves all dressed up. When I saw how they turned out though, I couldn't resist.

This was an exercise in multi-angle flash photography, with my fill-light coming from a diffused, bounced speedlight mounted on the camera, and the key coming from another speedlight on a tripod, off to my right. The best moment for me was when Jenna, who is incredibly critical of photos of herself, said 'They look great, Chris! You can take my photo all the time!'






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Charlie

As I mentioned, my daughter Charlie was born two days after Crystal and John's wedding. She's not exactly 'business', but she is beautiful, so here she is!







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Crystal and John's Wedding

Well, as I mentioned in my post on Crystal and John's engagement shoot, they got married earlier this year, and asked me to be their photographer. It was one of the most exhausting but enjoyable days I've had for a very long time!

When the couple set the date of the wedding, they picked a day that was about a week and a half before the date my wife was due to deliver our first child. Knowing what I did about the reliability of due dates (you can pretty well rely on the baby not to come on the date!) I organised for a good friend and a scary competitor of mine, Allister of a.m. photography, to be ready to stand in for me if I was unavailable on the day. Then we had a thought: why not both do it? So Crystal and John got two photographers for the price of one.

On the day, Al took responsibility for the boys, and I took the girls, and then when the two groups met we changed up as necessary. And it was brilliant fun! We worked hard, and stressed even harder, I suspect. However, the chance to hang out with this great couple all day on this special day, and then to have the responsibility and the privilege of producing the images that would serve as memories of the day, was something that I know we both enjoyed immensely.

The following are my shots; you can see Al's on his flickr site. (Oh, and my daughter was born two days later through being induced. Her name is Charlotte, and she will have posts on here too!)

























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2009 HYPA Bingo Night

In a real surprise for me, my first paid gig as a photographer was not a friend wanting shots of children, an engagement, wedding or the family: it was a corporate fund-raiser run by a not-for-profit organisation! The 2009 HYPA (Helping Young People Achieve) Bingo Night was quite an event, and kept me on my toes for several hours!

HYPA is a division of SYC (the Service to Youth Council), a not-for-profit Youth Agency in Adelaide. They were also good enough to give me my first professional job as a Social Worker after I graduated, which is how I got my foot in the door for a photographic gig!
Needless to say, the demands of shooting a six hour event with over 120 attendees far exceeded those of photographing my friends and their children at the beach or the park, and this was the first evening I had to keep everything really and truly top-notch. There were lighting issues (the hall itself was a total nightmare!) batteries to keep charged, key people and speakers to photograph (numerous times, preferably) and a million other things to do. Anyway, it felt that way.

In the end I was pleased with how things went, though of course looking back there were things I wish I'd done differently. But it's little use dwelling on the 'If Only' and the 'Should Have' moments, and on the whole I think my first pay was earned well enough.















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