Adorable baby session - Miss Sophie

One of my big love in photography is shooting babies (as you probably have seen it from previous posts) and last Saturday I thought I will try the "baby posing" (is there such a thing or did I just make that up in my head? How all those super-cute sleeping baby photos are made??). Well, Miss Sophie who was only 7 days old then thought she will be awake the whole time I'm there... Not to mention that she doesn't like to be naked, so my big plans on the cute sleeping baby photo didn't quiet work out as I planned..
At the end I still managed to come up with some lovely images and this session has reminded me again: photographing babies can't really be planned... :)







And while Miss Sophie had a break between shoots her big brother kept me company.. :)

Second shooting - and why you should go for it!

This blog post goes out as a massive thank you to the fab American photographer, Mike Larson.
I can't post photos from this wedding as it was Mike's gig (and his photos are sure way better than mine would ever be), however I definitely wanted to dedicate this post to him because the experience of the day I was assisting him provided me with more to learn than any books could ever do!

Firstly: when you hear you should do second shooting/assisting at a wedding even if you don't get paid for it, you should do it without hesitation! If you get the chance to work with someone like Mike, you will take more with you than the dollars you could make!

Secondly: I am not a wedding photographer and don't think I will ever be. But I truly believe that all photographers should gain experience shooting weddings, learn what works and what's not - from photographers who specialized in weddings.

And last: It was a long, wet day but I enjoyed every minute of it regardless of the amount of sand in my shoes or getting wet holding up the reflector, above the couple's head :)

Thanks Mike for being patient and cool even when my battery died..

Who's Mike? Check out his website...

When a fairy tale comes true...

My friends got married last week. Yes; it was one of those fairy tale dreams to come true. Even since I've known them they were planning when and where to get married (and I've known them for a few years now :)). These 2 people are truly like pea and a pot and if you'd known them you'd understand why it took them sooo long to finally tie the knot. They are one of the most awesome couple I know and I feel super lucky to have them in my life.
Their wedding perfectly reflected what they are like; there were candies, lots of beer and champagne, one of the best views in Sydney, delicious food and many, many fun people. Probably one of the longest celebrations also, but like I mentioned before: if you'd known them you'd understand it why :)

I wasn't their wedding photographer, but volunteered to do the pre-wedding shots of the bride and some others along the way.. Here are some of my favorites :

Sarah&Chris Rhoads are coming Down Under! - The VOICE Workshop

And again; thanks to Twitter I just discovered a something amazing! When I saw that there is a contest for a Sarah Rhodes workshop in AUSTRALIA and there are no entries yet however there was only a day to go till the end of it I though: it would be crazy for me not to go for it!
It's pretty rare to have anything organised to Down Under by American photographers who are wanting to share the love for photography and support emerging fellow photographers - well, not that I know of many anyway - so I felt it is my chance to go for the spot in this sold out workshop which will be held in Canberra soon. In a nutshell: the workshop is called VOICE which stands for Vision, Openess, Inspiration, Creativity and Experience. The concept behind VOICE centers around finding your unique voice as an artist, developing a market niche, staying inspired, being remarkable for your clients, and building a brand experience.

Getting creative help from my dear friend Elena in a form of a crazy fun brainstorming session at her house on a Thursday night, we recorded all the footage for the project. (Massive thanks to her and her flatmate, Helen for their input!) Now I just had to put the plan in my head into the tricky World of video.. I'm not all that good with making these things and having absolutely no spare time in my hands I needed help. And there was Matt!! (Who I am extremely grateful for giving me a helping hand and get the finished product together for me, so I didn't run out of time with my submission. :)

And there it is. Sticked on the www.GetTotallyRad.com/blog, for everyone who wish to see what me and the other contestants come up with..
In less than 24hrs, Sarah Rhoads and her husband Chris will choose the winner... I am crossing my fingers that it will be mine - however there are some other great entries there.

BUT! Even if I don't win; this contest just got me and my 2 friends to do something together that we've never done before! I loved every second of discovering how our creative minds can work together! It was awesome guys!

Much love to all who has been part of my creative journey!

You can see my entry here:

Before&After - TRA in action!

This image has been taken on one of the islands in the Phi Phi Islands group in Thailand last December.
Gorgeous place, great hospitality, fantastic trip with my Cyber Buddy!

As she was just sitting there on the bench, soaking in the sun, I was snapping around - taking this picture too.

Because of the light situation it was impossible to correctly expose both her and the view, so I reached for the awesome TRA actions... And the recipe is as follows:

First I fixed levels with "auto levels" in Photoshop then started playing with the actions:
Oh Snap! (for some color boost and more contrast)- brought down to around 50%, separately both saturation and contrast)
Ying Yang (for lightening and darkening different areas) - I had to lighten Elena's back so it is brought out of the shade which also gave her skin a bit of a glow - used on close to 100% as you can see it was pretty dark before
Pro Retouch - to smoothen her skin and give it that slight kick of extra glow - I used it on about 70%

Finally I reduced noise on the overall image to make it look even more smoother and get rid of any graininess that would have left after the lightening.

If you haven't tried the TRA actions yet then you should head over to www.gettotallyrad.com RIGHT NOW and download the trial pack of actions! YOu'll love'em!!!

Enjoy!!!

Because you are BEAUTIFUL!

Since I've joined to the Twitter World, I came across with heaps of fantastic photographers and saw some amazing work! The greatest thing in this social site is that you can learn soooo much from those fellow photographers who are willing to share their knowledge, their stories, their passion; simply because they love the craft and want you to be a better photographer too! :)
This is how I came across with The Boudoir Divas (@TheBoudoirDivas on Twitter), the ladies who are running their extremely successful studio in San Diego where they make all and every lady to believe no matter what age or shape you are: you are truly BEAUTIFUL! As a girl myself I love making all women love their photos taken by me and see that wide smile on their face when they see my images of them the first time.
I gave myself plenty of time to find which direction I'd like to take my photography, tried several different types of shoots, sometimes just for my own development or for commission, but finally I believe that I arrived to the destination where I am happy and focused and see myself succeed. I do know that it will not happen overnight and that's why I'm planning to take the Divas boudoir photography workshop (more info on www.theboudoirdivas.com) in the U.S. and while I am getting ready for this exciting trip; I'm practicing and learning and making mistakes, then try again... And I love it so much that it makes me truly believe that it is the path I need to take my photography business on.

I'd like to thank the Boudoir Divas for all that they share with other photographers, you ladies are truly amazing!
And a big thank you to my gorgeous friend Jax, who let me photograph her and stick it on my blog :) Thanks for being part of my journey. :)

Celebrating LOVE

Celebrating LOVE is a new project in my photography which started with images of these 2 beautiful people, Jax&Ryan. The aim of this project is creating a series of images showing affection, capturing intimate moments between 2 people who are furtunate to be in LOVE.
When I asked Jax&Ryan if they'd let me to photograph them - even in intimate situations - I was very excited to see them love the idea. Of course we all like when someone takes pretty pictures of us with our partner or on our own, but it is not all that easy when you find yourself in a room where the camera is constantly pointing at you..
I am not good at posing people - definitely something I am willing to work on -, so I tried not to direct Jax&Ryan during the shoot, or at least tried to keep it to the bare minimum. I wanted to create a bunch of photographs which are reflecting THEM, their feelings, their everydays. The following sets of photographs are showing this best I think and I hope you will enjoy them.
Extra special thanks to Kenny Kim, who is a fantastic photographer and without his help I wouldn't have got my hands on the brilliant Totally Rad Photoshop Actions which helped me make these photographs look their best!