A Box of Chocolates.

OMG....My eyeballs are hanging out of my head. I was determined to get at leats one entry finished for this months camera club comp and tonight was the night it was going to happen. Cameron went to the footy with some of his siblings so I had some quiet time to take advantage of.....not that he is noisy LOL. 

Anyway here it is, my "Box of chocolates"

If Only I could re do these photos now......why you ask, because I have some super exciting news......I have my new camera. The one I have been wanting for as long as I can remember and I am seriously in love. No more manual focusing for me and now I can offer massive prints and canvas with confidence. I just ordered a new camera bag for it, a 7million dollar home crumpler, only the best for my new baby. Another exciting parcel arrived today, the albums I ordered last week. I have sampled 4 different albums now and think I have finally found the one that I love to offer clients. I have to do one up for myself first to "test drive" it.....damn haha. 

Now I need sleep.....first I have to crack and stretch my back from sitting here so long. That box of chocolates was flippin fiddly. 

I know I said I would not blog for a while......but I just finished proofing and editing this session and got the gallery up and HAD to share some of the pics. This is Baby Max. I went to school with his Dad. Isn't he GORGEOUS.

A HUGE thankyou to Ben and Amanda for the opportunity. 

Pink overload.....

My friend Katie needed some help taking photos today.....she had all the gear and the pose idea but just needed someone to point and press the shutter. I had a ball. Now I want lights and a camera that has auto focus SO BAD!!!!!

While I was there I chucked my card in her camera and had a play with her stunning baby Amelia and took some shots of Anna and the famous chocolate for this months camera club comp. 

Here are some pics.....

Thanks again Katie. I had a ball and after the play with your Camera I came home and looked into it and Cam says I can get one.......I just have to get my head around not getting my dream camera but I was so impressed with yours today. Might have to have another play in natural light. 

Anyway, yes I have been slack here at the cafe again.....with good reason. I did THREE shoots this week. I know INSANE! So I am going to be FLAT OUT processing the sessions. I am also trying to get something done for this months camera club comp. I missed out last month cos I was so busy and can see it happening again. I have less than two weeks to get my entries processed, printed and mounted.

I have sourced a wonderful canvas supplier and have had one done for a client who was super impressed....so much so she wants another one. She is not alone, after seeing it Cam and I want some too. I am also in the process of ordering a few different albums to offer clients which is fun. I love classy albums, I have a dry mount one here for the kids photos and it looks awesome. So.....busy busy busy. I think I have a few really late nights coming up. So I wont be blogging for a while. 

Gluten Free Food Porn

Being Wheat free I tend to use Gluten free products alot. I have been super impressed with the cake mixes you can get, I am no baker and they are the only ones I seem to not dry out. I urge any cake fans to give a gluten free cake mix a go. The Basco vanilla cupcakes are my fav, the woolworths select brand make an awesome lemon cake too.

Anyway, I have discovered the worlds yummiest bake yourself carrot cake. Basco Carrot cake mix. It is flippin divine.
 

But even I get sick of the sweet stuff and crave a savoury treat to take to Mum's group and seeing how everything has wheat in it I try to take something the kids and I can have. Melinda's gluten free goodies Sundried Tomato and Spinach muffins are AWESOME! Not very healthy but when you can't eat wheat treats like this are very rare so what the heck. Check em out.



Seriously they are awesome. Anyway....that's me for the night. I am having an early one.....I hope to be photographing a beautiful new baby tomorrow. 

Ryan.......our sweet sweet boy.

Ryan is a hard one to get photos of....he is like the looney toons character Taz........always on the move and always destructing things LOL. 

Today I went out and got a few new blankets, an elbow pillow and some more beans for the beanbag......strictly for prop use of course. I managed to bury him enough to keep him still for a split second and I have to say I am OVER THE FLIPPIN MOON with the results. I have so so sooooo many photos of Anna but not too many of Ryan.....and most of the ones I do have of him are out of focus. I took these today and as I type they are uploading to get printed. I just love them. Isn't he bloomin divine?

This bottom one is a fav, he is a little stud. 

Cafe Renovations

LOL, Yep I thought the Cafe was long over due for a re-vamp. I used the Cafe overhaul to start my creative juices flowing in preparation to designing my company logo.....which I did last night.

This is huge for me.....I HATE change, never cope well with it. I also dislike anything but white backgrounds.....but I love the Cafe's new look. Now I just need to get in here more often.

Now for some little useless chitchat, I have watched a few movies lately. The day I got my business name certificate in the mail my bestie came over and we had a few (too many) drinks. We attempted to watch a movie, starting with Rachel getting Married it lasted about 5 mins and we turned it off. Next we attempted 27 dresses  it is one of my FAV's (and I can't believe in these reviews it got less starts than Rachel getting married) and Kellie hadn't seen it but we were too giggle and chatty to watch.....we only payed attention to the bar scene "B B B Benny and the jetsssssssss". Anyway, the next day I was feeling rather poorly, and after having a look at what was left of the bottle of vodka I realised that I would more than likely feel that way all day so movies it was. 

I attempted to watch Rachel getting Married again......well I watched it all but my GOODNESS.....what a waste of life that I will never ever get back. Kellie and I love the movie 28 days but it was like someone had decided to remake it but write the script while on a truck load of downers of some kind. It was the most drawn out boring NOTHING movie I have ever seen. 

Next I watched 7 pounds now I am not usually a fan of Will Smith but by golly this was a GREAT movie. I loved it. I am pestering Cam to watch it now.....but he favours movies that suck so I guess he wont like it.

Then while I was sick a few days ago (yeah I copped the lurgy BAD) I had an early night and watched changeling with Angelina Jolie. I am not a fan of Angelina, her acting does NOTHING for me and I find her presence in a movie creepy in general......and this was no exception. It was a very sad movie and not the kind I would have watched if I had have known what it was about first. I hate any movie with kids being hurt in it and at one stage in this movie I wanted to rip through Cam for telling me to watch it, him knowing what i am like I was furious that he has suggested it. Anyway I had to keep watching cos if stopped at that point I would have been picturing little boys being hacked to death with an axe all night, so I watched the whole thing. It was a sad movie, but a good one I guess. The only person that would have been worse for the lead role however would have been Nicole Kidman. 

Last but not least......Cam talked me into watching a movie with him the other night. Cam often watches movies at night while I work on photos. He likes creepy, scarey movies and I don't anymroe so it works well for him to watch them while I am busy, anyway I decided to work till 8:30pm then join him. The movie was called Walled In and the opening scene featured something terrible happening to a dear little girl.......I could have throttled Cam right there and then. Seriously I just can't handle it,and it seems every horror/thriller movie seems to feature kids being tortured to death in some way WTF is with that? Anyway I kept watching, thinking the next kid I see doing anything other than making daisy chains I am walking out and going back to work........lucky that was the worse of it. I liked the movie in the end. Cam didn't, messaged me the next day saying it was the worst he has seen in a long time........I find that hard to believe considering the crap he watched on a weekly basis, he and his mate could run the "I am a fan of crap movies" club. Anyway I would not watch it again but it was good crappy entertainment that I didn't have to think too hard watching, I do think it is sad that in this day and age they seem to feel the need to always resort to child cruelty for shock value.

Anyway......so that is it. The Cafe has been spiffed up a little and I just proved I can talk about something other than photography. 

One of the most beautiful Mums I know.

I love this chick, Mums don't come much better than this one....what a gem. I managed to torment her whole family in this shoot but decided to make a Mum themed storyboard as a sampler of the shoot seeing as Mothers day is approaching. 

Jane's Boys

This shoot was booked well before I decided on the fundraiser, I love these boys, they are soooooo photogenic. I also had the pleasure of doing the youngest ones newborn photos........it's really rewarding to get to shoot a family more than one. 

Emily and Will

This shoot was a pretty big deal for me. It was my first shoot where I did not know the Mum or kids and I have to thank both Mum and kids for making it so comfortable for me. Actually I had the advantage of meeting Mum a few hours before the shoot as she was having lunch with my neighbour (Angus and Lucy's Mum). Anyway, I am very happy with the results of the shoot and can see Emily and Will being just as dominant in my portfolio as dear Angus and lucy. So a huge thankyou to Carolyn for letting me torment her kids with my camera, it was truely a pleasure. 

Angus and Lucy

Here is a little sampler of one of the shoots I have done for my little bushfire appeal fundraiser. One of my best shoots to date. I am having a blast at this location, great models help too! 

Busy Busy Busy.

Gee, I got slack real quick here didn't I. I do have a good excuse, I have been REALLY busy. After the bushfires devistated Victoria I started  a little fundraiser, I am taking childrens portraits and selling a print package and donating most of the proffits to the Red Cross Bushfire appeal. I started a blog to launch the fundraiser. You can see it here. 

I didn't go crazy sending the link out, I had no idea how it would go so I started with a small group of people in my email list and another small group on facebook. Having two small kids at home and a hubby working crazy shiftwork I could only take on a limited number of sessions. I was also offered to put a flier up at my Gym but didn't have to take up the offer in the end. I have only one session left.....actually two as I just had a cancellation. It has been a great learning experience for me, I have an idea of how many sessions I can take on a month now and I have had more experience with other peoples children and at the end of the fundraiser I should have a nice little portfolio. 

A special thankyou goes out to my lovely next door neighbour Sarah who booked me for a session (which happens to have been my best session to date) and then refered me to her friends and got me two more bookings. I would show some of the photos but I have not got Sarah to sign my paperwork yet LOL. 

Health: Yep, my health went backwards again. I was having tum problems again and thought "great, I can't eat rye aswell as wheat" but I went to the wonderful Monica Henry, and appointment I had waited over 4 months for, and found out it was the yeast......along with a ridiculous list of other foods which after a week of cutting out I was feeling worse than ever......tired, irritable and weak. Lucky for me I had my appointment with my super fab natropath, Samuel Kennedy, approaching and after a good chat with him we think we know what all my problems come down to.......my lack of gall bladder and my ability to digest properly due to that. So it's not the wheat as such, as in it;s not an allergy, it's y bodys inability to digest the wheat that is causing the problems. So I am on these drops which will help my first stage digestion, 3 days of being on them my tum was starting to ease. One week later and my tum is alsmost 100%. Amazing. My concern now is for the kids. Seems everyone in y family has tum issues and my kids are no exception. I am going to take them to my natropath to see what he thinks, maybe we can help them avoid having major issues down the track.

Camera Club: I had my third comp judging this week and I got a second place for my monochrome and a "highly commended". 

A little announcement: I have my business name. I have not set anything else up but once I do I will link it from here. I am in the process of designing a logo but have had to put all things "Mugshots Photography" on hold till my fundraiser slows down. As it is I have two sessions to order prints and mounts for, another just got the gallery up and another I am in the middle of processing (this session I am processing now I am having a ball with, there are some stunning images of these siblings). I have a session this coming thursday I am also really excited about, my fav girls to photograph (other than my own of course). 

Last but not least.....my family: My kids are fantastic, they really are. You know there are times when I am pulling my hair and wonder what I was thinking but those times are sooooo out weighed by the magic times, like when Anna tells me randomly she loves me, or she hugs Ryan for no reason other than she loves him, or when she sits quietly "reading" a book when she thinks no-one is looking and makes up stories to go with the pictures. And Ryan, he is a little firecracker.......a cyclone.........our own little tassie devil "Taz". But he gives the worlds best cuddles and does the cutest things and never makes a fuss over the small things that Poppy does. I love watching him dance, he has not got Anna's rhythm but Cam and I still love watching him dance. (I need to come back and read this later after is has taken me an hour to get them packed up into the car because Ryan unpacks things quicker than I can pack them and Anna has a 30min tanty over going to the toilet and washing her hands).

A huge thing for Anna at the moment is she has started 3 yr old Kindy. She is loving it, I assume she is doing OK there. She is so lovey dovey after I pick her up. This week after Kinda we went shopping for new jeans for me (yep, I had to get some smaller ones whoo hoo) and Anna says as we are walking down main ST Mornington "I love you Mummy, your my favourite girl, thankyou so much for taking me to kindy and coming to get me" with the sweetest look on her sweet little face. I stopped right there in the middle of main st and gave her the hugest cuddle..........5 mins later she was peering under the door of the change room announcing rather loudly "HI MUMMY.....I CAN SEE YOUR KNICKERS"