QT Canberra New Acton Wedding / Melane & Marcus
Vendors:
Ceremony and Reception Venue: QT Canberra
Flowers: Barton Flower Bar
Dress: When Freddie Met Lilly
Makeup: Dove MUA
Hair: Sarah- Beth MacPherson
Intimate micro wedding at HQ Thirty Four Canberra / Mickey and Aaron
Mickey and Aaron had their wedding date fall in the tricky Canberra lockdown period at the end of September 2021. Instead of postponing like many couples did during this time, they decide to redesign their day and have an intimate wedding of 10 guests - a ‘microwedding’.
HQ Thirty Four was the perfect space for the occasion, and what a treat it was to spend some time there capturing the love between the couple and their families.
Venue // HQ Thirty Four in Fyshwick
Florals // Je Fleur Florist
Celebrant // Married By Gabrielle
Video // Say Hello To Forever
How I shoot DSLR self portraits with phone tethered trigger / Canon Camera Connect
Like many photographers in recent times, I’ve found myself suddenly without a model to photograph during periods of lockdown; and like many photographers who wanted to continue creating images, I’ve gone down the path of taking self portraits.
I wanted to share the way that I shoot self portraits with my DSLR because I know it took me awhile to figure it out when I was looking for a solution that was compatible with studio flash, and not frustratingly hit and miss with focus and composition. Keep in mind that this is specific to Canon DSLR users.
How to correct red and green colour casts in Lightroom / HSL and Camera Calibration
I think most portrait photographers would agree with me when I say that the dealing with colour casts coming off a red brick wall and green grass are are a classic pain in the butt. To be honest, most of the time when I shoot I like to position my subjects away from potential colour correction headaches - but sometimes the brick wall is irresistible and a shooting in a forest is always so worth it.
When editing a portrait session in Lightroom, I used to rely on using adjustment brushes to alter saturation, tint, temperature, and add a neutralising colour to specific areas, but this is time consuming and only feasible for a small number of hero shots. More recently I’ve started learning and experimenting with colour correction techniques in the HSL and Camera Calibration - with edits that can be synced across multiple photos.
Read on to find out more!
Studio Portrait 2 Lightroom Preset / Moody & Cinematic.
Designed for portraits with dramatic, low key studio lighting (Chiaroscuro anyone?), Studio Portrait 2 is perfect for a moody portrait or a fashion editorial story with a cinematic touch. This preset was developed from an album art shoot for the musician Aya Yves.
The contrast and intensity of the preset can be adjusted by selecting one of the 3 versions of the preset to suit your lighting setup.
Includes: Studio Portrait 2, Studio Portrait 2+, Studio Portrait 2-
How to install and use Lightroom Mobile Presets
Hello friends!
This is a quick start guide on how to install and use my Lightroom mobile presets. If you’ve purchased one of my presets I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting my small business and allowing me to make a living doing what I love- living the dream!
Red She Said / Beauty Editorial inspired by Marie Antoinette, flowers, and Nocturnal Animals
Some time last year I wanted to have a play with shooting some moody portraits with my burgundy seamless paper backdrop. I loved the striking combination of red hair against deep burgundy from scenes in 'the film ‘Nocturnal Animals’ , so I really wanted to recreated that in a shoot with a red haired model. I had also been really inspired by a beauty editorial by photographer Fabio Piemonte featuring a model with an edgy modern Botticelli type look posing with foliage.
I sourced a few leftover foliage / florals from Wiluna Studios before the shoot and Amy, Craig and I just had a play with different looks on the day. Fun times!
Makeup // Amy Capeda Makeup
Hair // Craig Rhodes
Model // Alexandra Rayne from Devojka Models
Botanicals // Wiluna Studios
Jewellery // Phoebe Porter and Alison Jackson
Lifestyle Headshots Preset Pack for Lightroom - a secret weapon for business and personal branding
The Lifestyle Headshots Preset Pack is designed for the creatives, influencers, businesses, and cool kids that want personality and style in their headshots.
This preset pack comes with a bundle of 3 lifestyle headshot preset styles to reflect your business or personal branding, and an a high contrast version of each style (6 presets in total):
LS headshot 01 warm- earthy, warm tones.
LS headshot 01 warm HC - high contrast version of the above
LS headshot 02 bright - bright and clean, with vivid reds and oranges
LS headshot 02 bright HC - high contrast version of the above
LS headshot 03 clean - great for a clean. modern, minimalist look
LS headshot 03 clean HC - high contrast version of the above
Naked Cubby / Breakfast with Dinny
Earlier in the year I photographed the launch of Dinny - a new addition to the Naked Cubby Co. family at Mount Majura winery. It was a cosy breakfast amongst the vines, featuring some of Canberra’s awesome local businesses - Three Mills bakery had their incredible pastries and were making damper rolls over a fire pit; Redbrick coffee were pouring their best blends; Mount Majura winery were keeping everyone’s glasses topped up with their sparkling; and Tea Garden ran tea tasting and a tea blending workshop.
Dinny, of course, was the star of the show. A solar powered and self contained ‘tiny home’ with the most luxurious and stylish finishes. I’m keen to have a staycation here when this lockdown situation improves. The toddler is not invited.
NGA Sculpture Garden Marquee Wedding
Like many couples in 2020, Polly and Sander threw away the rule book and got hitched their own way. They had their stylish wedding reception at the National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden Marquee with an intimate group of their closest friends and family- and then a week later, they flew to Melbourne and had their registry ‘ceremony’- then left Australia a week after that to start their new lives in China. Never a dull moment with those two!
Senate Rose Gardens / Evie and Rob Small Wedding
At the start of a beautiful Canberra Autumn, Rob and Evie tied the knot at the gorgeous rose gardens at the grounds of Old Parliament House, surrounded by a close knit group of family and friends. They had a beautifully intimate reception at Lamsheds restaurant in Yarralumla (by the way, that place is just incredible, I booked a table for date night the next week before I left!)
Scroll to the bottom of the post for a list of the wonderful vendors from the day.
Whisper // Beauty Editorial
Winter is the time of year for me to recharge my creative batteries, after months of non-stop deadlines over Spring, Summer, and Autumn.
I spent a fun morning playing with Aida (Alchemy Foliage')‘s delicious velvety orchids, fluffy pampas, and a huge array of dried botanicals that I can’t remember the names of and sadly did not have time to capture on camera. You wouldn’t think it- looking at the serenity on Zoe’s face- but it was a 1 hr of crazy frenzied shooting. 3 looks at triple speed. Zoe, Amy, and Kathryn are such rockstars that triple speed was fun!
National Arboretum Elopement / Delaney and Ryan
Delaney and Ryan had their intimate elopement last year, accompanied by a very excited baby James. We had an adventure exploring Nishi / New Acton as well as the National Arboretum, where they had their formal ceremony, presided over by the awesome Annie from Aisle Meets Annie.
Celebrant : Aisle Meets Annie
Ceremony location: Margaret Whitlam Pavilion, at the National Arboretum Canberra
Makeup : Steph Church Makeup
National Portrait Gallery Wedding / Grace & Tim
Tim and Grace had a cracker of a wedding at the end of 2020 surrounded by lots of family and friends (thankfully at that stage restrictions were fairly minimal in Canberra).
One of the highlights for me was rendition of “My Heart Will Go On’ (Titanic) by Tim and his best man on some sort of home made flute; the atmosphere set by the swaying lights held up by the guests (via their phones- candles were too much of a fire hazard I suspect).
Old Parliament House Gardens Wedding
It was a joy to photograph Shehara and Dan’s intimate small wedding at the Old Parliament House Senate Rose Gardens in Canberra. They had to make a few changes due to COVID related restrictions- instead of one large wedding they decided to have a small casual wedding and then a larger wedding reception in 2021 on the same date. Celebrating twice - that actually sounds pretty great.
Their closest friends and family attended, including their adorable doggy special guest Flo (she may have stolen the spotlight a few times during the ceremony with her charisma and good looks but we were all prepared for that).
Flowers // Laurel and Lace
Dress // Bec and Bridge
Makeup // Jessica Peris Makeup
Groom’s suit // Mawson Ossa
Venue // Senate Gardens at Old Parliament House
Acro Alliance Dance School Photoshoot
I’ve been very fortunate to be good friends with the lovely “Miss Andy” for the past few years- shes’ an incredible acro dance teacher who teaches dancers as well as acro dance instructors around the world.
We did a photoshoot to create content for the Acro Alliance website as well as some headshots for her in mid 2020 with a group of her demonstrator students from the Pointe to Pointe studio (where she teaches out of in Canberra). Those amazing little bodies are OUT OF THIS WORLD.