Personal Journey and Adventures of Nina

This is going to be fun. Truely, if you just look happy in front of the camera for a few shots, we can go home. Really, this is fun. Maybe we can get you a treat on the way home. How about extra game time. This is getting tiring. Are you certain you don't want to loose your iPad privelages? We are losing patience. OK, your iPad has gone for the week. A typical day around here! Hey, I remember saying the exact same things to my own child a few years back whilst tears ran down his face! I think we did ok. Actually, the boys were very sweet, albeit shy!

What do you do when your studio is all set and your client postpones?? Grab your daughter and her girlfriend and make them model for you...or not! Please...not another photo shoot! Really not working for me! Model becomes photographer... You can imagine that the daughter of a photographer can, be less than enthusiastic (i.e. when not being bribed with toys or money), about spending yet another  minute behind the camera so I asked her to become the photographer...she took some pretty cool shots. I love it when children take over the camera. It gives me a perspective that I wouldn't have normally considered! The reactions they receive are also different to what I might get. Altogether it worked out pretty well.

This was a large and long meet with lots of swim clubs in attendance. Many swimmers were trying to beat their personal best times in order to qualify for the upcoming Metro Championships. Don't miss the opportunity to get some of these wonderful images for your club or yourself. They are available in jpeg or print format. Just email me for the password.

Matthew Abood....Intense Focus SMNE (Sydney Metro North East) hosted it's popular Summer Sprint Qualifying Meet, this past weekend. A District meet attended by 9 year olds upwards who are here with the hope of making some personal best times and to get in some race practice before the upcoming school swim carnivals.  To the delight of these swimmers and spectators, also here to race were Olympians and Australian Champions, Eamon Sullivan, Geoff Huegill, Matt Abood & Andrew Abood.  The focus and preparation was intense. You can see Matt running the race through his head stroke by stroke. I had briefly met Matt at Lane Cove Swim Club' s recent 50th birthday celebrations. He is a kind and gracious man taking time out in between races to sign the T-shirts of all the awestruck kids. Eamon Sullivan getting ready to race. The crowd gathers to watch the 100m Free Andrew Abood Abood Brothers before the 50m Free Geoff Huegill preparing for the 50m

I am well aware of the old adage, never work with children or pets but I find the challenge they present, half the fun! What's a little Hedgehog poop among friends... Puppies are like children in that they grow up so fast. Their features and expressions alter as they mature. As with children, I recommend that you take as many images as possible to record this evolution. The pet can be a little nervous on set at first so a little coercion helps. After the pet has a little sniff around, I give them a tasty treat. Once I get a few photo's on the card, I give them another treat and a break. They end up quite enjoying the experience. In fact sometimes, they do not want to leave! Combining pets with product photography provides an extra challenge. The brain child of my friend, Alina, we approached this shoot with juxtaposition in mind - Mary K's "Satin Hands" against the grainy skin of the Bearded Dragon and the wiry spines of a Hedgehog against Redk

Swim photography is not just about capturing the strokes, although that is fun too. For me, I like to capture moments inside and outside the pool. The tension as a team mate is swimming a close race. Sheer joy or occasionally disappointment after a tough swim. This weekend, I am the official photographer for the SMNE Speedo Sprints. A big challenge because it is an indoor venue and the light is low.  Sometimes the swimmers didn't breathe, especially in the 50's. Other times they breathed away from me.  There were no breaks. Just 8 hours of walking around the pool taking shots. I don't really have a sports camera, so I had to rely on timing. My 200mm lens meant that I could only shoot 4 lanes...I really needed two of me! My memory cards filled up quickly, (approx 40GB) even with reviewing and deleting. I was able to download a card on to my portable hard drive whilst I filled the next card but I was nervous deleting the images from the card so that I cou

You can read the full post here  but in the meantime, here are a couple of the peaceful moments I captured this weekend at Nelson Bay, Port Stephens, NSW.

Christmastime brings family together, sometimes from different States, even different countries so it is an ideal opportunity to capture the togetherness with a portrait. This past Boxing Day, we did just that. Mother Nature threatened a dreadful storm with softball sized hail stones but we went ahead with the shoot in any case because who knows when this opportunity may arise again as part of the family had travelled from Adelaide to be here for the shoot... A fabulous location, chosen by the family. We were actually at a point where we could see back toward the city skyline.