5th Jan 2012, 7:54pm

Margaret and Christos came home to New Zealand to get married because their family and friends are here. And so their wedding was very much about the relationships that are important and enduring.  I knew even before I clicked the shutter that this was going to be one of my favourites...

Closely followed by Dad seeing his daughter in her dress...

Meanwhile the guys were throwing a ball around (of course!)

The ceremony was beautiful...celebrant Gareth Duncan did a great job (as always) and Vilagrads is such a perfect backdrop...

Can I just say right now that I love wedding speeches?  I love that they give people the opportunity to say stuff that they really want to say but the time never seems right.  I love that speeches give people the perfect excuse to be a bit mushy and say what's really in their heart.  In fact that pretty much sums up what I love about weddings too :-)  I hope Christos and Maragret and his Mum don't mind me sharing this lovely moment from her speech...it was just such a perfect example of why wedding speeches rock my world...

Thanks Margaret and Christos and all your family and friends for having us be part of your lovely day...can't wait to show you the rest of the pics!

5th Jan 2012, 2:42pm

I first met Gina in 2010 when she was a bridesmaid at this wedding so I was really stoked to be asked to be the photographer when Gina married Aaron just before Christmas.  

I love this one of Gina and their son Archie just about to leave for the ceremony...

And the rain was holding off...nek minnit...it was pouring down (but everyone was still smiling)

The ceremony was held inside the Camelia TeaHouse at Rotorua's Government Gardens...a very nice vintagey location I's previously only photographed from the outside.  And boy did we appreciate those wide verandahs!

Then we headed off through the Government Gardens to the Events Centre behind for the reception...despite the weather the gardens were a gorgeous location with lots of little photo-worthy spots...

...and then to the reception.  Gina and Aaron are not big fans of fruit cake so they opted for a cheese cake...literally!  I love this idea!

and those are their respective parent's wedding photos decorating the cake table...another cool idea that inspired this final shot...

Thanks so much for having us, it was a great day!

5th Jan 2012, 11:09am

Mel and Karl met when they were both crewing for the same truck racing team (truck racing...yes really...who knew there was such a thing?!  Mu hubby just came in and read this bit over my shoulder.  he says "Of course there is truck racing, you can race anything. Actually I've never heard of cat racing but apart from that"...so I consider myself schooled!).  Anyway...so there was a certain amount of sneaking around involved because Mel's Dad was also part of the crew!  Trucks featured on the day of course, Mel and the girls arrived at the ceremony by racing truck...and yes, they go really fast...almost as fast as a videographer and a photographer determind to get the shot ;-)

And then there was one last sneak around...

After the ceremony we went down to the beach...it must be because I live in Hamilton but I love beaches, I just never get sick of photographing on the beach...

And then there were the speeches...as you can imagine, there were a few stories told. A great time was had by all :-)

It was a wonderful, wonderful day filled with love and laughter and tears and memories...kinda what it's all about really.

Thanks so much Mel and Karl!

Oh, and were you wondering whether Karl liked his present from Mel?  What do you think?

30th Nov 2011, 9:18pm

I love that so many people love the idea of boudoir stories!  Been a bit busy with emails today :-)

Here's a flyer for everyone who is thinking about how this idea might work for them...

26th Nov 2011, 3:28pm

First I have to start with a confession...I've never really 'got' boudoir or glamour photography and the problem I've always had is with the story.  I guess I was thinking about that cheesy stuff from the 80s that everyone's mum did when they hit 40 and I always used to wonder why?  Why are they dressed to the nines and clutching their collar in front of a pink backdrop?  And why are they all soft focussy in their full makeup, a feather boa and not much else?  I just never understood why.  It seemed like it didn't have a story and I suppose I dismissed it a bit.

That was until I heard Sue Bryce speak in August.  She says if Justin Timberlake can bring sexy back, she can bring glamour back.  She opened my eyes to the possibilities and also to the skill involved.  So I took all that on board and you might remember a model shoot I did with Karyn Flett a couple of months back where we put into action some of the things we'd learned from Sue (I've just realised I didn't blog that session but the pics are on Facebook here and here).

Literally as we were finishing up that session my phone rang and it was Mel, one of my brides for the coming season and she asked me if maybe we could work together to create a book for her to give to her hubby-to-be on the day of their wedding?  She hadn't seen the images from our model session yet of course but she had a vision of how the book would look and well...thank you universe, I think I'll take that as a sign!!

I love the idea of a book because it gives the chance to tell a story...so this is the story of Mel writing her vows to Karl (and just happening to look super hawt while she does it!).  The text through the book is the text of her vows and words from their ceremony.  This is a big surprise for Karl and Mel has given me permission to blog it because she reckons there is zero chance he will see it.  But just in case, if you know Mel and Karl you have to NOT SAY ANYTHING!

And you know what? I finally get it!  I had this huge lightbulb moment while I was planning this, when I finally had an answer to all my obsessive asking 'why?'.  This book is as much a part of their love story as their wedding album will be.  And telling love stories is something I know a bit about.  And it has nothing to do with hairlights and collar grasping ;-)

And these are photos of the actual book...a gorgeous 10x10" Queensberry Press Book (please excuse the technical imperfections in these pics, I was hurrying because Mel was coming to pick it up!)

I can't wait to see the look on Karl's face when he sees the book (Pip is going to be there to photograph it!)

Thanks so much Mel for having the vision and helping me find the story and answer all my 'why?' questions!

Oh, and did you want to see a before and after?  Gabrielle from Gabrielle's Mobile Hair and Makeup did a stunning job of bringing out Mel's natural gorgeousness...

22nd Nov 2011, 7:44pm

One thing that everyone says about Cate and Craig is how much they laugh...they're the kind of people other people like to be around because I imagine you would always leave feeling better.  So their wedding day was all about their friends and families and there was lots of laughing.  

At the hairdressers in the morning I first met Miss Isabella, champion flowergirl and serious fan of ANTM...

Showing us how to pose 'H2T' (head to toe...apparently!)

From there the girls headed off to Devereaux and Villiger (who used to be The Makeup Studio) for some makeup fabulosity from Michelle and her team.

The final stages of the getting ready happened at Sarnia Park.  I love this new art piece in the 'Honeymoon Suite'...

Meanwhile the guys were getting ready at Earthstead, an amazing luxury lodge just out of Cambridge...I love this photo of Craig's Dad pinning on his buttonhole.

and the hair (of course!)

The weather was looking very iffy so a last minute call was made to bring the ceremony inside to the Ballroom. This is one of the many things I love about Sarnia Park...the range of wet weather alternatives is great.  And hello...fabulous staircase!

Rach shot this one from the balcony as Cate and her Dad made their entrance...

After the ceremony Isabella threatened to steal the show again (in a good way!)

Until Craig and Cate's dogs arrived and gave her some competition...

A couple more of Cate and Craig being adorable :-)

The wisteria at Sarnia is absolutely beautiful and it smells divine too...it only flowers for two weeks a year so we were very lucky to be able to capture it at its very best...

and then we snuck Cate and Craig out of their reception later on to play with some light in the dark...

Thank you Craig and Cate for having us be part of your wedding...it was a lovely way for Rach to finish (she's moving on to more regular employment and won't have the Friday/Saturday flexibility to shoot weddings with me).  And it was a fantastic introduction for Bryce who is joining the Nicola Inglis Photography team.

18th Oct 2011, 8:02pm

The HDR option takes three exposures a split second apart and combines them the create an image that has a better dynamic range than the camera can capture with a single exposure.  Which is all well and good but to be honest it's not really something I use a lot...for some reason though my iphone camera had been left set to HDR so when I took a shot of Caro running towards me we got this...

If you're moving fast enough the difference between the different exposures is significant enough to create some pretty funky effects...

So then we had to play a bit :-)

20th Sep 2011, 9:17pm

Can you tell a whole love story in just five words?

I've been collecting five word love stories today...

My sister gave me "Suddenly forever wasn't long enough".

I liked "'Do you dance?' she asked".

My hubby suggested "Stu met Nic. Game over!"

Have you got one?  Wanna share?

20th Sep 2011, 6:15am

I've always done my photo printing through Queensberry's professional printing lab in Auckland - I like to support a local company and I like the consistency I get from using the same company for my albums and prints.  And I still love them :-)

One thing I learned though, through the whole awards process this year is how custom printing on carefully chosen paper can take an image to the next level.  And if I can see that and appreciate the difference then I figure my clients can too.  So I have recently started offering an extra 'premium' option for printing.  

Art prints are lovingly printed using finest quality Epson inks on the very best professional Epson printer on carefully chosen fine art papers.  The black and whites in particular look amazing!

Queensberry still produce (in my humble opinion) the best photographic prints, on photographic paper. The fine art prints offer another option on top of that, custom printing on art papers.  

I imagine your choices will depend entirely on the images, their intended display space and the look you like best :-)

I'm loving the slight texture here but some of the papers in the range are more smooth...generally smaller images work better with smoother papers.

18th Sep 2011, 4:52pm

A funny, cool, internet kind of thing happened after I blogged about the book I remembered from my childhood.  I couldn't remember the title or author and I didn't even link the blog post from Facebook but someone named Britta found the post and recognised the story.  She gave me the title and author.  I was really excited and Facebooked about that...then Poppies Bookshop in Casabella Lane read my Facebook post and offered to track the book down for me.  So my copy of Frederick by Leo Lionni is on its way!

You can watch it on YouTube too!