wild is the wind

wild is the wind, quiet is her sleep.

model: andrea

part one of many many parts of an amazing shoot yesterday in the sand and wind. this is my first shoot of twenty eleven, i have a good feeling about this year.

forest nymph

i am working at the moment on another short film, starring my lovely and beautiful friend from work, katie. here is only a *tiny* sneak peek on what's to come. i can't wait to start putting this short film together! its going to be amazing.

two in the afternoon

model: lexi

mua: judith joan

just playing around.

australia day

yesterday dan bought me yellow flowers. today is australia day and dan drove to wollongong and we walked around the beach, looked at the clouds, i took pictures and the sun set in the most beautiful way over the mountains. it was quiet, but quiet is lovely sometimes when everyday is loud.

i've been quiet and enjoying some post-christmas holidays. on saturday is my first shoot of twenty eleven, and there are so so many shoots already planned after that and even more in the making (im very excited to be working with some talented people).

the metro

so midnight horizon got to run around sydney's own metro stage for their last show of twenty ten. at first i wasn't even going to take pictures, i didn't have a photographers pass or anything (thanks guys :P) i was just standing there and watching them play but it felt too weird, not actually doing anything. with the amount of time i spend around these guys and the fact that i am always working (taking pictures) while they're working (playing music) i feel like im pretty much part of the band. in the end i obviously couldn't contain myself anymore and decided to just run around the crowd taking photos and im so glad i did.

the last picture is a snap matt took of me in the metro.

hear their side of the story: www.midnighthorizonmusic.com

sparks

so i've been meaning to lately start up on creating crazily photoshoped images like i used to, basically because its fun and it really unleashes your creativity. it seems that after not doing any of that after a year, its a lot harder to jump back to level you were at before. however, with dan helping me, i've slowly been coming up with ideas and doing a lot of experiments. i've started a little scrapbook with drawings on things i'd like to create eventually. im thinking i could plan my future shoots around this main idea i want to create then any other shots we get would just be random shoot like i've been doing this past year.. but that's another story that i haven't really thought too much about yet.

so anyway, i took a photo of dan on the road, throwing the top hat around. initially i was going to photoshop the top hat in to make it look like it was just floating slightly above his head, but i liked this photo better. this isn't the complete original photo, this one i already removed the houses and things that were in the background slightly to the top.

next thing, i adjusted the curves to make it darker and have a green/eerie sort of tinge to it.

i layered a few textures on varying layer styles, masking bits and pieces out.

then dan suggested i added some smoke and so i did. the same as the textures, i think i put the smoke pictures to soft light or overlay and masked bits and pieces out, especially at brush 100% where it was covering dan. i didn't so much want it to look like it was just foggy, i really wanted it to look like the smoke was just behind him.

after the smoke it still looked like it was missing something. at first i was attempting to diffuse his fingertips, making them look pixelated and falling away. however, the tutorial i read of this a long long time ago (about three years ago!) had escaped my mind, so i decided to tackle that technique in a future artwork. instead i added golden splatters which i think finished the artwork nicely. i added a few more final touches with curves and it was done!

no such thing

model: joji

celeste & kris

it came as a lovely surprise to me when one of my high school photography teachers came up to me and asked if i could photograph her wedding. by that point i had only photographed one other wedding but i was pretty convinced that i would be up to documenting their special day so of course i said i'd love to! it was unfortunately pouring rain the entire day, but that didn't dampen anyone's spirits. the bride and groom seemed as happy as ever and couldn't wipe the lovely smiles off their faces, which makes my job very easy :)

dan came along and helped me take pictures. it was my first time being the main photographer (im usually assisting) so i wanted to make sure that i covered absolutely everything. at one point we were so sure that the rain wasn't going to stop (and we were quite right), poor dan had to drive out in bowral's main little town in the morning to find five black matching umbrellas which really came in handy after all. im so happy i was able to capture the magic of the day and im really glad the couple love the pictures as much as i do!