so we drove down to Parachute Festival on sunday to spend time with friends and catch Casting Crowns and some other bands in the evening concert performance. here’s a few of my shots from the night – lots more on facebook of Casting Crowns if you’re interested

do you know someone who would really love to have a beautiful professional family photo shoot AND all their images on disc to keep for Christmas this year – but could never afford it?

well this could be their lucky year, because i will be giving away two Christmas gift sessions including photos this year to two deserving (Auckland-based) families, and all you have to do to suggest your friend’s family is send me an email with a brief description about who they are and why you believe they should receive one

photo(AT)availablelight.co.nz (i will choose the winners just before Christmas Day)

so let’s see these stories people – make it REALLY hard for me to choose and do something lovely for your friends!

ok – i think the heat might be getting to me, because i have decided to give away multiple Queensberry Press Albums worth over $1,200 each to my portrait session clients this summer! to find out how you can win one, check out my specials page

Queensberry is a top of the line industry-standard international album supplier – and they are based right here in NZ which i love, cos i’m all about supporting the locals. so, to celebrate the release of their new range of beautiful Press Albums, i have decided to really get the word out there and offer these for FREE to every winner.

…don’t you want to be one?

today i took a walk along Devonport wharf to see a unique public collection of knitted & crocheted art from over 90 artists – from around here and from around the world! this collection is still growing every day so i highly recommend you grab your family and do the Woolly Walk-Along.

here’s a sample of what’s on offer…

ok so… anyone who knows me knows i’m pretty much a beginner where sport is concerned. of course, i like it when our teams win; but i’m not usually interested in watching how it happened. but i made an exception yesterday for the RWC opening ceremony. from about 4pm i was watching it on the tv, and at 6pm we went to sit in traffic for an hour to get to Mt Victoria in Devonport, which is probably the best vantage point in the city for waterfront fireworks displays.

this was the same place that i shot the 2011 New Years display from. last night the smoke didn’t really disperse during the show which certainly made some interesting effects but it did block part of the end of the display from view. here’s a couple of pics… (full gallery on our facebook)

visit & like our facebook page to view the whole evening’s display

no – this isn’t a post about composition techniques!

two weeks ago, i had my busiest week, professionally and personally combined, since i started running my company. on top of all the normal stuff, i had four shoots in a row: one each day from monday to thursday; i went out three nights and one morning to various social events & meetings; one of my kids went on a school camp and the other had a milestone birthday; and my car chose THAT WEEK to play up, requiring daily visits to the mechanic and last-minute scrambling to borrow a loaner.

as the week wore on (in other words, by monday afternoon LOL), i could feel my general sense of peace evaporating and even though outwardly i was still me, inside was Frank Costanza in the famous “SERENITY NOW!!!!” Seinfeld episode. moment by moment i was enjoying my clients, the photo shoots and the events; but overall i was “butter scraped over too much bread” (thank you Tolkien).

today, i was thinking. if it’s true that that day to day dramas won’t matter a year from now – or even a month from now – then why let it matter RIGHT NOW? life is much longer than this moment, therefore this moment is suddenly much less important.

“a small pebble, when held up to the eye, obscures all else and blurs the vision; whereas if it is cast to the ground it becomes an insignificant bump on the path.” perspective is one of the greatest wisdoms, i think. and the greatest challenge is to keep it in view continually.

at the beginning i said this wasn’t a post about composition… but really, it is. you need to be conscious of what your life is made up of. is it a collection of helpless responses to stress? or is it an overall positive calm, in spite of the squalls and storms?

here’s a photo from a walk in the rain with my camera last week:

(SERENITY NOW!!!!)

“Photography is savouring life at 1/100th of a second”
-Marc Riboud

i am surrounded by people who often say to me: “how can you enjoy yourself at |insert place/event here| when you’re lugging that giant camera around?” or: “you’re not even really here, you’re watching everything through that tiny window”

so, finding a quote like the one above resonates with me. there are others out there who feel most like themselves while recording their world through a viewfinder, & to deprive us of it assuming that you are somehow relieving a burden is at best a misguided kindness… at worst an arrogance (oh dear, that’s a harsh word isn’t it).

photographer Chris Orwig says, in a recent guest blog post for Photoshop Insider:

“Photographers are an interesting bunch. …we discover that life’s small mysteries and moments can be magnified. Somehow we get more out of life with a camera in hand. When we take pictures, we see more clearly, we remember more deeply, and we live more fully… We are driven to create something that is one of a kind. We want to expresses our unique voice and vision. It is something we have to do. Taking pictures satisfies an internal thirst. It is an essential part of who we are.”

some people scorn this worldview, and feel pity for those so dependant on a little clicking box for enjoyment. but you can no more turn off the art in an artist than you can prevent water from wetting things. without a camera to hand, we are often even more distracted; mentally frustrated by the lost opportunities to capture & create.

so be tolerant of your “mad” photographer friends, and consider that the behaviour which you find so vexing today may well delight you in years to come, when your own memories of the day have grown hazy & faint!

(ps: i highly recommend visiting the link above for Chris’s guest post: it’s a fantastic read!)

shooting with others is always more fun than shooting alone, and also a good opportunity to talk shop! the following photos were taken at a group practice photo session today. the idea for the group came about from the reality that often as professional photographers we are required to shoot in quite ordinary surroundings – and make them look extraordinary! so a few of us decided it would be educational & fun to meet up and shoot together, sharing ideas & experience, for the benefit of all.

we are looking forward to seeing our group grow, & getting to know more local mums who work as professional photographers

as a response to the urgent call for funds which has followed yesterday’s heartbreaking tragedy in the beautiful garden city of Christchurch with the horrific 6.3 earthquake, available light ltd will be shooting for free!

we are donating 100% of every session fee for family photo shoots booked during the rest of this month (feb), and all of march 2011. that’s $250 per session! donations will be made via the Red Cross – so please spread the word! just contact us at via e-mail or phone 027 2527 488 to make a booking and your session fee will go straight to the people who need it most.

OTHER FUNDRAISING & ASSISTANCE EFFORTS which you may also want to contribute to

Delish Cupcakes’ “Get Your Bake On” fundraiser sale (North Shore Auckland): March 5, 10am-3pm (Shop 4, 16 Raines Ave, Forrest Hill)
more details on their facebook event page

Campbells Bay School Family Fun Fair (North Shore Auckland): March 11, 4pm-8pm originally planned for internal fundraising, now ALL proceeds from this hugely popular event will be donated to the Christchurch Appeal! bring your families and enjoy a great evening of fun, entertainment and food at the school, Aberdeen Rd Castor Bay. facebook event page here

Handmade For Christchurch: visit this facebook page to donate handcrafted items and artwork which will be auctioned on TradeMe with all proceeds going to Christchurch. handmade4chch TradeMe auctions here if you want to bid on anything

Christchurch Charity Auctions: visit this facebook page to donate new products and services to be auctioned on TradeMe with all proceeds going via the Red Cross to Christchurch. chchcharityauc TradeMe auctions here if you want to bid on anything

Student Volunteer Army (Christchurch): join this facebook page if you want to help with physical cleanup operations once Civil Defense has given the all-clear

(all images in this post were captured on film)

my own photo history began with film; given that i first held a camera in the early 1970s! but i could never afford as much film as i needed to practice my art. also, i was never big on patience, and the wait between shooting a roll of film and actually being able to see the pictures was just killer. so for me, the advent of accessible digital imagemaking this century has literally been a childhood dream come true. however… that is just me, my story. and it won’t be everyone’s.

for a little while there it looked like digital might eventually totally eclipse film, due to constant improvements in digital technology & the lack of film interest among younger shooters; and once popular films such as Kodachrome have now gone out of production altogether, causing widespread dismay.

however film is currently enjoying an upsurge in mainstream popularity – thanks in no small part to committed film shooters such as the iconic Jonathan Canlas, whose work is very much admired (and for excellent reason). the Film Is Not Dead movement has attracted a significant following worldwide, and many digital shooters (and former film shooters), are either adding film to their regular bag or making the switch completely and (re)turning to a more traditional workflow.

i think this is wonderful! the creative world can only benefit from passionate people expressing & sharing their art in such a variety of ways. except… when some individuals get SO passionate, that they start to expect everyone to be like them. i have lost count of the number of articles i have read in recent weeks from born-again film shooters* who insist that the only true way to achieve photography nirvana is through 100% dedication to shooting film. (possibly this is karmic revenge for all the years of digital shooters calling film photographers ‘obsolete’ or ‘stuck in the past’… which is also highly disrespectful & unproductive.)

i hope this exclusive attitude is just a phase brought on by their delight in (re)discovering a new creative outlet, and that deep down they still believe that the work is more important than the tools. a photographer with vision can create beauty using a cameraphone or a Hasselblad, pixels or emulsion, Lightroom or a darkroom… (even with Canon or Nikon! but that’s a different rant LOL)

so let’s keep perspective, photographers! love and share what you do – but please do it respectfully, with the awareness that not everyone wants to make your story their own

*disclaimer: just to be clear, i am not including Mr Canlas in this group; he actually expresses that film is what HE does, and if you do it too, great, and if not, great. which is the perfect attitude IMO.