on a heatwave friday, we wandered through the gravel pathways around a caravan park which slept next to the river and under the busy bridge of speeding cars. we shot in the front yards of the caravans, amongst the empty beer cans, piled up bicycles and conversations of the locals. we were so tempted to jump in the muddy water while we were shooting, the heat was unbearable during the day. but instead we giggled insanely when we were shooting under the sun and took refuge in one of the empty cabin rooms the owner of the park, a man by the name of cowboy, so kindly let us use for the day.
model: tara
makeup: lidija
stylist: jessie
sourcing her clothes from
&
.
2012 was an amazing year. it is the last day of the year today (only three hours to go until midnight) and i thought nothing would be more fitting if i wrote a blog post about all the wonderful things that have happened in the past twelve months. i've met with more talented and creative people than i can count on two hands, traveled everywhere beautiful, and have grown so much as a person and as a photographer. here is a little list of the things that happened to me:
i started off the year exploring and
with dan.
i officially make a living only from photography.
i set out to shoot a
and ended up shooting
.
i am part of the
team shooting weddings.
i was
in culture magazine.
i shot for some
.
i hosted a
. and taught a few one on one workshops in between.
i went to a
and made lots of new friends.
i thought i would show you some things i got up to this year in pictures as well, after all i'm better at talking with pictures than i am at writing:
i spent a lovely day with kiara rose. she showed me around her forest backyard and we took pictures and sat and talked in the long grass.
i became part of evoke images. a wonderful little team i am so proud to be shooting with! matt and i drove past forest fire burnt landscapes and stopped on the side of the road to get some pictures.
his camera bag vs. my tiny bag!
dan bought a ukulele which he records music for my short films with.
i went on lots of long drives. most of them with dan.
abbey love taking a photo of amelia zadro on one of our shoots. and some more behind the scenes:
the top of the world.
lauren was lovely enough to come along with me to two of my shoots to take behind the scenes pictures. i can't wait to share them with you!
lots of test shooting throughout the year. this is the lovely krystal from ava models.
my cat who jumps on my car the second i get home from shooting weddings in the middle of the night.
some self portraits on rainy christmas day.
bright fish swimming on the pavement.
a moment in between with ellie on our oh deer shoot.
sunsets while exploring.
walking down to the river at shoots and being tempted to swim in the muddy water on heatwave days.
visiting my dad.
a couple daydreaming in the park.
shoots on the side of the road (this is emma sabjan) where police drove past and put their sirens on to scare us. they drove away laughing when we all jumped and screamed.
self portraits by the creek.
outtakes from lookbook shoots.
wise words on the side of the street.
exploring the streets of sydney on shoots.
lunchtime with the lenni vintage team.
we made the street turn red.
blue rocks from smoke bombs.
wrapping up the lenni vintage shoot.
drives to the beach a few days ago.
detours through the countryside.
2013 will be different. simple, i guess. this is what i want to do:
travel somewhere outside of australia.
love more and be kind.
it's a short list i admit, but doing these two things will make me the happiest soul in the world. i guess i will see you all on the other side where i've got lots of new blog posts to make of pretty pictures and short films full of colour and wonder.
have a happy new year everyone! xo
not too long ago i had a wonderful day with 6 talented and down to earth photographers. we decided to all meet up, just so we could spend the day talking and taking pictures.
this is a group shot taken by christian at the end of the day. from left to right we have: alexandra benetel, kiara rose, asher lilly, myself, caitlin worthington, jessica christie & christian benetel.
it was so lovely to be able to meet all these talented people. we had such a fun time taking photos of each other (which at times was quite daunting when out of nowhere there are six cameras pointing at you rather than just the one you had to begin with!) while climbing trees, walking across giant rocks, laying down in the middle of the road just as photographers do to get a good picture.
this day was so inspiring and i would love to go back at the first chance i get to photograph with all these guys again <3>
here is a little video of bits and pieces that i filmed on the day:
model: bree (bambi) fry
makeup: jessie mcnaught
stylist: jessie mcnaught
tee shirts: tee pee by jessica brennan
i met a girl on the side of the road, who skipped school and liked to wander the suburbs in the rain. she set fire to her lungs and held onto the summertime blues tightly in her pocket like a secret.
these photos are of the lovely designs of jessica brennan. she is an amazingly talented artist and if you are interested in getting any of her pretty tops, you should have a look
.
model: madeline rae mason
makeup: megan vaughan
stylist: jessie mcnaught
leggings and black sequin jacket: black milk clothing
short film coming soon...
before we left for out shoot, naomi and i spent five minutes in leah's backyard and took some simple portraits in the clothes naomi was already wearing, with warm sunlight peeking over the metal fence. i will be blogging our final photos from the day soon!
model: naomi
makeup: rebecca
stylist: leah
by the way, all these photos (except the black and white one) were edited with
from
! x
we left early in the morning.
long, winding roads and trees everywhere.
the sun slowly peeking over the tree.
location scouting at the wedding venue, acres and acres worth of land to explore.
shooting the lolly table and hanging up the wedding dress in the tree.
we had two cameras to shoot with thanks to our lovely friend max! these tree photos are edited with 'white lace' from digital film.
a pretty wooden window with a pretty view in our temporary home.
sitting outside in the sunlight.
we had the most wonderful home-made breakfast.
the sights in the beautiful town of bundanoon.
markets with lovely home-made things wrapped up in flowers and vintage colours.
the best coffee shop, ever.
midday lunch before newly married katie & austin and their family joined us.
edited with 'white lace' from digital film.
parked on the side of the road.
day two of taking photos was at this beautiful location.
the long drive back home.
a wall of trees.
i spent this weekend with dan shooting katie & austin's wedding, who are both dear friends to me. everything was amazing to say the least. dan and i left early on saturday morning and drove a few hours to get to moss vale. when we got to the location of their wedding, we spent a little while walking around the acres of land scouting for locations to shoot at, these were the last few quiet moments we had for that day.
from there, the rest of the day was a wonderful blur of laughter and tears, family members rushing in and out of rooms to try and get ready. trying to take photos of katie without austin suddenly rushing past and peeking at the bride before the ceremony (which luckily didn't happen but was a little too close for comfort!). but, i'll tell more of the story of their wedding day when i post the final photos!
we didn't finish shooting until about midnight and my hands felt glued to my camera after taking photos for fourteen hours straight! none of it would have been possible either if i hadn't had dan by my side helping me and second shooting throughout the day. we drove back in the middle of the night, going fast down the winding dirt roads lined with forests and i was so excited that i saw my first real life wombat scurrying back into the trees as we were driving past.
when we got to our temporary home, we fell onto the beds and fell asleep without a second thought. in the morning, the owner of the bed & breakfast had the tastiest home-made goods waiting for us to eat. she told us stories of escaping the loud city years ago to retreat in bundanoon and her husband and dan chatted away about their similar interest and job (dan's current and his past) of being a music engineer. after checking out, we headed into the main town (which is old but well taken care of and full of life, even if it's in the middle of nowhere) and sipped on more coffee at our now favourite coffee shop.
the rest of this day will come soon in photos, we took more portraits of katie and austin at a home with acres of land (all the properites at moss vale seem to have giant backyards) filled with flowers and landscaping, buzzing with bees and mosquitos but beaming with colours.
rose & ellie.
abbey love working her magic.
all the lovely clothes we were shooting.
the model and makeup artist swapped shoes for the day.
these are a few behind the scenes images i took on the day of our pastel bones shoot with oh deer boutique. you can see the final photos
.
we started this day taking photos in fields of grass in the shade of big gum trees. as we were walking across the road in the heat, we stumbled across this abandoned house. at first we only saw the metal-skeleton clothing line lonelily standing and swaying in the breeze. as we went to knock on the front door to ask the owners if we could take a few photos in their yard, we found ripped fly screens on the windows and a vacated white house.
and so we spent the rest of the day resting on flower bushes with bees happily humming around our ankles, treading through the squelching grass (the front yard had been flooded and all our shoes were destroyed by the end of the day), sitting by the lavender flowers and getting tangled in tree branches.
model: ellie
makeup: www.abbeylove.com.au
clothing: oh deer boutique
i also created a little film from our adventures on the day, this is probably one of my favourites. drowned in sunlight and the exact way i like to spend my afternoons:
miserable weather.
standing in the middle of the train tracks. left.
right.
the car through the trees that would soon be lighting our photos.
coralie getting her makeup done in the dark. lit by phone lights.
the team filing up helium balloons.
jess & coralie.
the amazing wonders in the antique store we shot at.
jess working her magic.
penney in the reflections.
the view from above.
jess taking polaroids of everything.
a shelf of harry potter wands.
goodbye lovely antique store.
little car, big trees.
look number ii.
every hour that day it woud start to pour down rain. it's a miracle we had any sunshine to shoot with at all!
"it's cooooolddd!"
penney won't let me take any photos of her.
the long, muddy road home.
wandering around the acres of grass and trees.
this time we brought candles for the dark, we lit the night on fire.
the last look of the day just before it got dark.
blogging has become sort of an online diary where i post all the adventures i get up to. now it seems like such a normal thing to do, but it will be wonderful when i'm old and wrinkly to look back on all these careless things that we did when we were younger such as running around in an abandoned castle at night while it's raining, screaming and laughing at the bugs and gross mud we walked through just so we could stand in the long, wet grass with a handful of slowly deflating balloons.
i couldn't appreciate more being a photographer at times like these. being outside in the cold air that scratches the back of my throat when i breathe, holding a camera tightly between my palms and taking photos of the light and movement, drenching half my clothes in ocean water for a single photo, running in muddy forests barefoot, breathing in the rain. it hits me almost every day that this has become my life, and i couldn't be happier that i'm living it. slowly making my dreams come true.
and here are the final photos from our two day shoot for age of intimacy. we shot in a lovely antique store that had things hanging from every possible spot in the ceiling. old 60s music softly played in the background as we shot amongst the rocking chairs and walked along the creaking floorboards.
the final video:
a big thank you goes out to the team making all this possible:
chase studios
for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their
.
the team at age of intimacy:
designer & creative director:
productions & locations:
model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks
photography, video and editing: julia trotti
hair stylist:
makeup artist:
many thanks to:
eurama estate &
town and country antiques
for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.
behind the scenes will be blogged tomorrow! x
model:
james
stylist:
jodie
today we spent the day exploring the corners and sidestreets of surry hills. my camera came along with us as we were invited to shoot inside quaint cafe's by a jolly coffee-maker, climbed barred windows and skated around the sydney streets decorated with dead rats on the sidewalk. we walked into a random corner store to get sour apple slurpees and took some photos while we were there beside the shelving with lollies as the manager of the store just stared at us, slightly amused.
towards the end of the day of running around and walking upside-down, we decided to finish up by having another small adventure, so we ventured to the rooftop of a tall building. it was windy and cold but the view was breathtaking. i've always had such a fascination with being so high up and seeing how little the world is in all it's vastness.
on day two, we drove back through the bumpy road (car sliding and girls screaming and chatting in between) to get to the abandoned castle, we shot in the wet fields of grass and muddy puddles until sundown.
and of course, a big thank you goes out to the team making all this possible:
chase studios
for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their
.
the team at age of intimacy:
designer & creative director:
productions & locations:
model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks
photography, video and editing: julia trotti
hair stylist:
makeup artist:
many thanks to:
eurama estate &
town and country antiques
for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.
part iii will be blogged tomorrow! x
last month, i shot age of intimacy's my deadly sins campaign for their newest collection. it was one of the craziest campaigns i've ever been a part of, split up into two days of mishaps and lovely moments where everything seems to somehow fall into place and fit together perfectly.
day one was a half day shoot. we planned to meet up in the beautiful wilderness of the blue moutains during the day, but pouring down rain and a broken car later, we get there just before dusk. the sun settled down as hair and makeup was finished and by the time we started shooting in this amazing abandoned castle, it was dark. we fired up the car's highbeams to shoot through the night. it was the middle of winter in sydney and poor coralie was freezing but was an absolute trooper and fought through the cold.
we had polaroid cameras to shoot behind the scenes with, and dozens of balloons to play around with. we filmed and shot while the rain came down, but we didn't stop until all the outfits had a lovely photo to go along with it. the drive back home was bumpy and muddy, but i got home and collapsed into bed. my few days beforehand of colour-starved eyes were finally full of lovely photos and moving-pictures to inspire me for day two of shooting.
none of this dream-like creativity would have been possible without our amazing team!
first of all a big thank you goes to chase studios for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their
.
the team at age of intimacy:
designer & creative director:
productions & locations:
model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks
photography, video and editing: julia trotti
hair stylist:
makeup artist:
many thanks to:
eurama estate &
town and country antiques
for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.
part ii will be blogged tomorrow! x
something i get asked a lot about is how to shoot in direct sunlight without a reflector or an extra light source. so i thought i'd put together a quick blog post with some image examples to give you ideas on how to position your model against the sun to achieve a certain look to your photos. i've noted the times in which the photos were taken, most of them range between 12pm - 6pm. between 12 and 2 is usually when australia has the harshest light of the day.
hopefully this blog post will inspire the thought that you
can
take beautiful photos in the middle of a sunny day, with nothing but natural light and your camera, and give you some ideas to try it too!
back-lit.
shot at: 12.30pm
back-lit images are when the light source is behind your subject. by doing this, your photos will look dreamy and soft, this is one of my favourite ways of shooting! for a golden halo around your model, try diffusing the light behind some trees, a building or a cliff.
shot at: 3pm
shot at: 1.30pm
direct sunlight
shot at: 4.30pm
when shooting in direct sunlight, position yourself to have your back to the sun, and the sun shining directly to the model's face. this lighting creates a more dramatic look to your photos. the shadows are deeper, the colours are more vibrant and the background is more prominent.
shooting with direct sunlight at the beginning of the day produces more striking images, with more contrast as you can see from the two photos shot at 1 and 2 pm. the later in the day you shoot, the softer the light becomes as you can see in the photos taken at 4.30 and 6pm.
shot at: 1pm
shot at: 6pm
shot at: 2pm
in the shadows
shot at: 12pm
another option when shooting in the middle of a sunny day, is to shoot in the shadows of a building, fence or tree. the shadows will give your image a nice dark balance, with light still bouncing back onto your model's face from the bright day.
shot at: 1.30pm
side light
shot at: 12pm
one last way i work with bright sunlight, is to use it as a side light. this gives you a little bit of both worlds; back-lit and direct light shooting! the images are halfway in between soft and dreamy as well as harsh and deep.
shot at: 11.40am
shot at: 5.30pm
I'm excited because I've started sharing more fashion shoot behind the scenes videos + Lightroom & Photoshop Tutorials on my YouTube Channel! Be sure to subscribe as I upload 2 new videos every week x