In 2011 I have also gathered a great bunch of friends in the wedding photography industry, having photographed as a second shooter for a handful of great operators, met up with some awesome people at our group meets and shared and received some advice on all things photographic and business. This year will see my first proper venture into fashion (i’ll tell you more about it in a coming post) as well as some weddings in gorgeous locations. This year will also focus on getting me more industry training, some website massaging including a new gallery system, an improved contact page as well a products section and maybe some new and exciting printed products being added to the already fantastic range I offer.

 What I want to share with you today is my 40 favourite images of 2011 that I hand picked myself for no particular reason other than I just liked them. Each one has its own story to tell so I won’t bore you with caption after caption; they all were picked, not to sum up my portfolio or to show you my best work, just to show you the amazing moments I froze in time with the press of a button. These photographs show me either an unrepeatable slice of time that got unnoticed by 99% of the people at the wedding, they show some very emotive moments that were captured and remind the couple of the feelings they felt when they get the pictures, photos I may have captured by pure fluke or by chance, photos that pushed my creativity, photos that may have taken a long time to setup or the light was just perfect and it was the star of the show.

I also chose some photographs that I remember I was having a great time myself, either by laughing my butt off when the boys were running amuck during their shoot or when the moment was so perfect I fired off so many frames my camera’s buffer filled up before the memory card could write them. Luckily I don’t use film anymore!

Keep an eye out for long overdue blog post for last few weddings of the last quarter of 2011, I just have been so busy and I have put my client’s product delivery first. Also a big thanks to my previous clients and the Flickr group for your support, it means a lot. Now off to do the last adjustments of the last wedding of the year so I have a clean slate for 2012!

Yes, its that time of year. We brave busy shopping centres, empty our bank accounts and eat until we burst; its Christmas time! With this exciting and fun filled part of the year, comes my print lab and photo book printer’s cut off dates. I have forwarded them a bit to allow for file preparation and incase of any uploading issues. Be sure if you are after any printed products to get your request in early to ensure delivery before Christmas. Book orders cannot be granted unless you have received a proof beforehand as these are the actual printer cut offs. Any questions, feel free to call or email.

Acrylic Mounts with UV Bonded Ink – Wednesday 7th of December

Canvas and Craftwood mounts – Wednesday 7th of December

Metallic Prints – Wednesday 14th of December

Lustre Prints – Monday 19th of December

Debossed, Image Wrap and Proof Books – Tuesday 13th of December

Deluxe Photo Books – Wednesday the 7th of December

Printing will commence Monday the 9th of January 2012.

MV Photography will also have limited email contact from the 22nd of December until the 2nd of January. I’d suggest all wedding related enquiries be completed by the closure time to ensure you get an answer nice and fast! In the meantime I’ll still be blogging, website updating and shooting every chance I get!

Arrivederci

Boy has it been a busy last few months with me having a few wedding gigs to finish off and meeting some more wonderful couples that will be getting married next year. With all the new weddings to come, there should be mountains of blog material coming your way.

• Future bookings: Bookings for 2011 have been closed off to wedding clients, the calendar is simply full and all is booked solid until the end of April 2012. During these times I still will be taking on engagement photography sessions and commercial photography commissions.
• MV Photography will be overseas from August 8th until August 19th for some ‘sit by the pool time’ during the wedding off season to relax and spend some time with wife Belinda. During this time I won’t be able to take any phone calls or reply to emails in many cases (i’ll be quite remote), so I’ll endeavour to get back to you as soon as I land back home.
• Some new gear has been added to the bag during the last 6 months; a Canon 5D Mk II 21MegaPixel beast for ultra high resolution prints, a Sigma 50mm f1.4 prime lens and for travel purposes I bought a new wide angle zoom, the Tokina 20-35mm f2.8 and a Vanguard Up-Rise 28 Camera Bag, which I’ll talk about in future posts. Still on the cards is a good wide angle prime lens, but I’ll need to give that one some time I think.
• In late August I’ll have a fashion shoot for a very exciting up and coming designer based in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. This shoot will hopefully boost her to stardom, so I’ll keep you posted on that one.
• The pricing guide for 2012 is now in development with some new formatting changes, new images and if time allows some new printed products. I am just struggling with time at the moment to organise product samples, so hopefully in time we’ll have some exquisite new coffee table books and new wall hangings.
• Look out soon for photos of Zoe and Ryan’s wedding, photographed at Inglewood Estate, Kangaroo Ground.

Wedding Vendors:

Celebrant: Barb Hadlow  www.barbhadlow-celebrant.com.au

Venue: Coonara Springs, 129 Olinda-Munbulk Rd, Olinda  www.coonarasprings.com.au

Music: Alannah Guthrie-Jones, live harpist  www.heavenlymoments.com.au

Wedding Gown: Miss Bella, Boronia  www.missbella.co.au

Groom’s Suit: Briggins, Croydon www.briggins.com.au

Flowers: Debbie O’Neill  www.debbieoneill.com.au

• MV Photography will be closed for the month of October as we’ll be overseas for the majority of the month on our honeymoon. Email enquiries are still welcome and we’ll try to reply to them when we can as we’ll have limited Internet access
• My new new release print newsletter will be delayed until I get some more time. I’ll try to release it over the coming weeks so people can read it while we’re overseas
• I finally have my iPhone 4 and I’m having a lot of fun with the in built camera and photography apps. I have started a little iPhone gallery on my Flick page.
• A few new products have been added to the collection to feed my gear acquisition syndrome; a new bag from Kata and a new pro level compact camera from Nikon

The Kata 3n1-33 camera bag is probably close to the ultimate camera bag. When you are a photographer or even just a keen amateur, the search for the perfect camera bag goes on for years and costs thousands of dollars. This is my 8th camera bag and it ticks most of the boxes, I’ve already used it on a couple of product photography jobs and the capacity of bag is stellar, it is comfortable to wear and it is easy to get to the gear inside. After we come back from our trip I’ll give you a review to see how it performed on the task it was designed for (the ultimate travel photography bag).

Just added to the bag this week is the new Nikon P7000 Pro Compact Camera which only got released a couple of days ago so I haven’t even had a chance to have a play with it just yet. First impressions out of the box are great, it looks good, the menus are relatively intuitive, it is lighter than expected and all the dials and controls seem to be firm and of a good solid quality. One thing I think would be great is you can set back button focusing which suits my shooting style.

Many online user are mixed with mentions of average image quality and slow write times for writing a RAW file to the memory card. I am a stickler for quality, but I mainly purchased this camera as a handy macro (close-up)  device for use at weddings and as a take anywhere camera for my travels. I doubt I will ever print anything bigger than 8×10 with this camera and with my knowledge about image sharpening in Photoshop I think I’ll get some great sharp images. I’ll also be using this camera for experimentation with time lapse photography so stay tuned for a review soon.

• In other news stay tuned this November for both personal projects photo shoots and a couple of portrait sessions. Be sure to connect through Facebook to keep up to date with the latest posts and keep tabs on specials and competitions.

• The new pricing guide has received much praise from new clients and friends. It details everything you need to know about MV Photography and the range of beautiful printed products available.
• February and March next year is starting to look like a busy period for me, so if there are any couples looking to get married around this period it is best to give me a call soon to book your spot.
• Being the wintery non wedding season it has been time to sort out all the paperwork and business materials, so coming over the next few months will be a Photo Book sample, a beautiful new brochure and new business cards.
• I am still taking registrations of interest for basic Digital SLR training, so if anyone is interested please shoot me an email as the more people I can get the faster the training will come and the cheaper it will be for everyone.
• I’m in discussions with some wedding photographer contacts to present some training at a business level (namely Photoshop  and Adobe Lightroom) skills) to be held at a studio in Malvern, so that should be interesting.
• I myself will be taking in a few seminars and workshops when I can as they come thick and fast in winter.
• I have registered for the 2010 Annual Photo Walk being held in St Kilda on Saturday 24th of July. It’s always fun to catch up with other photography enthusiasts and just take pictures of stuff we would normally pass by. Head over to Scott Kelby’s blog for information if you want to join me.
• My Lowepro CompuTrekka Plus AW photo backpack is for sale as I don’t really use it that much (it looks as good as new) and I’m going to invest in a big road case to carry all my gear to wedding photography jobs. Please email me or call me for details and a price (full review and pictures coming soon).
• Below is an image I retouched to show a potential client if I could do a particular style that she saw on the internet, so I was happy to demonstrate this to her. Soon there will be a full blog post on the step by step on what I did to achieve this look in the photo.

One from the wedding archives of Tash and Andrew’s Wedding in  November last year. A spontaneous moment captured for them to keep forever.