It’s a bit of a delicate balance for us, showing you what we do, without giving away too much secret sauce.

Sifting through the archives we’ve provided an insight into our DVD, fine art prints and mini album collections, though haven’t, until this stage, shown our flagship hand crafted Italian leather albums.

Whilst the scent of the leather, feel of the product and way in which our images pop off the pages cannot be reflected online, we hope you enjoy another of our ‘behind the scenes’ style posts.

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” ~Henry Ford

In the words of the family…

“Hi Josh & Kylie, We are still busy picking up our jaws from the floor! You can quote me on that, the images were stunning! You sure made us look better than we do in real life. Thank you again for making that such an amazing evening and turning out a stunning product like that!” 

This post is a reflection of the incredible journey Kylie and I have experienced through capturing images for our lovely clients throughout 2011.

Whether you are a client, potential client, friend, frequent or infrequent visitor of our work or fellow photographer we hope this post brings some insight into our photography world beyond the still images you see displayed within the pages of our blog.

We had 3 core goals to build upon during 2011.
1. Grow as a business.
2. Grow as photographers.
3. Attract and provide fabulous clients with a valued experience and quality product.

How did we fair? We can never be the true judge. That’s for you to ultimately decide.

We hope we got a few things right.

Our enquiries went through the roof, booking out the entire year early in 2011.

Our style of work has grown as we continue to refine our behind the scenes processing, workflow, client interaction and elements of lighting and composition – all whilst continuing to maintain our consistent style.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed celebrating in the life journey of the most fabulous clients, many of which have become great friends. We are truly humbled that many of our clients continue to follow and comment on our work.

60,000+ images were captured this year.

Every image a single moment in the lives of our clients.

Images reflected clients through different phases of life’s journey. It has been such a privilege, especially sharing in many of these phases with the same clients.

Education, experience and ongoing hard work have continued behind the scenes. We have developed as individuals, as a business and as photographers. We seek to continuously improve on our ability to capture moments in the lives of our clients – reflecting their story, their lives and them.

For now, a few various reflections from 2011. Enjoy the rest of 2011. We’ll be back blogging in 2012.

We spent a great afternoon capturing images for these guys. We look forward to their wedding (including the candy bar!).

Enter stage left Jacinta & Al. What a great couple! We’ve said it before, though we certainly did feel like guests at this wedding (just guests holding cameras!).

A few unique, memorable moments. The ‘best man’ Joanna was a beautiful, expecting woman (due in 7 weeks). What a fabulous gesture to select those closest to you for your bridal party irrespective of gender. Jacinta’s sister Leeha learnt a song to play during the reception. My favourite…the beautiful Maggie, bridesmaid aka photographer saleswoman, taking photos on the day to try to sell to me.

Enjoy the sneak peak. Thanks for allowing us to share in your special day guys.

I’d like to spend a bit of time touching on what I see as the difference between taking a photo and creating an image.

Increasingly more people have affordable access to digital SLR cameras, enjoy taking photos of their family/friends/travels and dabble a bit in Photoshop. Does this make you a photographer? Can you create nice photos? Sure, why not. Power to everyone!

So what’s the difference between a photo and an image? In my view, there is a huge difference.

I believe an image is a pre-visualisation of knowing the outcome of what you are about to create, being able to do that consistently to a professional standard and picturing how that image will be processed, printed and presented within a printed or bound form for your client. All before the shutter button is pressed.

Often, all of this needs to occur in a few split seconds at a wedding.

So, what are some of the things that go through our minds in the seconds before we capture an image? In the simplest form…
Where do I want the light to fall within the frame?
What is the personality of the subject or mood I’m looking to portray?
What composition and framing do I want for my subject?
What is in the background of the frame? What objects are wider/in closer? How close/far away is my subject from other elements?
What am I trying to achieve from this image exposure wise?
Do I want lots of light/darkness in the frame? Do I want lots of things in focus or narrow focus?
What ISO? What Shutter Speed? What Aperture?
How do I want the end result of this image to look?

All of this before we even touch a computer.

If many of these elements are missed, no level of photoshop is going to convey an image.

We are strong believers that having a vision for an image adds a significant element to consistency in your work.

We are going out on a limb here with a few very raw sample insights into what our images look like straight out of the camera (SOOC) vs. final state. Note the same composition, lighting, framing & exposure. Our pre-visualised outcome is merely refined in post processing based on the mood and style we wanted to reflect.

As always, we enjoy your thoughts.