One of my favourite photographers, Chase Jarvis, whom I look to for inspiration in many areas of life just posted a cool video he recently shot for a client. I appreciate this short bio on so many different levels, I thought I would share it here. Hope you like it as much as I do.

Just run your mouse over “portfolio” on the image below and check it out. Feel free to let us know what you think. Leave any feedback in the comments below. We really appreciate it. It could take a second or two to load…

A dog person or a cat person??? ME? I have always been a dog person. This was recently reinforced to me when we visited a friend with the most gorgeous Huskies. Below are a few shots I took with my point and shoot.

Love what you do for a living and you will never work another day is a quote that has always resonated with me.  Life, I believe is to short to spend 40-60 hours a week doing something you don’t love. I have been “lucky” enough to have always made an income from the areas in my life I am passionate about.

Like everything in life, following your passion is full of highs and lows. I have never actually achieved any of my ultimate goals (maybe I set them too high?) in the endeavours I have pursued to this point in my life. But in the end it does not matter as the experiences I have had in working towards them will be with me forever.

I love photography, the power of an image to bring memories back to life is what drew me to photography. When I find myself in a funk, feeling like I am not making progress towards my life goals, I look through my personal collection of photo albums and remind myself how far I have come, the special people I have met along the way and how much fun it has all been.

I am so lucky that I get to share my passion for photography with so many wonderful unique couples on their wedding day. The only thing better than doing what you love for a living is finding that special person to share your life with who is prepared to stand by you through all the highs and lows.

This is now how I am starting and ending every day, swimming for 20 minutes. I have always loved the water. I never actually realised how much until I spent a year living in land locked Indiana. I love looking at it, being on it, immersing myself in it. There is something so calm and refreshing about being surrounded every day in everyway by H20.

I use to love long showers, they were my happy place, where I got creative, set goals and solved the worlds problems all at once. Now that I have access to a lap pool, I can do all that and get the blood pumping, talk about productive LOL.

For my photographer friends. The first two images are HDR photographs. Each image is five different exposures merged into one using photomatix pro.

This was the gorgeous sky I awoke to this morning. Feeling inspired I grabbed my camera and walked out onto the deck and took this photo. Well, two photos actually, then stitched them together in photoshop to create this panorama.

A little later in the morning I meet with Jeanette and Glenn who came over to talk about their wedding plans, and then decided to book us on the spot. They are getting married on April 18th in the beautiful cascade gardens, then they are holding the reception at the Southport RSL. I can’t wait to take some stunning photos of this wedding. 

So the weekend is off to a good start.  Now it is time to go down and swim some laps in the pool. I have been spending to much time sitting in front of this computer lately and it is starting to show….

  ]]> http://xesdrive.com/blog/2009/01/gorgeous-day-on-the-gold-coast/feed/ 0 http://xesdrive.com/blog/2009/01/why-do-i-like-this-photo/ http://xesdrive.com/blog/2009/01/why-do-i-like-this-photo/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:00:57 +0000 regan http://xesdrive.com/blog/?p=665 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

Technically I shouldn’t. It is over saturated and has no obvious focal point, the horizion is dead set in the middle of the frame and all the subjects have their back to the camera.

But I don’t care, because I do like it!! There is something about this photo I find engaging. Maybe it is the striking colours, or the way the leaves of the tree meet the shadows on the ground to form a natural frame. Maybe it is just because I was there when this photo was taken, but for me, it somehow captures the mood and feeling of this beautiful summers day, friends and family relaxing after the wonderful wedding of Matt and Vanessa.

I wanted to try a technique I had seen used to great effect by the uber talented Las Vegas based wedding photographer John Michael Cooper called light painting.  When there isn’t a fabulous bride around to model for me sometimes you just have to improvise. So, the photo below is a self portrait I shot with a little help from my full time Mum and part time assistant. (thanks Mum)

This photo is shot at the front door to my apartment/studio. The camera is set on a tripod to a 30 second exposure and a torch is literally used to paint in the area of the frame you want to highlight. The subject, me, must stay very still for 30 seconds while the shutter is open. To add a little more interest to the scene I set a flash to camera left, which is creating the shadows on the wall.

I set the camera on a timer, went and sat in the corner and got my assistant (Mum) to “paint” me into the frame. I think the final result was pretty good, as it minimised my chubby cheeks, avoided the shiny solar panel that is starting to appear on top of my head, and hid my ever expanding waisteline which seems to be growing an inch every year since I turned 30.

This is just a different crop of the same photo

Below is a set up shot taken while I was experimenting with exposures that better illustrates the technique that was used. You can see where I have used the torch to “paint” the wall white

The light is so beautiful first thing in the morning. A dawn wedding would be awesome to photograph. Not sure how popular you would be with some of the guests though LOL, not everyone is a morning person. These are two of my favourite sunrise photographs. They were taken on the same morning in Monterey California.