Becker Artography

Another wonderful shoot with such a great family!  Kajal got the giggles at one point which cracked me right up.  She is such a beautiful little girl who loves having her photo taken. This family was really easy to photograph and they were fun to be around.  Thanks guys for such a wonderful morning!

Last weekend we had Julie Paterson and her family attend the studio for some family portraits.  They arrived just before a big storm hit and luckily we didn’t lose power and we were able to continue on with the shoot.  It was relatively short and sweet, so here are some pictures for you to view.

Today we had a family shoot with Marissa, Rhonda & Dean.  They are brothers and sisters and are giving their parents family photographs for Christmas.  What a great idea guys! It was lovely to finally meet you and have a chat.  Studio shots can be quite challenging when coming up with poses.  But they came up with some of their own, which was a great help.  Thanks guys!  Here are some of the photographs from today.

The other day we photographed Alison and her two boys – hubby Dale and their son Alex.  I know Alison through our mother’s group and it was really nice to meet Dale for the first time.  Alex is such a cute little boy and he was such a treasure to photograph.  Here are some of the photos of this happy family.

Here are some family portraits of John, Natalie and Scott.  It was a really nice afternoon over at Redcliffe Botanical Gardens, despite all the mosquitoes biting everyone.  Natalie’s parents also joined us for the photo shoot and we captured some really lovely moments between them all.  Unfortunately John’s parents were overseas at the time, however we have since done another photo shoot to incorporate them – more photos yet to come of this lovely family.

Recently we photographed one of my friends Amanda and her partner Paul.  They are expecting a baby boy, whom they’ve already named Chase, within the next two months.  They are so excited and can not wait to meet him.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen Amanda, and it was great to catch up and see how happy and relaxed she is.  Paul just adores her!!!  We spent quite a few hours during the session, trying different things, poses, looks, lighting and so forth.  I’m really happy with the results and so are Amanda and Paul.  Here’s a few of my favourite shots from the photo shoot.  Congratulations guys – we’re looking forward to meeting your bundle of joy soon.

So a little while back, Janice wanted to get some glamour shots taken to give to her husband, John for Father’s Day.  Her favourite picture is the ‘red photo’ as she likes to call it, which is second from the top.  Now John can see her all the time as I believe he was given some wallet sized photos also!  Here are some of the finished products for you to check out.

A while ago, Scott came across a post on Strobist about capturing water droplets as they hit the water.  The article also linked to a tutorial from Gavin Hoey on how to do it.  It was an article that we both really wanted to try when we found some time.  Well, that time was found today and we had an interesting time experimenting with the setup and capturing the shots you see below.  We are really pleased with the results.

Our setup differed a little from the setup that Gavin describes in that we don’t have a wireless off-camera flash unit, so we just used a pc-pc cable to get our flash working off the camera. We straddled a step ladder over a small table and placed a baking tray (you can see the teflon texture in some images) filled with water on it.  We suspended a bag filled with water from the ladder.  I pricked a hole in the bag which allowed the water to drip in a constant stream into the same place.  The camera was mounted on a tripod and focus was done manually by focusing on a pencil where the drops hit the water.  We used our Canon 5D with 100mm F2.8 Macro lens at ISO 100, 1/200, F8.  The flash was set to about 1/16 power when bouncing off the cards and full power when aimed through the cellophane.

Scott held the coloured cards at the end of the tray with the flash in his other hand and aimed it at different places on the card.  He found a spot almost in line with the camera lens and water drop and aimed it slightly downward from fairly close to the base of the card.  We tried a couple of different colours as you can see.  The deep red and green images at the bottom were achieved by shooting through some coloured cellophane.

Here are the images.  Enjoy!

On Thursday and Friday, the 3rd and 4th September, I attended the Australasian Association of Professional Organisers Inc (AAPO) 2009 Conference at Rydges Hotel at Southbank, Brisbane.  I wish to thank Robyn from Entirely Organised and Julie from Your Personal Organiser for their help with our promotion and set up at the event.  I did several headshot portraits for delegates of the event for them to use in their business cards, websites, online profiles and other promotional media.  I had a wonderful time at the conference and while I wasn’t taking photos, I was listening in on the guest speakers.  The speakers were fantastic and came from all over the country and even one from the USA.  I found a lot of the information very useful and relevant for Becker Artography and will be working hard over the next coming days, weeks and months to implement strategies to further promote our business.

To the delegates who had their portrait taken, thank you very much!  You can look forward to an email from us in the next week or so with your completed portraits.

Today I attended an event held in conjunction with Heart Foundation Australia.  Guest speakers from the Heart Foundation and Natural Therapist, Paul Riley covered topics such as Cardiovascular Disease, its causes and what we can do to prevent it.  Paul brought to our attention the high levels of obesity in Australia and introduced a product – TAIslim from Freelife International.  He discussed its ability to fight abdominal fat, enhance metabolism, control your appetite and cleanse and replenish your body.  It looks like a wonderful product and maybe I’ll have to try some!!  I spoke with a lady who has lost 14cm in 1 week (omg!) of trying TAIslim. WOW, that is such an amazing achievement! I met some lovely people at the event and had a wonderful day.

Also, Congratulations to Ray Nugent who won a $200 portrait package voucher with us.  We look forward to meeting his family over the next few weeks.

For those of you who attended the event and would like to purchase some photos, please click here.   And for those of you who would like to learn more about TAIslim, please contact us and we can point you in the right direction.