Jason & Misa’s wedding

Jason is a very tall, talented musician with a real enthusiasm for life.  And he doesn’t drink! What’s that all about? Never mind, he’s still an awesome guy.

Misa is a sweet and beautiful, outgoing Sushi Chef from Osaka, Japan, with part Korean lineage.

While Jason was spending an extended period of time in Japan in 2002 he met Misa on a train near Osaka.  Six years later they married at Queens Park in Moonee Ponds.

The weather was perfect, after nearly a week of sporadic rain and overcast days.  Misa looked absolutely stunning, and was a joy to photograph throughout the day.  With the combination of water, greenery and a very attractive guest list, particularly Misa’s family and friends who travelled from Japan for the occasion, it was difficult not to take wonderful photos.

There was a real musical bent to the day, beginning with the cello and two opera singers in the park, and ending with a rock show at the reception, performed by Jason and his large collection of musician friends.

I’m not a huge fan of photographing weddings for a number of reasons.  To begin with, I photograph in more of a documentary style, so I prefer very laid-back, relaxed weddings.  Secondly, I’m not really a fan of the institution itself, so if I accept a wedding job it is usually because I relate very well to the couple getting married.  This job was easy as I really enjoyed everyone’s company, and had a great day myself.  The third reason is due to the pressure of getting wedding photos right.  You only have one chance, and if you screw it up you can potentially ruin the happy day for the couple.  I can’t imagine what it must feel like to get home after shooting a very expensive, formal church wedding only to find your storage cards fail to be read, or have been lost or stolen.  I think I’d move to another country if that happened to me!

Misa’s Dad is an amazing man – humble, incredibly polite, and absolutely single-minded on ensuing his daughters are happy.  He seemed to be very proud, but did not betray too much emotion.  I only wish I could have spoken with him during the day.  I’m limited to about ten Japanese words and phrases, and there’s only so many ways one can string them together into meaningful conversation.

The best part of a wedding should be the reception. And this was one of the best.  With the band rocking out on hair metal hits of the 80s, the crowd was very quickly on their feet dancing.  And as you can tell from their smiles, everyone was having a great time.

After such an enjoyable wedding shoot as this one, who knows, I might just do some more!

DJ Delco at Eurotrash

I’ve been redesigning my web site to bring it more in line with the kind of things I do.  To begin with I much prefer to blog about all the photography-related things I think about and do, rather than simply posting finished, professional quality images (in fact, I rarely do that!).  So on that basis I bring you a new design with more of a portal/news style template.

I noticed that I don’t have any posts about shooting portraiture, and it’s been a little while since I shot such a project.  But I did dig one up so that I can populate that sub-category.

DJ Delco is a local DJ who’s trying to break it in Europe.  He engaged me to shoot him at Eurotrash, a cool little inner city club with fantastic decor for photography.

The majority of this shoot was taken with the Canon 30D at ISO 1600 with no flash, using my 24-105 to allow me to get as wide as I could in this small venue.  I used the room and natural lighting wherever I could to maintain the character of the location.

It was an enjoyable shoot, with the bar open, the DJs friends on hand to spice things up, and to top it all off DJ presented me with my very own DJ Delco t-shirt!

Published on Juke Kartel site

I’m very excited. The reason? I shot for Juke Kartel late last year when they opened for Noiseworks. They loved my shots enough to use them on their new website, and what great timing! Juke Kartel has just been signed by Emporium Records, and is about to relocate to the US to continue their already exploding career.

You may know Juke Kartel as the band in which Toby Rand plies his trade. Toby reached the final three in Rock Star Supernova (Fox last year, and impressed Tommy Lee and the boys so much that Juke Kartel was invited to tour the world with them. I saw the Melbourne gig, and have to say that JK rocked the pants off the headliners. Similar reports have been coming out of the US. The Ferntree Gully gig with Noiseworks was one of the all time great pub gigs – hot, sweaty, heavy, tight, loud, rockin’. I’m really looking forward to seeing where these guys take it, and let’s hope they continue to take me on their ride!

Check out the Juke Kartel web site for more.