My lovely Clareby...

I know tonight seems hard and it is! But I want you to know how brave you are and what an incredible journey it is you are embarking upon. It really is such a beautiful thing... I can't wait to meet my niece/nephew and I can't wait to call you a Mummy!

Your body is an amazing machine and it knows what to do. These sleepness nights you are having are exactly why your body will give you lots of lovely endorphins and adrenalin when you meet your baby - it will give you the strength and will to keep going despite the sleepnessness. I am not going to lie to you - it is hard work, but it is so so so so worth everything that it takes to get you there...

I love you!

Fran xoxo

My snapshot project

For those of you wondering about the toning in the photos below, I thought I might tell you a bit about my 'snapshot project'.

A personal project of mine at the moment, it is about ensuring that I let go of the 'need' to have every image of Poppy be a 'portrait' and make sure we have plenty of the kind of snapshots that I have from my childhood - the kind that tell me who I was and what I did on a day to day basis. Like the fact that I loved to wear bowls on my head... that I loved nothing more than hanging out in my hula skirt... and that once, even if it was only for a few years around my third or fourth birthday, I actually did look alright in a bikini :0)

As a photographer, I have a tendancy to judge ALL of my images by a professional standard and thus not wanting to 'keep' images that are not perfect. But after spending some time looking through our own baby and childhood photos DJ made me promise that I would provide Poppy with this kind of memory. This is harder said than done for me because it means not immediately throwing out the out of focus images (see the photo of Poppy below with her hands out asking 'where'd it go?') or under exposed images. It is also hard for me because it means I have to be in photos sometimes. Yuck.

But more importantly, what it will mean is that Poppy will always have the memory of her looking like a ghetto princess with her dummy in her mouth and the fact that on the day she first met her shadow she tried to outrun it with her tongue hanging out of her mouth...

So back to the toning. Part of this project is about experimenting with colour to 'match' the tonal qualities of my childhood images - the yellowed, faded kind. This is also part of my effort to ensure that people can see, when our photos are side by side, that Poppy does in fact bear a resemblance to me and is not simply a DJ clone ;0)

I am not sure if the toning will stay but it serves a purpose for now and experimenting is all part of the fun :0)

Fran x

"Where'd it go?"

A couple of weeks ago now Poppy and I were hanging out outside on a Monday. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had decided that my weeks project was going to be playing with full sun photography. We were playing with the 'pretties' (as Pa and Poppy have renamed flowers) when Poppy suddenly stopped and stared at wonder at the black 'spot' on the ground that moved when she did...

It was one of those beautiful moments when I am reminded that there are so many things in life that Poppy Cate has to discover. I watched for ages while she waved at her shadow, touched her shadow and tried to run away from her shadow before I realised that I had a camera in my hand!

When Poppy moved into the shade of a tree she looked up at me intently, arms out, and asked 'where'd it go?'

She looked backwards and forwards, down the drain and behind her back before she stepped back into the sunlight and screamed with delight when she discovered it again. She then proceeded to wave to it and run away from it again with childlike abandon. Her giggle is so infectious. I could barely contain myself.

She is growing up before our very eyes. Can it really be two years in three weeks? 'Where'd it go?'

Fran x

On the move...

Only a half hour or so till I leave with my Mum and Sis1 to head to Townsville for Sis2's Baby Shower and a girls weekend away. I can't wait to see her!

I will be doing their 'fullish' term maternity shots on Saturday afternoon and Clareby has checked out some cool spots so I am soooo looking forward to it. I also have a couple of other shoots so it will be a busy weekend.

Here are a couple of other shots from our last session together:

More soon,

Fran x

By special request...

Just for your Gaylene, because the look on your face when I said I didn't have them to show yesterday was truly sad :(

I hope you like them :)

Fran x

working it out...

OK - are there any Blogger experts out there??? I am having trouble working this 'stuff' out and would love some help! Specifically, how to optimise images for uploading to Blogger and also taming the formatting. See my post below? Irregular spacing is driving me CRAZY!!!

So if anyone has some pearls of wisdom for me I would greatly appreciate it!

Fran xoxo

Maternity with a twist...

I knew this maternity session was going to be fun when I heard the words - 'we don't care what you do, we trust you and want something different'. Yay! I LOVE it when I have sessions like this... Damien and Gaylene were totally up for anything and this definitely came through in their images. It was gorgeous to see how much they were both looking forward to their new life.

So when I got to their home, I was greeted by the most beautiful abode, straight out of the pages of a glossy magazine! They have done all the work themselves and it really is beautiful. I can't wait to use it as a backdrop for some newborn shots in morning light!

I was also greeted by their first child, Teddy - a small ball of fluff with so much personality who I am afraid to say stole the show! I know maternity sessions are supposed to be ALL about the belly, but Teddy stole my heart and definately pride of place in many of the images I took... Lucky Gaylene and Damien were happy with that arrangement :)

We took a few images inside before venturing out:

Damien dreamt up this pose all by himself and I know he is waiting to see the results:

Then we headed out to use the yummy afternoon light. I LOVE sunflare thus the next couple of images:

I love this next series which probably has a lot to do with my current obsession for lush, tall green grass :)

Gaylene and Damien's little girl is due in June and I simply cannot wait to meet and photograph her. I am going into the hospital to do some 'brand new' shots and then some more when they are settled into their gorgeous home. Can't wait!

Thanks for being so much fun!

Fran x