Bec and Scott were one of my January weddings earlier on in 2010.  They had originally opted out of being blogged but changed their mind after enjoying seeing so many people they knew sharing their photos on Weddings on Waiheke. 

YAY!  I was delighted that they changed their mind because I LOVED their wedding day.  It was such a great day; just magical.  They live in the UK and returned home for the wedding celebrations which included a gorgeous, relaxed and personal ceremony at the western end of Onetangi Beach complete with a rousing rendition by EVERYONE at the wedding of the Beatles classic All You Need is Love. 

Bec had four bridesmaids who all looked gorgeous in green dresses of differing styles designed to flatter their shape.  Bec’s dress was a shimmering metallic silvery-blue gown with an oversheath of spidery lace – it was VERY cool and she looked just stunning!   She had her dreadlocked hair put into an up-do by her hairdresser in town and her make up done by Waiheke make up artist Charlotte Edwardes from Island Beauty.   Bec got ready for the ceremony at her
parent’s stunning bach overlooking Onetangi Beach.  Her flowers were by Vicki from Wildflower. 

Bec reminds me of a greek goddess in the shot above!  

Great white festival flags marked the way for guests to the wedding location which was tucked around some rocks out of the way of the main bustle that is Onetangi Beach in the height of summer.  It was a great location with only a few passersby stopping to have a ‘sticky-beak’.  Bec’s twin brother sang a beautiful rendition of the kiwi classic ‘Anchor Me’ as she approached her groom on the arms of her proud parents…

The western end of Onetangi is a beautiful spot but can be a little tricky during the middle of the day as it directly faces our harsh NZ sun.  Luckily for us, it clouded over almost on cue and gave us some gorgeous soft light to play with.  Scott and Bec had a bit of a vintage theme going on, so I pulled out the trusty Holga camera for a few shots to add to the old school feel and cross-processed some expired slide film for good measure – I love the resulting cyan cast!

As Bec and Scott are living away from New Zealand we stopped off at one of Waiheke’s many spectacular bush walks to add even more of a kiwi landscape feel to the shots before heading on to Mudbrick Vineyard where the reception was to take place. 

Deep breath in.  Ahhhh (contented sigh), it’s so nice to go back and re-live such a lovely wedding.  Thanks Scott and Bec for letting me share your pics with the blogiverse!  (There were SO many more that I wanted to include!) 

The gorgeous wedding of Bec and Scott… a real beauty from earlier on in the year.

Late last year I was asked to contribute some images to an international publication on contemporary posing.  Flattered much… uh, yep!

This little 5×7″ gem (sized to fit into your camera bag) has just been released and is available for purchase at Oliver Cameron Publishing in the UK (and I think also at Amazon?). It contains over 500 images with helpful text to illustrate the pose and explain why it works so well.  Early reports from other photogs internationally is that it is a great little book and very insightful/helpful for budding photographers and established pros alike.  Check it out!  Some sample page layouts below…

Will post again with more detail about the images once I have received my copy…

More than a week later, I am still buzzing from Waiheke Island’s inaugural Fight Night.  Some of you know that do kickboxing twice a week for fitness and fun – I stop short of officially calling myself A Kickboxer but I mess around a little for the sheer enjoyment of it.  And it’s fun.  And it gets me away from the computer. … …  OK, who am I kidding?  Truth time here; I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE it.  I am pretty much completely obsessed with it and if I can’t get to sleep at night it is either because I am dreaming up new photos/planning shoots, etc OR I am running together some seriously un-co-ordinated KB moves which look totally fabulous in my head.

In my dreams I look a little like one of the Charlie’s Angels (although probably one from the original series not the Cameron Diaz variety) but this is a more accurate vision of what I really look like…

Classic!

(And no, don’t worry, I didn’t shoot that image especially for this post.  I shot it about a year ago as one of the images in my continuing self-portraiture series.  I am actually not sure which is sadder – that I may have shot the image just for this blog post or that I actually have a stock image of myself being a boxing geek! )

Anyhoo… our trainer, Duan Marshall (winner of 5 titles including the S1 Oceania title, and all-round good guy), put together a fight night with fighters from Waiheke Island, Great Barrier Island and Auckland. Ten fights in total, 6 KB and 4 boxing bouts. It was an AWESOME night – some of the girls I train with (and a couple of honourary hubbies) had a table and we had such a good night. 

The table tickets included all food and drink and towards the end of the night some of the photos around the table got a little more out of focus if ya knows what I means, so in the interests of preserving my professionalism you will have to be satisfied with these meagre snaps above.  If you are interested in seeing some of the ringside photos from the night (taken by the sports photographers that were there) I am reliably informed that they should be up online one day soon here.

Well, it is a well-known old wives tale that rain on your wedding day is a harbinger of a good marriage but Monica and Dwayne were probably a little sick of being told that because they got married on the first of the ‘weather bomb’ days to hit NZ over the last couple of weeks! It was wet. Very wet. Indeed.

All the day before the wedding and all through the night heavy downpours were followed by even heavier downpours and when I woke up on the morning of their wedding, ALL I could think about was Monica and how devastated she was going to be.  So, I turned up to Te Toki Retreat where Monica and Dwayne were getting ready for the big day with my heavy-duty umbrella and my wonderful husband/second shooter/umbrella holder extraordinaire not quite knowing if I was going to find a little stress bunny bouncing up and down in the make-up chair where my chilled out bride should be!

But after all these years I really should have known better than to think that a bride as fabulous as Monica would let a little rain ruin her day! I knocked on the door and shook the raindrops off to see Monica and the girls happily being pampered by the un-stressable Ashlee Kellett and one of her team, Lexie.  Champagne was being supped, music was playing and Te Toki Retreat exuded the warm welcoming glow of love and happiness.  My bride was as cool as a cucumber.  And I was happy.

Monica looked absolutely stunning.

Over at the boys house, the handsome groom Dwayne was… well,  grooming.

Monica and Dwayne chose to do their photos before the ceremony so they had a ‘first look’ which was set up by their wedding planners, the lovely Jenny and Jan from Waiheke Island Weddings  -  I love those first look moments!   

Before we headed out into the elements for our shoot we did a couple of shots in some of the indoor areas at Te Toki Retreat.  It had been a couple of years since I had photographed a wedding there and I had forgotten how gorgeous it is.  (We have a few weddings booked at Te Toki next season so I am really looking forward to shooting in their stunning outside spaces as well.  Minus the rain.)

We headed to the Historical Village along the Onetangi Straight to start our shoot before carrying on to the Onetangi Sports ground.  Am totally digging the brown boots!

Weather Bomb?!  What Weather Bomb?

Dwayne and his brothers were completely classic – what a laugh. 

Taking the golf course flag captive – I mean, if you can’t play golf on your wedding day then when can you??  These guys were laugh out loud funny!  That golf course photo cracks me up every time I see it!

Getting some air…

Bad photographer moment ahead…  I had bought some new umbrellas for the day to add to my kit – some nice translucent white ones, you understand, but unfortunately just failed to notice that they were minuscule!  Fit for a five year old!  Hmmmm, bit of an oversight there, Emma.  Smooth.

OK, enough messing around – onto the serious stuff… 

Rawr!

This shot below is our waiting for the bus shot (she says as if that’s a set shot!) – I love how completely cute Monica looks while Dwayne is Mr Serious.

I’m not sure if you are meant to fall in love with your own photographs but this image really flips my switch…

So all the while we were shooting, the weather has been getting improving little by little until we get to the ceremony AND THE SUN COMES OUT!  Talk about a Crazy Weather Day!  Mudbrick Vineyard was looking it’s lovely self, still wet with raindrops glistening everywhere.  Monica and Dwayne had their ceremony down in the Potager’s Bistro – it was a loving, funny and emotional ceremony; a delight to witness.

We had just enough light left after the ceremony for a few more shots around the Mudbrick grounds.  This one below was meant to be an ‘off with their heads’ shot but I liked Monica’s beautiful expression too much.

Check out that blue sky!

Thanks Monica and Dwayne for being SO cool, calm and collected on your wet wedding day.  You and your bridal party were so much fun to photograph – we had a ball!  Wishing you much success and happiness for your future together… xx