Saying goodbye to the g

Welcome to the fourth and final episode of “roadtrippin bliss”.  If you’ve just joined us, you might want to catch up on the story so far and take a look at Brisvegas to Lighning Ridge, then Lightning Ridge and beyond, and finally the long haul to the G.

So you’ll recall that Denise and I were spending cold nights photogaphing weirdo Silos…

and what better place to start a fresh day of photography – (approx 10 hours later…) at the Silos again -

This is Denise (amazing photographer, formidable long distance driver, and dear friend) her beautiful daughter Lila, and lovely husband Michael.

We thought we’d take the opportunity to get a long overdue family portrait whilst we were all together in the g.

a lot more difficult thank you think to get a 3 year old to jump in time with her parents… harder even than synchronised-jumping-for-the-camera-timer shots… but much cuter -

Lila is without a doubt my favorite small-person of all time -

awwww -

They make a beautiful beautiful family…

up on the old train track -

so we had to finish up the portrait session to get to the main event of the day – the 52nd annual Henry Lawson Festival!

woohooo.  the ACTUAL reason for our roadtrip, some would say…

Yes people come from far and wide (even Brisbane) to participate in the festivities (or maybe they come for the booze up at the pub afterwards, I’m not sure…)

We (Denise and her family and I) got a fantasitic vantage point of the parade from above Denise’s Dad’s office.  I had every intention of taking many many pictures of the festival, but I got a little distracted… by these cool old bottles in the back room -

and the autumn leaves  that were SO beautiful -

ahhh golden red autumn leaves…

oh, and a parade going on below -

but pretty things up high…

so I’m afraid that was really my coverage of the whole festival.  Like I said… I get distracted easily

So the trip was very close to being over (boooo).  One more sleep and I was going to board the bus to start the journey homeward.  But not before a night on the town in the big G…

I wouldn’t ordinarily take my camera out to the pub, but Denise somehow arranged for it to be in my hands some way through the evening after I mentioned it would be cool to take some photos of the locals…

Well I was mostly too shy to take any culturally interesting pub-shots, so I took a random sampling of body art instead… unfortunately most of the names of the owners of the body art escape me -

this was a nice young man with a scarey tattoo on his torso -

I’m pretty sure this is Sarah’s foot… (hi Sarah)

a nice young man with japanese symbols on his arm -

scarey leg tattoo -

awwww pretty horsey -

ummmm… interesting thing-with-wings tattoo on somebodys back -

and johno’s arm… (hi johno)

another interesting story on another man’s back.

It was indeed a very memorable night out in the G for sure.

But that is where the photographic journey ends…(sigh)

Thank you Denise for sharing many many amazing experiences in this fabulous country of ours.  And thank you for introducing me to the sweet light of the G

Until next time -

Everybody say YEAH to roadtrippin!

The long haul to the g

ok.  let’s hit the road again…!

So if you’ve just tuned in an you’re wondering what’s going on you might like to take a look at Roadtrippin Bliss part one and part two before coming back here to continue on the journey to the G (Grenfell)

So just to take you back to last episode’s cliffhanger… was Denise departing the roadtrip forever, to find happiness somewhere on the road back to Walget??

HELL NO!!

Welcome back… let the adventures continue…

By now we were pretty close to Narrabri where Denise was born, and where my Grandma grew up.  I’d never been there so it was kind of cool passing through.

I found out that Narrabri hosts the Australian Cotton Reasearch Insitiute (slightly unattractive building, so no photographic evidence I’m afraid) You know theres something going on because of all that cotton along the roadside for miles and miles…

Welcome to Cotton country!

I strangely don’t have any pics of cotton in the field, but you can take my word for it, its very cute.

Of course there’s always time to stop and say hi to passing livestock… unfortunately they were in a hurry so we didn’t get to meet them individually…

Denise’s dad had told us there was a cool national park that was worth checking out near Narrabri, so we popped into the visitor centre to find out.  We decided against the national park (quite a long detour) and opted to visit Sawn Rocks instead… (only slightly less of a detour of about 2 hours).

This is some of the landscape on the way -

And this is Sawn Rocks.  Very cool lava remains from when there were volcanoes around the area (some 20 million years ago??)

the rocks around the base of the big rock were all quite kooky and interesting too…

ohhh pretty leaves…

So refreshed after our little outing at Sawn Rocks we did the driving driving driving thing again, chatting-to-solve-the-worlds-problems again because the landscape was so flat and same-same for aaaaages, and we came across a little group of mobile homes in the middle of nowhere…

?? strange but true… It turns out there were thermal springs out here (read – small heated swimming pool) which had attracted a little tribe of grey nomads…

We were a little bit spaced out by the whole thing, so didn’t introduce ourselves to the locals…

Instead we thought we’d try some driving driving driving.

Beautiful afternoon light in the middle of no-where -

random pretty weedy-things -

Hi Denise… Did I mention that Denise HATES having her photo taken…

The road home… The light was just soooooooooo beautiful, we couldn’t resist striking a pose…

Another of  our now well practiced synchronised-jumping-for-the-camera-timer pics…

say YEAH to ROADTRIPPING !

Soon after this the sun started to set and we needed to make a decision about where to go next.  We considered driving another hour or so to Coonabarabran and staying the night so we could take photos of the amazing starry sky out there, but the weather started closing in, and we decided it would be best to just drive on through the evening and make our way straight to Grenfell.  So we passed through Coonabarabran with only a quick pitstop, and continued to drive through the Pillaga where I looked and looked for Yowies but couldn’t see any.  Denise drove solidly from about 6pm right through till about 10pm (yay Denise!) when we finally arrived in the G… Yippee for the G!

So we pretty much unpacked out gear and headed to bed, because we had our sights set on another Dawn Service…

This is the main roundabout at Grenfell at 5.30am – (don’t know who those two FREAKS are standing right in the middle of the road though…)

this is just around the corner from the roundabout at 6am.  (can you see the Yowie )

Then at about 6.30am we had a cuppa with Denise’s  mum at the local IGA wheere she works, before heading off into the beautiful Grenfell surrounds… Magnificent light -

spider’s web on the fence -

the sky reflected in the water… very enchanting -

SHEEP!  Hello Grenfell sheep in the early morning light…

awww pretty weedy-thing -

Denise’s favorite tree in the world.  I love this photo -

and this one -

and this one -

Silloette of photographer with Camera bag -

So we were pretty exhausted by now.  I can’t really remember what happened after that… we probably went home and napped (well I did anyway).  And then looked at the Grenfell Photographic Exhibition that we no longer speak about.  (best not to ask)

So with our body clocks all skewed from all the driving and dawn services, we decided that we would do a night shoot at the G.  Just for fun.

We hung out at the old band hall for a while… waited around for the woodwind section to turn up, but they never did…

but then found those same two FREAKS from the morning, and decided to photograph them.

ummmm… Freaky lady at the clothes line dreaming of a better life….?  I don’t know… it was late, we could have been a little delirious…

Freaky lady trying to steal lemons in the middle of the night…

cool old building up the road from the Band Hall.

AHHHHH my friend the Silo appears again.  20 second esposure… starry starry night.

and FREEZING cold too I might add.  But as you know… we are HARDCORE photographers who will do what it takes

If you look carefully you might see Cid, the Silo ghost…

Alright that’s enought blog-tripping, I mean road-trippin for now   But don’t think this is the last we’ll see of the Silo… stay tuned for more silo sillyness soon.

and leave a comment why don’t you… it’s fun

Kate and Jarrod

Taking a little detour in the roadtripping adventures to show you some pics from the wedding I photographed a week before hitting the road…

Kate and Jarrod decided on getting married in a beautiful garden by the beach at Noosa.  Unfortunately they chose the weekend right after massive storms around South East Queensland and they were forecast to continue.  Dionne and I drove through horrid squally rain to get to Noosa and were preparing for the worst.  When we arrived Kate was totally excited about the day, and completely unfazed by the weather.  She even refused to change the outdoor venue for the ceremony, telling everyone it would clear up in time.  Amazing…  because right at the last minute it did, and we had blue skies for the rest of the day.  (Kate must have some serious contacts…!)

So, back to the preparations…

oh so pretty wedding shoes -

the always fabulous Benn Jae ready to work his magic…

A final hug before getting into the dress -

Stunning stunning stunning -

We briefly caught up with Jarrod at the beach just before Kate arrived -

some last minute nerves…?

the flower girl practicing holding her flower star way-up-high…

the  absolutely enchanted ceremony venue by the sea -

after the lovely ceremony, we walked a couple of metres on to the beach and got some beautiful shots in the lovely afternoon light…

one final wave of the flower-star…

we headed around to the Noosa Spit and just caught the sunset -

and then it was off to be expertly looked after by Carly at  Sails for a fabulous wedding evening…

For some more highlights from this lovely day, click here.

congratulations to you both!

Lightning Ridge and Beyond…

Alright folks, time for Roadtrippin Bliss Part 2… If you missed the first installment, probably best to go here first.

So after the last episode there was lots of driving driving driving.  (What a surprise on a roadtrip… ) Then there was some more driving.  I’ve gotta say, Denise is a powerhouse behind the wheel.  The entire journey I only drove 2 hours I think… and only because Denise looked like she was about to pass out from exhaustion somewhere near Moree.  After a 30min passenger seat power-nap she was back on track and drove the rest of the way to the Ridge. Amazing…about 12 hours after we left home we arrived in the Ridge.

Welcome to Lightning Ridge…

Very interesting place.  They had had quite a bit of rain the week before we were there so there was lots of muddy mud (is there any other kind?) hanging around  This is what most of the landscape was like…

Yay for us, we made it -

We arrived about 2pm in the afternoon, did a lap of the town (yep that pretty much covered it), booked in to the first motel we found, and slept.  No photographic evidence of life from the two of us until our second “Dawn Service”

(this is not the motel)

Yes. We are HARD CORE photographic-journeywomen.

We got up at 5.30am to get the kooky morning light… there’s nothing quite like it…

These were all taken across the street from our motel, and up the road just a little.

Rusty old car bodies in an abandoned opal mine… it doesn’t get better than this.

There was a nasty sign that said that we shouldn’t enter into the rusty car zone, and we soon discovered why… big opal-less holes in the ground.

(read – old mine shafts.)

HARD CORE

enough rusty cars, as the morning progressed we did another mine tour …

ohhh dead tractors, my second favorite thing to photograph in Lightning Ridge…

someone left a perfectly good car seat lying around.  It was actually quite comfy (Denise made me sit on it for a photo…)

Denise in action,  framed by aforementioned comfy car seat -

denise in action again, practicing the artistic-scarf-toss.  I asked her to bring a veil so I could indulge my veil-in-the-wind fetish, but she must have forgotten to pack it.

more artistic-scarf-tossing.  Denise is quite an expert…

We laughed and joked at how muddy the mud was here at Lighting Ridge… but that was before we met Walgett sticky-mud quicksand.  It makes your boots look like Yeti-feet.  But that comes a little bit later in the day…

Denise standing very close to the edge of a swamp -

After we got our fill of rusty old cars, dead tractors and muddy mud, we did another lap of town and decided it was time to move on.

Goodbye Lightning Ridge.

So the road out of Lightning Ridge basically looks a bit like this pretty much all the way to Walgett.  That’s about 2 hours worth of roadtrip-chats-that-will-change-the-world (we had lots of those )

Of course we stopped for a photo.

and we practiced our synchronised-jumping-for-the-camera-timer and found that we suck at it.  (Denise has those shots…)

So we were driving driving driving solving all the worlds problems and saw this…

so of course we had to get out and take a gazillion photos.

It was all going swimmingly, both of us joking about taking out Landscape Photographer of the Year next year,  until Denise decided she had to go in closer for that potential award winning shot… and that’s when the great Walgett Sticky Mud disaster happened…

(camera shake from hysterical laughter…)

the ensuing Yeti-feet syndrome -

Let me tell you… that stuff is HARD to get off.

But because we are so HARD CORE we pushed on and followed the railway tracks off to the other side of the quicksand to take more photos, yeti-feet and all.

Birds!  I like photographing them almost as much as I like photographing sheep…

So after we got most of the mud off our boots, we hit the road and did some more driving driving driving and having more roadtrip-chats-that-will-change-the-world until we decided it was time to practice our synchronised-jumping-for-the-camera-timer again…

Bingo!  and only on the 5th go I think.

So I think it could be time to wrap up this episode of Roadtripping Bliss with a cliffhanger…

(que cliffhanger music…) will Denise throw in the towel and walk the whole way back to Brisbane, or is she in it for the long haul to the G (Grenfell)?

stay tooned for the next exciting episode of Roadtrippin Bliss (after I have a good sleep and design a wedding album or two..)

do comment if it takes your fancy…

Brisvegas to Lightning Ridge

This was one of those ideas that was thrown around for at least year before it actually became real… I’m not sure where it orignated, but it kept surfacing until Denise (my dear friend and photographer extraordinaire) set a destination and a date – 6th of June for the Henry Lawson Festival in Grenfell NSW – Denise’s home town.

But as with any good road trip… it wasn’t about the destination (although Grenfell IS a very cool and worthy destination) it was about the journey….

At some stage Lightning Ridge entered in to the equation, but the rest was made up as we went along.

So.  For some reason we decided that we would leave Bris at 1pm in the morning.  Why was that again Denise?!

We looked at the map and decided that Goondawindi (Gundy) would be good for a beautiful sunrise shot.

As it turns out it was very dark still when we passed through Gundy so we kept going until we saw a silo (my good friend the silo) and a peep of dawn.

I thought I would be clever and bring my smaller, lighter travel tripod and tried to attach my very heavy D3 to it and make a lovely 3 second exposure.  But it didn’t work so I got a blurry Silo photo and a bit grumpy with the tripod (I think Denise may have the photos of this…)

Random car shot to get a hang of said tripod and heavy camera combo -

We were kind of disappointed with the early part of the sunrise, so continued driving until  the sky went like this…

yay!  definitely worth the early departure

Denise out doing what she does best -

after a lot of flat desolate looking landscape near Moree, there was this…

more flat stuff but add some trees to the mix…

we took a break at this strange looking mini-valley thing…

Sheep, yeah!  I like sheep…

Random weedy things…

Somewhere near Collarenebri, (say that 3 times really fast… ) I made some new friends…

this is Harold, he enjoys bike riding, soccer and playing backgammon with his friends…

This is Maurice, Harolds best friend and a state ballroom champion…

This is Margie… she’s shy but loves long walks along the beach and going to the movies in her spare time.

This is Boris, he likes fast cars and fast women….

This is Gretel.  She thinks she’s a horse.

This is Sammy.  Margies eldest… a lovable rogue…

and this is Simon* (not his real name)… he refused to sign my model release form, so I can’t reveal his identity.

see ya later guys…

A glimpse of a modern day drover… I had a romantic notion that he should be on horseback… My man from Snowy River fantasy remains unfulfilled…

next stop, Sheepsville… Sheep as far as the eye can see!

Ah Sheep… they’re so cool… and Sheeplike.

Ok that’s probably more photos of livestock that you’ve ever wanted to see, but next stop is Lightning Ridge…

oh wait… lets grab a vege burger at the take away joint in the middle of nowhere before we go…!

Stay tooned for old cars at dawn, dead tractors, sticky mud and endless straight road in my next installment of Roadtrippin’ Bliss…

Feel free to comment… or not

Did someone say Roadtrip??

yeah!!  count me in… stay tooned for the first installment

Sal and Sylvia

What a lovely day this was.  Sal and Sylvia are just one of the nicest couples you are likely to meet…

To start the day, Dionne and I headed out to Sal’s parents house to catch up with the guys getting ready.

We were right in time to get a how-to-tie-a-tie tutorial from Sal’s groomsman -

clearly the guys weren’t taking the whole getting dressed thing too seriously…

then it was off to see how the girls were getting along -

Santaliya the very cute flower girl sneaking a quick yawn -

gorgeous Sylvia…

a fantasitc candid shot of Santaliya by Dionne…

shoes shoes shoes…!

And so it was off to St.Bridgits at Red Hill for the ceremony.

A got this beautiful photo of Sal and his parents before everyone got too teary…

yes there is a kiss-shot… but the hug-shot is far lovlier!

After a couple of quick pics around the church, we headed over to The Great Court at UQ for some fun shots -

Blurry bits – yeah…

and clearly I am still enjoying the jumping shots.  I love how everyone has their own unique jumping style. And timing

another great shot from the lovely Dionne -

not sure what’s going on here… a quick game of hide-and-seek perhaps??!

we then headed around to the lake for some champagney goodness…

I have a feeling Sal doesn’t really like the taste of champagne…

cheers…!

So it was time to wind up the photography and head over to the Reception at Hillstones at St. Lucia.

this is without a doubt the single most extraordinary cake I have ever photographed… Sal’s sister made it,  including all the intricate little icing detail by hand – incredible!

Congratulations to you both Sal and Sylvia!  Such a beautiful couple – I wish you a long happy life together…

bec and chris

Bec called me 2 weeks before her wedding on the 9th of May to see whether I was available to photograph her wedding… I kind of knew from the outset that this couple were very laid back about their wedding…!

after a beautiful ceremony at the lovely old church in Windsor, we headed out to shornclifffe for some photos at the pier, but not before stopping off at an interesting warehouse type building along the way.

these couple were taken at beautiful Sandgate where Bec and Chris spend a lot of time relaxing…

When I asked Bec if she would walk out and on to the mudflats in her dress, she didn’t even hesitate… ”yeah, sure… we walk the dogs here all the time…”

What a cool bride!  I’m sure she doesn’t regret the decision…

the last stop was the old Hornibrook Bridge.  Very cool location… especially with the full moon in the background…

A fun day with a great couple…

Bec and Paddy

I had the pleasure of doing a road trip with my very talented dad a couple of weeks ago to shoot Bec and Paddy’s wedding.  Can you guess where we went…?!

It was a great weekend away for us, and of course a fantasitic experience to shoot a wedding somewhere a little different.

First we caught up with Bec and her sisters getting ready a her parents house.

Bec looking gorgeous…

And of course, we met Paddy and the guys at the pub for a couple of pre-wedding pics…

ahhh the cane fields… I was so looking forward to getting some shots in such iconic queensland scenery…

then a couple of romatic shots at the beach…

It was a fantastic day with a great couple.  Congratulaitons to you both and thanks for showing us around Bundy!

To check out some more highlights from the day, click here.

Cara and John

Dionne and I headed back down to the Gold Coast after Jess and Dave’s wedding at the Sharaton to photograph Cara and John’s beautiful ceremony at the chapel at Sanctury Cove.

We caught up with the guys first, and witnessed the great tie tying event…

John looking just a tad nervous…

After such a beautiful ceremony, there weren’t a lot of dry eyes in the church…

it was a fine day for lots of jumping…

Cara wasn’t convinced that standing in the middle of a damp, mouldy looking tunnel was going to be so cool, but I thought it was worth these cool shots -

It was definitely a lovely day spent with a great couple… congratulations to you both!