Newborn studio in Oatlands

For a very long time, I travelled to clients homes for newborn sessions. There are some advantages to this. The main advantage is that Mum and Dad don't have to worry about packing up and heading out the door for their photoshoot. However, there are many advantages to the studio model. The main advantage is that I can have consistency of light. By using my lights, I know and control the space to produce the best lit images possible. Another advantage is that all of my props, hats, blankets and accessories are available should anyone ask for them. For these reasons, I am formally shifting my newborn focus from that of an on-location photographer, to a studio based one. My home studio is located in Oatlands. Most people haven't heard of Oatlands. It's a small, leafy suburb nestled between Carlingford, North Rocks, Dundas and North Parramatta. It's a short drive from the Inner West, including Concord, Canada Bay, Picnic Point and the Hills area, including Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills.

In the short term, I will still continue to service Sydney as a mobile Sydney newborn photographer. When the studio is established, I will make a decision as to whether or not this is a service I will continue with.

I look forward to bringing you some progress photos of my little studio coming to life. We will be having a mini version of "The Block" going on here. In the meantime, I've been practicing using the space with some little clients.

This is sweet baby Lewis. Lewis came to the studio with Mum and Grandma, and he was a dream for my inaugural studio newborn shoot. I hope you love Lewis' images as much as I do.

What to wear for our family photoshoot

I think the number one question clients ask me is 'what should we wear'. The answer is very individual to the family, so I thought I would take you through my thought processes on how to select outfits and how to shop for the missing pieces. For Christmas, my mother in law asked for a wallet sized picture of her five grandsons. So my mission was to create some beautiful images of all of them, and individual ones, so that I could make up a small brag book for her handbag.

The first thing I wanted to think of was what will I be using the images for? Given it was a brag book, matching colours to decor wasn't going to be important. If you are doing your photoshoot so that you can put artwork on your wall, it's really important to ask yourself what type of images will suit the space. If your decor is loud and colourful, pastels won't be a good match. Neutral spaces are pretty safe, and most colours will be fine, but you might want to think about a splash of colour. You can also pay attention to the environment you want to shoot in. Personally, I adore beach photography, so I wanted to take the boys to the beach. I knew I would be shooting in the golden hour, and so the colours would be soft and light and airy. This formed the basis of my colour palette.

For boys, I love the gentleman look. I love linens, and button up shirts. I never recommend matching outfits, as they tend to look like 'uniforms'. You want to select pieces that compliment one another and are representative of each individual. I went through their wardrobes looking for pieces to match my vision. I also asked my sister in law to bring around what she had for her little one. We laid them all out on the dining table and discussed what we liked about all the pieces. We took photos, so we would know what we had and what we needed and we did a little inventory for each boy. I will attach a couple of pictures. They are just iPhone shots, but it will give you an idea of what we were aiming for.

Sometimes, I will create colour boards, mood boards or pinterest boards for clients, particularly for extended family sessions. For this shoot, I had the following vision for the colours:

We then went off to the shops to find the missing pieces. We were heading to H&M as they have beautiful pieces that are very affordable. (I am not sponsored by them!) Luckily, we found everything we wanted in a relatively short period of time. We took over the shop, laying out all of the clothes beside each other, working out what we thought would work together. Some were obvious and we kept, others were obvious and we put them back, and a few we couldn't decide on, so we decided to buy extra pieces and return any we didn't want.

We ended up with this clothes rack, ready for our photoshoot.

One last word of warning, as we were about to head out, I realised that I would be shooting at the little one's dinner time - fail! So I fed him some weetbix to fill his belly before we went out. Never have a hungry child at a photoshoot.

When we arrived at Coogee beach, heads turned. These handsome, well dressed men looked so beautiful and were a stark contrast to the sun-drenched beach goers at the end of their Sydney day out at the beach! The following images are some of my favourites from the shoot, and I think you can see how my vision of "linens, button-up shirts, gentlemen and soft, light and airy" came to fruition. I hope this can help you when you are considering what to wear for your family photoshoot.

A head full of hair | Hills newborn photographer

I love it when my newborn clients have a head full of hair. I always ask the Mum if she had heartburn, to see if the old wives tale is true that babies with a lot of hair cause heartburn. They often answer yes, but lets face it, heartburn is pretty common in pregnancy, so I am still none the wiser if this myth is true or not! This handsome boy was awake for quite a while during his session. As a result, we got so many varying faces as he moved around and looked in different directions. I always love these shots. Though they may not be the perfectly posed shots, each one is so unique and truly starts to showcase snippets of his emerging personality. I hope you love these images as much as I do.

Sweet 8 month old baby | Inner West baby photographer

I get asked a lot what my favourite age to photograph is. It's a hard question to answer, as all ages are precious for a lot of reasons. The newborn baby is precious and new and only small for the shortest time. I would always recommend capturing that age. Children are delightful at all ages. Their playfulness, default happiness and willingness to have fun is always fun to capture. One age group that I very much love is that sweet and short period of time after your baby has learnt to sit up well but before they are on the move. It's generally somewhere between 6 and 10 months old. These babies are always fun to capture and those images will make your heart melt for years to come. Babies of this age are easy to keep content. They need to be well rested, have a full belly and they are willing to have fun. You can always capture beautiful smiles and you can start to see glimpses of their personality. There is just a small window of opportunity for these sessions. Well, really a couple of months. Once baby is on the move, they fast enter toddlerhood, the hardest age to photograph! So enjoy these pictures whilst you can still get them. If you want to book one of these sessions, you are welcome to come to me at Oatlands, in Sydney's Hills area, or I can come to you. I serve the Sydney area, from the city, Northern Sydney, the Inner West and the Hills area.

Please enjoy these pictures of this handsome 8 month old…

Breakfast Point Newborn Photographer

I met this beautiful family in the lovely Breakfast Point. One thing I love about my job is seeing the various places to live around Sydney. I will often come home with location envy! I do live in a lovely suburb, but I have eclectic taste and I love seeing the various places to live. Breakfast Point is such a perfect location, so close to Burwood, Concord and Canada Bay and easy to get to and from Sydney. This isn't a real estate blog, but I have just come back to the office from dropping off this client's order including a stunning acrylic and I fell in love with the suburb all over again. This family are so adorable. You will see, they are very beautiful, but they are equally beautiful on the inside. I feel very blessed that my clients are always so warm and inviting and I love getting to know the families when I am with them. This beautiful little baby boy started by letting me take some pictures of him awake. He posed perfectly for me, looking straight into my lens. His older brother did a great job when it was time to get the sibling and family shots, and spent the rest of the time alternating between playing with his toys and checking out what we were doing. I hope you enjoy these images of this genetically blessed family :)

What's in my bag?

A lot of clients are interested in photography, and will ask me questions about my gear and what tools I use to get my job done. So I thought I would do a blog post about what's in my bag, and more importantly, why! Nikon D600 - This is my main camera. I use this camera most of the time. I upgraded to this camera when I wanted to explore video more. I will discuss this a little later. What I love about this camera is: * It has 24MP, this is enough to be fantastic, but not so much that you need a new computer to process your images * The ISO performance is incredible. When shooting in low light, you may need to increase your ISO. Sometimes, a lot. This camera has usable images all the way past any ISO I use in regular sessions. * If you happen to underexpose an image, you can adjust your exposure in post without getting very much noise at all. This sets this camera apart from the D700 * It has dual memory card slots. I use both, so that I am backing up on the go. I have had a memory card fail on me before, and I never want to be in a position again where I am at the mercy of a recovery program (thankfully, the program worked!) * It has video. I believe more and more that video is our future. I love looking at stills of my children, but as they have grown, those sweet videos that capture their expression, their squeaky, high voices and their cute mannerisms are incredibly precious to me. I want to give this to my clients, too. The biggest downfall of this camera is the oil problem, that Nikon seems unwilling to address. Unfortunately, I've had this issue twice now, so this camera is not one I would recommend for a landscape photographer.

Nikon D700 - This is my backup camera. When you hire a professional, you are hiring someone who has a plan B, should plan A fail. From time to time, cameras will misbehave, and thus, we have a backup. The D700 is old technology now, but it's a beautiful camera. So much so, that the second hand market for this camera is strong and there is high demand for it. Lots of photographers lament that it is no longer in production. We are all hoping for a genuine replacement for this, and Nikon rumours are humming that this may be announced in September.

Speaker: I have a small bluetooth speaker in my bag. During newborn sessions, I play the MagicSleep app on my iPad, and play it through the speaker to soothe the baby (and me!)

Video Mic Pro: As mentioned above, I am loving video at the moment and I have a great mic, to ensure that the sound quality is amazing. This image looks like roadkill, though I promise, it's actually a very good mic.

Speedlight:

I generally shoot with available light, but there are times when I might love a location without ideal lighting, or I might be trying to shoot a larger group, so I need more light so that I can close down and get everyone in focus. I have a speed light with me at all times, and I will often have a soft box with me to diffuse the light. This image was taken against a stackstone wall that I love to use. The light is limited at this location, so using the speed light in my Westcott 28" is the perfect solution to create the vision I had.

This is another image taken with a speed light bounced off the ceiling in a dark hallway;

Now we are getting to the fun (i.e. expensive) part. Lenses. Oh, sweet, sweet lenses.

Nikon 24-70mm 2.8

I love this lens. I call this my workhorse lens, as it's on my camera most of the time. The focal length is perfect for general photography, especially newborns. It's a zoom lens, so it is really versatile. Here are a couple of examples of images taken with this lens;

Nikon 70-200mm 2.8

This lens costs more than some cars, but it's totally worth it. It gives the most beautiful bokeh (pronounced boke-eh). Bokeh is the lovely background blur that you get when a client is in focus, but the background is out of focus. This lens sings when used at f2.8 at 200mm. I will often use this lens outdoors. Sometimes, I strap two cameras on a harness, and use a mixture of this lens for lovely bokeh and background compression and something wider for full family and environmental shots. These are images taken with the 70-200mm lens;

Sigma 85mm 1.4

I wasn't too sure I'd need this focal length, since I have the 70-200, however, this lens can open up to f1.4. What does this mean? More beautiful background blur, but I am not quite as far away from my subject. This is a lovely portrait lens, and I often use it for head shots. These were taken with my 85mm;

Nikon 50mm 1.4

I don't use this lens as much anymore for stills, as the 24-70mm covers this range. Where I would consider it, is in very low light. I can open up to f1.4, which will allow lots of light in. However, this lens is my go to lens when shooting video, as it is light, so it reduces camera shake and it can open up wide to create background blur.

Of course, I have a tonne of different batteries, camera straps, and spare memory cards in my bag, as you can never be too prepared. My actual bag is a Lowepro backpack. I used to have a cute handbag, but I outgrew that when I bought too much equipment. The backpack distributes the weight evenly over my shoulders, as all of that equipment weighs a lot!

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of my camera bag :)

Top 10 tips: How to prepare for your photoshoot

When I am booking in a photography session, two of the main questions are; how do I prepare and what do I wear? I will send you a guide, specific to the type of shoot you are having. If you are booking in a newborn shoot, I will give you a guide on what to expect and how to prepare. Maternity mammas also get an in depth guide. This post will focus more on general family photos, to give you tips on how to prepare for your photoshoot. 1. Schedule in haircuts at least one week out. This applies for the whole family. Do the boys need a tidy up? Do the girls need a trim? Do you need your roots retouched? Generally, haircuts take a couple of washes to settle down, which is why I recommend scheduling them a week before. You will know your hair best, so schedule that appointment so that on the day of the shoot, you will be really happy with your hair.

2. Make an appointment with the beautician. Waxing eyebrows, legs, manicures and pedicures is really important for your shoot. Of course, only focus on this if it is something that you ordinarily do. Your hands and feet may be visible in the photos and your face definitely will, so schedule any appointments that make you feel your best. As an aside note: I get asked the question, 'should I get a fake tan'? My answer is, if it is something you normally do, then please do so. But please do yourself a favour, and have it done professionally. A la naturale is much better than cheap fake tan. Trust me!

3. Choose Mum's outfit first. Mums tend to put their children first. We will give up something for ourselves in a heartbeat if it means our child is happier or more comfortable. When it comes to the photoshoot, I always tell the Mum to look out for herself first, and design the family around her. Look in your wardrobe, or go shopping. Pick something that you feel fabulous in. The print shouldn't be too busy or patterned, as it will overwhelm the image. Your outfit should be well fitting and flatter you. Baggy clothes don't make women look smaller, in fact, they have the opposite effect. So please choose something that fits well and flatters your body. Once you have found the perfect outfit, it's time to dress the rest of the family.

4. The rest of the family should wear clothes that compliment yours. I am not a fan of matching clothes, or denim and white. Rather, I prefer complimentary colours. If you are wearing pastels, your family should be too. If you are in bright colours, your family should be too. Remember, I am happy to help if you want to email me some ideas or bring along some options to your shoot.

5. On the night before the shoot, everyone should go to bed on time, so everyone is happy and refreshed in the morning.

6. We should schedule the shoot around nap times. If the session runs into normal nap times, we are likely to have tired, cranky children that won't photograph well. The only sleepy clients should be newborns!

7. If the children are sick, we should reschedule. I know it's tempting to push ahead, but the images will be much better if your child is feeling well.

8. On the morning of the shoot, try not to make the event a big deal. Don't worry about coaching your child or telling them that they need to behave or smile. We want them to have fun, with natural smiles and laughter. So please leave this up to me.

9. Bring along anything that is important to your child. A photo with their beloved teddy bear or trusted blankie will be priceless in years to come.

10. Relax and have fun. Your photoshoot should be an enjoyable experience, and will result in gorgeous images of your family, that you can enjoy for years to come. I want you to relax and enjoy the experience.

Sydney Photographer - Hyde Park in Winter

I couldn't have orchestrated a better day if I tried. This beautiful family flew in from North Queensland, and Sydney had been cold and wet in the days leading up to the shoot. On the day we were to do this shoot, the weather warmed up, the sun came out and we had perfect winter weather conditions in Hyde Park. For this session, my client wanted to focus less on posing and more on connection, and what a connection they have. A small, close, beautiful family. The sun filtered through the trees and I just captured their love as it happened. It was truly one of those sessions that melts your heart. And it doesn't hurt that they are beautiful, inside and out. I hope you enjoy these winter family photos from Hyde Park, Sydney.

Losing his first tooth

An update to my 'twin with the wobbly tooth story', it fell out! That was fast. I am grateful that I had a mini session when we knew his tooth was loose. When it fell out, we celebrated with another fun photoshoot. His twin graciously said "today is Noah's special day, but soon I will have my special day and then we will have a photoshoot for me". So I need to find a photoshoot idea. Feel free to leave ideas in the comments. So far we have, the tooth fairy, a bloody boxing match and slamming the door shut with a string to the tooth. This is a fun age!

Photoshoot with handsome twins

In 2008, I gave birth to two incredibly beautiful (and big) baby boys. They were 3.3 kgs and 3.7 kgs (or 7 pounds 4 and 8 pounds 4 if you're using the old system). We were told that they were fraternal, but as time went on and their weight became similar, it was harder and harder to tell them apart. We decided that we would have them DNA tested to be sure that they were fraternal. Of course, they are identical. This happens way more than people think! As they have reached their milestones, it has been bittersweet. It's lovely that they are growing beautifully and are reaching their milestones however, they are my last babies, so in some ways it's sad to leave that time behind. Still, that's not a good reason to have more babies, so I will accept that we are entering the next phase of our lives, where they will grow up to be fine, young gentlemen.

Noah told me yesterday that his tooth was wobbly. And it is VERY wobbly! You would think he told me he was moving out with my reaction. I immediately called for a photoshoot to have a memory of those tiny baby teeth. I imagine Zane won't be far behind, as identical twins tend to lose teeth at similar times.

These boys have always been so incredibly happy. They are always smiling and giggling. I love the way their eyes close and their noses crinkle up when they laugh. And their laugh is infectious. It's impossible not to smile around them. As a result, I am sharing lots of photos, there are way too many to choose from and I love them all. Here are my baby boys with their baby teeth. Perhaps the last day of their baby teeth.