A little while ago I posted about doing a location scout on Christchurch’s Port Hills for an upcoming portrait session. The client needed a promo shot for her business website – a consultancy that assists people in applying to immigrate to New Zealand – and she wanted to have some interesting local New Zealand scenery [...]

One of my favourite clients, the ever-popular Coffee Culture, recently opened a new cafe in the town of Rangiora (a short drive north of Christchurch, where I’m based). I went there this week to photograph the new cafe. It’s situated in a fantastic heritage building in the centre of town, and I’m sure it’s going [...]

This morning I went location scouting up on the Port Hills. In a couple of weeks I’m doing some headshots for a businesswoman who owns a New Zealand immigration advisory service, helping people who want to immigrate to New Zealand with navigating the paperwork and processes involved. For her website she wants a photo of [...]

I can’t count the number of times I’ve clicked on the ‘About Me’ page of an otherwise professional website and cringed at the out-of-focus snapshot being used for the headshot. Why go to all the trouble of designing a nice website only to let it down with a lackluster photo? I was in Auckland recently [...]

Christchurch couple Colin and Sharyn took advantage of my recent Summer Nights special offer to have some portraits done in the city centre. Here’s a selection of the best photos. I looooove Sharyn’s dress and shoes!

When you look through a photographer’s portfolio or see their website, it’s sometimes easy to forget that what you’re seeing is their best work. Every photo is polished, honed and a shining example of what happens with Everything Goes To Plan. A lot of people don’t realise is that photographers – even the top shooters [...]

I recently had the pleasure of doing a fun one-hour studio session with two brothers, Jack and Tom. Their mum wanted a picture of the boys to give to Dad for his birthday. Lucky for me the brothers got along famously, and weren’t put off by having a camera pointed at them – they were [...]

Always put the sun behind your subject. For one thing, it means they won’t be squinting in the picture. But another reason is to get cool backlight effects. Usually you can get a nice bit of rim lighting or some nice highlights on the hair, but when the sun is very low and you stick [...]

Last night Brence and I spent some time tidying up the home studio and putting up a new dark background I made of navy blue fabric. I fired off some test shots of Brence to see what it looked like – and it looks pretty good and works well in colour or b&w. We started [...]

Yesterday we had some dramatic clouds over Christchurch. We often get interesting cloud formations here, but these were particularly dramatic and I thought it’d be worth taking a drive up the Port Hills to see what the view was like. When I got up to Summit Road and got out of the car, it was [...]