After Charlene’s session I received an email from her mum, Patricia saying… it was lovely to finally meet, it was like we were long distance penpals who finally got to meet…and that’s exactly how it was. I received my first email from Patricia many many months ago, well last year in fact; she wanted to buy her husband a gift voucher as a surprise gift for their baby who had not long arrived…and that’s how it started. We had a few failed attempts at meeting up and many emails across the seas and from there a lovely friendship formed. I really do have the best clients in the world! and in truth as much as I love photography, it’s the people that get me every time!
And so this is Charlene…those beautiful brown almond eyes and perfect skin and let’s not forget about that dribble…I love it! I have many parents asking me…can you clean up the dribble…and i will reluctantly do it… I love baby dribble. To me it’s so what a baby is all about, when will you ever again have the excuse?!…so dribble away young things, It’ll always make my day.
Oh my how I love brunette girls in red dresses… if you are into girly girls the clothes at Chateau de Sable are too gorgeous. Just like this little number Charlene has on… Oh they also have divine winter coats!
Oh If your looking for me I’m in Singapore… x
I love a birthday bash and loved Hana’s. I last photographed Hana when she was an itty bitty newborn and it was amazing to see how she had grown in a year. You can see a little glimpse of her on the right here…
Hana delicately ate the strawberries from the top of her cake and then required a bit of encouragement of the mummy plough her hands into it kind before she got the idea but I think you can see she got there…
If your wondering where Hana gets her divine looks from her mummy is Kiwi (New Zealander that is…) and dad Japanese… both talented architects but Hana is their best creation so far! I mean seriously she is dee-vine and a sweetie to boot!
Love the icing you can see flying here…
…and the salute to the cake gods! hooray!
This post is a bit of a tease as sadly I no longer offer this type of first birthday bash in the pink palace as I no longer shoot in a studio but if you have a nice plain background and lots of light you could give this a go anywhere like we did for Finn here.
(Yoshi and Yvette it is WAY overdue but hope you finally enjoy, before Hana turns two! xx)
these are Freya’s cool kicks…I love them…they make me smile, they brighten up a cold winters day, but looking at them now, I realise they mean so much more…she is growing up so fast.
I am so guilty of mentally speeding up her life; fascinated sometimes to the point of obsession about what she will be… what she’ll look like… what she’ll love and hate… if she’ll be a fashion obsessed teen, a book worm, an athlete like her father or rebel against me completely, turn emo and hate her mother (btw. I have guessed the later)… I even measured her height this week; you know the rule of thumb about doubling their height at two…and I had even read somewhere that for girls that it is more accurate at 18 months…this week she was 22 months and it’s another thing I just had to know… it was 1 cm taller than me, it was a surprise I thought it would have been taller…
Maybe it’s just because I can’t stand the suspense… I was one of those first time mothers that found out the second I could about her sex…I had an amnio so they could tell me for sure (this btw was NOT the reason I had the amnio – just had to clarify…)…but I’m still guilty.
It’s been a tough adjustment in the last month; I no longer have the buffer of my wonderful mother. I’m facing sole single parenting for the first time, just Freya and I… as well as trying to run my own business and chase my tail.
She is all of a sudden so independant…she no longer gives me kisses and cuddles…(M. Freya can I have a kiss…F. nah…M. Pleeease…F. noooooo…), she is using more and more words (this week it’s train, plane and rain which probably only a mother can decipher)… starting to dress herself (well much better at the undressing…) and stamping her independence by refusing to get in the bath or have dinner (ah witching hour!)…
I have realised while looking at this photo… it’s time to I need to be a better mum… know my limitations, spend less time saying no Freya mum is too busy, stop stressing that I can hear her now in her bedroom saying oh no..which means instead of sleeping she in throwing her teddies on the floor… or throwing everything out of the plastics cupboard for the third time today (because that is the only one without a child lock)… be more in the now…
what do they say…life’s a journey, not a destination…and in the meantime they are cool kicks…
and to all my clients that have been so patient during the transition thank you! and to anyone still out there, thanks for sticking around!
no it’s not me who is married…! but I was in Sydney helping the lovely Angie Peady shoot the divine wedding of Danielle + Mark.
I was so honoured to be a part of their day. It was such a beautiful wedding to share with two beautiful families… I will even admit to tearing up during the wedding speeches.
This is small selection of how their day looked through my lens…
I could not resist posting this photo of the one of the attendants I mean really!? what a cutie patootie! His eyes were actually the colour of gold…
Rain makes for beautiful wet shiny reflections like this…
my favourite shot of the day… between trying to hold a camera, an additional spotlight, camera bag and umbrella, it was my Tim Gunn moment. I’m glad I persisted.
Perceptions are so funny… I am sitting here at my desk in Canberra on the second official day of winter… thick woollen socks on my feet, my favourite 100 year old chunky woollen jumper on, that has had it’s moth holes stitched more time than I can count (makes for a good picture in your head yeah?) and the heater set to the sahara…I still feel cold but looking at Stella I feel like “can someone please get that poor baby a blanket!“. It has always fascinated me; the climatic bubbles we get ourselves in…you know what I mean; when it’s -5 degrees and no matter how much you try, you just cannot remember how 30 degrees felt… It’s a bit like that for me, I was surrounded by the tropical warm cosy blanket of the Singapore humidity just a couple of weeks ago but now just can not remember it ( I have vague recollections of it being guuud!)….I instead look at poor Stella and cry for a blanket. I assure you friends when I made this poor babe lay in the clothes god + huggies gave her it was warm, promise!! air con warm!
but you didn’t come here for that crazy climatic tangent….on with the show! This divine little angel with cupids lips and the mop of kiss curls is Stella and if cupid was a baby girl I’m convinced that this is what she would look like….
sorry something nuts and ugly happening with my line spacing…will endeavour to rectify!
you know when you meet a person and they just exude joy?! when their enthusiasm and positivity is instantly contagious? Hega is just one of those people… which was why it was no surprise when I found out she was a health, business and financial coach…
Hega and her husband have not long moved to Singapore via a few years in Vietnam. I could instantly see the buzz she gets from helping people get their lives a little more organised, whether it be financially, health or personal development…I wanted to sign up for all three! you can check out her business here… HS Coaching.
This started out as a corporate session to get some new pics for her business but it we had far too much fun for a corp session so it became a “just because”…. we started out at Hega’s home (that’s Hay-ga for the Australians in the audience) and then jumped in a cab and headed to one of her favourite spots in Singapore which turned out was one of mine too…Kampong Glam & Haji Lane.
We had a ball, we laughed a lot…I thought my jokes must have been on fire that day until near the end of the shoot… I asked if her refined German ear can understand my Australian cold effected drawl an occasional mumble (I confess I mumble, just ask my mother!) …and Hega says…no, I can’t understand thing your saying! … at least a good laugh and positive energy can’t be lost in translation!
I love this shot with the guy in the background standing in the middle of the lane checking his mobile phone, so singapore.
I borrowed a chair from the hawker stall next door for these shots, I swear he thought I was going to steal his $2 plastic chair… he was lurking behind the column!
oh my, prepare to fall in love…. Meet James jnr or Pan Pan as he is known to his nearest and dearest…what a heartbreaker.
I had the pleasure of meeting this little man just as he woke up for a day of ….well whatever one and a half year old little boys do…enjoy some cuddles; some rumbles; tickles with daddy; cuddles with mummy; watching out the window for a bit of truck and bus spotting and just generally keeping busy…and not in the one spot for very long…. His mum told me his smiles are very hard to capture on camera…I think I must have caught him on a good day this day….
He is as beautiful in spirit as below and I have high predictions for this little man; he is going to break some hearts!
I LOVE this shot when Grandma came for a family shot! It tells all…
Ok, I’ll admit as I drove away I did my sums to work out if one day Freya could be Mrs Pan Pan but maybe that’s one heart I should save!
by Annie la Rue
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