Well, here it is! Had an article on Tom Elliott published in Men’s Style this month. It’s in the Man On The Move section which Tom certainly is. You’ll no doubt see and hear plenty more of him in the media. He’s got a real skill in being able to explain the most complex financial information in a way even I can understand. And he’s a lovely guy to boot.

I also had this article in the Women’s Weekly published in this month’s edition as well. If you get the chance to have a read, please do. It’s a sad but uplifting story of a man who loses his wife to cancer three weeks after she gave birth to their daughter Mia only to find love again with his late partner’s best friend. And they have just had a son, Hugo. I shot the images and wrote the first-person article from Peter’s perspective. The shoot was very straight forward. Had it knocked over in a few hour with the help of a very good team of people. I shot about 150 images so I’ll try to get some of the ones that weren’t published up on my blog in the next few weeks.

…I had to share this photo of my three month old son. I drew a bit of inspiration from a shot I’d seen of a sports car that showed off the curves of the car beautifully and wanted to emulate it with curves of the human variety. It was a very simple set up involving a flash and mini soft box held directly above him. Had to work fast too as nothing was going to distract him once his mind turned to milk.

Every time I shoot a portrait I have a vision of what the image will look like. And almost without exception the final image looks nothing like the one I had floating around in my head. Take this picture of Jesse Gerner, head chef and owner of Anada restaurant in Gertrude Street Fitzroy. Initially I had him sitting in a beautiful leather chair with a knife perched in one hand and a plant in the other. Then I wanted to make it look as though the plant was buried in the concrete and he was watering it. Neither was working for me and this was the final result; much stronger than any of the others. It’s a good lesson I suppose to try to adapt and experiment if things aren’t working for you.

There’s that moment when my idea for a portrait has to be run past the subject. Sometimes there’s a lot of rolling of eyes and shaking of heads and other times it’s smooth sailing; we agree on the idea and a date for the shoot. Such was the case with Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle. I ran my idea past him and his Chief of Staff and got the green light straight away. I admit, it wasn’t the most outrageous idea to wear an I Love Melbourne T-Shirt under his suit but he still has the reputation of office of Lord Mayor to protect.

Went along to the boxing the other night and shot some fighters straight after their bouts. Dwight Ritchie caught my eye, for obvious reasons. He only took his hat off long enough to beat his opponent and become the Victorian middleweight champion.