back to weddings and shiz..

So i finally got back into shooting weddings, has been a good couple months and to be honest i'd sort of missed it. was good to get back to it. Had this job lined up about 3 months ago, Simon had mentioned it to me ages ago and its scary when 3 months becomes today! ah well.. photos..

Cute couple, Brian and Kazu from Japan. Pretty cute story. All i can say is that a simple letter from Australia to Japan reunited them after years of no contact amd eventuated to this wedding. Quite cute. Brian came of a bit pompous to start with but he's a good guy. Apparently when i got there Kazu said "i like the way you look, i like that' hmmm Simon talked me up and said some shit. Always good to get off on the right foot i say. 

Horses? yes, they are horses. Wedding was shot at Moonee Valley racecourse. Never been there before and for some reason something tells me it'll be the last. Horse racing officials are very... how we say.. anal.. Needed special passes to go anywhere and needed to be "accompanied" by officials everywhere we went.. hmmm strange. almost cult like.. whatever.. douchebags.. 

Kazu's mum straight from Osaka Japan. She was cute.

Decided to try things a little different this time, never shot photos like this before but it was a good time to try and experiment. good to widen your horizons. I know its been done before but something new for me. all good.

the whole gang from Japan. Wish i knew Japanese.. sigh..

AS luck would have it.. as soon as the ceremony started it began to rain a little.. gotta love Melbourne. 

But luckily it didn't dampen anyones spirits, esp the bride and groom. It didn't rain that hard which is good. just Drizzle. that shitty annoying rain where its like "are you gonna rain or not?!" that shitty rain..

all important kiss.

Don;t know what happened here but something made them laugh. Luckily i was facing them.

Love it when people come and do my job for me.. you'd think i was joking but i'm not. Makes my life easier, and time to snap people snapping people. one of those things i like doing. strange..

wish i had shot this on a crane or something. She was standing in middle of a circle of people. THought it looked really interesting. Wish i had of shot it from a high angle to really get that feeling of closure.. oh well.. what can you do.

cute kid. i wanted a photo of Kazu and Brian, but he wanted to stick his head up against the glass. Pissed me off at first as he ruined my shot.. kinda glad he did now.

i lol'd

decided to actually stay clear for the cake cutting for once. I kept the 70-200 on and let Simon shoot up close. Decided it's a better way to shoot these days. Work as a team. let him do what he has to do. trust.. kind of hard when you normally shoot solo.. but.. we're a team.

ok.. i'll leave the weddings there for now.. just finished batching these to JPEG so you guys are lucky to see them so soon! need to mail it out to Sim tomoz.. hmmm 1.5gb for 57images.. fk .PSD files are large.. ANYWAYS.. on other news.. went back to the CFA the other day.. yesterday..

heres a quick snaps to leave you guys with. Enjoy. until next time.

- Chris.

Ok a shit load of photos but Enjoy guys.

CHRIS! 

Flash..

Thunder! ahhh Band of Brothers.. gotten into a war mood, helping kiwi with some footage. Got a big intro to start filming soon. see how it goes. So... photos. Been CFA lately, gotten into the good stuff, started playing with fire. Last three weeks of the training and earlier this week i'd been htere till about midnight shooting the fires. pretty fkn amazing.

It gets hot.. feels like you're in hell.. looks like hell, but was bloody fun.

Love when they set the cars on fire, air smelled like burnt plastic and rubber.. yummm. Bitta kerosene helps with the fire going.

Looks like snow? well its not.. it WAS foggy up there.. very, and the foam they used in the water does make it look like snow. was quite bizarre.

Fire does make things look better. mmmm

something about this photo i've always liked.. i dunno.. maybe the colour contrasts of yellow and blue, who knows. That sack of crap in the photo? its a 'body' they train to save casualties all the time.

love fire, maybe a bit of a pyromaniac but thats cool.. i just wont burn shit lol.. but fire is a beautiful thing, amazing, spell binding, could watch it all day.

<3 this one.

This reminds me a bit of a movie still, maybe its that beam of light through the fog, who knows. but i stood there for a while waiting for that ONE guy to walk into the beam of light, luckily i didnt have to wait too long.

one of the last fires we had that night, was around 11pm and they set everything on fire... let me tell you.. hell on earth. i have footage of it, may upload it oneday. wanting to make a nice video at the end of this since i've been getting into video.. yeah i know.. whatever.. but we'll see how it goes.. Anyways, there is only a small sample of the photos i took the last few days. was pretty good fun.. more to come, more movies to film for WK... see how it all goes...

Chris.

in hiding

Is where i've been for a while now, i think my last post would've been nearly a month ago? shit i dunno.. a while anyways.. so i've been shooting, a little.. Been back at the CFA lately and had a few more shots there, with some pretty good results. Gonna go back next week where they will start playing with fire, can't wait for that one!

So i've been doing a few things lately which aren't exactly related to me. Been DOP'ing for Kiwi's honours films which has been good fun. I quiet enjoy DOP'ing i think doing photography probably helps a bit, and it gives kiwi the opportunity to focus on directing.

A couple of stills from the shoot "Going Home" and our main character "Lee" played by Daniel Wu, can't wait to see the final product, looking good so far.

So like i mentioned earlier, i went back to the CFA and took some new shots, this time they were training in chemical suits, which was a lot different to what i've been seeing the past few times i've been up. Next week they start playing with fire. should be fun. hopefully i have time to go, gonna be a busy week school wise next week. worst.

So full chemical training, had the suits on and they had to get washed off each time, like they would in real life.

Don't worry, thats just food dye, but it is quite convincing. 

As well as shooting CFA i've just finished doing a shoot for my mates band "Sheer Abandon" can myspace that shiz. Not my kinda music but good guys. used Kiwis basement as the make shift studio and i think it adds to their kind of style.

Very David Hill style look, oversharpened contrasty images, they like it. That's all that matters. 

ANyways that's pretty much what i've been doing lately. Got a movie coming up, well i'm gonna be filming it for uni, you'll see it soon.. I like how i blog instead of write essays.. i'm a photographer, why write essays.. ffs.. anyways.. enjoy

-Chris.

12 Doors

So as part of uni i have an elective called Digital Video and as the name suggests.. we make videos. This weeks task was to do a video about doors, 12 doors to be exact and show them opening in different ways or.. something along those lines. Again Donald and I teamed up and we did something a little different. actually. REALLY different. I like, we like it. hope you like it.

Enjoy. more photos soon! ps. D3s + 28-70 2.8

p.s click on the file twice and it'll open up in youtube  for a proper aspect ratio!

bushpigs

white trash, redneck bushpigs is what a group of girls called some of the guys at the rodeo i attended last week with Kiwi. The rodeo was down at Stawell and let me tell you.. certainly was something.. different.. being the only 2 token asians for 99% of the day at the rodeo was a pretty daunting thing. There were about 2-3000 people there? not bad. lots of fun lots of Aussie bogans, scary at times, but most of the time they were a good laugh.

I've had a few people ask me "hey chris, howcome you went to shoot a rodeo down in Stawell?" how do i answer that? well.. the only thing i can think of is.. cos i can? haha nah i dunno.. i was jsut going through the net on things that looked awesome and what i could shoot and for some reason the rodeo ust popped in mind. Was a bit of work trying to find out where rodeos were in Victoria, as i'd never been to one or yet alone heard of many rodeo events. but they're huge.

got pretty close to the action. my cameras are due for a clean..

Very lady like behaviour. I think she asked him to buy her another drink, he said "fk off" she kicked him. Class all round.

lets not forget what rodeo is really about. There was alot of cattle rustling and of course the horse and bull riding. which was pretty fun to watch. Got pretty close and kept the 70-200 on the D80 all day. I'm happy the AF was fast and accurate enough to keep up with what i wanted. 

bro wasn't too happy. Horse fell under him and rolled over him. but he was alright. don't think he was happy that he fell off thought... death stare..  The rodeo continued on till about 930 that night, a lot of people had already head of and started making fires.. Kiwi and I walked past a few holes inthe ground and laughed as to what they were. the girls who said the guys were bushpigs, explained that they were burning pits "where the bush pigs burn all there shit in there and throw shit at you as you walk past." 

There was free camping at the rodeo. A few people took up that offer and let rip with their little bon fires.

Camping just next to the rodeo arena. 

Overall was a really good night. Got about 60 images from that night which isn't bad for a days shooting. We were planning on camping that night as well, however i sorta finished what i wanted to do in a day.. I thought that all the guys would go to a pub or something after the rodeo, but.. there was noting there.. just a rodeo in the middle of nowhere.. Not to worry.. next time. Anyways, hope all's well, back to shooting the CFA tomorrow and probably staying over at a near by motel for a 2 day shoot. we'll see how that goes! 

until then.