Sydney Wedding Photography I Sydney Portrait Photography
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Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Cathy Crawley and I am a Natural Light Portrait and Commercial Photographer based in Sydney Australia. I run a Modern Boutique Studio in the Hills District of NSW, but I am available for travel interstate and overseas.
I absolutely love capturing memories for my clients that I know will last a lifetime and be treasured for generations to come. It is a thrill and an honour to be invited into the lives of so many wonderful people, I couldn't think of a better job!
This blog is where I post my recent work and also talk about my friends, family and loves. If you would like to chat with me about a Photographic Session please email me at info@beautifulmoments.com.au
Thank you for stopping by!
All images are protected under Australian Copyright Laws, it is illegal to copy, print or reproduce without permission.
Office hours are Monday - Friday 9.30am - 5.00pm
I thought you’d like to know that there have been some BIG changes this year. The most exciting of which is that I have a brand spanking new blog! I won’t be updating this blog anymore so if you would like to head on over to the new blog the address is www.beautifulmomentsblog.com
Please update your RSS feed and be sure to use the new social networking features on the site that allow you to tweet, share, like and comment all in the one place.
xxx Cath xxx
We’ve been holding back from blogging lately due to the fact that we have a new blog coming soon but we wanted to share this fabulous special we are offering for Christmas! For further information please email info@beautifulmoments.com.au
- have missed seeing you blog regularly. I'm looking forward to seeing the shoots, and of course the new blog!
- aloha cathy! just a little hello from a galaxy far far away wishing you and your ohana a great day!!! hope all is good in your life!
I’m currently in Lake Como heading off to Tuscany today and wanted to share a small peek at our trip to Europe. Steven, Ben and I are in Europe to celebrate my 40th birthday and will be gone an entire month. We are visiting Italy, France and the UK. So far it has been fantastic, we have enjoyed every moment of being in Italy and know that we would dearly love to come back some day. Everywhere we look we are greeted by something beautiful, historic or rustic. It’s definitely one of my favourite parts of the world.
The first place we visited in Italy was Venice. She completely took my breath away, I knew I’d love it but I didn’t expect how much I would love it. The little winding streets crowed with tourists and filled with shops and restaurants were a lot of fun to explore. I adore the history behind venice, over 1000 years old and still going strong. Imagine all the people who have walked these streets, Marco Polo, Mozart and Cassaonova are just a few who have called Venice home. The 400 plus bridges were all beautiful and every house had a gorgeous window display, I photographed a LOT of windows in Venice! We took a private tour of a glass factory on Murano Island where Benjamin got to blow some glass, we spent a day on Burano Island which had the most amazing painted houses, but my favourite part of the time in Venice was a Gondola ride at sunset on our last evening exploring the houses of Marco Polo and Mozart.
Here are a few scenes of Venice that makes my heart smile. I will have to blog more when I get home 
- I am in Love !! - have a wonderful time and enjoy your 40th !!
- Happy 40th Birthday Cathy. I'm pleased to hear you, Steve and Ben are having a fantastic time in Europe. Beautiful photos, can't wait to hear all about it. Enjoy the rest of your holidays and have a great day. All the Best, Love Craig, Julie and the boys.
- It is a spectacular place, you can just soak up a place like that and imagine away... Happy 40th!
- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.....
- Happy Belated 40th Cathy! You wont' believe it: I went to Venice and also visited Murano for the glass blowing, just last month! Isn't she beautiful?! :) xx
A few months ago I decided to enter the APPA awards for the first time. The awards are run by the Australian Institute of Professional Photography and are the most prestigious awards in Australia. I have not entered in past years for a number of reasons, but this year I thought it was my time. Entering awards can be a really terrifying prospect, but it is a worthwhile process. While you do set yourself up for ridicule from industry leaders it is a fabulous way of knowing how your photography measures up to the best in the industry. Having clients happy with the images we create for them is always the best response to our work, but knowing if it’s amongst the best work out there is priceless as an artist.
This year there were some utterly amazing entries. Entries that completely took my breath away and made me feel really inferior. The APPA’s are slightly different to other competitions such as WPPI, each photographer can enter up-to four entries, choosing those four entries is a task that can often lead to a lot of stress. How can you select just four images from tens of thousands created over the previous 12 months? What if you select the wrong images? What if you overlook your one chance at Gold? Then there is the printing process, it has to be perfect. Luckily I have wonderful friends who own RAW Ink Printing and I was confident leaving my images in their hands.
I selected four images that I loved. Two wedding images, one family image and one portrait image. Entering the image of Miss Keighley on my chair was a risk. A risk because it’s not the type of image that would normally win this competition, it’s colourful and happy and is obviously of a gorgeous little girl. In previous competitions the judges have tended to reward more moody and dark images. To make it even more of a challenge I decided to do something different, to print it on Metalic Paper instead of the glorious Art Paper that my other prints were printed on. My dear friend Andrew at RAW Ink encouraged me to go completely left of field instead of playing it safe, everyone plays it safe and I thought it was a good idea to take a risk. One of the main reasons why I entered “Miss Keighley Turns One” is because this is very typical of the type of print that I would offer my clients. And after all, I shoot for my clients, not for judges. The other images that I entered were what I considered to be some of my favourite images. One of Mark and Danaye on their wedding day in a stunning wheat field in Golburn, an image of Kellie and Yannick in the Hunter Valley and lastly one of my favourite images of Steven and Ben shot in the rain and fog.
Watching the judging was fabulous yet nerve racking. I really enjoyed listening to the judges opinions on what they loved or hated in an image, I enjoyed making my mind up about an image and then seeing how it scored. It was fascinating stuff, but every now and then I started to fear that one of my images would come up and I would have to sit and listen to it being critiqued! The thought terrified me so I decided to have lunch with my friends instead. Just as I returned to the judging I saw two of my images up on the screen at once! I felt sick. There was some confusion about the scores as I wasn’t standing in front of the room that was currently judging and couldn’t see all the judges points. It was only today that I was able to know for certain what the final marks were.
My hope for entering these awards was that one of my images would get a Silver Award. Anything in the 70′s is considered to be the standard of professional photography showing proficiency in professional technique, but an 80-85 is a Silver Award and exceeds the standard of professional practice with a high levels of imagination, craft or skill. In the end my image of Kellie & Yannick in the Hunter Valley scored a 79, just one point below a Silver Award while all three remaning images were awarded Silver Awards. To make it even more exciting the image “Miss Keighly Turns One” was the highest scoring image of mine, which just goes to show that the style that I love to produce for my clients exceeds the standard practice of professional photography!
Congratulations to all my wonderful friends and colleagues who won awards this year. Here are my three award winning prints!
- Biggest congratulations to you Cathy! These images are all winners in my eyes, each having their own touch of unique emotion. Well done for entering and cant wait to see what you produce for next years awards! Carla x
- Well done lovely lady!
- Congratulations again darling girl! Well done E XX
- A HUGE congratulations to you Cathy, very well deserved, xxx
- Congratulations again Cathy. Your work is such an inspiration to many.
- Well I didnt need a judge to tell me your work is beyond the usual standard of professional portraits. I do think it is cheating to use some gorgeous subjects tho ;) who is going to say no to those faces?... and stunning locations... oh boy. The judges never stood a chance. congratulations Cathy.. well deserved wins indeed.
- Your entries were beautiful - the image of the baby in the chair is just stunning. I LOVE Raw Ink, I've recently started ordering through them and the quality is just perfection :)
- Congratulations Cathy!
- congratulations! for entering for the first time and coming away with 3 silvers, a remarkable achievement. i so love the image of your husband and son, beautiful :)
- gorgeous!!! congrats.. my first awards as well. no silvers for me yet but I am inspired and determined for next year.
- congratulations!! well deserved, and the images are stunning. My fave is the wedding image... that veil...
- Congratulations Cathy. Great images and well deserved!
- Very nice pictures! I love that baby sitting on the chair shot. Very well-taken, thanks
- I am SOOO beyond proud of you, but not surprised one bit. you are aaaaaamazing Cathy Crawley!!! xo
- Congratulations Cathy! Much deserved:)
- Your wedding images are beautiful, thanks for sharing!
Things around the Beautiful Moments Photography office have been crazy busy lately. I’ve been madly pumping out final Wedding Album designs for clients and now that I am all but finished with wedding season it’s time to sit back and relax right? Wrong! With the studio closed for the entire month of August I thought it would be a fabulous time to offer the first promotion of the year. Yippee! Half price sessions in July!
Here’s the skinny: For every portrait shoot in July the session fee of $200 is reduced to just $100. That’s 2 hours of on-location photography with yours truly for $100!! Sessions are strictly limited and will be placed on a first come first served basis. I have limited Saturday and Sunday sessions available as well as selected week days available during the school holidays. The $100 session fee is required at the time of booking to secure your time and date. In the event of rain the session will be rescheduled to a later date at no additional cost.
Many people assume that it’s too cold for photos in the cooler months but I’ve found that wintertime is a perfect opportunity to dress the kids up and play fashionista! It’s not too hot to be running around in their favourite outfit and the light at the end of the day is sublime. Rug the kiddos up with cool jackets and scarves, throw on some boots, bring some blankets and let’s play! Just last week I took my little man out for some fun in the winter sun and my heart melts every time I look at them.
Please email info@beautifulmoments.com.au to book your session
Due to popular demand Victoria and I will be hosting just one more Nuts & Bolts Workshop this year. With busy work and travel schedules as well as a baby on the way the only time we can fit this into our schedule is next month.
The Nuts & Bolts Workshop is an intensive business workshop designed specifically for the home based photographer with less than 2 years experience. We cover all aspects of setting up a business, branding, marketing, client liaison and home studio operation. The workshop was announced last week to our regular Newsletter readers and we have already sold a few spots at the workshop. If you are interested please get in touch soon as places are limited to just 6. Why so small? Well that way we can give one-on-one time to each attendee and keep everything intimate and personal. To register please visit www.abeautifulworkshop.com
Here are a few things our previous students have had to say about their experience.
Attending the very first Beautiful Workshop was one of the luckiest & best decisions I have ever made for my business… it was the luckiest because I almost didn’t go. I thought it will probably be like all the other “business workshops” I have attended. I was the best because it was FABULOUS & NOTHING like all of the others. Most of all, it was relevant, which is exactly what you need & are looking for when you are starting out. It was also real, no wishy washy generic advice that only really works if you already established, known & successful & not really in need of any help. Just real experiences & information on the “tried & true”. And it was so much FUN. I just loved every minute of it, from the stunningly (Cathy Crawley) styled shoot, which even included a real proposal & walking barefoot through pebbled streams & mud squishing between your toes – (who could ask for more?), to the brilliant advice & individual brand critique given by Victoria. And it was fabulous to meet all of the other beautiful photographers & spending those two days with them. I honestly would love to do it all over again. I left there buzzing with excitement over the changes I could make & the guidelines to create my own path. Thanks again Cathy, & Victoria for all of your hard work, time & generosity, it was amazing ♥ x
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“I just wanted to take a moment to thank you properly for all your work at last week’s workshop. It was such a positive experience for me and just so great to meet a group of likeminded people. The amount of time and effort that you both put in was remarkable and so appreciated. I learned so much from your presentation and have gone over my notes a few times already, trying to remember all the homework you suggested and all the notes I made to myself!”
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From an attendee’s Facebook status update: “…just spent the most amazing two days with Beautiful Moments Photography doing the Nuts and Bolts workshop… did I say talented, amazing, gorgeous, and fun…. and that’s just Cathy, I have taken away with me many tips for my business and a bunch of new friends….. had a blast ladies….”
- I would LOVE to come to the workshop :) Did I see baby on the way? I am hoping I didn't miss any big announcement Ms Crawley!!!
[...] For more information on the workshop please click here and to see Cathy’s magnificent work you can visit the Beautiful Moments Photography blog. [...]
by Cathy
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