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xxx Cath xxx

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

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!

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

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….”

Given that I’ll be away for so long I thought I should let my wedding clients know that the studio will be closed for all of August and a teeny weeny bit of July as well.  As such next Friday is the last day to finalise wedding album approvals and payments as I will be doing the last album order the following Monday.  There will be no album orders placed between June 20 and September 5th as I can’t guarantee that my housesitter will be available to collect any parcels that arrive via courier in my absence.  Albums ordered by the end of next week will be delivered before the studio closes in July, however all albums placed after the 20th June will not be ordered until after the 5th of September and will have an October delivery date or later.

Since no blog post is complete without a photo here is a recent shot of my Jenny out the front of a gorgeous historic home that I fell in love with while on a recent bike ride.  I wish she would fit into my luggage, I’d look so cute riding her around Tuscany and the South of France!  Don’t you think?

Style Me Pretty are at the forefront of wedding trends so it’s a wonderful place to get inspiration if you are planning your own wedding and would like some ideas. If you are like me and just love looking at gorgeous photos of beautiful things you can’t go past it.

Jennifer and James married just 8 months after first falling in love with each other after meeting at work.  Their wedding was a beautiful celebration of love, worship and all things vintage.  The ceremony was held in a gorgeous sandstone church in the heart of Newtown which had been transformed into the most elegant tea party, and the reception was held at Jennifer’s father’s home in the Blue Mountains.  As I’ve known Jennifer for a number of years and have photographed her and her family before I fully expected this wedding to be beautiful but I had no idea of the sheer amount of effort that James, Jennifer and their family and friends had been able to put into designing the most amazing details I have ever seen at an Australian wedding.  Jennifer not only designed her own gown but also the gowns of her bridesmaids. I really wish I had an extra hour or two just to cover the details, there were just too many to photograph to be able to do all their hard work justice and the light was certainly against me capturing everything!

While the details of their wedding were extraordinary Jennifer and James’s wedding was really only about love.  The love that they have for each other and the love that their family and friends have for them.  The way everyone pulled together from their respective churches and families was a testament to how loved and highly respected these two people are.  It was truly an honour to photograph this wedding and it made me fall in love with weddings all over again.

Here is just a small sampling of my favourite images of the day.

This year was probably the best year in a while for colour. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we had a very wet summer, trees hold their leaves better with wet feet.  Over the last week I’ve been admiring the colours my own garden has been displaying, my Crepe Myrtles in my backyard have never looked so good but then over night with a little bit of rain they are all but empty and my garden floor is now carpeted in yellow and orange.  Timing is everything when it comes to getting the right colour!

My first mountain session was with a really sweet family, Gin and Jeremy and their beautiful children Declan and Tristan.  Jeremy is an amazing chef and Gin isn’t bad in the kitchen either so we decided to start the session off with a morning brunch in my friend Pete’s garden.  Pete was really generous and let us spend 4 hours roaming his property capturing every corner of his magnificent garden.  Pete’s garden reminds me so much of my Grandfather’s garden, I couldn’t help but feel really connected to my childhood memories that day which is perfect considering I was capturing new memories for a lovely family.  I hope that Gin and Jeremy enjoy these family memories as much as I do.