Nicolette Neish Photography Blog - ‘from both sides of the lens’

Well ’sunglasses’ were the theme for the day at the model shoots yesterday - as part of a challenge competition where a group of Brisbane photographers and models got together for a social outing and model portfolio shoot, with the resulting images going into a Queensland vs South Australian shoot out on the TFP forum.  The rules where that all photographs must be photographed between 12.01 am and 11.59pm on the 27th Jan and have at least one pair of sunglasses in the image.

A few of us more keen photographers started the day at Wellington Point, Redlands for an early morning shoot with models Christina, Selby and Emma - who were all troopers for such an early start!

Then off up to the Ettamogah Pub, Caloundra for a lunch gathering and pre-main shoot planning - just as well as I was pretty hungry by then after being out and about so early ;)   After an enjoyable lunch, off we all headed to Point Cartwright, where the talented and lovely makeup artists, Mai and Darian went to work with their magic on the models, while the photographers did some location scouting.

It was a beautiful warm day, and such an awesome location with the rocks at lowtide!   But like any great location - it is not always easy to get to, especially lugging along a bit of photographic equipment.   Thankfully my wonderful husband had offered to do the driving on the day - as it was definitely a long one - and was my gear carrier, of which many of the other photographers were very enviable lol!    Even though my husband sometimes humours me and we go for drives when I feel like photographing different things, he had never been along to any of the model shoots I had done.   Lucky he did come along, as he ended up saving the day for us all by doing a ‘water’ run.   Even though we were surrounded by water, there was none to drink - as we had drank all we had taken with us with it being so warm - so off he went climbing back up the long hill and came back to the rescue with bags of bottle water.

It was an awesome day and fantastic to meet up with some familiar faces from previous shoots but also to meet some lovely new photographers, models and muas.   So on to some photos . . .   starting off with a few from the early morning shoot and then some of my favourites from the afternoon shoot - thanks to all the models who did a great job during the long day -  especially Christina, Brad, Chanea and Hayley featured in the photos below:

 For the last two months one of my major ‘projects’ has been working on the new studio, which pretty much saw me with a paint brush in my hand for more than a week over the Christmas / New Year break!   I had some very welcome help from 3 of our teenagers in the painting department - which was also great fun, cranking up the stereo and working together ;)

Of course once the major work was out of the way, had to have a test drive after the backdrops where all hung - definitely time to swap the painbrush for the camera ;)    So thanks to the daughters of a good friend who were willing volunteers to have some fun and try out some of the studio props.   A couple of photos to share, that will always be special as being the first ones shot in the new studio.

My first step on the blog path - even though I have enjoyed visiting other bloggers sites, I have until now always used my paper journals and scrapbooks.   But hey - always like to step out on new adventures, and quite fitting being the beginning of the New Year.

Hopefully I will get the hang of it fairly quickly and be able to share some photos and thoughts - especially for friends and family who are often wondering what I am getting up to photographically from time to time. ;)

To celebrate a new beginning,  you could say a dawn in my photography blog journey - so thought a sunrise shot would be a somewhat fitting visual.   Photographed at beautiful Russell Island, Moreton Bay.