Sharon and I have both been swing dancing for about 5 years. There is a regular dance scene in Christchurch where we go out and dance on a weekly basis. We teach for the local Swing Dance club for large group classes, as well as private teaching for individual couples who are planing a dance for their wedding, or for those who just want to learn how to dance!

Occasionally, you will also find Sharon and I performing as Sweet ‘n’ Hot. We do dance performances for corporate events and private parties. There is a bunch more information and some awesome photos and videos on our website www.sweetnhot.co.nz – go take a look!

Every year, the local swing dance club organises a weekend away at Hanmer Springs. The weekend is aptly named ‘Hanmer Swings’ for obvious reasons. Hanmer is a really neat place and it is less than 2 hours drive from Christchurch. Hanmer’s claim to fame is natural thermal pools – which are fantastic. Many hours can be lost soaking in the hot water.  Hanmer is also a great place to go walking and mountain biking and draws large crowds of tourists seeking to experience New Zealand. Our weekend away involves a lot of dancing to live bands, hanging out in the sun and soaking in the hot pools. It is always a fun weekend away.

This year we took my camera along and took some photos at the Friday night dance. The Friday night dance is smaller because people are still arriving. It is held is a small hall and we dance to recorded music (rather than on the Saturday night where we have a large dance in the town hall with Sideline Swing, a 16 piece big band.)

Here are the images that I created. Technical / Strobist info is below the images.

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The Third and the Seventh is an amazing high def short film that explores art and vision within photography. This is an visually engaging and intensely immersive experience that attempts – quite successfully – to visually convey the art and beauty of photography/cinematography.

It takes an ‘in the eye of the beholder‘ approach illustrated from a point of view where the main photographic subjects are already existing physical spaces and architecture. It focuses on low depth of field and surreal and abstract imagery, displaying some amazing scenes.

This short film gives a fascinating insight into the creative thought process of seeing and creating art through photography. Both photographers and cinematographers will get something out of watching this. Watching this just makes me want to go out and take photos.

The production value of this short is amazing; but the thing that really gets me is that this whole sequence was not high def video shot on a Canon 7D, 5D mkII or even one of the Nikon HD capable cameras. It wasn’t even shot on a professional video rig of any sort for that matter. It’s a CG animated movie. Huh? That’s right – animated. That just blows my mind – it looks so real. Makes me wonder if the Matrix really is real…

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Sharon and I joined our friend Jos and her child Seb to go on an adventure to feed the ducks. We organised to meet in the botanical gardens in Hagley park – which is the main central park in Christchurch. The park is, most importantly, abundant with ducks who are all eager to be feed – although, what duck isn’t?

Seb is one of the cutest kids you will ever meet so we took along the camera to grab some photos while we were out. Seb is just over one year old now and he has recently begun walking, so it was quite entertaining to watch him totter around after the ducks.

All the images below are shot on the Canon 5D with the 50mm f/1.4 lens and ambient light only. All images are shot between f/3.5 and f/5 on ISO800.

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On our recent trip to the icy cold shores of Canada, I took advantage of the healthy exchange rate and purchased a new lens – the Canon 50mm f/1.4 – merry Christmas to me! On the trip home, we had several hours wait during transit through Sydney airport. With little to do and armed with my brand new lens I was ready for action. Sharon kindly posed for a few casual portraits to help pass the time and below are some of the results. But first, a little back story…

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My brother Cairn and his wife Becs were recently visiting us in Christchurch to attend the wedding of some good friends who were getting married in the area. I hadn’t seen them for a while, so it was great to catch up.

I really wanted to take some portraits of my brother and his wife while they were staying with us. I knew we were going to be pushed for time since they were only in Christchurch for a few days, so just before they headed off to the wedding I grabbed a few lights and hijacked them on the way out the door -  taking advantage while they were all dolled up for the wedding.

This was a very quick portrait shoot – less than 20 minutes including setup – but we managed to get some fantastic images despite the lack of time! These two are very natural in front of a camera.

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Welcome to my new website. This is the first of hopefully many blog posts, where I hope to share some of my photography and hopefully some useful information about how I take my photos.

Please take a look around my website, and feel free to leave a comment, or contact me.

I love experimenting and taking photos. I have been very luck to learn a considerable amount from my partner Sharon Blance, who is a fantastic photographer. She is patient with teaching and critiquing my work, and will regularly be my model when I want to try something out.

These are recent studio shots taken of Sharon in our home studio.

About this website

I built this website in WordPress. My partner Sharon gave me a number of pointers and helped with some design ideas. The theme is a heavily customised template, which I based off the iNove WordPress theme.

I hope to expand and grow the site over time, so hopefully you will see some exciting things happening here.