Hoorah!! I’m ever so happy to finally be able to share some images from the wedding of one of my oldest friends Mima to her dear Clancy!

I’ve known Mima since we were 5 years old (see previous post for the full story!) and was so ridiculously happy when Mima asked if we could photograph their wedding.

As Mima and Clancy live down in Sydney we didn’t actually get a chance to catch up until a few days out from the wedding when I met up with them at the videographers place,  Fisheye Studios. Barb & Rob from Fisheye are two seriously great people to work with and we were able to have a bit of a chit chat and talk over ideas which worked well especially as Mima & Clancy are so very laid back and cruisy and mostly just insisted that “everyone have fun” on their wedding day!

When the big day arrived, I looked out to see rain clouds looming on the horizon, but as we were up on the Gold Coast I was hoping that by the time we drove down to Northern NSW where the wedding was being held, that they would have disappeared and left us alone. Remembering that NSW was on daylight savings time, we arrived on time down at Gretal Farm, Eureka and thankfully were met with blue skies and smiles from the family who were busily setting up the final touches in the marquee and setting up the chairs for the garden ceremony.

Being rather “modern” in their approach to their wedding day (this was definately made clear when the bride announced she was going to be wearing converse sneakers as her wedding shoes!) Mima and Clancy didn’t have a large wedding party and instead chose to have a “wing-woman”, one of Mima’s best friends Donna and Clancy’s brother Jesse as his “wing-man” and also involve their family in the day by walking down the aisle in mix-matched couples which they had seen done at Clancy’s brothers wedding in Brazil.

Also, seeing as the wedding was all in the one location (the ever so sweet Gretal Farm), they chose to have a “First Look” (where the bride & groom see each other for the first time before the ceremony) which allowed them to have more time for mingling and celebrating with guests after the ceremony….which was definately high up on their priority list!

Renita & I had so much fun working with Rob and Barb from Fisheye Studios, capturing the day as it happened and celebrating the marriage of two such beautiful people. Clancy and Mima are two of the most smiliest people you will ever meet and absolutely adore each other. While they themselves said in their wedding vows that they “might not be a lovey-dovey couple with big huge romantic gestures” they are the couple who find the greateset joy in the little things about each other…which in the end, IS the “big thing” (well at least thats what I think anyway!)

May your days always be filled with laughter, care for each other and for Clancy, patience to handle Mima’s ever growing Converse shoe collection *cough obsession cough* : D

p.s I have to mention a funny story Mima’s dad mentioned in his speech…..when Mima was a small child she collected toilet rolls which she would then draw faces on and name each one of them after her friends. In his words, “Mima has always been a “collector of friends” and always been mindful to nurture and maintain her friendships over the years and it showed on the wedding day as the guests spanned from people she’s known since she was five through to life now in Sydney with Clancy”. The line that I could not help laugh at was the parting statement “So quite possibly some of you have been a toilet roll at some point in Mima’s life!”

Bless. Truly was a special wedding.

Clancy + Mima’s Wedding Dream Team

Venue: Gretal Farm, Eureka, NSW (speak to Vicki 02 66 884 778)

Marquee: Nomadic Tents

Photographers: Love Spark Photography (thats Renita & I!!)

Videographers: Fisheye Studios

Hair and makeup:  Kayo Makeup & Hair Design

Celebrant:  Michelle Shannon

Creative Bits & Pieces: Mima’s Dad made the signpost & handpainted her wedding shoes!

Caterers:   In Good Taste Catering

And last but certainly not least………here’s the video teaser of Clancy + Mima’s day as shot by Fishey Studios!

Clancy + Jemima cinematic trailer from Fisheye Studio on Vimeo.

…That I would end up photographing the wedding of the very first friend I made on my first day of school!

None other than Jemima aka Mima aka Jemima Puddle Duck

(I swear we didn’t always look like this!! I think this was for an “Australia Day” themed day or something like that)

As my dearest mother tells the story – on my very first day of school we arrived early to the school yard as we did not know the exact starting time for class. It was a VERY small country town school (30 or so kids from Kindergarten to Grade 6!) and the only people there so early in the morning was the teacher for the lower primary classes and her young daughter, Mima.

Peering out past my mother’s skirts, I was the young wide-eyed girl who was hesitant of what exactly this “school” experience was going to bring, and probably not un-surprisingly to those who know Mima, it was she who confidently bounded up to us and proudly exclaimed that “MY Mum’s the school teacher here!” then proceeded to show me around the school yard, grandly pointing out everything as if she’d lived there her whole life.

…This was to be the beginning of a long friendship

Primary school found us playing under the old oak tree out the front, amusing ourselves after school with “Midnight Rescue” on the super old school Apple Mac computers (quite possibly one of the benefits of being friends with the child of a school teacher!) , running cross-country through Mr Johnson’s paddock that he so kindly kept mowed for all us kids, swimming in the creeks with milk carton floats, practicing our Michael Jackson dance routines as choreographed by Donna, seeing our favourite TV hero’s EVER (GLADIATORS!!) up at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre and collecting TV Hit’s magazines.

Fast-forward a few years and sadly I moved away with my family. This being the days before Facebook (or even MySpace & email for that matter!), contact was limited to hand-written letters (Mima was always much better than myself) but we still kept in touch.

Fast forward a few more years again when email had become a normality – and one particular conversation found us talking about my planning for a solo trip to Thailand at the end of 2004. Mima, having a few weeks holiday up her sleeve and wanting to travel also, thought it sounded like a good idea and decided to join the trip (hoorah for a travel buddy!) –  and as divine intervention would have it, she could only travel in January so rather than travelling through Thailand over Christmas like I had planned, I pushed back the travel dates…..which thankfully meant I was not in the country for the devastating tsunami that occurred on December 26th, 2004  (I literally would have even been in Krabi at the time, which was one of the worst hit places!?)

And now, even more years later…..it would appear we are “growing up” in a beautiful way and tomorrow I am sooooo flippin excited to not only witness, but capture on camera,  Mima marrying her wonderful man Clancy!

(The first time I ever met Clancy I remember thinking to myself “He has curly hair and such a friendly smile…..He’s like the guy version of Mima!)

So SO SO VERY happy for you guys. It’s going to be a wonderful day celebrating your love, with all your friends and family

p.s The guy in the convict outfit…..that’s Mima’s brother, and the lovely lady with the blue “pantaloons”, high socks and blue shoes…Mima’s mum. Hahahah too cute.

One chilly Saturday night, B and I were looking for something to do……

So we took settled on one camera + a handful of sparklers and a drive to the end of the Gold Coast Air Port…..the perfect recipe for light painting!

Just as we arrived and got out of the car, an incoming plane flew directly over our heads and as it came into land we could hear this strange papery crackling sound overhead. We had parked under power lines and looking up, thought that perhaps a surge of power had passed through the lines.

After getting all our gear out of the car we walked across the park to a picnic table to set up and take photos – a little while later another plane came flying in and as we looked up to see it passing overhead we once again could hear the same rustling crackle above us. It literally sounded like a giant was scrunching large pieces of celophane above us!

Being the curious soul that I am, I did a bit of research and so far I have come to the conclusion that it was wake turbulence caused by the wingtip vortices, static electricity discharge or more unlikely (but I just like the thought of writing it) – a sonic boom!??

I’ve never heard it before and find it ever so intriguing!!!

Had a lot of fun with B doing these, although towards the end it started to get pretty cold and I was very happy to get back to the warm car!!

Photography // Oh hello Beach!

Oh hello beach and hello world!

It’s official. I’m back in blog-land

….and better yet, I’ve got a nice shiny new Macbook Pro.

(to celebrate I’ve changed my blog slightly and opted for oh la la larger images!)

Hoorah!

And this. This is a beautiful Winters Day spent wandering on the beach and a few snaps from my iphone

Quote // There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it – Albert Camus

- Well, it’s finally arrived………………the last day of Visual Inspiration 365!

I started this project 364 days ago with the intent to challenge myself creatively, break out of a comfort zone (more or less died a 1000 deaths at the thought of it being out in public domain!) and also direct my energies into something productive (long story but lets just say there was a certain someone that did not have the faintest idea of my interest in him at the time

The simple idea was to upload daily a single photograph combined with a quote that I felt matched it…….and much to my joy, I successfully completed that goal and now have a wonderful collection of some of my 365 favourite photo’s combined with 365 beautiful quotes!

On one hand I’m ever so happy to have achieved what I set out to do, and yet on the other hand, also sad to say goodbye to it as it has been a creative outlet that I have come to love and is practically a habit now.

Although it still takes around an hour to create each one (by the time I trawl through 100′s of my photos + trying to find an appropriate quote + creating the artwork file + upload time), it has become easier and easier throughout the year.

To begin with there, were nights I was up till 2am pulling my hair out trying to come up with a Visual Inspiration, or falling asleep at my computer, drooling on my keyboard…..

Not to mention trying to keep up with the project while travelling through Europe (which was NOT the easiest thing to do…….there was a very cold night in Amsterdam that found me in tears walking around the hotel garden with B, in absolute frustration, so much so that I even kicked a bin like a little stubborn pony because “I am SO over it!? Argh why was I so dumb to even think this was a good idea!!???” ….thankfully B ever so gently persuaded me to calm down and get my ass back to the computer and finish my blog for the night :)

Besides the “hard moments” of this project, there have also been some really amazing moments and when I look at all the photo’s it never ceases to amaze me of the people, places and moments I’ve been able to share as a pixelated memories.

(Now if only I could invent a machine that could time-travel everyone to the exact moment a photo was taken…..now wouldn’t that be ingenius??)

So now, it has drawn to an end and as I realised this morning, this was always a project that was going to have a definitive end, so yes, I’m going to miss it in a sense but I’m also excited to be able to discover what’s next!

And last but certainly not least, a huge THANK YOU to everyone that has been following Visual Inspiration 365 this past year,

….everyone that has commented + emailed kind words,

….creative strangers that have re-shared Visual Inspiration 365 on their own blogs,

….the people that have I have had the honour and pleasure of photographing and featuring on this project,

….friends and family that have seen me pulling my hair out but continued to encourage me to keep going with it,

…dearest friends who quietly and unassumingly been the PR team, feedback panel & cheersquad,

…housemates who have put up with my camera gear, computer cables + cords, screens and electronic paraphanalia having taken residency in the loungeroom whilst I work

….B who has been my personal encourager and quote searcher when I need it + carried his laptop around Europe so I could use it (I broke mine right before we left for Europe!) and patiently put up with me on weekends while I’ve been frantically trying to get it done so we can go out to play………

and just cause I have always wanted to say this in true Oscar Ceremony Style……

“I’d like to thank God, without Him none of this would have been possible”

And I mean that with all my heart.

Thank you , thank you.

Love

Som x

(bahahah anyone would think I’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize the way I write, but in our own way we all have our own little triumph’s…and this is has been mine )

p.p.s this has been brought to you LIVE from Jakamama……..only the tastiest Japanese

Quote // Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end – Alice Paul

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Quote // To find fulfillment…Don’t exist with life – embrace it – Jim Beggs

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Quote // Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way w spend our time – Elbert Hubbard

Quote // Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the next generation – George Bernard Shaw

Quote // When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves – William Arthur Ward