London calling

Please kindly excuse the lamo title to this blog post. Sure, it's over done, and I'm sure that Joe Stummer would be hating the fact I'm adding to the phrase' overuse (but hey, you write a catchy song you're going to get schelps like me stealing the lines). But you get the gist of the heady pretty plainly right? I'm going to London.

Tomorrow I jet off, wheely suitcase in one hand, backpack full of camera gear over my shoulders. I'm heading to the mother country to photograph a gorgeous wedding (I know, punch me in the head, I'm deliriously lucky). I've written list after list, packed and re-packed and downloaded all manner of England related iphone apps that will ensure I don't get lost on the tube, have someone to talk me through the Tate, and do quick currency conversion calculations when faced with the price of a coffee.

I've got a new camera, of which I will blog about when ! get back, and I'm exited to be taking it out for a spin. I'm thinking Hyde park will do nicely for some shooting, perhaps sunset just to add to the fun.

I'll back in a few weeks in a new incarnation. I've been busy these past few months working on a whole new me. New business name, new look, new website and blog, and a whole lot of new awesomeness. It's been a heady experience, and I'll tell you more about it when I launch it.

For now, this is what I can show you. Just a glimpse, an itty bitty teeny tiny slice of what's on it's way.



So I'll see you all in a few weeks, after my rousing tour of the UK, some fine English country side, a heart melting wedding and a week to myself to tour London. And when you do see me, oh boy hold on to your hats, it's going to be a whole new me (kinda like getting a radical hair cut that you're not sure your mum would approve of.)

See you on the other side.

* Meaghan

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Bush getaway

A weekend away. A few clicks out of Beechworth. Turning leaves and an open fire. Friends, very dear friends. Wine glasses filled to the brim. Gumboots and walking trails. Food so good, so robust, so earthly. Peace.and.quiet.



Thank you, to Lara and Paul, for the most wonderful of weekends. We loved every breath of fresh air, every cup of tea, every conversation held as the clocked clicked closer to 3am.

* Meaghan

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Giving my gift to my children

Sitting at the computer, cup of tea to my left and a jam jar of flowers from my garden to my right. Ryan crawled onto my lap, fresh from the bath with damp hair smelling of strawberries.

"Where's me?" he said, looking up at me with those blue eyes they all say he got from me.

"Can I see pictures of me?"

I flicked through my files, scanning the faces of smiling brides, for a photograph of Ryan. And I kept looking, and looking. Eventually I came across one. From Christmas. Four months ago! While Ryan was happy to see photographs of himself testing out his new scooter, I was aghast. I'd not taken the time to photograph him in like, ages. Shame on me, a photographer after all, who hadn't taken the time to properly photograph her children. Shame Meaghan, shame.

So as I tucked Ryan into bed, kissed him gently on the head and breathed in more of the strawberry goodness, the idea for this shoot was formed. To photograph my children with full intent and purpose. To focus my camera on these little beans, capturing this moment in time. To do what I do for my couples everyday. To give my children the gift of beautiful photos.



I love these photographs of Miles and Ryan. They might just be my most favourite of them ever. They've already chosen their favourites ones and I'm printing them for our walls. I'm looking forward to walking past them everyday.

Happy Easter chickens.

* Meaghan

ET phones home

Ring, ring.

At least once during every wedding I get on my phone and dial Amba.

"Hello. Everything alright?" he answers.

What comes out of my mouth in answer to that question varies from wedding to wedding. Sometimes it's a simple 'all good, how are you and the boys?". But other times it's more like "I'm stuck on Kings Way, there's a truck on my arse, I'm lost, and I have to be at the hotel in 3 [expletive] minutes!"

Amba cops it all - I dropped my camera bag in a puddle and put it on without realising and now my back is all wet and I smell funny. I'm starving and I forgot to pack any food and it's another 3 hours until the canapes are served. My 80-200 stopped focussing right in the middle of the ceremony and I freaked out! What does [expletive] EE mean and why is it flashing at me on my screen?

He knows not to be more than two steps away from his phone while I'm shooting a wedding, and an unspoken rule that he needs to pick up within the first 3 rings or there is the potential for my head exploding on the other end. Any myriad of things have gone wrong for me on wedding shoots, and Amba has helped me solve every one. Just last week he was checking rain patterns, the week before that my shoe had broken and he reminded me I had a spare pair in the back of my car.

Working on my own 95% of the time means that I don't have anyone to help me when things go wrong, so I need Amba's help. Usually the phone calls take place when I get in the car going between locations, and most them involve a fair amount of cussing at one thing or another that's frustrated me (bad light, traffic, bad choice of uncomfortable underwear).

Amba also knows me well, so knows how to respond to me when I call. "Just take your next left off Kings way, pull over and breathe" "Have the kids left any food in the car that you can eat that isn't too stale or covered in sand?" "EE means you've bumped your focusing ring on your lens you idiot." Amba can talk me through anything, talk me down from anywhere, talk me up off the floor.

So while you guys don't see him much, and he's not officially part of my business, I couldn't run it without him. More importantly, I couldn't get through a wedding day without him.



This shot was taken at Nicole and Paul's recent Wye river wedding which I'll blog more of soon. The phone call to Amba that day was just as I was coming back into phone reception range, to check to see how he went with a visit with the children to my mother (sometimes, it's not just me that needs to debrief!)


* Meaghan

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Special is in the eye of the beholder

I've never been one to talk about my children much. When someone asks how they are, I've always given a pretty quick and succinct answer (that is completely void of any mention of their sleeping habits and bowel movements). I haven't ever wanted to bore other people with the goings on as my life as a mother. In conversation I've treated looking after the children like any other career, and ensured I never spent more than 15% of any given conversation talking about them.

I've avoided over hyping my own children for two reasons 1. I loathe it when people bang on about their kids non-stop, to the complete detriment of intelligent conversation and 2. I think my kids are fabulous, but you don't have to.





I was reminded of point two on the weekend. My friend Anna asked after Miles and Ryan. I gave the usual 'yep, all good, haven't broken them completely yet' kind of answer and she laughed (and not at my oh-so-not-so witty response). 'You've always been like that,' Anna reminded me. 'You've never forced anyone else to love your kids'. And it's very true. Like I said, I think my kids are fabulous, but I'm fully aware that they are neither out of the ordinary or entirely special. I know that every mother feels their child is god's gift to this earth, and on doing the maths, I know that not every kid can be (yes, I'm aware I've opened up a religious can of worms there. Let the worms flow forth!).

Sure, my children are completely special to me, but that's enough. I don't need the world to think they're special too.



So as more of an aside, and so his grandfather can see some recent photos of him, here are some portraits I took of Miles to commemorate him turning 5. His birthday was completely special to our little family, and Miles revelled in the knowledge that he was growing up and up and up. Amba and I high fived (as we do as each kid reaches any new milestone) at having got Miles this far, and all signs were looking good for Miles turning out just fine.

Happy birthday Miles. To me you are entirely special.




* Meaghan

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Misleading silence

Shhh, can you hear that? *cue a tumbleweed blowing across the page*. It's been very quiet in these parts recently. The blog has turned into something resembling a country town after it's been by-passed by a highway. The sign is up in the milk bar that's it's open, but the owner is having a snooze behind the counter.

Despite the hush that has befallen the blog, it's been all systems go. Perhaps the business outside of the blog is really what's caused the quiet on it.

I'm all high and giddy on weddings at the moment. I've been riding in cool cars, listening to bad jokes from groomsmen, high-fiving reception venue organisers, helping bridesmaids with their uncooperative bobby pins and catching run away veils.

Yeah, and taking some photos in the middle of it all.

All of these photos were taken by Lauren Bent at Skye and Blake's wedding on the weekend. Meaghan, I'm not sure what's with that face.





No caption needed for this one. Moving right along.



End of the night, and a little piano posing was in order.



So I'm dusting the cobwebs off the menu bar and getting this blog back on track again. It's nice to be back. I've missed you all.

* Meaghan


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Delegating: you don't have to do everything, seriously.

It's not that I'm time poor. I have as much time in my day as everyone else, obviously. No one has come and stolen splices of time from my life so that I jump from mid-morning to late afternoon without noticing. It's just that I've been feeling like someone has stolen entire afternoons from me. Around 10pm most nights you can hear me cursing 'how did it get to be 10 o'clock already?'

Then someone said to me 'you don't have to do all the things on your list'.

Oh.so.true.

My list of things that needs to be done is long, as is yours I'm sure. But I've decided that I don't have to do everything on it. I'm delegating, calling in help, or simply leaving things off the list. The children are in on the act, taking responsibility for tidying their rooms and setting the table. Then I don't have to do it. It's on the list, but I don't always have to be the one to do it. I can delegate.

I can delegate and use my time in other ways. Like encouraging Ryan to jump on the bed.



















* Meaghan

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My valentine

I bounded down the steps of the Yahoo bar (Shepp-resent). It was December 19th, 2003 and I'd not long moved back to Shepparton to start my career as a journalist. I was out for the night with my friend Emily, a newly minted lawyer, who like me, was ready to let off some steam after spending the week getting habituated to working full time.

Emily and I grabbed some beers, found a booth and sat down to watch the crowd, trying to talk to each other over the sound of the music. We watched the band. I particularly, was watching the bass player. I commented to Emily that I thought he was, well, there's no other way to put this, I thought he was hot. Super hot. Hot in that brooding bass player way. Emily saw her moment, and presented me with a dare. She'd buy me a beer if in the next break for the band I went and talked to the bass player.

Not one to shy away from a dare, I bounced over to the stage as the band laid down their instruments. "Hi, I'm Meaghan. I liked your set." Yep, dems were the cliched words that came out of my mouth (forgive me the lack of originality, I'd had a few beers).The bass player looked up at me, a little startled perhaps by this perky girl being a little odd. 'Uh, thanks.' He said.

I don't recall what happened next, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't much of a conversation because I was soon heading back to Emily to claim my free beer without much of a story to tell.

But I will always remember what happened next. I watched the bass player pack up after their set was done, and head up the stairs and go home. I recall feeling a little disappointed, he'd seemed really nice. I turned back to Em, and continued with the night. It was awhile later and I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned around, and it was him. The bass player. He'd come back. He'd come back to see me.

The rest of the night is a blur (maybe that's because it was so long ago, or maybe it was the beer), but I do know this. Amba and I ascended those stairs together at the end of the night, pashed out the front of the Shepparton post office, and started something that would turn into forever.



Happy Valentine's day.

* Meaghan




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Seeing me for me

I wrote to my friend Sarah Black last year, floating the idea of her taking some photographs of me.

This is part of what I emailed her:

"What I'd really love is some quiet photos of me. Photos that show my heart. My soul. Too often I hide behind being loud, the clown. I'd love photos of me that show my quieter side, that shows my ability to be still, to be a little dreamy."

And these are some of the photographs she took.





















I trusted Sarah implicitly during our shoot. I trusted that she would make me look beautiful. I worked hard to drop my inhibitions, to not worry about my physical imperfections. I let it go, and let myself just be. It was the very best thing I could have done.

Sarah's photographs make my heart sing and my skin tingle. She herself is an amazing soul, who shoots with heart and connection. She made me feel beautiful, and I thank her over and over for that.

* Meaghan


You can see more of the photographs, and Sarah's thoughts about our shoot HERE.


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What photographs really are

"I don't have any photos of me from when I was a kid," said the old man fishing in the rock pool next to me. We both had our pants rolled up to the knees and were peering about for fish. "We didn't have any of those," he said, pointing to the bright orange point and shoot camera I had hanging from my arm. "I hate to think of all the things I've forgotten about because there's nothing to remind me of them."

The man wandered off with his grandchild, holding the chubby hand steady as they found a clear path through the seaweed.

I turned back to where my children were playing, and took another photograph. So they remember.



* Meaghan

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Dealing with self doubt

Sometimes when it's late at night, usually when the house is quite and I'm sitting at my computer working by the light of the screen that the self doubt demons creep in. They whisper to me 'you're a horrid photographer', 'you don't know what you're doing'. They love to taunt 'would you look at that photograph? You call that horizon straight?!'. They make me go and look at other photographer's websites, further driving home their point about me photography skills, and lack there of.

It's so hard not to listen, and all of a sudden I find myself in the swampy waters of self doubt. If I don't do something about it, I would surely drown.

I don't prescribe to all that crap about using self-doubt to drive you forwards and make you better. Erm, yeah, whatever. They've obviously never met my self-doubt. Mine is paralising, and has me convinced that I don't even know how to turn a camera on. I've read all about self-doubt being only natural, that everyone goes through it, that I'm not alone. Again, so not helpful. Knowing that everyone doubts themselves just makes me believe in the old primary school adage of 'majority rules'.

To deal with it I give myself a reality check. I tell myself the following two things -

1. When you started photography, your photos were awful.
2. You're better than you were then.



By not comparing myself to others, but comparing what I used to be like to what am now works. It eliminates all others from the equation, and makes my own work the bench mark. It makes me feel so much better to know that I've improved. If I really need pulling out of the self-doubt swamp I'll even go back to my first blog posts to look at the photos (and there are some stinkers!).

Telling myself these two simple things reminds me that I'm moving foward. No, I may not yet be the best photographer in the world, and that I'm actually not even close to that, but I'm better than I used to be. So that gives me hope that I will continue to grow, learn, develop and take better photographs. It reminds me that so far the only way has been up, so why should that change now?

Try it, next time the self-doubt devil comes to haunt you. And tell it hi from me.

* Meaghan

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Clare Bowditch [Self improvement 2011]

Ordinarily, I would have stayed in bed. A gig, at a dodgy venue, on a Sunday night, late. No thank, I'd rather have some quality time with my blankets and a good book.

But this time I said yes. And Clare Bowditch made me happy that I did.



Clare Bowditch and the new slang played at the Barwon Heads pub last night to a small yet appreciative crowd. Amba and I, plus some friends shook off our sleepiness and went along. Clare's music is all kinds of wonderful. She's also dang funny. We decided that she'd be the kind of person that would be rip roaringly funny after a few red wines around the dinner table. Clare also knows how to swear in all the right delicate places, a talent I hold particularly dear.



I'm tired today, but what's a bit of fatigue between friends? I got to go to the pub, drink beer (our of plastic cups if you please. When did they start serving beer out of plastic cups? I'm not sure I'm a fan of the change), watch Clare add Rhianna riffs to her songs, and hang out with some good people. I'm happy to suffer being tired.

* Meaghan

Clare was playing with Pikelet, which was a wonderful suprise. I'm a Pikelet fan (both musical and edible.)

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Self improvement 2011

I blogged back when it was my birthday that I felt like I'd misplaced myself somewhere along the way. That I'd bundled up all the good bits and left them in a good will bin. This thought has stuck with me over the last few months. I've turned my mind to how I've changed, why I've changed, and were the changes for the better.

Some of the changes definitely were, but it was mostly the circumstantial stuff such as where I was living and my sense of fulfillment I get from my job. But other changes were more on the nose (perpetually grumpy, feathers easily ruffled).

So 2011 has been duly dubbed 'self improvement 2011'. The whole year is all about self betterment. Setting about doing things that make me better.



Now I don't mean going on a crazy fitness kick or taking on a whole new vegan eating pattern (I mean, that'd be fun but let's not be over ambitious). Something that makes me better can (and will) be as simple as ducking into a movie theatre on a Sunday afternoon to watch the recent Sophia Coppola film on my own. Or listening to podcasts about the world's economy.

Reading good books, emphasis on the good.
Going to live music (oh how I've missed sticky pub carpet)
Putting pen to paper and writing stories again (you all knew I used to be a journalist right?)
Doing things I wouldn't ordinarily do.
Getting outside of my warm, fluffy, protective, surrounded in faux fur comfort zone.



I've already been putting my money where my mouth is. Cue Meaghan water skiing on Lake Eildon to the delight of my friends in the boat. Ordinarily I would have shook my head when I was asked if I wanted a turn at water-skiing. I would have made some excuse about the temperature of the water not being to my liking and then quickly busied myself looking for the sunscreen so that I didn't have to meet the person's eye. But this time I was asked, because it was Self Improvement 2011, I accepted, plunged into the water and proceeded to completely balls up some water-skiing maneuvers. It.was.ace. Sure, I fell over in an extremely inelegant fashion numerous times, but I really didn't care. I was water-skiing god-dammit!



So bring it on Self Improvement 2011. I'm looking you in the eye, and taking you on with mighty force. I'm going to knock you flat.

* Meaghan

ps - These wonderful photos of me were taken by the divine Sarah Black during a little adventure we had at the end of last year. More about it to come very soon...


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Fiji or/and bust

I haven't decided yet whether our holiday was tremendous or terrible. It certainly had elements of both. I'm just not sure which one there was more of though. It depends if I'm having a glass half empty or half full day. But when people ask me 'how was your holiday?' I tell them honestly, and usually with a shrug of my shoulder, 'I haven't decided'.

Our trip to Fiji was supposed to be all sunshine and lazing about. In many ways it was. There was the obligatory palm trees, and locals greeting us in their native tongue. I got to read my book by a pool. The children watched a man nimbly scale a coconut tree and relieve it of it's fruit. All those good wholesome things a tropical holiday is supposed to be.







Shoes optional on tropical holidays.









A lemonade for me, and a beer for my mum, thank you very much.















Don't all those photos make our holiday look wonderful? Unfortunately it wasn't all beers at the swim up bar. About 2 hours into our flight, Ryan woke up flaming hot. I could have warmed my in-flight meal up on him. He couldn't talk, and I could smell the tonsillitis on his breath. Cue three days of round the clock medicine, taking turns to stay in the suite while Ryan slept, trying to coax Ryan to eat or drink something. He finally started to bounce back and I could see my relaxing holiday on the horizon.

But before I could grab my towel and head to the beach Miles was struck down. Hello tonsillitis mark II (and a temp above 40 degrees if you don't mind). Miles was sicker than Ryan. The sickest he's been all year.







Miles having his temp checked by the resort doctor (he nearly melted her thermometer). The doctor was worth her eight in gold, prescribing medication, giving advice as to how to help the children, being suitably sympathetic that they were so unwell while they were away from home.



They tried to rally. They really did. This is Miles bobbing around in the pool. Note the grey pallor and languid expression.



Ryan doing 'tricks'.



... and back to what they did best (and most of).



Amba and I weren't going to spend the entire trip staring at the wall of our suite, so we tempted the children out with promises of iguanas. And boat rides.







They offered Ryan some orange juice on board. He drank two glasses in very quick succession. They didn't go down well. Try to aim over the side Ryan.













And then we went home. The trip wasn't a total write off. Not completely. But almost. On the plane home I asked Amba where we were going to make up for this trip. Bali? Canada? The Barwon Heads caravan park?











* Meaghan

All photos taken on my bright orange Panasonic Lumix. All shots taken by either me or one of the children.