Sweetheart Session - Sarah and Kevin

I'm pretty sure I laughed more during my photo shoot with Kevin and Sarah than I did all month. These two have a wonderfully infectious sense of humour.

See.





Kevin's English, and Sarah sounds like she's English. That's what ten years in the mother country will do. They've just flown into Australia this week, and when I met them they were tired but excited.





I let them have a sit down to rest their weary legs. I know, so kind of me.





When we met up they still had a bazillion things on their to do list in preparation for their wedding in Barwon Heads on Wednesday. Yep, this Wednesday. They were seemingly relaxed, but they assured me they weren't. I'd be a little stressed out if my wedding was so soon and I'd only just arrived in the country.



To knock off another thing on their to do list they practiced their dance for the wedding during our shoot. It's going to be awesome!



I'm in love with this shot. Just something about it.





Their wedding is going to be wonderful for one main reason: Sarah and Kevin are absolutely, postively, 100 percent, head over heels in love. It was obvious, and sincere, and infectious and heart warming.



See you both Wednesday. Get some sleep!

*Meaghan

Sweetheart session sneak peek {Meaghan Cook - Geelong wedding photographer}

I had a magical sweetheart session with Robyn and Mike recently. We hung out at an old mechanic's, goofed around at the Queenscliff pier, and got our feet wet at the beach. They were completely relaxed, enabling me to get some beautifully natural shots of them both. 

I'm bursting to photograph their wedding - it's at the Werribee Zoo. It's not everyday you get to have African animals in the background of your wedding photos. 

This is the tiniest of sneak peaks from our session ... 

Have I mentioned what a sweetheart session is? Where are my manners?!

My sweetheart session is an intimate portrait session with bridal couples before their wedding day. It's a wonderful way to capture the love between a couple in a relaxed and beautiful manner.  

Sweetheart sessions are invaluable for helping couples get comfortable in front of the camera. Couples can get all their jitters about having their photo taken out of the way at the sweetheart session, and not have to worry about it on their wedding day. This gets better photos on the wedding day because couples don't have to spend the first half hour loosening up. Like I said, they're invaluable. 

Many couples have also mentioned to me that they don't actually have many photos of themselves together. It's usually one in the photo, while the other takes the shot. The sweetheart session allows couples to get a beautiful collection of photos of themselves. The photos become memories of a time when couples had fallen deeply in love and are about to embark on their lives together. I love the hope, invincibility and passion that always comes out in a sweetheart session. 

I think sweetheart sessions are so wonderful that I include one free for every couple who books their wedding photography through the boutique. Couples receive a few hours of being treated like royalty, hanging out at cracking locations, and getting beautiful photographs taken. Best of all they get to know me a little better, making everyone more relaxed, and better photos on the wedding day. 

Keep an eye on my journal in the coming days for more shots from Robyn and Mike's sweetheart session ... 

New role (and I'm completely pumped about it) {Meaghan Cook - Geelong photographer

I mentioned recently that I did my fist shoot for the Australian Charity of Children's Photographers. 

I had the honour of photographing a baby who was born at 25 weeks but was not strong enough to pull through. It was a tough experience, but no matter how tough it was for me to photograph the child, it was a thousand times more difficult for his family. 

It was heartwarming to know however that my photos will be something the family will treasure forever. I hope they can bring even just a small amount of comfort. 

After that experience I thought it would be great to get more involved with the ACOCP. It's a new charity, just a few years old, so not many people know about it. Most of the members of the ACOCP would share the dream that everyone knew the service existed so that we could provide professional photos to all families who have stillbirths, premature babies or terminally ill children. In a former life I was a journalist, so I've put my hand up to be the ACOCP media officer. I'm going to do all I can (short of wearing a sandwich board out the front of the Sunrise studio) to get the charity out there. 

So look forward to much extolling of the ACOCP's virtues in the coming months. Anyone with good ideas of how to get the word out there, drop me a line. Similarly, if you work in either maternity or children's health care and would like to know more, I've got heaps to tell you! I can also be contacted on media@acocp.org.au (well, I can be, just as soon as I work out how to access my email).

* Meaghan

And I've been waiting and waiting for this to come onto YouTube so I could put it up here. 

Did you catch this? It's the Wiggles on Spicks and Specks doing a U2 song. With all the primary coloured skivvies, hand clapping and oversized smiles I forget that they are actually a real band. 

More than one way to use a photo {Meaghan Cook - Geelong Wedding Photographer}

Thought you might like to see this. It's Kaki King's music video for her song Pull Me Out Alive. 

Watch it, then I'll tell you about it ... 

What they said about it: The video was made without film cameras -- it consists of over 5,000 still photographs shot on Nikon D30s. There are no special effects; all of the light trails were created by hand, with up to eight individual "light animators" flashing LEDs and flashlights on and off over a long (8 second) shot exposure. The video was shot in NYC over five very cold, 16 hour days in January. 

The moving light is known as 'painting with light'. In a dark setting, (at night for example), the camera is set to a long exposure (8 secs per say) 

and while the shutter is open you literally use a light source (such as a torch) to paint the air. What results are those long streams of light seen in the video.

This is also an impressive way to combine stop motion with light painting (it's a commercial, and no, I'm not on board with Sprint).

The possibilities are endless. Might pop outside tonight and see what I can do with a torch and a camera.