The Batblog by Photobat

You may have noticed over the years that I have received a few awards from the Canon Australian Professional Photographer of the Year awards, organised by the Australian Institute of Professional Photography.

The top shots from the year go into a national traveling exhibition, which will be in Hobart later this year All the award winning shots go into a book, the latest of which just arrived this morning.

I still get a buzz seeing photos in print, the books are full of spectacular images and is very inspiring. That’s my shot of Rusty the dog and Gerry above him.

You can buy copies of the 2007 book and many of the previous year books here.

This is a shot I did a couple of weeks ago for Rae and Partners Lawyers (new website soon I believe). It’s in the shares section of today’s Examiner. I don’t normally post these kind of jobs but thought it would be nice to let you know I do this kind of thing too.

Head shots are much more posed than my usual thing, and probably considered something quite painful and boring to have done. Over the last year I have photographed a heap of people, another example is the banner at the top of the Brillionaires website.

A great, clean and high quality head shot will instill confidence in you and your business as well as project a professional and trusting face to your existing and potential new clients.

There are still a few questions that need to be asked before getting a head shot, it is not just a matter of turning up and getting the photo out of the way. What kind of look are you going for? What do you want to project? A good head shot will project professionalism The standard thing you see is the white background, which is great if you need a clean shot that can be reproduced small for magazine articles, conference presentations and other things like that.

An outdoor location with the background knocked out of focus gives a much friendlier and approachable look, but if the background is too confusing it can take away from the subject.

So some tips if you are going to get a head shot taken, which will help you stand apart from the photos you see when you are at the supermarket of the various managers (the ones at my supermarket are kinda hopeless)

You want to look the best for your head shot, so get a hair cut or trim a week before your shoot. Don’t go to the hairdresser on the way to the shoot and get that new spikey hair the kids have… trust me, your photographer will probably charge you to give you a trim in photoshop if you don’t like your hair.

For Men
Stay away from “busy” ties that include spots and stripes. A very subtle pattern or pain tie will work the best and not be distracting.

Make sure that your suit fits you properly and recently dry cleaned. A plain white or blue shirt is always recommended.

For Women

A plain coloured and recently dry cleaned suit or jacket with a light coloured blouse. Keep jewelry simple so it does not become the focus of the photo.

We recommend that you apply light and natural make up, don’t over do it. If you would like professional make up done, we can point you in the right direction.

And probably most importantly, get a professional to take the photo. The difference between your secretary taking a photo of you against the office wall with his point and shoot camera that he borrowed for the day is a little different from having a professional create an image that projects more than just what you look like.

Feel free to share this info about, just credit www.photobat.net/batblog as the source.

How cool is Cygnet? I hadn’t really been there before, I had passed through to shoot that Anthony Morgan shot, but never really into the main town.It was even cooler last Saturday because of Benny and Rachel’s wedding, both of whom were in Vikashni and my bridal parties. So it was going to be a really great day to see how these guys did the getting married thing. As predicted it was quite different and the most casual wedding I’ve been to, plus one of the biggest.

So to start, the guys had some spectacular looking and tasting breakfast at the Lotus Eater Cafe, followed by general shenanigans back at Nick’s place while they were getting ready.

I love this shot of Benny and his Dad.

Rachel and the girls had taken over a friends place for the night and were quite calm when we arrived, and proceeded to stay quite calm the whole getting ready process. The house was buzzing with people while Vikashni did a little bit of make up for Rachel. (Yes, Vikashni does very good job with make up, she’s even properley trained in how to do it. Let me know if you need someone to do good and nice make up!)

Off to the ceremony location which was typically natural and earthy to suit the couple, with a hint of farmlife thrown around, mostly int he form of the cow poo all over the ground, which apparently Rachel was shoveling away the night before.

The ceremony was fantastic, quite funny and very sweet. Some great music too, especially the Augie March song “There’s No Such Place”for Rachel’s arrival. Rachel’s dress captured her personality and earthy style while Benny looked quite himself with a black shirt showing a hint of the stripy thermal top underneath.

After the official part of the wedding was all over we headed off to the beach in dimming light for some shots with the bridal party. The cricket set came out and no one got wet! The area was fantastic, such a nice part of the world and there was no shortage of amazing locations.

Thanks again Rachel and Benny for letting me capture your day. It’s always fantascic to do a wedding, but being able to create some images of some really close friends on one of the most important and fantastic days of their life is really something really special.

More on Wednesday…

After Athens we headed to Crete, initially we were planning on heading to somewhere else but trying to get the maze of flight and ferry connections to work, Vikashni and I decided that Crete was our best option.

We stayed at three very different places0, the best being Kato Zakros a beachside village that was tiny. Fantastic to wake up to the sounds of the water and just walk a few meters to the Tavern for breakfast.

Windmill ruins, Lasshiti Plateau

We rented our car from this guy in Sitia, Mr Kazamera

The most historic monastary on Crete, Moni Toplou, is across the road from this little church.

One of the friendly patrons in Kato Zakros

Some old gentlemen having coffee who we completly managed to not have a good cross cultural conversation. Even with thephrasebook we couldn’t communicate that well, we pointed at words and phrases and they pointed at their eyes… it seems that when you go to have your afternoon sit down, reading glasses are not high on the to take list.

Ag. Georgios

The historic little town or Herakloin, not recommended to drive their at peak hour…

 More photos soon… next stop Folegandros

We spent yesterday in the Hobart Botanical Gardens taking photos of people pointing… it will make sense when i post about it properly later… until then.. here are some shoes.

I have just added about 2 months worth of images into the portrait of the week section of Photobat.net. For those new, i set myself a little challenge to do a portrait each week just for practice. That was about 270 weeks ago and i’m still going.

The above shot isn’t in the Portrait of the Week, there is a different one. I thought i’d put up an other shot of the Albanian accordian playing busker/begger from Athens. He seemed to be a hit from the post below.

Click here to see the latest shots for portrait of the week

The latest Straight from the Photobat is now online, and now you can read some previous newsletters as there is an archive of them listed to the right side of this page, under the Flick photos. Go have a read, and if you like, subscribe by clicking here!

The latest Tasmanian Life came out yesterday and features some of Kala and Michaels wedding shots. They won’t see them until the get back from their honeymoon in the US, so i thought i’d put a photo up for them. Hope you guy are having a great time!

Another quick shoot before I left. I met Libby at my BNI breakfast and got talking which turned into this family portrait session. It was very timely because Libby’s eldest Alex managed to score herself a job in Melbourne while I was away.

So we took some shots around their home and then up at the Trevallyn Reserve which was just up the road.

Thanks again for the really enjoyable shoot, and congratulations again Alex on the new job, I hope it is being fantastic for you.