I'm so excited for the Spring season ahead, although the weather isn't exactly playing the game at present for many shoots! But that's Spring in Southland isn't it?! So lets have a recap of some Winter portraits while we wait for Mother Nature to catch up. My winter was a very productive one this year - I got two major photography projects finished (but that's for another blog post) and I'm feeling so inspired for my portraits and coming wedding season.

This first family session is very close to my heart and is the epitome of what I love about portraits. A day at the beach in Riverton, very documentary styled and all about capturing fun family memories. There was crabbing on the rocks, kicking the rugby ball on the beach, sand castle building and looking for beach treasure. Not only was is a lot of fun to photograph, this beautiful family are friends of ours so Matt & I really enjoyed being a part of this day at the beach too.

Brad and Tracey's lovely family portrait session was a completely different vibe but just as casual and relaxed - doing photos in your own home might sound unappealing at first but there's some great advantages to it! Not only is it truly personalised, the kids can jump on the trampoline, the baby can take a nap and there's no rush packing up the tribe & the car to get to a location.

It was so lovely to catch up with the gorgeous Wilson family recently.  I had the privilege of documenting life with their new addition, Miss Mila. She is just beautiful. And of course big brother Carter kept me on my toes, giving me some super cute shots in between the tornado of energy that comes with a toddler. ​😆

I've been spoilt with getting to document newborns this winter! I was chuffed when Scott and Donique asked me to photograph them with their newborn baby girl. These two get married this summer (which we're excited to be photographing too!) but why not make 2021 even more AMAZING by welcoming their first child into the world. Grace was a wee doll for her newborn session. Isn't she just perfection?!

I'd like to thank all those families who had photo sessions with me this winter (there's some I haven't shared online & I want to thank them too!) and for everyone's patience with albums & frames while our supplier (based in Auckland) is still in lockdown and not able to complete our orders. Fingers crossed the ball will be rolling again soon with product. 🤞🏻

And if you have not got yourself entered into my massive Portrait Giveaway yet, make sure you do - it's the biggest giveaway I've ever done and I'm very excited for it! Entries close 20th Sept.

Another season been and gone. Autumn is my favourite time of year even though I do love the long days of Summer, Autumn just has a special magic about it! The end of our Autumn here in Southland certainly felt more like Winter this year with a minus 6.5 degree frost in the middle of May! But I still got in lots of beautiful portrait sessions with golden sunsets, vibrant autumnal leaves and lots of cuteness too with a handful of lifestyle newborn sessions.

It's been a busy wee season and I am so grateful for all the clients who booked me and trusted me to create precious memories for them. I'm just in the final stages of getting all the wonderful framed prints and albums through my studio from these sessions and it is such a joy seeing these artworks heading to their new homes.

From an afternoon at Kaka Point with the Sinclair family to sunset on the farm with the Frei's!

We took a couple of weeks off work at the beginning of April and did an awesome road trip up the West Coast of the South Island. Here's a sneak peek of our adventures, but if you want to see more check out our Youtube channel: ​https://youtu.be/KMXuY6obxf8

The Autumn leaves hung on through mid April right into early May. It was a pleasure and privilege to head back to the Shallard farm to photograph this beautiful family again! We picked a windy old evening but it was so worth it for the light and we found some sheltered spots to make it work!

I did a quick fire round of mini sessions this Autumn to get my fix of all the Autumn colour and light. It was super cool to have a heap of returning clients snap these up! It's always so fun seeing families grow and change over the years.

I've been photographing Mel and Blair's family for five years - now Clay is almost off to school!!! It was an absolute treat to be asked back recently to photograph the newest addition, Baby Harper. This was a fun at-home lifestyle family session. Simply catching up with friends and documenting life with three.

Maria and Greg's sunset maternity session was all kinds of dreamy!

My beautiful friends had their baby girl Chloe!!!

Isn't she just the sweetest wee girl?! And we can't leave out Morgan, the furbaby!

I headed to meet the Dudin family at their farm out the back of Dipton on a very cold and windy day but these guys were absolute troopers and we kept it simple in the backyard, just focusing on celebrating having the family all together finally for photos and having a laugh while we pretended the weather was tropical. I've got a couple of gorgeous framed series from this session on their way for the Steve and Bronwyn, I'll have to share some photos of them on Facebook when they arrive!

And currently being printed is a lovely leather bound Queensberry album for Jo who booked a generational family portrait session with me for Mother's Day. This was a busy session with young kids and just as many dogs. It was so awesome to meet your beautiful family Jo!

Mr Gus was a superstar for his lifestyle at-home newborn session. And if Kady & Chris look familiar it's because in the last year we've done engagement photos, their Spring wedding and now what an honour to get to meet and photograph Gus! He's got a pretty darn special story and it was so cool to get to see these two become parents.

And what a beautiful way to finish the blog with these portraits from Jan's "60 and Fabulous" portrait session!!! What an amazing birthday present to yourself - portraits to capture the beautiful lady that Jan is, inside & out!

I've got a limited amount of winter sessions available over the coming months, just two left for June and only one space left in July!! Now you might be thinking winter isn’t ideal for photos but I love winter shoots for a couple of reasons: 1. The light is incredible at this time of year! And 2. I love the look of layers, woolen and woven textures, accessorizing with scarves/hats/coats and the coziness this brings to portraits. 

​Get in touch with me here if you'd like to book in a session.x

Summer is well and truly over now as the leaves start to fall from the trees and I am in the midst of some stunning autumn shoots, so this blog post is definitely overdue! How cool it is to look back over the last few months of portrait sessions though and share some of my favourite images.

From newborn sessions, family portraits, a gorgeous maternity session and a handful of really fun brand portraits for some awesome small businesses!

Let's start with Elliott's delicious newborn session. His mum & dad actually get married this weekend and I can't wait! 

The Taylor family were awesome to photograph and we had a lovely summery evening walking around Bannerman Park in Gore.

The Crooks kids were so much fun to photograph back in December - a fun & candid sunrise session!

Then just before Christmas I spent an evening with the McGuigan family at their beautiful home at Whiterig. Donald got the old Holden out of the shed, we had many laughs attempting to get all four dogs looking at the camera at the same time and we kept it nice & casual doing all the photos around the backyard.

Graham and Tara's girls surprised them with a family portrait session - they managed to keep it a surprise even until the very day I turned up which happened to be Tara's birthday. We had a lovely time laughing our way through portraits in the garden & the weather was glorious.

Would you believe I'd never been out to Lauder in Central Otago before?! It's a fair drive from Riversdale but early in the New Year I spent a day on the road, heading out to meet Abi & Pippa who run a small family business called Bill & Mae making NZ made gorgeous babywear. We had planned a fun branding portrait session to create visual content for their business and we captured a number of different looks. This was such a fun afternoon!

I'm currently busy printing the portraits from the Kent's family session on the shores of Lake Te Anau. This beautiful family holidayed in Te Anau over the Christmas period and asked me to come up and take photos while they were all together. I reckon a holiday is a brilliant time to book a family portrait session - everyone's relaxed, in go slow mode and it's a pretty cool way to document some memories of that precious quality time spent together as a family.

That very same day I trekked back to Riversdale to photograph the extended Smith family! What an easy-going crew and how complimentary is their outfit colour palette?!

As you can see I travel all over Southland and Otago taking portraits. Whether it's locally here in my home town, or out the very back of Central Otago - I love taking portraits for people, documenting their lives for them and creating something special that will be treasured for years to come.

I was thrilled when our past wedding couple Nath & Bridget got in touch for me to capture some newborn photos for them in their Invercargill home. Meet Addison! And what a treat seeing Nath & Bridget in their new role as parents.

Another one of our past wedding couples; Phil and Alice with their wee dot Katia!

I just love when I get to catch up with past clients and it's a huge privilege being asked to create new portraits for them. I had a beautiful day with the Terry family in Queen's Park, Invercargill.

Brent and Nicole, (at the risk of sounding like a broken record; are another past wedding couple of ours!) gave me the privilege of documenting a very special time in their lives too! We had a fabulous sunset maternity session at the river with their furbabies Oscar and Toby.

It was a pleasure doing portraits again for Arun O'Connor last month as he works on a big music project. Something a little creative and different from my usual portrait style! 

I had a fun afternoon in Joyce's flower workroom in Gore recently too creating some visual branding content for her - what a fun job I had getting to smell all her gorgeous candles!

Autumn shoots are well underway now and I only have two full portrait session spaces left in the second half of April but I have got three Mini Session spots left, find out more here: