Lucia was one of the calmest brides I’ve ever met. Shooting a wedding is always a fast-paced day and it can get pretty hectic, so I’m usually pretty wired myself, but even I felt myself chilling out watching her get ready.

Talk about a smile that lights up the room!

The ceremony took place at the beautiful St Ignatius Catholic Church in Norwood, and it really is a beautiful venue…a lot lighter and airier than many churches, it manages to feel formal yet welcoming.

One of my favourite parts is watching the bride and groom as they first catch sight of each other – both Lucia and Sam’s lit up when they saw each other! A wedding ceremony can be a very emotional (and for some, a little nervewracking) but you can almost see couples get a little moral boost when they realise they’ll be doing it together

Married!

We went to the south parklands for some more relaxed portraits before the wedding reception. Adelaide REALLY came through with some beautiful weather, and we are so lucky to have a lot of beautiful places to shoot in so close to the city! For me, the lovely lush gardens and mild weather especially went down treat after a month of chilly Toronto winter

Effortlessly stunning…after the parklands we dropped in to one of my favourite shooting locations, the Forest of Dreams square on Pulteney St. It gets such lovely afternoon light, and there are quite a few different locations within the one square, so it’s a great option for bridal shots if the reception is close by.

Sam…I promised I’d get a shot of your handiwork in the form of that bow! Very professional! It was a pleasure to photograph your wedding, guys, and I hope you are relaxing into matrimonial bliss as you read this

Even though she didn’t have much of a nap before this session, she was a total sweetheart and gave lots of big smiles:

“My First Sherrin”…the perfect toy for a little girl whose Daddy is a footy umpire!

I love capturing moments with babies and Dads. I know I’m probably genetically wired to find it really touching, but I just love watching tough guys go all soft and tender with their little ones. I can’t imagine what life was like back in the days when fathers weren’t ‘involved’ with raising their kids and missed out on all this.

PS. I’m in Toronto now!! More details to come when I have some spare time…right now we’re flat out apartment hunting and looking for work. Plus our internet here has a ridiculously slow upload speed, so a proper update with photos etc will have to wait until we get settled in a little more.

Yep, that is a tasty nut A managed to sneak into his mouth there…he looks pretty happy with it!

Their parents picked out perfect outfits for this shoot, I loved them — bright pops of colour for the start of the shoot, then they changed into these matching duds. They’re so classic and timeless aren’t they? When you see these photos in black and white they could just about be from any era.

This was just about my last shoot in Australia — we leave for Canada next week!! We’re spending a week exploring northern Japan, then it’s on to our new home in Toronto! I can’t wait to escape this summer heat and bust out my boots and scarves again I was pretty bad about blogging our year living in Japan last year, but I promise to be more diligent about documenting Canada. (Can’t make any promises to limit my “eh” jokes, however!)

Looking for ladybugs

I love this photo so much. I can honestly say that parents and grandparents very very rarely steal the show from kids — I mean, kids are so cute and naturally photogenic, it’s always gonna be hard to compete — but something about this is just so sweet.

Something I thought was very cool…these girls are third-generation Latvian, and they can speak and understand it pretty well with their mum, grandma and great-grandma! I love kids raised bilingually. I think it’s such a great way to give them a link to their heritage, and just generally having more than one language is a good thing. (I try and speak Japanese to my neice, Mira — yeah that’s right, my ability is roughly equal with a 2 year old! SKILLZ. Haha. I’m looking forward to when her Japanese improves to the point where she can start to teach ME, because often I get stuck on words or concepts I don’t know!)

Traumatising toddlers with ducks, that’s how I roll. We always seem to run into them and the kids always have the same reaction: fascinated, then abruptly horrified!

The sad thing is, these pictures don’t actually do N justice…he is even more handsome in real life. No joke.

Shooting  really young kids is more exhausting, since you can’t just tell a toddler “stand here!”, but it’s also really fun because it’s half a game. These two took a little while to relax, but by the end of the session they were pretty relaxed and we got some gorgeous portraits.

I think I am really lucky with the people I shoot. Not only in the looks department, but also that I’ve met some really cool folks. In addition to being one of the most chilled-out mums I know, Katy also runs her own jewelery business, Fox & Kitten, which you should definitely check out — her stuff is really unique and cute.

Another big difference — when I left, Liam was an only child. Now he’s a big brother

Such a  little sweetheart. I love me some ‘amish cuddles.

Toddler hair removal…not painless, but effective!

Afternoon tea, anyone?

“Duckies! Are they scary or do I want to feed them? Scary…no, feed them…no, scary…OK, let’s feed them…yay!…wait, OMG, that was scary!”

Still, being able to talk to everyone on Skype is so great. Compared to the Americans and Claire the Great British, I feel a bit spoiled that I can come home after work and turn Skype on and find everyone online thanks to the minimal time difference. If I wanted I could spend all my evenings just chatting away and get nothing done at all!

I took these of my neice just before I left so I would have some recent (for a while, anyway) photos to remember her…but she’s growing so fast that they won’t be up to date for long. Can’t wait until you visit, guys ♥

I especially miss the deafening, ear-piercing squeals of joy accompanied by that nose scrunch

After being given a quick crash course in this style of dancing, we joined a dance group called Awasora Ren. There are over 200 people in this group, so a few extra foreigners making fools of themselves is fairly acceptable. The dance looks deceptively simple, but of course there is an art to it (which we definitely had not acquired in our 10 minutes of dance rehearsal). Luckily there was safety in numbers!

We met this hilariously awesome pair in our hotel — the guy didn’t speak much English, but he was so excited to talk with us, and everything he said came out at full volume! “OKAAAAAY!!” They actually ended up coming out to a bar with us later. Apparently they are med students so look out Osaka, these party animals could be your local GP in a few years!

I wasn’t able to take my camera during the dancing in Tokushima City, but luckily my local Awa Odori festival was held on Sunday and Monday nights so I got to see it all over again on a slightly smaller scale:

This was my favourite group, their grand finale involved whipping their fans open and sending blossoms swirling around the stage! Beautiful to watch. Incidentally, one of my speech contest students is part of this group, and her speech is actually about learning Awa Odori over the years — so being able to watch her perform it was especially interesting.

The traditional female dancers were amazing. They were so incredibly graceful — look at how they balance on the tips of their shoes!

There are two styles of dance, one for men and one for women. The women’s dance is very graceful and the arms are held high above the head, with smaller kicks (because traditionally the women were wearing kimonos) but higher steps. The men’s dance has become more unisex, and it is the usual style that younger women and kids dance — the arms are more in front of the head rather than high above, and the movements are a bit sharper and slightly less smooth. However, sometimes I did see guys break out into these amazing bursts of dance — much more energetic and unrestrained than the usual dance, almost like capoeira. Really cool to watch.