** Merry Christmas **

Well, its the 25th of December 2008, Christmas Day. A wonderful day to spend with friends and family, we hope you have a great day. 

Many will spend the day in a range of differing circumstances and we just hope that the Christmas spirit touches them in some way. A smile from one to another, a fond memory, or something else that makes the day special for them.

2008 has been a long and tough year for my family and we are hoping 2009 will be better.  We know everyones idea of tough is perspective based and we definitely know of others who have to battle for the day more than us. 

Watching my kids this morning, opening gifts, seeing the smiles, and watching the innocence as Santa gets such praise for knowing exactly what they wanted. Its heart warming to know that they are genuinely good kids. They didn't ask for much, and during these tough financial times, we are lucky this was the case. Books, games, chocolates, clothes, a guitar, we have three very happy kids. They have all disappeared to their  corners to play. 

Have a great day, our love goes out to everyone at this wonderful time of the year!

James

Riley

On the 17th of December I had the opportunity to photograph Riley for Sexy Backs. A great shoot, I also had the chance to do some natural light portrait shots. The results speak for themselves. You can see the Sexy Backs photo on the Sexy Backs blog 

Anyway, I keep getting asked about my facebook profile. If you have a facebook account, please say Hi! Here is my fb badge:

Time for some changes

2008 has been an incredibly strange year, and to be honest, not one I would want to have to do again. My career has been a complete roller coaster ride, constantly learning about my Asperger's, Tyler's Autism, life, love, and all the rest has just been exhausting. How Shana (my beautiful wife) does it, you know, puts up with all this, and me, I just don't know.

So, anyway, 2009 is going to have to start a bit differently. The first thing is to shut everything down for the holidays, have a break, and come back bigger and better when we are ready. Sexy Backs is going to get its own website that is easier to manage and maintain, I am going to spend some time looking at my career and then work out my future direction. I am looking forward to shooting a new portfolio, something that reflects my personality... I know, I know, it concerns my wife too! hahaha

A new look, a new direction, so in short, there is going to be some changes next year! Since starting my career I have covered Fashion Events, photographed Weddings, Bridal Portraits, Commercial, Product, Beauty, Fashion, Creative Portraits, and I always keep coming back to women. So, in short, I am still going to continue photographing women with a focus on Portraiture, Glamour, Beauty, and Fashion, but I will pay a little more attention to Fashion Editorial.

Anyway, I will keep posting updates as they can be announced. My website will be coming down until we have everything set up for 2009.

Its not about technical ability!

Every now and then I get email from someone who asks "When do you know you have the right photo?". Well, the things that truly make a photograph a success for me are that the person I took the picture of is proud of it, and that they see themselves. Then, it is that they see the person I photographed the same way I saw them when I took the photograph. Sometimes this isn't always what the subject wants, it can be incredibly intimate, and has been described to me like they caught me reading their diary. This is a good thing in many ways, but like they say, the truth hurts.

I have always believed that the closer you are to the truth about someone in a photograph, the more you see how layered people are. By virtue of the intimacy of a photograph you automatically see that there is always more.  I am so glad that I seem to have this talent as a photographer, because this is not what 'one' does, it is who 'one' is.

I like being able to enter into their lives in such an intimate way, images are so powerful so it is important that photographers ask themselves what impact their photographs will have on the persons they have photographed and on the people who will see them.  The good, the bad, and the ugly are all acceptable in the right context but as a picture can be worth a thousand words they say, and it is then those words you use to describe someone that can create either a positive or negative impact, I am humbled by the trust those I photograph have in me.

During Sexy Backs and Creative Portraits, I have seen tears, and I have heard the laughter, its the emotions that I strive for at each shoot, and its those same emotions that have become my drug of choice.

More about distorted beauty, and a video

In addition to my blog yesterday I want to clearly state that I am not on a crusade to save women from the nasties of the fashion and beauty industry! The argument will never go away and I feel I can do more working with the industry rather than against it. Moderation and common sense should be the regulators, not the advertising standards board. Having only been in the industry for the past three and a half years I can only speak of my personal experiences. Yes, it is true that most of the women I have worked with have had some damaged self esteem, but I have also had the pleasure of building the self esteem of a few as a result of my style and love of women.

I love women and have always been proud of the fact that I openly discuss this. I grew up with three sisters, a mum, aunties, nana's, and considering most of my friends are women I take it that I have learnt something that allows me to open to so many unique relationships with out the need for testosterone to damage them. Maybe its the fact I have Asperger's and its a part of this that my favorite thing about women are their eyes. So intimate are they that during the time I am setting up a shot I can see the little girl, the teenager, the love, ones ability to lust, and the insecurities we all hide. But, most of all, I can see the soul that cries and laughs, loves and hates, the essence of womanhood that holds and nurtures, that something that not only creates love but carries one as she makes love, its also something that there is no product you can buy to cover it up when damaged.

My passion for women isn't to make them beautiful, God has already done that. However, using the light nature has provided it is my job to paint away what life has done, and then capture as much of the soul I can see in every one of my photographs.

I am not endorsing or promoting Dove or any other product, but I do get what they are trying to do. Watch this ---

Beauty, in my opinion! Blame the photographers....?

Gazing at the images in magazines, it wasn't until I discovered photography and delved into the task of teaching myself everything I could about it (and digital imaging) that I realized just how distorted the world of beauty was. Most images are professionally polished with many things contributing to that final image that makes it onto the magazine racks. No wonder so many people have so many issues about the way we look! My daughter has been an inspiration when it comes to how I photograph women. I want our future generations to see beauty in any mirror, not in print.

An artificially manufactured beauty dominates mass media and the marketing industry growing from it, it is easy to see why a recent survey concluded that "Just 2% of today's women see themselves as beautiful".

In this way the impossible dream of beauty can be run endlessly. By continuosly and ever more subtly defining in artificial ways, modes and models of reference that are hard to reach for standard individuals, the corporate mechandising machine can keep its toy running indefinitely. And, if you really look and pay attention to it, with clean, detached eyes, you can see that the beauty model is cloned and repeated across the whole spectrum of communications you have chosen to receive from mainstream media. The irrelevant and needlessly expensive status symbols peddled at every commercial, you know it doesn't a genius to realize that all of what you are buying into has been created to fool you while significantly benefiting someone else.

Unless you open your eyes and realize that in this life, all those who benefit from the affects, you just become an unpaid extra in an extended commercial that you have been watching, but its your life. This warped, digitally distorted image of reality and beauty will continue to drive, shape and dominate your personal ability to make true sense and meaning of this beautiful gift called life.

Just recently I saw the work of a photographer that really concerned me. Not because the model was naked, not the context of the shots, and it wasn't because of his technical competence, but because of the fact his less than flattering style is potentially destructive to this young, and in her own way, very beautiful woman.

My focus is on my own style, love it or hate it, I am me, and that is what we should all respect. If my images left women looking like the young woman I mention, I would feel an obligation through pure decency to sell my camera equipment and never subject another human being to such humiliation again, even if the model herself does not understand it.

Insight from another woman left me feeling that this young woman I have mentioned may have felt uncomfortable approaching someone like myself as she didn't think she was attractive enough for my style of photography, and that the photographer she did use was real "warts and all" so his and her expectations were then lower across the board.

Why are women accepting this? They are the consumers the advertising is designed for, the marketing industry grows because of... It makes me sad to think that behind the beautiful eyes of my wife, daughter, sisters, mother, friends, and colleagues that there are others with this view of themselves. I am sorry, this has to stop! We may not all agree on what is beautiful, and don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for everything, but its definitely not at the expense of anyones self esteem.

YouTube Videos of my work

I have been asked a few times about putting these videos on my blog. The first is the first group of Sexy Backs for Autism Awareness images. See, many don't know this but I have Asperger's Syndrome, and my youngest son has Autism.



The next video is some samples of my work from over the past couple of years. I still see this and think back to the first show I shot. It was with a consumer digital slr camera, I had no idea what I was doing, and in three years, self taught, my career is developing well.

Why my blog? and a bit of a bleat!

Why a blog? Well, my blog will feature work as I shoot it, and it will also have some of my professional and personal thoughts posted. This year I found out I have Asperger's Syndrome, just as we were getting over the fact my youngest son has Autism.

2008 has been a crazy year! A roller coaster ride professionally and personally, but its these highs and lows that keep us on our toes.

It was great to be able to email my contacts and thank them for their time and patience! They have all been such an important part of my 2008. With the Sexy Backs for Autism project, my business, so much revolving around Autism and Asperger's, honestly, they really do have the patience of a saint!

Portraiture

I was reading the other day about how another photographer had said that it could easily be argued that portraits are important to the human race as a whole, not just to the subject or recipient. He went on to say that a portrait not only represents a person at a given moment in time but, like a time capsule, freezes attitude, clothing, and personal style for later interpretation by historians, psychologists, designers, photographers, family... ... the list just goes on and on.

Finally he said "For that time, my obligation as a photographer is to produce an image as evocative, as telling, and as interesting as my talent will allow.  A good portrait is more than a mere record of a face. In fact, a successful portrait is not only a representation of a human being but a statement of who that being was on the day."