My birthday fell on a Monday this year so and we celebrated a day early with my family by having a picnic at Lake Parramatta. Mum whipped up a delicious feast for us all to enjoy, including a berry cake which was yum!

Love this shot of my sister and her fiance…

On my birthday, Ian had organised a surprise which was to occupy a large proportion of the day. The surprise turned out to be lunch at Cottage Point Inn on the Hawkesbury River, with a return ferry trip from Palm Beach to the Inn. It was lovely weather and the cruise up the river was relaxing.

Lunch was amazing and we were joined by a number of visitors while we dined…

All in all, it was a wonderful day and, apart from the fact that I turned 29, very enjoyable!

Now that I’ve entered the final year of my 20′s, I’ve been doing a bit of reflecting. I’m not hugely concerned with turning 30 however at the start of the year I set myself some fairly significant goals – goals that I fully intend to achieve. Some of the goals I’m close to achieving, others I’m on the road to, however there one goal in particular that is barely visible on the horizon and perhaps is only just a mirage. To some extent this scares me a little – that despite starting 2012 with these goals and having good intentions, I’m no closer to achieving them than I was when I made them. I know a lot of hard work is required from me to achieve these goals and I’ve let busyness and other excuses get in the way of that, so I really have no one to blame but myself. Another aspect which I’ve been considering of late is whether or not it is God’s plan for me to achieve these goals. One of my goals – the big one that is way off on the horizon – is something that I’m so hungry for, yet I’m scared that if it isn’t what God wants for me, then I’m not sure what the other option will be. In the end it all boils down to lots of hard work from me, patience, prayer and faith that God knows best and will open the door if that is His will. The first five months of 2012 have already turned out to be vastly different from what I imagined. Only God knows what the rest of the year will hold. In the meantime, I’ll keep dreaming, working and praying. And I promise I’ll blog much more regularly too

P.S. One of the things I’ve been busy doing is learning how to use Adobe Lightroom 4 photo editing software. Lightroom is brilliant and I’m not too sure why I didn’t make the switch much earlier! All of the images in the post were edited using Lightroom 4.

There were so many great images from the wedding that I found it difficult to select ones to blog. I apologise in advance for the length of this post but hope that you enjoy them!

While I was photographing the girls getting ready, Ian headed to Anthony’s family home to capture the guys’ preparations.

The ceremony was held at the gorgeous All Saint’s Anglican Church at Parramatta. It was a beautiful celebration of Brittany and Anthony’s love for each other and, most importantly, for their Lord and Saviour.

After spending time mingling with the guests, we headed down to Parramatta River for the family and bridal portraits. We were fortunate to add a second location, stopping at Western Sydney Regional Parklands on the way to the reception at St John’s Park Bowling Club.

Western Sydney Regional Parklands is home to a playground featuring a flying fox. Nautrally, the bridal party decided to have a little fun which made for some unique images!

Beautiful!

Brittany and Anthony are fans of Super Mario and so their wedding contained various elements of this. On our arrival at the reception, we were totally blown away by the Super Mario themed cake which was made by Brittany’s Mum Sandie, with the help of a family friend. Each tier contained different aspects of Super Mario, kind of like the different levels in the game, and the detail was amazing!

Kids are an important part of Brittany and Anthony’s lives and so there were plenty who attended the wedding and reception. A couple of tables containing activities for the kids were set up at the reception which I thought was a genius idea. The kids were entertained for hours!

Brittany and Anthony, thank you so much for inviting us to photograph your wedding. We had a fantastic day and it was such a blessing to have been able to celebrate with you! I wish you both many moons of happiness (excuse the pun – Brittany and Anthony’s surname is Moon) and pray that you continue to grow closer to each other as you seek to follow Jesus in your lives.

Rosie, thanks so much for asking me to photograph Lily. I had a great afternoon and it was such a privilege to capture some images of your beautiful daughter!

On a more technical note, most of these images were taken with my newly acquired Canon 50mm 1.2L lens. It was my first big shoot with the lens and it certainly did not disappoint! Following this shoot, my 50mm has become my ‘go to’ lens and is on my camera most of the time.

If you are interesting in having some portraits of yourself or your family taken, please do not hesitate to contact me!

To bring you up to speed on what’s been happening, just under a month ago I was involved in a car accident. Thankfully I was not seriously hurt and neither were any of the other people who were involved. Unfortunately my car didn’t particularly like being rear-ended by a 4-wheel drive (which had been rear-ended by a truck) and was written off (or in the American vernacular, “totalled”). Being without a car for almost a month was rather frustrating. It kind of felt as if my freedom, so to speak, had been taken away. Seeing as I can’t drive Ian’s car (which is a manual), I had no way of getting to and from places. Ian was very generous, driving me to and from work each day, despite it being massively out of his way. While not having a car, I was challenged by how much I took having a car for granted. It isn’t something that I had often considered, however being without a car really made me aware of how much I depend on one! Simple tasks like commuting to and from work each day became much more time consuming, leaving less time at home to work on more creative tasks (including my photography). Despite the frustrations, I was very aware of God’s provision during this time and I’m excited (and very thankful!) to be the proud owner of a new car. We picked it up last Thursday and as it is a Honda Jazz, we’ve named her Jazzmine

We decided to take Jazzmine for a bit of a road trip on Saturday and headed south to visit my Grandma in Berry. It is such a great car – so roomy compared with my old Fiesta and I’m looking forward to many years of driving pleasure. The images below were all taken on my iPhone and capture some of the things we did over the Easter long weekend.

Starting on Thursday afternoon (in the top left corner of the first group of images), we picked up Jazzmine. I also enjoyed many cups of green tea, savoured the Autumn colour of the Southern Highlands, took a trip to Pancakes on the Rocks and baked a cake.

Next week I’ll be on holidays and am excited to get stuck into my photography and blogging. Other than a birthday, I don’t have much planned but have set myself a few goals, one of which is learning Lightroom 4. I recently purchased it and after doing all of my editing in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw, I’m excited to learn lots about Lightroom as I know it will dramatically speed up my workflow.

I have a couple of exciting sessions to blog, so definitely keep an eye out for them next week!

Finally, you may have noticed that I’ve now integrated Pinterest into this blog. At the bottom of each post you should see a little “Pin It” button which will allow you to pin any of the images I’ve blogged to your Pinterest boards. Feel free to go a little crazy here and get pinning!

Amanda, thank you so much for asking me to photograph your big day! I had so much fun and the amount of effort that you put into the day was mind-blowing. It certainly tops my list of favourite 3rd birthday parties

Here are some of the images from the day. I loved photographing the kids and also the amazing details that were featured!

If you have a special event coming up that you’d like documented, please drop me a line!

]]> http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/28/bellas-princess-party/feed/ 0 http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/18/valentines-day/ http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/18/valentines-day/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:37:13 +0000 Megan http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/?p=1158 I know that many people are not a fan of Valentine’s Day, however I’ve always enjoyed the day and it’s celebration of love. Valentine’s Day has become even more significant to me in recent years as it is the anniversary of our engagement. This year marked two years since we got engaged and we decided to celebrate by enjoying a quiet night at home. To treat Ian, I cooked a three-course meal, with the highlight being the dessert which were chocolate (and a few raspberry) macarons. A macaron, not to be confused with the macaroon, is something that I’ve always wanted to try making, so I thought that Valentine’s Day would be the perfect excuse! I prepared the shells last weekend and was quite pleased with how they turned out…

As macarons don’t keep for very long once filled with ganache, I finished them off on Tuesday afternoon.

The macarons were a surprise for Ian – he knew I was cooking something but couldn’t figure it out until he saw the piping tubes on Tuesday afternoon! While they weren’t as perfect as Adriano Zumbo’s, they tasted pretty good and I’ll certainly be making them again soon!

Ian spoiled me with some beautiful roses and an awesome framed print of ‘I love you’ in binary.

I hope you all enjoyed celebrating love!

]]> http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/18/valentines-day/feed/ 1 http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/08/so-what-exactly-is-it-that-im-doing/ http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/2012/02/08/so-what-exactly-is-it-that-im-doing/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:21:52 +0000 Megan http://megan-bennett.com.au/blog/?p=1148 Over the Christmas/New Year break, a friend asked me what I’m doing with my photography. Having thought about that conversation, I realised that I’ve never really come right out and written about what I’m hoping to do with my photography! This post will change that

I’ve always enjoyed taking photos. As a kid, I had a film camera for a while and my 21st birthday present from my family and friends was a Nikon compact digital camera. It was back in the (relatively) early days of digital cameras, so it only had something like 4 megapixels and an 8x optical zoom (check out how big the screen is!!) ! It was a great little camera and I enjoyed capturing my travels on it.

At the end of 2005, I went on my first overseas trip. I had finished my first year of full-time work as a teacher and I was ready to see the world! So I went to New Zealand by myself. I know…hardly overseas (it takes longer to fly some places in Australia than it does to fly to New Zealand), however the trip marked a turning point in many areas of my life, photography being one of them. I took my trusty Nikon with me and attempted to capture the amazing beauty of the New Zealand landscape. However, the camera didn’t do the scenery any justice and I realised that if I was to travel some more, I’d take a proper camera with me.

Sometime after that trip, I borrowed my sister’s Canon 300D which I used for a while, until I purchased my first DSLR, a Canon 400D with twin lens kit in 2007. I used this camera a lot and after a while, realised that the kit lenses weren’t cutting it for what I was trying to achieve with my photography. Several years later, I have built up my gear to the point where I’m really happy with the images I can produce using it.

This post isn’t all about the gear, so I’ll get back to my point. For some time now, I’ve had a growing desire to be a professional photographer. I started my business (Megan Bennett Photography) at the end of 2010, and throughout a busy 2011, the desire to grow this business and to continue my photography has only become stronger. I’m now at a point in my life where I have the time to fully pursue my dream.

Originally I started out photographing landscapes. I still love to photograph landscapes, especially while travelling, but for a couple of years now my passion has been to photograph people! One of the things that I love most about photographing people is that I am able to capture their story and document their most precious memories. I love to get a couple or family in front of my lens and have them enjoy being themselves.

So, what exactly is it that I’m doing? I love to photograph people. I also love to photograph people who are in love. The way that I get to do this is through portrait sessions with individuals (including newborns), couples and families. In addition to photographing portraits, one of my favourite things to photograph are engagements and weddings! Nothing beats being able to capture the love and emotion that only a wedding contains. Finally, I also really enjoy photographing events, including birthday parties of any age!

Something that I have recently started doing within my business is producing beautiful, timeless albums which perfectly showcase the images that I capture. These are offered as part of my wedding photography packages, however they are available to anyone who is interested in having one designed for them! I’ll be blogging about my albums shortly and I can’t wait to share them with you!

If you or someone you know is getting married, please give me a yell! If you are interested in having some portraits of yourself or your family photographed, or have an important event coming up which you’d like documented, please let me know! If you’d like an album of your images to be designed, I’d love to hear from you! My photography is available within Sydney and also beyond, whether it be regional NSW, interstate or even overseas (yes, I’ll gladly travel anywhere!).

Hopefully that clears up the whole “what exactly is it that I’d doing?” issue! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me. I’m so excited by this journey and can’t wait to share it with you!

We started off in the Rose garden with Nonna, Bella and Jack….

Such beautiful smiles!

What a cutie!!

I had such a fun time capturing these images! Bella and Jack were so cooperative and Bella’s little smile completely melted my heart. Thank you Amanda for asking me to document your gorgeous little family!

Not long after this portrait session, I was invited to photograph Bella’s 3rd birthday party. I’ll be blogging about this next week, but talk about amazing! I was blown away by the creativity and detail that went into creating the party and loved being able to photograph it! Watch this space!

If you are interested in having a family portrait photography session, please let me know!

The photos below capture some of our adventures. The Snowy Mountains are a beautiful spot and it was wonderful to be able to enjoy (and photograph) God’s awesome creation.

One day we decided to take a drive to Khancoban. The town was originally established as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. There isn’t a whole lot there these days, however it made for a pleasant lunch stop. On our way back to Thredbo, we stopped at the Murray 1 power station which is part of Snowy Hydro. While I had known a bit of the history of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, I didn’t realise how big it all was (i.e. 145km of tunnels through the Snowy Mountains). It was pretty mind-blowing and isn’t any wonder why it has been named as one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world. I was also quite impressed by the technology. Snowy Hydro owns several power stations which are all controlled from Cooma. Basically, it only takes 90 seconds from the start-up of a turbine to have electricity reaching the major cities of Sydney or Melbourne! The image below was taken on a tour of the Murray 1 power station.

There is a lot of beautiful scenery in the Snowy Mountains. This photo was taken from Dead Horse Gap, looking down the valley towards Thredbo.

One of the highlights of the trip was the walk to Mt Koscuiszko. The weather was spectacular – quite warm and only a slight breeze (which is rare for the location). As you will see in the following images, my macro lens got quite a workout…

The image below was taken from the summit of Mt Koscuiszko. Let me add that the sky really was that blue – these photographs were taken without a polariser and I didn’t enhance the sky in Photoshop (can you see the moon?)!

The following images were taken at the now unused Michelago railway station. I felt as if I was in a different era…

Our final stop of the trip was in Canberra. We enjoyed visiting the National Gallery of Australia, the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain (which was a tad on the windy side), Mount Ainslie for sunset/night photography and also a trip to the Mint which was very fascinating. Our trip to the Telstra Tower coincided with a number of storms in the area, which made for some interesting lighting in the distance…

Despite the relaxation that had taken place during the week, when I returned home I still felt unsettled and as if my soul hadn’t quite found the rest I was searching for. At church on Sunday the minister preached from Psalm 4, which tells of David calling out to God in his time of distress. Toward the end of the Psalm, David comes to the realisation that God is our source of peace and joy:

“You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” ~ Psalm 4:7-8

For several weeks, I’ve had a lot on my mind, some of which I have been worrying about quite a bit. Walking out of church on Sunday, I felt as if God had spoken directly to me, through the minister’s talk, and told me not to worry – He is in control, He will keep me safe (therefore I have nothing to fear) and in Him alone will I find joy. I am so thankful to have heard this message and I am now ready (and equipped) to face the challenges that lie ahead of me.

To finish off this post, I wanted to end with two images that I took from Mt Ainslie in Canberra of the city at sunset…