Its New Years Eve, and I’m getting ready to head out to shoot what will effectively be my last wedding for 2006 AND the first wedding of 2007! Yes, I’m partying on with the crowd until midnight, which should be a blast. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for the bride, Karla, to get me to stay on. As most people know, I have no life, so as long as I was fed, and got seated next to a reasonably eligible batchelor, I was only too happy to saddle up for the ride.

I’ve been experimenting with posting video to the blog, and I think I may have finally managed to get it right. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I should be able to share some rare gems with you in the future.

I decided to post this one from Christmas Day. My Aunt and I have a tradition whenever we’re together at parties, 21st’s, 40th’s, 50th’s, to sing an old song which is very dear to us, called “Honey”. If you’ve got way too much time on your hands, and a sturdy broadband connection, check it out…

Gatherings of the Snell family ought to come with a warning label!!

Today we spent Christmas at my Aunt’s house, where we were also joined by my Dad’s two brothers. My cousin Nea made sure that I had a Pina Colada in my hand all day - did I mention how much I love my cousin? When we are all together as a family, we do nothing but laugh ourselves stupid, and often for the most ridiculous reasons. I think alcohol usually plays a big part! 

My Christmas outfit…

Uncle Rodney & my cousin Nea..

My cousin Zoe, who has recently become a reporter for Channel 7 news, and we are all very proud…

Uncle Col…

Me with my cousin’s Nea and Zoe…

Poo & I….

Lunchtime, and Poo just loves his prawns….

As we all know, I have a thing for self portraits, so it wouldn’t have been complete without getting my share of those…

Uncle Barry…

Mum…

Aunty Di and Uncle Rodney… (pull a face like that, and its guaranteed to end up on the internet)

My cousin Nea…

Aunty Di…

Uncle Rodney…

Uncle Col…

Dad, Uncle Col, Uncle Barry, and Aunty Diann got a bit nostalgic (drunk) and decided to recreate a picture taken in their childhood…

Now I don’t know if it was because it was 50 years ago, but somehow I don’t think my Aunt was sitting on an esky in the original!!!

So we gave up and took this instead…

Nea had organised a piny..pinia…a mexican thing with lollies in it for us to beat the crap out of. There were some fun and games had during the process…

Until Santa came off second best thanks to Zoe venting her frustrations (with a shovel) over a recent speeding ticket…

I cannot believe it is Christmas tomorrow!! It is unreal just how fast this year has gone, its scary!!

Christmas in my family is usually a very small affair. With one of my sisters living in Sydney, and the other a police officer who just seems to be rostered on every single year, it will just be Mum, Poo, and I this year. But we won’t be alone, as we’ve been farmed out to my Aunt and Uncle for Christmas Day, which I’m really looking forward to.

So today I packed up the car, and headed out to Fernvale. I dropped in on my best friends house, to deliver some Christmas gifts. As most of you would know, Kelly and Matt are expecting their first baby in May, so this year I also got to go shopping for baby clothes!! Not having any neices or nephews of my own, this little one is the closest I may ever get, so I figure I’m allowed to spoil it rotten!

Here is a shot of Matt modelling some of the baby’s clothes….

And then Kel and I spent the afternoon on the couch discussing baby names. Kel & Matt don’t know if they’re having a boy or a girl, and won’t be finding out, so we need two names on standby. For a girl I chose Doris, and for a boy I chose Cyril. Yeah, remind me never to have children!

I would like to wish all my family, friends, clients, and loyal blog readers a very merry and a safe Christmas!!

Regular visitors will know Rick, one of my second shooters who assists me (apart from my Dad). He also operates his own business, and has his own weddings to shoot. Rick has recently found himself a little under the weather, and phoned me up yesterday to ask if I could help out at todays wedding. I jumped at the chance to second shoot for him, and to let him boss me around for a change! It was nice to not be in the drivers seat, and have the freedom to operate with a lot less pressure, and really get to apply your craft.

It was a rather long shoot today, so Rick and I got to have some fun photographing eachother during downtime…

But then it was back to work, and some awkward positions, to get the best shot….

Technically, all my shots from today belong to Rick, so I’ll only post one last one of the bride and groom… 

Hope you’re feeling better real soon Rick!

Today it was my Mum’s birthday. I won’t say how old she is today, as she reads this blog, and would probably kill me!

Sometimes I think that Mum feels a little less important with all that Dad and I do together, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. My Mum is the first person I go to with questions about life, the universe, or just for a chat. She is the voice of reason and wisdom. She is also the person who proof reads my blog and emails me all my spelling mistakes! She takes an interest in everything I do, and backs it up with asking me a million questions pretty much about everything! She spoils me, and I am very very lucky to have a Mum who loves me so much. 

I met up with Mum and Dad this afternoon for a late lunch. A change in my schedule today meant I didn’t have time to go home and grab my camera, so I’ll post a couple of pictures from a very special birthday Mum had 2 years ago.

Mum with her 3 girls…

Happy Birthday Mum! Lots of love xxxxxx.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of photographing Victoria and Nicola. They’re sisters who wanted to give their parents a portrait of them for Christmas. So I took an hour out of “the month of Toni” to hang out with them at Roma St Parklands for a few informal portraits…..

I’m on a roll with birthdays at the moment! Friends of mine, Darren & Andrea, have a gorgeous little boy Ryan who I have been photographing for most of his life. Today was his 2nd birthday party! It was held at Wriggle It, a kids play centre down in Logan. I first photographed Ryan when he was 1 week old, and watching him grow up through my photo’s, is extraordinary. Ryan just loves The Wiggles, and had a Wiggles birthday cake that made his face light up. I even believe he had a Toot-Toot Chugga-Chugga Big Red Car waiting for him when he got home too. Yes, I’m thinking of trading in my wheels!!!

It was my friend Courtney’s 30th Birthday bash last night, and we certainly celebrated in style! It was a fancy dress theme, and we had to go dressed as a musician. After an earlier cocktail party at the birthday girl’s house, we headed in to Strike at the Wintergarden, to their private function room for 4 hours of Karaoke madness!

The stunningly gorgeous birthday girl (and bride to be)….

I’m a bit of a fan of country & western, so I couldn’t resist going as the fabulous Dolly Parton…

I love to belt out a good tune at the best of times, and the highlight for me was getting to sing numbers such as “Midnight Train To Georgia”, ”Bad Bad Leroy Brown”, and a very fitting duet of “Islands In The Stream”…

After some more hijinks out on the town we found ourselves heading home at around 4am, and ran into the local constabulary in the Queen St Mall. She who will only be named as Constable Helen agreed to pose for this final shot, even after having to deal with “idiots and losers” all night long. I’m just not sure which category I fell into….

I want to wish Courtney all the best, and also tell her to SET A DATE before I’m completely booked out for next year!!!!!

As I have mentioned, I have no more weddings until New Years Eve. I take a forced break in December to have some time out, and catch up on the work from the last quarters weddings. So each weekend, or whenever I feel like it, I’m going to roll out some old photo’s from my previous weddings.

Today’s is David & Angela who were married on the 25th of June 2005. I know Angie’s Mum through my best friend Kelly, and one day a couple of years ago I got a call from Angie to discuss wedding photography.

I loved shooting this wedding, and not just because I knew them. David & Angie were just so “into” eachother all day. They couldn’t keep their eye’s off eachother, it was hard to pull them apart or to get their attention. The whole day just had a great feel.

My favourite photo from the day would be this first one where Angie’s Dad walked in and saw his only daughter for the first time in her wedding gown. I’m a huge sucker for Dad’s and their little girls, so its always special for me to get a shot like this…