Kapa’s Blog

Anna got Christened today at the Greek Orthodox Parish of ‘St. Sophia’ . She is definitely one of those calm kids that nothing bothers, she seemed relaxed and uncaring throughout the entire ceremony, making it easy for both her godmother & parents.

These were taken after she was undressed by her grandparents, thought I’d play around a bit with monotone tinting.

Now the following is beginning to become a trademark image from me, I love taking it and parents love it as well. Anna immersed in the baptismal font, black & white works a treat with these images, as you can see here and here.

After the christening, Anna was zonked out for the formals. Held by her godmother with the proud parents on either side.

The reception was held at the Athenian, great Greek cuisine. I like this image, it appears it was taken near a window, however I bounced the flash hard of the wall softening the light making it appear that way.

Gorgeous baby blues

The restaurant has these huge photos / paintings on the walls with images from Greece, nothing wrong making it look like you’re somewhere else

Today at the Greek Orthodox Parish & Community of Kogarah, I attended the Christening of Steve, Stavros in Greek. It was quite an appropriate name for this week, as on Friday it is the Exaltion of the Cross.

As is the norm with Orthodox Christenings, it started with The service of the Catachumen in which the various prayers of exorcism are read by the priest. During this time I caught Steve’s very proud parents looking on.

Steve getting baptised.

It gets quite chaotic after the baptism with the grandparents trying to dress the baby & everyone looking on.

Now Steve’s dad Chris grew up in the same era that I did, when the muscle cars ruled the streets. To celebrate this special day, he took out the beast, a 5.9 litre 370 Charger. Strange seeing one of those with a child safety seat in the rear. Of course, this image, had to be converted to a grainy black & white.

Waiting at the reception, was an awesome cake made from cupcake’s.

As for Steve, very photogenic and an absolute pleasure to photograph.

Today I had the pleasure of photographing the baptism of baby Preston, here he is getting dressed by the godparents.

Preston is lucky to have two sets of godparents, here is a photo with all of them.

I couldn’t resist converting this picture of the godfathers smoking cigars and chatting to a grainy black and white image.

The baptism was held at St Nicholas of Myra Catholic Church, Penrith.

The reception was at an Italian restaurant called L’oilio, in Dublin St, Smithfield where there was a gorgeous cake waiting for us at reception.

I love chillies, & couldn’t resist taking this photo.

Today I had the pleasure of photographing the Greek Orthodox Christening of Eleftheria, Elle. It was only last month that I was here photographing the church for the St Nicholas centre, however as luck would have it, today was a very overcast day with a little bit of rain and even though I came early with other intentions, the contrast was too much to improve on the photo’s I took last time.

I know, I digress, so back to the christening. Both of Elle’s grandmothers were there to undress & dress her during the service. I find it’s always a touching moment when the grandmothers are there, both proud & happy that their granddaughter is becoming a Christian, and although it was a tight squeeze between the table and the ‘psalti’ I managed to grab this one.

The following paragraph I pinched from my mate Christos website, thanks.

Pure olive oil is hallowed and administered to the various members of the infant’s body. The priest anoints the face, chest, mouth, nose, ears, legs and feet in dedication to the service of Christ. The sponsor then anoints the entire body of the child symbolical of the Chrismation of kings and in belief that the evils of the devil will slip away.

Elle’s parents Helen & Bill did have a special request for me. They wanted to have a photo taken in front of the church with all their family and friends, just like they used to in the old days. Although a number had left before the congratulations were completed, we still managed to get this one.

You have probably noticed I’m in a very black and white mood today, so I’m going to finish with a colour photo of the boubouniera. As you would guess, a photo album will get my attention, and it’s a lovely momento to the family and friends to remember this day.

Wow, what happened to March? Can’t believe how quickly it’s passed, been too pre-occupied with many things & before you know it April is here. My birthday was even last month & that day passed just like any other.

There was a couple of personal projects that just had to be done, I was on a very tight timetable with a lot to do. After a number of 15 hour days and help from family, finished on time.

There was also the Greek Festival of Sydney, which I wanted to attend. As luck would have it, never made it.

Inspired by a mate, New York Photographer Christos Hountas who updated his website recently, I have also started making changes to my website. They are still in “development” mode and I won’t make any promises as to when the new site will be on-line. What I can say is the colour scheme & layout will be very similar to my blog, however the look, feel & navigation will be similar to what I currently have. The website & blog will be more integrated, with links & references between the two seamless. More importantly for clients, I will be implementing a new on-line gallery as well as information & resource pages however these will be available some time after the new site is on-line. If you have any idea’s or suggestions, feel free to drop me an e-mail, use either the contact page from my main web-site or post a comment here.

Photography wise I have been busy as well. I have experimented with some high-key shots using multiple flash units, something I want to try with a bride however since the setup takes time (something which is usually scarce on a wedding day) I need to have the setup process down to a fine art otherwise it ain’t gonna happen. I even managed to shoot a couple Greek Orthodox Christenings, the first was twin boys, James & Peter (Dimitri & Panayi) followed by another boy, Jamie (Dimitri). One of the options I provide to clients is to provide them the images I shoot on CD/DVD that have been batch converted straight out of the camera, no additional editing or fine tuning on my behalf. This is great for parents as it allows them to pick & choose which pictures they want to print at their own leisure, and also saves them dollar$ as they don’t pay for my time to convert & print for them.

The drawback to this is that I find myself almost a month later I have not gone through the images in detail to pick, edit & post images for my blog. If you have followed my previous posts, I like to select about four to six images from each job, maybe stick to a theme, things I like, photographs that caught my eye, things that made me laugh, whatever.

Today, I have just done a very quick scan & picked just one picture. It’s one of the twins (James) in sitting in the baptismal Font.

I picked this one because this shot was actually quite difficult to get. If you have ever been to a Greek Orthodox Christening, at the time I took this photo, you have the Priest holding the child in the Font, the godparent is standing right next to him, next to the godparent you have the Priest’s assistant. To add to the chaos (apart from the fact it was a twin christening), I also had two over zealous paparazzi to deal with. I don’t have an issue with family & friends shooting around me, I’ll even help them out if I have time. To get this image I had to hold the camera over heads & shoot blind, relying on the autofocus to do it’s job & my experience to ensure I had the framing about right (hence the square crop ;-).

It was great to finish the year off with a Greek Orthodox Christening, especially at the Annunciation of our Lady. This church does have a special place for me, it where I married my gorgeous wife, as well as where I became a godfather. From a professional point of view, the circa 1800’s sandstone also makes a wonderful backdrop for photos.

The proud parents Connie & Jim with their lovely daughter Maria.

The Greek Orthodox Christening service is full of tradition & symbolism. Christos, a New York photographer who like myself also likes to focus on Greek weddings & christenings, has set up an information page specifically for Greek Orthodox Baptisms. Quoted from this page,

The child is then tonsured, cutting the hair in the form of a cross, in the name of the Holy trinity, for the hair is the symbol of strength. This also represents the very first offering of the new born Christian to God and his church. It is indicative of dedication, offering and sacrifice.

The Archbishop cutting Maria’s hair.

Maria seeking comfort in her mothers arms while the Archbishop addresses the congregation.

As this is my last post for 2006, I would like to take this opportunity to wish family, friends, clients, and everyone else a fantastic 2007.

Kapa