Louise's afternoon tea party

Louise contacted me by email as we were making our way down to Dunedin. She was having a birthday afternoon tea and thought it would be fun to get some photographs of her and her friends before they finish their last year at university. It turned out the tea party was happening on my very first day in Dunedin! Luckily Steven was able to change the plugs over on my battery chargers(!!) in the morning, and that afternoon I headed off to Corstorphine House in Dunedin, an old country house hotel with fantastic views over the city. The hotel serve a huge range of lovely teas in old fashioned pots, with little sandwiches and cakes on silver cake stands. So cute! I will have to take my mum here when she comes to visit.

Louise and her friends were gorgeous, and we had loads of fun taking shots inside and in the grounds.

I'll try and post all the photos I prepared for my blog, but blogger is playing up at the moment so I'm not sure if they will render properly. Here goes!

I'm going to post some photos of the land next. How exciting!! xx

Arriving in New Zealand!

Well, after all that dreaming, planning, packing, travelling, and more dreaming we are finally here, in Dunedin, New Zealand. We've been here for a week already, travelling down from Christchurch and seeing some family and friends on the way. Its so great to see everyone and catch up.




Yesterday was the first time we saw the land we bought 3 and half years ago, just north of Dunedin outside a place called Waitati. Its even more beautiful than I remember: 35 acres of lush green grass and dense forest with a stream, a river and a pond. I tell you what, it just seems ridiculous to me! How can we possibly own all of that?! This morning we walked around the boundary, sat in Steven's future fire circle in the wood, lay in the grass under the sun, and hopped on stones through the river. I sat on a big rock in the middle of the water looking at the dappled light on the stones, the ferns and the trees and I felt like laughing it was all so good! Its spring here so things are blossoming, and the land has a sweet smell like honey and coconut. Seriously, thats what it smells like!

When you stand on the spot our house is going to be on you look down through the valley to the sea. Thats where the sun rises in the morning and its just stunning.

I would obviously upload photographs, but my laptop is out of action for a couple of days and the images straight out of my camera would take about 3 years to upload on a dial up internet connection. But I will definitely get some images up in a couple of days time.

This week we have lots to do. We need a car, and some kind of garage or enclosed barn to put on the land to store our things in and to live in until we build something else. I think tomorrow night we might pitch a tent there so that we can wake up in the morning on the same spot that next year will be our house. Maybe then it will seem real.

Oh, and yesterday (our first day in Dunedin) I had my first photography commission! Which I will blog about this week.

Here is an internet photo of Blueskin bay which is the bit of coast we can just about see from our land. We are somewhere up a hill to the right of this photo I believe:



Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Extra luggage

Just sorting through images on my harddrive and I found this one of Max at Christmas. I wish I could fit him in my bag and take him to New Zealand!

New email address

I'll still be using my sjenkinsphotography@yahoo.co.uk address for the forseeable future, but this new email is for any new clients, I thought the uk part of my email might put them off. Thanks!

sineadphotography@yahoo.com

Natasha and James' Wedding!

If you wondered why I was back in the UK at all well then its these guy's fault. Infact if it wasn't for them I would probably be lying on a beach somewhere now... with a cocktail maybe... listening to the lapping of the sea upon the shore...hmmmmm... Well if Natasha and James weren't such lovely, funny, adorable people then I probably would be. I've been so excited about this wedding for aaages, and felt really honoured that James and Natasha got me home to photograph their big day. It was well worth it, they had such a gorgeous wedding, with everything carefully and creatively thought through. Natasha and James have the loveliest family and friends who made the day even better, and to top it all off it was SUNNY!!!

I started at Natasha's place:



She doesn't scrub up too badly:




By the way, when you see people in magazines looking like this its because they've been photoshopped up, the image above is straight out of the camera!! Yes I know...




Look at the fabulous wedding shoes!!



James supported by team usher:





Cooling castle barn entrance:





The ceremony felt very happy and intimate.











I could have photographed Natasha and James together all day, but I had to let them escape back to their guests at some point.





I LOVE this image. Its definitely going on my website.








Natasha's dad's speech:



Himali dishing the dirt on her sister:



James' brother and best man Andy pretended to be nervous before going on to deliver a great speech:



Which included these lovely new sporting outfits:



First dance:



Congratulations guys, and thanks again xxx

Well, thats me all done in this country then. In a couple of days I will be flying out to Delhi and then on to Bangkok to meet up with my gorgeous husband for a long awaited reunion - how exciting!! We'll be leaving shortly after that for our new place in New Zealand. I'm nervous, excited, happy, tired and a few other emotions too. We've been planning this for so long I can't believe we are going to stand on our land in Dunedin, look out on the view... and then, um, build a house.

As everyone knows, we'll miss people here loads but are definitely expecting lots of visitors - if you come early enough you can help to build the guest bedroom!

Ash and Debbie's Wedding

When Debbie and Ash hired me to photograph their wedding back in the spring, I was so excited about the gorgeous little village church, the horse and cart, the marquee and the glorious summer weather! So as me and Emma drove to Debbie's parent's house on Saturday under threatening clouds I wondered if it could all go ahead as planned. I needn't have been concerned at all though, because with meticulous planning from both bride and groom's families and such excitement and happiness about the wedding, the day was a great success despite a torrential downpour in the middle(!) Debbie and Ash were like glamourous film stars gliding through everything in a serene and stylish way.

I processed most of my shots to be black and white or vintagy since they all just seemed to suit it. Here is Bella the flower girl, a perfect model for the camera:



This is the only bouquet I have ever photographed that smelt gorgeous! Which I imagine would be great before a ceremony if you're a nervous bride - you can just dig your nose in there...



Debbie. There's something old-fashioned about this image that I like.



The confetti wrapped in music scores:




Awwww. The glamour of it!




This is just before the surprise torrential downpour. Observant blog readers will notice a clue in the picture:










Lush!!



It stopped raining so we were able to get some coupley shots.






Attempting to feed the cows:



Incase you can't recognise it from this photo, the dessert was pavlova with raspberries, fresh cream and raspberry coulis.



I love the way that Debbie's mum is looking at her husband speaking here. It was the part of his speech where he was talking about how lucky he was to marry her.




First dance:





And some dancing photos - here are three that I like. Love this guy's expression!







Thanks Debbie and Ash for being such patient and good natured photo subjects. Hope you have a wonderful honeymoon - in India! Of course you can read my in-depth travel review below (joke!) xx

Our house plans

So, its not long now until October when I'll be in New Zealand with Steven starting to build our straw bale house. I'm so excited!

Here are the room plans. These bits of the plan don't show the wide decking that will be on the front and side of the house that will lead onto the garden, so you'll have to imagine that. The doors to the north (on this drawing) of the ground floor are big french doors and windows that will lead onto the deck, where we are going to have seating to the right (under the kitchen window) and where Steven wants an outdoor pizza oven. He has spent months and months getting the details just right, so that, for example, we have a kitchen window that slides open so that you can hand out drinks and pizzas without getting in anyone's way.

I designed the kitchen and it has a built in wine rack and cocktail cabinet (of course), and a nice big breakfast bar.

There will be stairs to the south (in this drawing) of the house with a study area to the side.

Click on the image for a larger view if you like.


Here is the upstairs. Its going to have a sloping roof on two sides, so the bedroom looks huge here but some of that space will be under the roof. The reading area is just going to be a space with a balcony looking down onto the living room with books and comfy chairs, and the thing in the middle is a bridge to access it!

One more thing. Matt has done the drawing for us so that the size of each straw bale is defined (they're big!). The walls are going to be half a metre thick because thats how big the straw bales will be.

I plan for the house to be finished next April, giving us 6 months to build. Whenever I say that my dad and my sister raise a quizzical eyebrow because they've been watching too many Grand Designs programmes where there is always a major disaster/delay before the final set of adverts. Fingers crossed then!