Are you looking for fundraising ideas for a kinder/school/play group or similar?

I recently ran a family mini-session fundraiser at a local kinder.  It is a great way for the families to update their photos when they do not want a full session-worth of images, and a really easy way for the organisation to raise money.  Now is the perfect time to book a session for term 3, allowing time to get the photos back before the end of the year!

For more information, please email me at sharon@sharonfyfe.com.au or call me on 0408 686 632.

And the photos!

I was talking to someone the other day, and they asked me if my blog was working, as it had not been updated in quite a while.  Ummm, 3 months, to be exact.

Oops.  So I really thought it is about time I posted.

My last post was on the 2/4.

This shot was taken of my gorgeous 2.5 year old on the 5/4 when we were playing out the front of our house.

On April 7th, Stuart, Hannah and myself went to help my brother-in-law and his family move out to Metung.  For anyone who doesn’t know, that is approximately 4 hours from Melbourne.  We stayed the night at Lakes, then had a rather harrowing trip home again on the 8th. (NB: do NOT trust the iPhone GPS program when you are 3 hours from Melbourne in the middle of the night – 40k’s of dirt tracks and wombat dodging was really not fun at 10pm!)

On April 10th we went to a family get together.  The kids were playing on a trampoline with my husband, while myself and my aunt stood at the edge watching on.  It was one of those super safe, spring free, fully enclosed type trampolines.

Toby was standing in the middle.  No-one was jumping, as Hannah was just climbing on.  Then he took a step.  And broke his leg.  Not just any bone – his femur – the strongest bone in the body.   Apparently it had something to do with how he stepped – he just put pressure on the wrong spot and twisted the bone, but we are also currently looking at bone strength issues.

These were taken on the 12th as we were preparing to take him home from the hospital.  He was trying out the special trolley that we were given to move him around on, as he was not able to sit in the cast.

So for the next 5 or so weeks (thankfully little bones heal quickly!) this is how Toby spent his days:

He was not able to go to creche any more, as they did not feel they had the numbers to provide suitable care for him, so I became his full time carer.  The cast went from over his belly button down to his ankle on one leg, and his knee on the other, with a bar to hold them steady.  Transporting him in the car involved a special harness to strap him flat across the back seat… and, well, you get the idea.

About a week before he was due to get the cast off, we welcomed a new addition into our household.

So in addition to caring for a restless, immobile 2.5 year old, I also had a very adorable 8 week old pup to house train! (I should add here – the race is currently on at the moment to see who is housebroken first – Toby, or the puppy.  At the moment I think both teams are happy to lose).

Around the middle of May the cast finally came off.  3 weeks later Toby finally learnt to walk again.

Early in June I had the fantastic experience of attending my first PMA (national photography trade show) and meeting up with many other photographer friends from all over the country.  In addition to this the show was also the location for the judging of the APPAs (Australian Professional Photography Awards), run by the AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photography).  This year was my first year, not only attending, but also entering the competition.  I had 3 images entered – two in the new Family section, and one in Travel.

The two in the family section were awarded 77 and 79 (Merit), which I was very happy with.  Much to my surprise, the photo I had added as an afterthought in the travel section was awarded 83 – a Silver award!

These are the images:

And, just incase life was not busy enough, we decided that it was time to create a designated “studio” area, so the last few weeks have been spent rearranging the house to clear the front room.  So I will soon be launching a new studio for maternity, newborn and young babies!  The first session to be held there is coming up next weekend, so watch this space.

So that is a vague overview of why this blog has been so sadly neglected these months past.  I do have a rather large backlog of client work to blog – I will try to get on tomorrow and do a catch up post!

We are just about to sit down for Hot Cross Buns – YUM!

Long weekends for me generally mean catch up time, while there is someone else in the house to take care of the teething 2 year old, and the 4 year old chatterbox!

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend a lovely afternoon with this gorgeous little lady and her family.  I hope you enjoy your preview!

I truly believe I have the best job in the world.  Professional chocolate taster?  Nup – you have nothing on what I do!  And kids like this little guy are exactly why.

We had a really lovely time exploring just some of what there was to offer at a new location I had been itching to hold a shoot at, and I really could not have asked for a better family to test the spot with!

Thank you for a lovely morning, and I hope you enjoy your sneak peek!

These boys are two of the most gorgeous kids I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Whoever said never to work with kids or animals were so far wrong in this case.  (Well… to be completely honest, the kangaroos were not really all that co-operative… but the boys made up for it).

I hope you enjoy the sneak peek as much as I have been enjoying working through this session!

What nicer welcome home from 6 weeks OS could there be than a trip to the beach?

This session proved rather tight to schedule – I flew in from a 24 hour travel stint (with a 2 year old and a 4 year old) back from S.E. Asia at about midday, and the oldest brother flew home to Perth early the following morning!  So I made the huge sacrifice of sitting down for a short break when we got in, and then leaving Stuart with 2 grumpy, tired kids and a huge amount of luggage to unpack, and took off for an evening at the beach.

There seems to be a bit of an upside down theme happening at the moment!

The 5 brothers!

As the parents have asked not to be shown on the blog, and with the large age gap between the older boys and the younger ones, I have had the occasional person ask me about the “photos with the two dads” so just to make things clear, this is the oldest brother with his lovely lady…

Thanks, guys, for yet another lovely session!

I am so far behind with blogging right now – probably conveniently, given the circumstances.  This session was actually held early January, just after we got back from our 6 week overseas holiday.  This is the second session (the first having been held the evening of the day we arrived home!) but I figured that this was a more appropriate start to the new blog.

This adorable little Miss is the second most awake baby I have ever worked with (the award for the most awake baby going to her big brother).

Despite some beautiful big yawns, this gorgeous girl stayed wide awake for the entire session.  She was amazingly content, but nothing was going to get her to nod off.

After we finished in the studio, we went to a nearby park to get some family shots.  Last time I photographed big brother he was a tiny (and VERY alert!) 2 week old.  Now he is a very cute, very active toddler.

Thank you so much for a fantastic day, and it was lovely to meet your absolutely adorable latest addition!  And again, I am so sorry for the post-holiday mess the house was still in!! (We finally cleared out the last of the junk from the last suitcase last weekend! *blush*)

Yes, it is all gone.

Apparently little “no-body in the scheme of things” me was picked by some random people out there in the land of the internet as someone who would like some “help” in programming their website.

Thankfully this happened at a time when I was not using my blog or website, and thankfully any traffic to them would have been all but non-existent before Google ever so kindly picked up that someone had been “helping” with my website, and promptly blocked it… but after being given the all clear from Google once, and then having the “helpful coding” return, I have decided to wipe everything and start from scratch.

So, for the next couple of days (assuming Google actually gives this site the all clear again before I have everything set up again) I will be redoing the blog set-up from scratch.

On the bright side, a fresh start is always a good thing!