I have WAY too much fun at weddings. It should be illegal? Maybe it is?
Thanks to Matt Barwick

james day highlight reel from Matt Barwick on Vimeo.

I have to be honest, in the past few days, my diet & exercise has really lacked consistency. When you’re away from home, it’s difficult to keep these things up. In the past week and a half, I’ve been all over the country. Started in Armidale, flew to Sydney to photograph the wedding of Liang & Serena with the guys from StillMotion, then I went to Melbourne to help with the StillMotion melbourne workshop.. then to Brisbane for the QLD Australian Institute of Professional Photography conference, which is called Hair of the Dog. Yesterday however, I was a bit naughty and skipped the conference to check out a new movie called “The Hurt Locker”, and also to visit the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. I’d like to share with you a few images that I took with my friend Tim Harris at the GoMA.

This was probably my favourite exhibit in the gallery. It was of a deer made up of lots of glass balls. yes, it was a male one and it had balls!

This is Tim, he is cool.

This is me. I have a strange looking head, huh?

I’m currently in a fitness challenge with a fellow photographer Antony Hands (www.northcoastphotography.com.au) and it is a race to be the first to 100kg. We are neck and neck. This guy can pretty much lose weight by making very simple changes it seems, yet there are people like me who have to work their butt off to see any progress. So, as I said, it’s a fitness challenge.. and the loser has to wear a t shirt 2 sizes too small with the slogan “I’m a fat bastard” on it, for 3 days, in public. I really don’t want to lose this one.

Today, I’d like to share with you my recent training schedule & diet changes I’ve made that have helped me lose weight and gain muscle. I was finding that after photographing a wedding I was in so much pain that I just needed to do something to get me back in shape.
In the past, I’ve actually worked as a personal trainer (when I was 18) and have been in great shape in the past. By default though, I carry a lot of extra weight.

I was weighing in at up to 124kg, but now I’m at about 108kg. Also, my waist measurement has gone from 124cm to 111cm. I believe your weight isn’t necessarily the best way to determine weight loss, but to have another measurement such as your waist measurement it shows you more accurately if you’ve lost weight as you don’t generally put on a lot of muscle in those areas and muscle can throw out your weight goals.

What I have been doing to lose weight is as follows, and I thought i’d share it to inspire any of you who are looking to get in shape.

Diet - Breakfast.
2 poached eggs on 2 pieces of multi grain toast (no butter)

Lunch, generally some sort of salad and meat or fish.

Dinner: Meat and veges (small serving)

I also slip in a high protein meal replacement drink throughout the first 2/3 of the day somewhere to boost my protein intake to help muscle growth.

I also am only drinking water for the rest of the liquids.

Extreme Cardio:
7am 6 days a week -
Walking warm up for a few minutes.
a short jog.
Then I sprint.
I rate every sprint out of 10. I start with a 4/10, then go to a 5/10, 6/10 and so on and so forth until I reach 9/10 and I do 6 of those. I don’t have a great deal of time for exercise, but this really gets the heart going and I am notice weight loss and also my muscles are strengthening and my heart seems to be coping better with exercise as a result.

Weight training
5 or 6 afternoons a week I will lift weights with a set of dumbbells that go up to 40kg. I mainly focus on the upperbody as I basically get my leg workout with my sprinting as it is quite hard on my muscles.

I keep my workouts short and to the point. As far as I know, if you exercise for too long, you actually encourage your body to go into a catabolic state (muscle breakdown) which is not what I’m after. I am looking to increase muscle as muscle is metabolically active and uses energy just by existing, which will help keep the weight off long term. I’m not looking for a quick fix.

Let’s hope I win. Otherwise I will be a fat bastard..

Contestant number 1: me!

Contestant number 2: Antony with his beautiful wife MaryAnn. This is a photo from a shoot I did of them a few months back.It really kills me to put this awful text over this photo, but for the sake of good fun, I thought it would be ok!

Until I move to Sydney, I’m spending some time out at my mums house, which is 36km out of Armidale… and I love driving out here.. so relaxing! It’s so nice being back at home with mum.. she looks after me so well. Tonight was pretty cool.. after taking these pics, mum and I played Darts and I got the first ever bullseye on their new dart board. It’s also been nice having no phone reception at night.. it causes you to just switch off.
Welcome to my mum’s house!

this is my mum and my step dad. This is looking through the kitchen window… I got out of the washing up by saying I was going to take photos of the garden!!!

Here’s proof!

My mum is so beautiful!

I am going to be outstaying my welcome I think…

This is where I got my good looks from

Except, I now look like a criminal now that I have got my hair cut…Thanks mum for this photo! You would make quite the photographer!!!

Mum’s not the tallest of people..

This got me out of cleaning up…

But I think they enjoyed it anyway… (taken through the window)

This was what happened to the last visitor..

Murray is quite the farmer.. and I have so many amazing memories on that Quad…

I’ve been sprinting every morning and lifting weights every night in mums “studio”…

I love pulling up every night and having the Dogs greet me. They have three dogs, named Bonny, Tim & Gemma.

Only problem is.. the car gets a bit dusty out here!

Love. It’s something that I’m learning a slight amount more about every day that passes. One thing that I think i’m learning the most about to do with love, is patience. Patience isn’t something that comes easily for me. I get frustrated with myself when things take longer than I think they should.

I get frustrated with myself that I don’t blog anywhere near enough. Tonight however, as you can see I am doing my thing and catching up on blogging a wedding.

Kate & Nathan are in love, and they asked me to photograph a day that was made because of the love that they share. For that opportunity, I am forever grateful.

A very exciting project announcement is currently being readied for public broadcast & I cannot wait to share it with you!

Me, as a kid, in Hanna’s arcade where my studio currently is.

Over the years, Armidale has been  way too good to me. This is the town where I was born, where I have spend the majority of my life & the town that supported me when I had very little experience in the field that I am now well immersed in.

I am sad to announce this, but I am moving from this wonderful little city. I will miss you all.

I won’t be a stranger to Armidale though. With so many of you having booked me for weddings in the region and with me still welcoming bookings for Armidale, it means I will be back!

Without making too much of a fuss, I would just like to share a few details about what has lead to this decision, and what adventures I plan on chasing this year!

The small town that I plan to relocate to, in the next month is Sydney. It’s a small town of about 4 million people, on the coast of NSW. Heard of it?

Why am I going? I simply feel lead to go there. I have learnt over the years to follow my heart, and my heart is saying it’s time to go. Whenever I have been faithful to my heart in the past, it has lead to many wondrous things. I don’t want to miss out on whatever it is that is drawing me there.

My good friend Jesh De Rox gave me the guts to be able to even contemplate a move this big. He says that young kids are genius because they have just as much fun knocking down their sandcastles as they have building them. I have a great life here in Armidale, but perhaps I’m getting a little comfortable, perhaps it’s time to shake things up and do some rebuilding?

I’m glad to know that I won’t be *leaving anyone behind*. I’d like to put in a request that you’ll let me keep all of you that I love in my heart and that you would come on this adventure with me. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing amount of people in my life that open up their heart to me, and if it’s possible, I pray that this distance might draw us closer together.

I have enjoyed having a studio in Armidale, which I will be sad to leave, but I believe the changes that I have planned for this year will free me up to explore my artistic side. I see every day just how powerful images that present a strong message can be. I want to focus all of my efforts into creating images that will move people, that will inspire artistic souls and that will serve as a window back to a place that we are so eager to revisit. Anything that I can do to simplify my life will only help this happen, thus I will not be opening a shop front studio in Sydney, but simply go where ever I need to go.

Please, can I ask a favour. With moving to Sydney, there are going to be all sorts of new pressures that I would like to try and avoid. One of them is financial. If you believe in me and my work and you are wondering what you might be able to to help me as I venture into the unknown, then here are a few ideas.

*Perhaps updating your facebook status/twittering mentioning my website and inviting people to view the images.

*Contacting someone you know who may benefit from knowing about my photography, either an aspiring photographer or someone who may wish to commission me to photograph for them.

*If you’ve been considering a photoshoot with me, I’d encourage you to contact me and tell me about your dreams for it! I’d love to meet the people in your life that you love and get a glimpse of your love for them, and theirs for you.

Here is a video I made before Christmas that I’d like to share with you. Apologies for the delay in getting it onto the blog.

James Day’s Christmas Video. from James Day on Vimeo.

So much love,

James.

Back in early August, on my return from north america, I spent the afternoon with 2 of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met.  Lashaye & Mark’s love for each other was so evident in all the moments I shared with them and it shows in their photographs.  I am uber excited to be photographing their wedding tomorrow in Newcastle. These images were taken around the CBD of Sydney. Now there is a twist, Lashaye and I used to date.. and no It wasn’t weird photographing her engagement and it will be awesome to shoot her wedding.. people move on!

In other news, after Lashaye & Mark’s wedding in newcastle, I will be travelling to Perth for a Jesh De Rox workshop. Jesh is one of the finest photographers in the world and I always come back super inspired after seeing Jesh.

On Saturday, 31st of October, two beautiful souls made a committment to each other, a committment “always & forever” to be life partners, best friends, and be married in Bundaberg, QLD.

I met Pete & Toni a few years ago at one of their friends weddings in Moree and when it was time for them to be married, I got an email from them asking if I would be able to be their photographer. 

I became not only their photographer, but a close friend I’d like to think. Also, after their engagement shoot Toni went away and wrote a song for my website, which is the 3 words song that you’ve heard on here before! Well today, we are introducing a new song called “Always & Forever”. Toni wrote this song for Pete as a surprise for the wedding day and it played while they signed the register. The song will now be available on the website along with the old favourite “3 words”.

We had some stunning locations to photograph, including the Bundaberg Rum Factory, an old boat wreck area, and a nice open field at the very last light. I couldn’t have asked for any more!

Here are a few images from the wedding, although I feel that I may end up doing a second post with more images at some point in the future.

Pete thought I was a bit weird when I asked him to stand on a bench in the kitchen. There was a skylight in the room and it created the coolest light. I showed him the image on the back of the camera and he didn’t think I was too weird afterwards

I added this pic to my facebook after the wedding, and judging by the amount of comments, it was rather popular!

This was at the super famous Bundaberg Rum Factory.

I love that last bit of light just after the sun dissapears from view.

I just had to include a shot of this little guy, he ripped up the dancefloor all night (right next to me).

Hey guys,

On Wednesday last week, I went on my very first photo shoot with James. It was like nothing either of us have done before. We went out to Blue Hole to shoot Emily and Pru Stark doing some dance poses in some fantastic outfits. Pru is  now one of the only people in the world who can say she went swimming at Blue Hole in the rain in a tutu

When we got there James put a camera in my hand and told me to go for it. To start with I just took photos of what ever James told the girls to do but after a while I put a few of my ideas in as well. My most important job on the shoot was to get Pru up on top of large rocks and then get her back down again… that made for some interesting grazes and cuts on the bottom of my feet, although I didn’t notice at the time because I was having too much fun.

Another of my very important jobs was to hold onto Emily so that she didn’t go floating off down the river and falling off waterfalls, I was wet in my jeans up to my knee so I figured I might as well get in the water and join in with the girls. We had some fun doing hair flicks in the water while James kept taking photos and laughing at out facial expressions as we came out of the water.

It was rather cold when we got out which might prompt some people to call what we did crazy, but I call it commitment to the job.

Feel free to check out the few pics posted on the blog and remember, if you want you contact me, send your thoughts to laura@3words.com.au

Laura.

This is the product of my pain… it took a lot to get her up there and even more to get her down.

I love this shot, the dress is amazing and Emily is stunning.

I took this shot, of the ones i took, it’s definitely in my top 5.

Pru on pointe, She’s talented this one.

Me looking photographerishness.

James being the boss.

Hi! I’m Laura,

I am James Day’s brand new employee.

Even though I have only just started today, James has already taught me heaps about what he does and what he hopes for me to be doing while working with him. I have been learning about photoshop and I have been helping to edit some of James’ recent wedding shots. I was suprised to see that a lot of the shots really don’t need much editing because of the way James has used the light and his surrounding to his advantage when actually taking the photo. So for the moment, I will be practicing my editing skills and doing all of James’ running around for him while he does all the important stuff. He WILL teach me the tricks of being a fantastic phtotographer, though, whether he likes it or  not… eventually.

And I’m going to tell you about me whether YOU like it or not!  I was born in Armidale and i have lived here my whole life so far.  I went to school here up until i finished year 11 when I decided that I wanted to study child care. I finished my certificate three in children’s services and began studying for my diploma. I have always wanted to do something creative for a living so when the opportunity came along to work with James i had to take it, it’s lots of fun and will probably only get better from here.

I am in a constant state of dance, standing still is not an option, I have been taking dance classes since I was 12 and I have improved very slightly I also love sports, I play soccer and hockey though hockey is my favourite, I have been playing since I was 5 and i have actually improved believe it or not. Although I can’t play an instrument my self anymore, I barely ever go anywhere with out music. I love to listen to Angus and Julia Stone, Regina Spektor, Gomez and Death cab for cutie, to name a few. One of my favourite bands ever are the Discards. (Who James photographed, by the way) So check that out. I enjoy eating raw fish, yes I could live on sushi if I had to.

I’m looking forward to getting to know you all through this blog and at weddings or wherever I may meet you.

Laura

p.s. If you would like to contact me, my email address is laura@3words.com.au