The people you love today, may not be here tomorrow. Love today.

Emma & Kurt are my new friends, whom I met recently when they chose me to become their wedding photographer. I love them both dearly & cannot wait to photograph their wedding on the 10th of December this year on the central coast. Here’s an insight into the love that flowed during their time with me a few weeks ago around manly beach.

On the 17th of January I left Armidale with a group of friends on my way to a Christian Youth Leadership conference in Katoomba called NextGen. I pulled over and bought some oil as I thought the oil was low. It was. We went on our merry way and I noticed Smoke coming from the engine and the exhaust. We pulled over & called the NRMA to help us out. 5 hours later we were back on the road. They said I put too much oil in the engine. I have no clue about cars. On the 18th of July, we finally got to Katoomba after having to stop in Sydney overnight because of the massive delay. We turned up late to the conference and I had no idea where to go for the first group meeting. I saw a beautiful young lady walking towards me and thought she looked like a friendly soul so I told her I was lost and asked whether she knew where I needed to go. She was very helpful and helped me find exactly where I needed to be. Later in the day me and a few friends decided to head into the city of Katoomba to go to a Cafe. Just as we were about to go, I saw the same girl and asked her if she would like to join us. The girls name was Catherine.

It didn’t take me long to develop an attraction to this girl especially when I kept hearing about all these guys on the same camp that liked her. I decided I’d just back off and let them go. I figured I still had unfinished business with an ex so it was probably wise not to have another girl to think about. So I did my best to ignore her.

On the last day, we were in a rush to leave as I had to come back to photograph a wedding the next day. Just as I was about to leave I saw Catherine talking to my friends. I thought, what the heck I’ll ask her if she uses facebook. She was very eager in her response to let me know how I could find her on fb. I thought, wow this girl is eager I was happy about that.

We both went back to our home towns. Cath lived in Sydney & I lived in Armidale, but had plans to move to Sydney a month or two later.

Then we became fb friends and started communicating through facebook.

Then Cath invited me to a church event that she had organised. It just so happened that I was going to be in Sydney that weekend that it was on. Well that’s what I told her. I was at the Central Coast for my buddy Rayne’s bucks party weekend away and would have to skip half the event to see Cath. Oh how the boys gave me crap about the decision to go. I was constantly heckled for ditching the boys for a girl I barely know.

When I got there, I purposely sat nowhere near Cath. Her identical twin sister Jane (who incidentally is dating a wedding photographer) made room for me to sit opposite Cath at this restaurant and ushered me over. I was trying to play cool. After this we kept talking on the phone & hung out a few more times.

At this point in my life I had absolutely nothing stopping me. I was single & about to move to Sydney in a few weeks and so I just asked her out. That was March 12th, 2010.

Bring it forward to June 12, 2010, exactly 3 months after we started dating. Catherine, my now girlfriend was in Canberra on her Occupational Therapy prac and I decided to go visit her. I handed her a chocolate in the shape of an M. The following day she received an A.. then an R.. then another R..and so on until it spelt out M A R R Y M E.

At this point, it was still a statement and not a question yet. The next morning I picked her up super early and took her back to the place we went on our first date in Cronulla. I had put together a picnic basket with lots of Cath’s favourite foods. I had organised my photographer buddies Matt & Katie to come to Sydney to photograph the proposal as it happened, without Cath knowing they were there photographing us. I pointed them out to her and we ended up making up a story about who these people might be and what they were photographing. Katie became “Nikon girl with Boots” as she was shooting with a Nikon & had some pretty epic boots on.

I made it seem like I was going to propose there by Cronulla Beach, then we simply left and I started driving her home and told her it was just a big tease and that she would have to wait for the proposal.

Then I pulled over on the side of the road out the front of a small handmade chocolate shop called Nina’s that is right near Cath’s place. The time was 8:45am and the shop wasn’t due to open until 9am. I knocked on the door and had preorganised with the owner George to be there & to let us in. He invited us in, let us taste test anything in the store and showed us around the shop. By this time, my friends Matt & Katie were standing in the factory behind the counter dressed up as though they worked in the store & putting together boxes for the chocolates to go in. Then George told us he had something special to show us. He walked out with a treasure chest made of chocolate with a ? on the top of it. He placed it in my hands & I got down on one knee and told Cath, among other things that she was my treasure & I love her and I didn’t even want to spend another day without her in my life and would she please marry me. At this point Matt & Katie have their cameras in hand taking photos & shooting video. Now we can share the story with you

FAQ:
Q. Did she say yes
A. She said yes.

Q. Did I ask her dad?
A. I asked/told her dad. I didn’t want to give him room to say no though

Q. When will you get married?
A. God willing, we will be married on the 4th of December, 2010 in Sydney.

Q. Did I pick the ring?
A. Yes, with her identical twin sisters help.

Q. Did she love it?
A. Yes.

Q. Who will photograph the wedding?
A. The guy who originally trained me. His name is Simon James. We’re so stoked to have Simon.

James and Cath - Engaged! from Matt E on Vimeo.

On the 7th of November 2008 I blogged Lisa & Luke’s Wedding and since then a beautiful friendship blossomed between myself and these people who begun as clients. I would see them at their friends weddings who they referred me to and we would send little gifts back and forth. It’s exchanges like these that I am after in my life. Something real and something that keeps on giving even after it would be fair to stop. Recently Lisa asked me if I would be able to photograph their baby girl Jorjah in Port Macquarie.

I can’t imagine what could look more like love than this?

thank you for being here, my dear friends.

JD

You can’t take life too seriously sometimes.

Love looks like…

I’m discovering it’s the moments apart when Love can gather up the energy to be fully expressed in the moments that are spent together. I love, and I yearn for that person when I’m away from them.. and I am grateful to have someone to yearn for. Thank you, my love.

Love is a choice. A choice to put another person first. A choice to be fascinated by every little detail. A choice to take notice of the small things. A choice to care. A choice to protect. A choice to let go. A choice to dream, together. Seeing people make the choice to love is something I’m blessed to see every day with my new friends that I meet. It’s my plan to show you what my new friends love looks like, as regularly as possible on this Journal. What does your love look like?

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!