When Jane emailed to ask if I could photograph her family, I was SO excited!!  Jane was one of my synchronized swimming coaches during my teen years and was a HUGE contributor to my success in the sport.  I owe her a lot!  She was (and still is) such a role model and I often ask myself "What would Jane do?" :)

I am so happy that we are both living in Durban now so that I can get to know her little boys better. They call all girls "Princesses" and know to treat them like gold.  It's the cutest thing!! I can only hope that if I have boys one day - they end up as wonderful as these two!!

Last weekend I had a great shoot, with a family who were down from the UK for a wedding.  They were such a lovely family to work with, and little Shauny and I were best mates by the time our hour was up and the memory card full!

My friend and I met this morning for a delicious brunch in Dempsey Hill, so we grabbed the opportunity to snatch a few snaps of Cam.  She is growing so much now and getting the CUTEST facial expressions.  It's just such a shame that babies have to sleep so much - I would have loved to have played more with her!

When Ruth told me that Emma loved to swim - I just knew we had to snap a few of her in the water - and let me tell you this...that kid is a true mermaid.

Our 2 hours together were packed with jumping, swinging, swimming and laughing. 

What a day!

Dan decided to propose to Emma at the Botanical gardens - and further surprise her by having family and friends waiting at the Gazebo to celebrate with champagne and strawberries.

The weather was perfect, the sun set was romantic and everyone had a great time. 

Good job Dan!

Maya has the sweetest little smile that totally melts hearts.  She is going to be such a beauty when she grows up....

Monkey boy is the ONLY way I'll remember little Benjamin.  He was such a sweetie with soooo much energy. He was jumping, rolling, hugging, singing, picking banana's off the wall, then actually eating bananas...SHEW! 

But he loves his little brother Yuri  (happiest child in the world by the way) and they were such fun to photograph.  
The boys are Belgian (speak Flemish) and I was thrilled to understand parts of their conversation from my limited Afrikaans I learnt at school. This has to be one of the greatest benefits of photographing in Singapore - the exposure to so many different nationalities and cultures.

Baby Bam Bam's on the way....

Helen and Jason are very good friends of mine, which made my job as the photographer WAY easier.  I knew that when I cracked the odd inappropriate joke that they would laugh instead of frown, and I felt comfortable standing on their bed and rearranging their furniture (only to not use that room at all - sorry guys!)

When I say that we laughed the whole way through, I'm not exaggerating.  It was SUCH fun!

We allowed ourselves plenty of time so that we could be spontaneous and stop when we felt inspired.  We met in Haji Lane and made our way down to Fika (a Swedish coffee shop) for a coffee&Cake break.  YUM!!! We then headed over to Helen&Jason's house and continued there until the sun was down.

I think that the photos show just how happy we all were to be together making memories.

Jason&Helen - when Bam Bam arrives, please remember that you have a personal photographer, babysitter, burper, nappy changer, nursery song singer, play dough maker, lego builder (and what ever else you need!)... just down the road.

Lots of love
Derryn

Always a bit of time for fun and games!!

What a BLAST! 

For this shoot, I decided to hire my dream equipment...Nikon D700 and the Nikon 35mm 1.4 lens. Testing it out allowed me to see if this was really what I wanted to blow my savings on.  Decision - YES!! This shoot has further encouraged me to save and keep fighting for that camera. I will make it happen! Who needs food and toilet paper, right? :)

I taught Millie synchronized swimming for a while and always knew that her and her vivacious little sister would be good subjects to photograph.  We finally found a gap in their busy schedules and I squeezed an afternoon shoot into it.  Because we were under time constraints, we decided to do the shoot at their home, and man am I glad.  It allowed us to go crazy with outfits and props, and the light that filtered through the big windows through out the house was every photographers dream.

Both girls were a little shy at first and wouldn't allow the other or their Mom to watch, but they soon loosened up and Libby turned out to be an amazing assistant to Millie. I said to Libby, "When Millie's a famous super model you can travel around the world with her assisting on shoots."  Absolutely horrified, she put her hands on her hips and with a frown responded, "But I'M gonna be the famous one!"  The photos below certainly show a little super model in the making.

Caroline was great as well - although she wouldn't allow me to photograph her, she fed me wine: "To allow the creativity to flooowwwww!"

Libby, ready to help her big sis at any moment...

Great Idea to spin the umbrella - but I forgot to warn Libby of the dangers....

While Millie was having her turn, Libby was told to wait inside - she made sure not to miss out on ANY of the action!!