Larissa, Ian, Max, and Ethan | Wellington Family Photography

This is the part I love....becoming a photographer for life.   I was incredibly lucky to photograph Larissa and Ian at their beautiful wedding and reception. Max featured there but he was significantly shorter at that time.  What a little character he has turned into!  I had heard that Ethan had come on the scene but I did not know how gorgeous he was.  My favourite shot is definitely the top one where he was walking the "catwalk" for me.  He thought it was hysterical....so did I!

Lucy Lou Legwear

Had a lovely shoot yesterday with Lauren, Emma, and Jepha all celebrating LucyLou Legwear.  The coolest thing about Lucy Lou Legwear is that she has a way for you to design your own......so of course we had  A La Mode tights made...they are available on her website.  I love them!!!!  She has promised to get some made in Plus sizes for me later....very happy about this. 

Renee and Amandine did the makeup and hair, Jepha and Lauren's top was from Goodness, Emma's Top photographers own. 

Angelic Arianna | Wellington Teen Photographer

This gorgeous creature is Arianna.  Her mum works for our framers and after seeing our work come through she decided that a photoshoot with us would be the perfect thing for her daughter.  What a cool mum.  Arianna came in with her mother and for the life of me I couldn't make eye contact with her.  I thought "oh boy, this might be a wee challenge."  Nah....her mum left to go back to work and we stuck her in the hair and make up chair.  As the makeup went on the girl started blossoming...by the time we started on the braids we had a down right chatty little thing...then we fed her pineapple lumps and that was it...she was off and ready to pose....and not just posing politely...she was twirling and leaping in the air.  We had a complete and utter blast.  It was fantastic!  I love tweens they are one moment a playful young girl and the next minute you see the woman they will become pulling to the surface.  And oh my goddess is it a beautiful thing to behold!

The Why of A La Mode

The Why of A La Mode:

A La Mode is a playground for Artists and Muses
With the soul purpose of capturing a persons inner crackle, fizz, and whistle and turn it into a piece of art.
We are soul and spirit chasers and diviners.
We want to get into our muses heads and find out what makes them tick, get excited, and happy...then we create art that celebrates them and their passions.
We remind women that they are feminine creatures...adorable, loveable, and powerful.
We remind men that they are masculine, loving, and amazing.
We get down and roll around and really play with the kids we are gifted playtime with.
We explore and push boundaries, we see how far we can go and what new horizon we can cross.
We are always learning, reaching, growing, and pushing our crafts to the next level.
We really just love people...in all of their shapes and sizes, ages and stages.
We are curious creatures and we fall in love easily...with the babies who come to play...with the kids...with the parents..  We want to be part of the lives of these gorgeous creatures and so we push ourselves to dazzle with our visual story telling..because we plan on always becoming the family photographer for life.
Every muse that comes to visit us is a treasure...a gift from the wonderful and we are blessed to be able to celebrate that.


Most of all we just love to play...who wants to come and join us?

Body Painting at A La Mode Photographic Boutique

Just thought I would show you a bit of the mischief we have been getting up to over the last few weeks. We have bought a slew of body paints for Amandine to show off her mad skills....look at some of the things she has come up with.

Free Range Kids Book

It has been a long time in coming with the move from the studio but I am slowly but surely getting through the images that I took at the beginning of the year for our Free Range Kids book.  Here is a sampling of some of those shoots with the gorgeous Howsen girls.  Aren't  they just delicious.

Fishhead Magazine | December Jan 2012

LeeAnne wrote the nicest article about me...what a sweetheart...If you get a chance have a thumb through Fishhead and tell me what you think.   :)

The week of Nudes | Wellington Nude Photographer

It was an interesting week for me.  It started with my birthday party at Riversdale beach and with Jepha and Amandine deciding that what they really needed to do was to strip down and cover themselves in seaweed for the sake of art. Okay that wasn't exactly the way it went.  First I went for a "run" on the beach and found this incredibly cool piece of seaweed that looked like something out of Xena warrior princess...kind of like a breast plate of leather but it was actually seaweed...Had been planing a Sea Goddess shoot with Kaarin the costume tutor at Toi Whakaari and figured we could have a trial run, pilot of the concept first.   Walked a couple of k's down the beach to a group of rocks I loved for their rhythm...as well as ability to hide behind if any locals decided it would be a good idea to have a beach walk on a drizzly day.   The seaweed was attempted but soon abandoned as good in theory but not in practice and the girls just got their kit off instead and posed amongst the rocks.  It was pure experimentation and play and from the shoot there were a couple of images that I loved. There was absolutely no hair and makeup this was just Amandine and Jepha as they were that day. Here is the beginnings of work on one I took of Amandine.  Posing nudes really helps you to get your head around posing that is for sure.  We had two close encounters with locals driving by on their quadbikes and practiced the art of camouflage and distraction....ie Amandine merged with a rock while I jumped around and generally tried to draw attention to me and away from her.  Seemed to work as they just went on their way.

I really adore photographing the female form.  When I was a kid I never really had the obligatory teen heart throb images on my walls (except for that one of the lead singer of Duran Duran Mwwaahhh)...no mostly it was preRaphelite paintings like this:

With a sprinkling of Renaissance and   paintings as well.   I love classical posing.  It is demure but incredibly concious of the beautiful curves of a woman's body.  This is what I love...celebrating the curves of real woman and showing them as they are but in their most beautiful light...if that makes sense.

There must have been some energy created by all of that au naturale play as for the rest of the week every woman that came into the studio decided to take their kit off in one form or another.  An artist came in and had herself photographed so that she can paint a picture for her husband for his 50th that he will not soon forget.   One of our muses posed artfully covered by fabric and holding chandelier crystals that were special to her....beautiful.  The final muse went out to our farm with us and we recreated some modern version of a JH Lynch painting that she loved in a swamp area that is there then we did some wood nymph, sexy vamp, and mermaid style shots in the rivers beach.

  I can't show you their pictures as they are private for them but we did take some video of the hair and make up we did for these gorgeous creatures and hope to have it up on the site in the next couple of weeks so have a look out for that.  All of the women that did these shoots were in their late thirties or early 40's.  They wanted to capture that amazing point in their life.  It is a magical time I feel where a woman really comes into her own skin.  The twenties and early thirties at least for me were all about rejection of the beautiful gift of my body...But in my late thirties I am finally feeling like I belong in it....it is mine with all of its lumps and bumps and it has served me well this long.   Sure there are parts that are not as amazing as other parts but they are my non amazing parts...now I think i will have to start looking for someone to photograph me too. :).

Getting up now to go do another one actually now that I think about it....Brilliant a nude day is always a good day.   :)

Nat and Peaches Wedding | Wellington Wedding Photographer

Dias De Los Muertos | Wellington Portrait Photographer

In an impromptu moment we decided to run a competition for someone to be made up to celebrate Dias De Los Muertos.  Bridget and Emily were our winners and we had an absolute blast doing these shoots.  We had decided we wanted to be a bit more romantic in our treatment as by the time we started looking on line it looked like dias de los muertos had been done to death.  So here are our romantically inspired undead girls.  Hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed shooting them.