In 2006 I went to Holland a couple of time for work. We have an office in Vianen 50 milometers outside Amsterdam.

I normally don't take a lot of photos when I go there, but if you click on the link below then you can see some of the ones I did take.


Click here to see more photos from:Holland/Slideshow

Mid 2006 I went with Soeren and his family (visiting from Thailand) to Thredbo to do some skiing. We drove down there Friday night and returned Sunday night. Thredbo is located in the Australian Alps 5 hours drive south of Sydney.

Generally the skiing conditions are pretty good, but last year was pretty bad, but we did get some skiing done.


Click here to see more photos from:Skiing in Australia 2006/Slideshow

In early 2006 I went a trip to Seattle for our annual kick-off event.

Some of us flew over there a few days early to go skiing in Wanatchee east of Seattle. If was a weekend of perfect skiing. It was my first time skiing so I took some lessons after which I was doing fine (blue slopes).

During the week we had lots of meetings and dinners. There were award nights as well as just social nights where we could meet up with the rest of the company.

The following all of us in International went down to Crystal Mountain at Mount Raineer to do some more skiing. It was a lot of fun and we all had a great time.


Click here to see more photos from: USA/Slideshow

I have a number of photos that don't really justify being in individual albums. I have now added all these photos from 2006 into one album.

Click here to see more photos from: Miscellaneous/Slideshow

In early 2006 my Mum had a stroke while my parents were on holiday in Thailand.

A few months later in April when I was in Europe for work I used the opportunity to go and visit and check up on how my mum is doing.

She is now in a wheelchair and still getting used to finding new ways of doing things.

I didn't do much while I was there, because it was mainly a social visit to help my mum and dad.


Click here to see more photos from: Denmark/Slideshow

I quite regularly head up to the Blue Mountains to go Rock Climbing.

We normally camp overnight and then depending on the weather and temperature decide on the day what walls we are going climbing on. The photos in the gallery are a selection of some of the photos I've taken in 2006, but there will be more to come in 2007.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of photos of me climbing as I tend to forget to pass my camera to someone else.

Most of the time I go with my friend Sarah, but she has now moved to Canberra so she doesn't come up there as often as she used to.


Click here to see more photos from: Climbing in the Blue Mountains/Slideshow

In Mid 2006 I was in Portugal for our International Partner Conference with the company.

It was a week of being busy setting up for the conference, socialising but also a lot of fun and partying.


Click here to see more photos from:Portugal/Slideshow

During the year I took a number of photos in Sydney. If you would like to know what the inner city of Sydney looks like then have a look at this photo collection.



Click here to see more photos from: Sydney/Slideshow

In 2005 I managed to do a fair bit of climbing. Sarah and her boyfriend at that time were climbing almost every weekend and climbing with them definitely boosted my confidence and allowed me to increase the difficulty of the climbs I was able to tackle.

The photo below is a photo of me climbing at Centenial Glen.

Click here to see more photos from: Climbing 2005/Slideshow

I went a trip to Calgary (as well as to Seattle) in the end of 2005. It was lots of meetings and in Calgary we were invited to provide input to our workflow product from the field.

While we were there they had the Chinook, which is a warm wind that appear during the winters...so during the day it was really pleasant.

One night we went to see a game of ice hockey against the Calgary Flames and Chicago...it was the only game that Calgary lost that season.


Click here to see more photos from: Calgary 2005/Slideshow

Melanie was back for this shoot and in high demand with lots of photographers wanting to photograph her.

I only had the chance when she was with Sophia at the goods elevator as I didn't want to waste a lot of time at some of the other sets standing in line waiting.



Here is one of her and Sophia Angeleena.



And here is a photo someone took of me in action.



Set: Studio 1A Sydney
Model: Melanie Bowers (and Sophia Angelena)
HMUA:
Photo: Rene Pallesen

...and here is Jayden.

This was taken using a large octabox to the right of the camera.

A lot of work had to go into the post production of this photo. The background had a lot of creases that had to be evened out and it was a fairly tight image because the background was really narrow. I wanted something a little wider so had to expand the background while retaining all the natural shadows. The shadows that are remaining are all natural and I was so-so as to whether they should be worked on some more but in the end I've decided to leave them as they are.




Photo: Rene Pallesen
Model: Jayden S - Ikon model
HMUA: Rachael Bastiaansen
Sets: Studio 1A Sydney

Another model at the photo day was Sophia. She is an experienced model and I have seen some of her other work and it is very nice (https://www.facebook.com/sophia.angeleena.1).

This photo was taken in a goods elevator full of smoke from a smoke machine and then backlit with a bare bulb strobe. The front was lit using a small beauty dish with a sock on it.



Set: Studio 1A Sydney
Model: Sophia Angeleena
Hair: Roxanne Cahill
Makeup: Syham Elomar
Photo/Retouching: Rene Pallesen

One of the sets at the Open day photoshoot was setup with a stroboscopic flash in an octabox to allow capturing movements. The model Bree was covered in a full body silver body paint which looked fantastic.



We would be 5-6 photographers on the set, but only one person would be in control of the trigger and this person also had control of providing instructions to the model. Sometimes the person would give you a countdown, but more often than not they would just say go and then you would pull the trigger and hope that you captured the 2-3 second sequence of flashes.

This was especially difficult because it was all about timing, coordinating the movements and then holding the camera really still (A monopod or tripod would have been great).

What made it especially hard was that the first flash was the strongest followed by a sequence of less powerful flashes. This meant that for some movements you would have to do things in reverse and have the model walk backwards to get what you were after (really hard to look natural). At the same time you would also have to consider the direction of light to make sure that the movements were properly lit.



I had very few usable photos from this session even though I spent a fair bit of time trying to get it right. These are some of the ones I did get.

Set: Studio 1A Sydney
Lighting: Stroboscopic Lighting provided by; http://www.kayellaustralia.com.au/
Model: Bree Williams - www.facebook.com/BriannaWilliamsArtist
HMUA: Jade Little - http://www.alittlemakeupstudio.com/
Photo: Rene Pallesen

Another urban style shoot I did was with this girl.

These were all shot outside using natural light.

For the first time ever did I try some urban style photos with a model named Jamie.

I both did some studio lit shots but also some natural light shots...all good fun.

She is of a Filipino and Spanish background and am represented by IKON Model.

Model: Jamie A - IKON Model, Jamie Aspillaga
HMUA: Syham Elomar 'Doll Face'
Lighting and Sets: Studio 1A Sydney
Photo: Rene Pallesen

The studio lit shots were taken in a lift with a smoke machine and a bale bulb strobe inside the lift. The front is lit by a 15" beauty dish with a sock. f5.6 @ ISO 100.

Model: Taylia Jordan
HMUA: Donna Kalasho
Lighting and Sets: Studio 1A Sydney
Photo: Rene Pallesen




Hard to believe that this is the same girl/model who during the last shoot was in this extravagant hair and makeup. I almost didn't recognise her.

First of many from the photoshoot I did two weeks ago.

Model: Michaela Baranov
HMUA: Roxanne Cahill
Lighting and Sets: Studio 1A Sydney
Photo: Rene Pallesen

Kim and I found a couple of hours to play 9 holes of golf on a short (mostly) par 3 course after not playing for 5 years.

It was nice getting out again after that long time even though it was very windy and freezing.

I realised that I hadn't posted anything from Aidens birthday.

On the weekend we had a bowling birthday party with all the kids (and mum and dad) dressed up as super heroes.

















We also had a family dinner where we celebrated both his, Kayla's and Adams (his cousins) birthdays.

Although we have had a beautiful winter with lots of sunny days and mild daytime temperatures, we have also had some cold mornings.



One morning the car had frost on it and it was only 5 degrees outside (most winter mornings it is 8-10 degrees with 18-22 degree daytime temps).

Last weekend Aiden graduated in his swim class from being a Crab to being a turtle.



He's been in the swim class for a couple of years now and never graduated. He would swim fine with me, but would cry and be scared with the swim teacher.

After our trip to Thailand in June he gained a lot of confidence and was very happy to swim by himself, but the swim teacher was too careful so he was unable to show what a good swimmer he really is. So, last weekend I asked the swim teacher to let him swim with the result that she by the end of the lesson graduated him and moved him to the next class.

He was so proud (and so was his dad).

In the spirit of trying to keep the boys active Kim and I took them of a coastal walk from Coogee to Clovelly on a beautiful winters day.



The water in the little bays were calm and clear.






Half way we sat down and had a snack.



Kim braved it with the aerial yoga.



And the boys were being themselves...best mates.






















They loved being outside and they managed to walk the whole way (bribed by ice cream) even though Lucas on the last stretch was asking to be picked up.

This Sunday we took the boys to Thirlmere trainworks. This is a large train museum with lots of old steam trains.

Here we learned that steam trains in NSW were running up until 1973 which means that we were born in the era of steam trains...makes me feel really old.



We went for a ride on one of the old steam trains (I think I was more excited than the kids).
























As usual Aiden and Lucas were monkeying around being best mates. This is a bus on rails.






This is an instruction carriage used to teach how to operate the brakes on a steam train.

On the day we were flying out it was Kims birthday.

I had arranged a cake for her in the morning ordered through one of the local cafes a couple of days earlier.





The hotel provided a fairly average cream and jam pile that no one ate.

To celebrate Kims birthday she organised for the family to go and see a show called Siam Niramit.

This show was about a 45 minutes drive from the hotel but transport was as usual included (as it is in pretty much all activities you organise).





Unfortunately Kims dad couldn't join us as he had been severely dehydrated from not drinking enough water and wearing too many clothes in the heat.

We were greeted at the show by actors in their beautiful costumes.









We then proceeded into the venue where we had a large buffet style dinner. KC organised for the staff to come and sign birthday song for Kim.







After dinner there were some pre-show activities such as kick boxing, tug of war with elephants as well as an elephant parade. More actors were dressed in their costumes.

































After this was the show. The staging and props were absolutely amazing. Everything was big, and very well made. They even had a small river flowing through the stage in which actors rowed their canoos and swam in. They also had a massive monsoon rainfall in one of the acts.

The various acts despicted important historical chapters of the Thai history and mythology.

The had fabled creatures and real elephants, water buffaloes as part of the acting. Actors went flying across the stage with more that 100 actors as part of the show.

Below are some of the photos I could find to 'borrow' as I didn't take any photos during the show itself (not allowed).

 

One evening I went to see Thai boxing or Muay Thai as it is called locally.

I asked the rest of the family if anyone wanted to join me, but they all said no (it is the national sport of Thailand).



I had been once before long time ago in Bangkok and wanted to experience it again.

I decided to pay the bit extra and get a VIP seat right next to the ring and that was definitely worth the extra money.

There were 8 fights that evening. The first fight was between two kids around 11 years old. Especially the kid in black shorts was very strong and was dominating the fight throughout.













The second fight was between two older teenagers. Again the kid in black was dominating the match.






The third fight was between to women, a Canadian and a Thai. The canadian girl looked very relaxed and was definitely ready to fight. The Thai girl had no chance against her and the match ended in knockout.

Before each fight they go through this unique dance ritual.









I was privileged to sit next to one of the judges who has happy to talk, so between each round I could ask him questions about the scoring system which is rather confusing.

The 4th match was between a French and a Thai. The foreigners are really dominating this sport now and the Thai's were generally struggling.

















As with all the fights wit foreigners this fight also ended in a knockout.



The 5th fight was back to two Thais fighting.





















One of the last fights was between a brazilian and a Thai. When walking into the ring you could tell that the brazil was very strong.




He started by kicking the Thai in the chest and then punched him in the face.

The fight lasted less than a minute before a knockout.








The last fight was more in the heavyweight class, again between a brazilian and a Thai.

This fight was full of power and again it ended up in knockout.





































After the fights I happened see the winners lining up out the back. I managed to get a photo with a couple of them.




...yeah, I look really convincing there.








This evening was definitely one of my highlights from the trip and if we were going back then I would probably go again. The atmosphere is amazing and if the fighters are good then the experience is phenomenal.

One morning Kim booked a trip out to some of the smaller islands of Phuket.

The trip was in a large speed boat and initially the family didn't want to go because they were worried about getting seasick, but eventually they changed their minds.



The boys loved the experience and were very proud wearing their life jackets.








On the island we could feed the fish from the beach.
















And there was time to play in the water for the boys (and a bit of snorkeling for me).



















It is also good to see that they are still using their long tail boats for traditional fishing.

After visiting the big Buddha we stopped to feed a baby elephant.

The kids were a little overwhelmed by its trunk, but fun nevertheless.