One day Kim and I managed to go for a romantic (and long) walk from Coogee to Bondi and back along the coast.



It was a beautiful day and this area have some of the worlds best beaches and coastal views.

We have started giving Aiden and Lucas a bath together when we are not too rushed. They are playing very nicely together in the bathtub.

Lucas is starting to be able to walk by himself and stand for long periods of time without holding onto furniture. The longest we have seen him walk so far was around 2 metres.

A couple of times now we have caught Lucas in the process of cleaning the toilet using the toilet brush. We really have to watch him, because he is quick and within a few seconds he will be in there up to his mischief if we don't watch out.

Aiden recently ended up in hospital again...this time really bad.

He had another seizure similar to the last time, but this time a lot worse and he didn't wake up from it.

At the hospital they couldn't get him to respond either and he started having neurological damage symptoms.

They decided to put him to sleep on a breathing aparatus and go through the whole process of CT scans, Xrays, spinal fluid examinations etc.



Kim and I were really scared and I stayed with him for 4 days in the hospital until he eventually recovered enough to go home.






The doctors were unable to find out why he seizure was so violent so now we are really worried that he may get another one.

Recently it was fathers day...the kids surprised me in the morning giving me a new coffee mug.

Sometimes we take the kids to Little dynamo to play. It is this 4 level play centre for the kids.

Last weekend Aiden and I went to Sammi's 4th B'day.

It was held up at Mona Vale and involved a small bush walk for the kids.



Some of the way Aiden and Sammi were holding hands.



Afterwards we had cake and played with clay.







And after the party Aiden and I went for another little walk and spotted a hug red belly black snake.

We are in the process of potty training Aiden...so far ain't working.

He is reasonably happy to sit on the toilet in front of the TV...but so far he is holding it in.

Some time ago we had a TEDx session at work...it was great to be part of an international phenomena.




I hope they will run more sessions in the future and that they will be able to get some really interesting speakers in the room.

This year we celebrated Christmas eve with the boys.

5 days before Christmas I still hadn't taken our annual family photo even though I had the concepts loosely worked out in my head.

I knew that I wanted to do one in the kitchen and one evening when Kim decided she wanted to experiment with cooking brownies I decided to set it up and talked her through the concept and what I wanted her and the kids to do.
It worked out better than expected.



Kim also wanted one of us unpacking gifts.

This one was a lot harder to set up as the light was critical.




The last family photo we did was a simple one taken in the morning at Maroubra beach.

In one of the shops at Eastgardens I found a wall full of these inspirational notes for 2015.

A couple of days ago the kids were playing in the park at Kims dads place while a big storm was approaching.

The light was beautiful so I couldn't resist snapping a couple of photos with my phone.

Kim has never learned to ride a bike. One day at the park she borrowed Kaylas bike and gave it a try.

She did pretty good considering that she's never done it before.

Here is some quick snaps of some public artwork that I find really cool.

This artwork I found in the Macquarie centre.







It is thousands of plastic balls suspended from the ceiling.

And this grafitti is from Redfern...I wish all grafitti was this well done.

One day we went with the kids to the opera house to experience a play called "The tiger who came to tea" which is based on a childrens book of the same title.

We had borrowed the book week before and read it to the kids so they were very excited and the play was really good fun and well made.

One of the sad events of the year was the attack on the Lindt cafe in Sydney where a lone gunman took the patrons as hostages. He was eventually shot by the police after killing two patrons.



All of Sydney laid flowers in front of the cafe as Martins place.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Daydream island in the Whitsunday islands at great barrier reef.

This was a great opportunity to check out some of the natural beauties...





...such as Whitehaven beach.











We spent a lot of time playing at the pool and at the beach.





The resort has a massive inland lagoon with lots of stingrays and sharks that the kids loved.






Aiden and Lucas were allowed to touch some of them including this live shark.



and stingrays and star fish.










And on the island there were lots of kangaroos.



A beautiful place.





And I did have time to do a bit of creative shooting.





Eventually it was time to say goodbye to the island with a vulcan salute.

In early November I did another open studio day. This time a mini day with less models, hair and makeup and studio setups.

As usual it was good practice and fun to work with the various models. I think I did get some great photos and there were a lot of lessons learned that can be done better next time.


Model: Charlotte de Lucey


Model: Jessica Garcia


Model: Tanika de Alwis


Model: Britney Williams


Model: Tanika de Alwis

Compared to the other times I was doing a lot more natural light photography this time and some of it in nasty and not very flattering direct sunlight. I think I still managed to get some very usable results out of it.


Model: Nikki Doan


Model: Nikki Doan


Model: Amy Hill



The hardest thing for me is still the communication with the models and the creation of a vision that is different when you are on a fixed set.


Model: Jessica Garcia


Model: Jessica Garcia

This Sunday we took the ferry to Manly.



It is a beautiful trip past the opera house and the boys were very excited being on a boat.














At Manly we went down to the beach. It was a calm day so the boys had a lot of fun at the edge of the water.










After that Kim did some shopping, we had some fish'n'chips and we also had an ice cream.

Going to Boulders Beach with all the penguins was a fun experience for the boys.





There were lots of nesting penguins and they are more agile than you think, jumping between the rocks on the beach (notice how the penguin below is airborne).



They sit on their nests until the eggs hatch.



and they stay with the young ones after they hatch too.



And once in a while a seagull gets lucky and steals one of the eggs.




There are hundreds of them on the beach.





And they are right next to the path.





The whole area was covered in smoke from a massive bush fire up in the hills, so our eyes were watering and hurting by the end of it.



Despite the smoke I still managed to get a good photo of this beautiful flightless bird.

In the evening we went to Cafe Africa. This is a nice little cafe serving authentic African cuisine in the middle of Capetown. The menu was a 16 course degustation type menu with all you can eat of food from all over Africa.

They came around to do a bit of face painting and later there was drumming and dancing from the staff.

On the way down from Table Mountain we visited Bo Kaap.

This is a predominantly muslim neighbourhood with some very colourful houses.



Great as a backdrop for photographing the most beautiful girl I know.



And also the most handsome boys.

After Kruger we flew to Capetown.

The first day we went to Table Mountain. The mountain is often covered in clouds, and with a beautiful hot day we though we'd make the most of it and head up there when we had the opportunity.

The queue getting up there with the cable car was massive, several hundred metres. We quickly learned that the queue for people who had pre-purchased tickets was shorter and also moved faster than the other queue. We quickly jumped across to the other queue and using my mobile I purchased tickets while we were still waiting.



The view from up there is amazing and the top is actually a lot flatter than I though it would be.

One evening at Hazyview we went to a local cultural village of the Shangana Tribe.





First we went to the village itself and were introduced to local food and customs.





The local witch doctor showed us some of the local medicines they used for stomach pains etc.





Afterwards we were entertained by local drumming and dancing in a large hut. Beforehand they had to warm up the drum skins to make them the right tune.



But first we were greeted by the chief of the village.















One of the dances was the boot dance which they danced in the mines of South Africa during the Apartheid.



After the show we had a very traditional and yummy communal dinner as guest of the chief.

At one of the private game reserved the owner maintains a little car museum with some very cool cars.



Especially this Ferrari 335S is interesting. If it is the real thing then it is one of only five ever made where the last one sold at an auction was sold for more that 30 million pounds.

One morning when it was raining at Hazyview we went to the local Reptile Park.

They had a large display of snakes and other reptiles, and also some interesting talks such as about Poisonous snakes.

One of the snakes they showed us was the African Puff Adder, which I remember as a really vicious snake from my days in Kenya. The snake handler certainly convinced me that it is not as aggressive as I thought by walking bare feet past it when it was all curled up really to attack.

Towards the northern end of Kruger there is a wildlife rehabilitation centre where injured animals are cared for before returned to the wild.

Some are unfortunately in a condition where they can never be returned and these are used for educating visitors on wildlife issues.

The guide on our tour around the centre was truly amazing, very funny and very knowledgeable.

Angry Lioness:



Leopard:


Cheetah:


Chevel Cat:


Lion:


Lion with Snack:


Painted Dogs:


Hyena:


Southern Ground Hornbill:


Eagles:








Voltures:




Honey Badger:

In South Africa we did two days in the Kruger National Park.

The first day we hired a private guide to take us around in a 4WD and the second day we did a self drive.

With the guide we were lucky enough to spot all the Big 5 (Elephants, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo and Rhino). The advantage of a guide is that they are in constant radio communications with all the other cars and therefore can track the animals. On this day it was very hot and a lot of the animals were hiding in the bush and it seemed that we spotted all the animals and called it in to the other cars.



Having the private guide was a massive advantage as we could spend the time as we wanted, so we didn't spend much time on say elephants, but we did spend 45 minutes stalking a lion hoping it would get too hot under a bush and get out into the clear.

The second day we went it was raining and a lot more challenging, but we still spotted some that we didn't see the first day.

Camera wise I knew it would be a challenge to get good photos with a normal lens and didn't have the budget or justification to spend on a fast long lens. Instead all the photos in this post were taken with my 80-200 f2.8 with a 2x teleconverter. I used my tripod as a monopod and the guide was great at moving the car into spots where I had a clear line of sight (another advantage of not having to consider other passengers).

Here are the Big 5 we spotted.

Leopard:



Lion:



Rhinos:





Elephants:













African Buffalos:





And here are some of the others such as Zebras:







Hyenas:





Giraffes:





Impalas:





Kudu:





Waterbucks:



Wothhogs:





Baboons:





Monkeys:



Guinea Fowl:



African Fishing Eagles:



Storks:



Marabous:



Turtles (These ones are predators):



Weaver birds:



Chameleons:

On the first day in northern South Africa we drove the Panorama route. This is a beautiful drive up through the mountains and is full of scenic views of the Blyde River Canyon and waterfalls.

The most famous place is Bourkes Potholes.







And the Pinacle







But everywhere is full of beautiful scenery