Dallas Frasca

Hi,

What a small world or as some may say it's just one hell of a huge pub. While buying the kids dinner in Belgrave tonight I bumped into Dallas Frasca outside of Ruby's along the main strip.

We had photographed Dallas in a live performance at the Apollo Bay Music Festival in April 2008. We thoroughly enjoyed her performance at Apollo Bay last year. Dallas was really kind to give me some of her time tonight to say hi as she prepared for her gig.

You can check her out at her web site at http://www.dallasfrasca.com She is a great live performer full of energy and gets the crowed really worked up. A real gig pig as she describes herself on a recent TV interview. Hope the gig went well tonight Dallas.

Mark & the kids.

The Day After

Hi,

After a night alone listening to ABC radio, setting the alarm to wake me every hour and walking the house perimeter the night fortunately was uneventful. The Police road block was lifted around 2AM and the threat slowly was down graded. Kate returned home safely this morning from spending the night at her parents. We both worked from home today.

Around mid afternoon several outbreaks at the northern and southern ends of the fire ground flared up. Elvis was called back the threat was escalated again causing a few local road closures are more tankers from local CFA and rural NSW brigades joined the fight. By 6Pm they had contained the fire again and the threat downgraded. We took the opportunity to survey some of the affected region and as good photo journalists took some pictures along the way.

We are just so lucky last night didn't turn ugly.

Mark & Katie

Elvis Returns

Hi,

I just made it home around 5pm. Road blocks have been slowly increased by Police, now completely preventing all access into the hills area. Katie got to Belgrave around 5:50PM to be turned away by Police blocking the local roads. She is heading to her parents home. The car is packaged and our fire plan activated. Elvis flys over head back and forth dropping it's load on the fire. Now I sit and wait watching for change in conditions and watching the CFA web site for updates.

Mark

Couple Shoots - They can be fun!

At our Belgrave studios we regularly photograph couples either as part of their modelling portfolio or for own personal keepsakes. Last week we photographed Sarah and Daniel. Sarah is a mum that models and Daniel is her partner. They have two beautiful children and Sarah's sister Daniele (who is also a mum) will appear as part of our Mums that Model project with Sarah. We have been photographing Sarah and her family for around 3~4 years now.

Photographing two or more people has it's challenges such as are both people comfortable, are both sets of the couples eyes open, are there poses complementary to each other and are they evenly lit (how we evenly light the couple).

Also the one that is not the model (usually the guy) is far more out of there comfort zone than their partner. I think Daniel (who has done a few shoots with Sarah before) does a great job as the partner of a model when asked to step up and get involved in the photo shoot.

Episode 4 released

Hi,

Episode 4 - The Reveal Party from the Show Ponies reality series Playground has been released. Checkout parts A. & B. to see who made it into the 2009 Show Ponies Team.

www.youtube.com/theshowponys

Enjoy,

Mark & Katie

Katie Underwood in Dark Angles

In 2006 and 2007 we had the pleasure of working with the wonderful Katie Underwood. Many may remember Katie from her days with Bardo. Katie the pop diva starred in Allen Wildes Dark Angles a stage musical about the burlesque butcher. With over 4o hours of documentary video and thousands of photo's that will never see the light of day we thought we better put something out there.

This song is from the opening nights performance in Melbourne. We have also used photo's we shot for promotional use of Katie in a Melbourne Club. Some of the photo's where used as part of a exhibition in late 2008 where we displayed 10 images.

We hope you enjoy.

Mark & Katie

Elvis is above us

Well this weekend has been a lot quieter than the last. Our MtM shoot for Saturday afternoon was postponed as the model's Friday night shift went longer than planned. So we took advantage of the change of plans and caught up on a few tasks. Today we shot Dana a talented singer for her CD cover. So a slightly different pace just working in studio one. I really enjoyed listening to Dana's music as it was my sort of music. We wish her all the best with being signed with Sony Music.

We were reminded this Thursday of just how devastating last weekends fires where. Madison a young mum who had signed on for the MtM project lived in one of the worse effected area's. While she, her baby, partner and dog all escaped they lost their home and her car. Her E-mail describing the devastation was hard to read but we are thankful that she and her family are all safe. We also heard from Ivana in Healsville who on Friday had been evacuated twice from their home that day.

As I write we have Elvis the fire fighting sky crane doing laps overhead and 5 fire tankers coming up the hill from Belgrave South . Belgrave has been put on alert with the possibility of ember attack. There is a fire burning 2.6Km's in Peters Rd Belgrave. Currently there is 16 appliances in attendance and several other helicopters flying overhead. The 7PM ABC news showed some aerial shots of the outbreak. While the fire is burning north away from us and we feel in no immediate danger you just can't help to think if the devastation from last Saturday.

Mark & Katie

Farmer Needs a Wife as see on Channel 9

While Katie and I where watching a little Wed night TV this week we started to watch a show called A Farmer Needs a Wife on the Nine Network. We new a model we had worked with on many occasions Courtney had in late been short listed for the show. What we didn't know is if she had gone the the Hunter Valley in NSW for the filming back in late 2008.

Just as we flicked over there was Courtney's printed profile being viewed by one of the farmers and several of our photo's we had taken of her on a farm being shown. We wish you all the best for the remainder of the show Courtney and hope you find LOVE !

Mark & Katie

Well friends the weekend shoots did not go to plan. We had four shoots in all organized. Saturday morning we have 2 mums (sisters0 in for their MtM shoot. Now that shoot went really well. One sister has tons of photo shoot experience while the other none. Despite this under her sisters watchful eye and some guidance from myself she did just fine.

Saturday afternoon we had arranged with another mum for the MtM project beach shoot. Well the mercury reached 46 Deg C 111F in the old scale. The hottest day ever recorded in Victoria since 1893 when recording of temperature commenced. So the beach shoot wisely has been postponed. Ironically the weather at present is 17 Deg C. and too cold for a beach shoot.
Sunday we had 3 mums heading up from Traralgon for their MtM shoot. Due to the veracity of the fires in the Churchill and surrounding areas it was decided they best stay and be with their family and homes. The roads from Gippsland area where closed in any case so even if they wanted to make the trip it was not going to happen. We’ll reschedule for a more comfortable time.

Our final shoot was with fetish model Vyvyan La Rouge. We had the pleasure of her and her partners company for the afternoon. This was the second time we had shot Vyvyan. The shoot was a little up in the air with the train line to Belgrave being closed as a grass fire in Ferntree Gully had closed the line for 36 hours. The filmed the shoot and it will be posted on youtube soon. Our first shoot was filmed and we have enclosed that below.

On a happier note we have heard from one of our MtM’s Ivana over night. She lives near Healsville that has been under immediate fire danger threat over the past 72 hours. There E-mail access has been on and off the past few days. The photo below that she took yesterday was where Katie and I visited with her 3 weeks ago for her MtM shoot. Ivana and her family had to evacuate their home twice spending two nights in the make shift tent city at the local footy oval. Her home survived and we are so happy that no harm came to her and her family.

What a weekend!

What a hot week

Hey,

What a hot week it was in Melbourne! On average each day was 44 Deg C or about 110 Deg F in the old scale. Air conditioning while it provides some relief is not designed to function at such high ambient. For those who wonder why does Mark know this well my trade was an Air Conditioning technician and much of my professional life was spent in the corporate world of air conditioning manufacturing around the world.

Each night last we where in production of a promotional video for a new show called a Whole Lota Shakin. Night 1 we had to view and edit many hours of previously recorded live video of the show. Night 2 we filmed against a green screen (Chroma Key) the lovely Mim (who plays the part of Linda Gail) Jerry Lee Lewis's sister in the show. Mim was providing some additional story line commentary. Night 3 was spent with the shows writer stringing together our story board using all the footage. Night 4 we put the final touches to the 12 minute promo for Whole Lota Shakin.

After our plans changed Friday night for the weekend so had to quickly rearranged our schedule. We shot one of our mums for our MtM project on the Saturday. It was a crazy shoot using a shopping trolley, a superman outfit and a toaster. You'll just have to wait and see the outcome when the coffee book is released later this year.

On Sunday we had the pleasure of shooting a new model, Laura. A very professional young lady with a great work attitude. We shot some glamour in the studio then some fashion outdoors in our playground. Keep and eyes out for some new images of Laura coming soon at http://www.hudcomm.smugmug.com/ in our 2009 portfolio.

Stay cool this week.

Mark