Already this year we’ve spent a month in America. We did a photography workshop in Colorado and business coaching in Las Vegas.

Later this month, Matt will be speaking at the Seldex Booth at The Digital Show in Melbourne.

In late August, we are incredibly humbled and honoured to be speaking at The 2012 Nikon AIPP Event in the Hunter Valley, NSW. There are some wonderful speakers presenting at The Event including Vincent LaForet, Jenn and Steve Bebb, Marcus Bell and a personal hero of ours, war photographer James Nachtwey.

And … to top it all off we’re heading back overseas for a workshop tour of the US & Canada from mid-July to mid-August. Not all of the stops have been announced yet but check below for the workshops that have been launched.

Soon we’ll start putting together plans for workshops in Australia for later this year and early 2013.

If there’s somewhere you’d like us to do a workshop or shoot a wedding – whether it’s Australia, Canada, USA, or anywhere else in the world, just send us an e-mail and we will make it happen. Heck, we’ll even go to New Zealand!

It is crazy to think that as of the 1st of January this year … we had ZERO travel plans. In amongst all this travel we’re shooting close to 40 weddings this year.

We have a lot of wonderful weddings to share and we’re so looking forward to blogging them soon. Thanks so much for bearing with us during this period of shameless self-promotion.

~Katie~

Some of these wedding day stories involve more obvious dramatic moments while others are subtle moments that you could pass by if there wasn’t an explanation to accompany the photo.

Today we’re introducing what will become a long-term series on our blog, A Story Within The Story. We won’t talk about camera settings, or lenses or f-stops but we’ll just simply tell the story behind an image, or series of images. We’re still figuring out the schedule but we like the idea of this being a weekly or fortnightly feature.

A Story Within The Story #1 – Gillian and her Dad.

Gillian had finished putting on her dress and getting ready. Her Dad (Mike) was in another part of the house doing whatever nervous fathers do as they wait to accompany their daughter to get married.

Mike came around the corner as Gillian was about to go outside to leave for the chapel. As soon as he saw her, he RAN over to Gillian and embraced her as only a father can.

As well as the hug, the reaction from Gillian’s Mum is priceless.

~Matt~

There are dozens of items on our to-do list and our inbox is full to overflowing. This meant that entering the AIPP Queensland Professional Photography Awards wasn’t at the top of my priority list.

That didn’t keep Katie from nagging me to enter. Or maybe encouraging is a better word. Katie’s not a nagger but gosh she can be persistent. Two days before entries closed Katie finally talked me into giving it a go. A huge thank-you to RGB Digital and Photomounts and Albums for bailing me out at the last minute.

I had zero expectations for this year’s awards, none at all. I guess we’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the brain space to think about it.

As well as convincing me to enter, Katie also drove from Toowoomba to Brisbane to collect my prints and take them to our friend Alicia’s house. Alicia (who won both Landscape and Illustrative Photographer of the Year – two separate categories – rock on Alicia!) kindly drove my prints to the judging location.

On top of that (yes, there’s more) the awards dinner sold out before we could get tickets. So, until yesterday morning … I didn’t know how my prints had scored (we were in Melbourne while the judging was on), I was bummed that we weren’t going to the awards dinner, and even now I still haven’t even seen the physical prints I entered.

Yesterday morning our friend Melinda called to say that two “spare” tickets had become available for the dinner. Apparently this is a dead give-away that you’re in the running for an award, but I was clueless. I was just so excited that we’d get to attend the awards dinner and catch up with everyone!

Thank you so much Melinda for tricking me! We also cannot thank you enough for your support over the years. You have been so good to us and we are entirely undeserving. The same goes for Jan and the QAIPP team for your support as well, and all the volunteers behind the scenes that make the awards and AIPP events so awesome.

So, all that to say … to be named as AIPP Queensland Travel Photographer of the Year last night came as a huge surprise and an incredible honour! To put it mildly.

Some people have asked why the Travel category? Why not weddings?

Apart from our friends Jonas and Todd owning the wedding category for the last 2 years – (Jonas won Wedding Photographer of the Year, Highest Scoring Print, and the overall AIPP QLD Photographer of the Year – Todd took out Wedding Album of the Year) – here’s the reason:

These images represent our life together and the amazing journey Katie and I have been on since getting married 6 years ago. Travel has become such a part of our lives that I don’t know how we could ever go without it.

We are always on the road, seeing new places, meeting new people and we are constantly blown away by where our photography has taken us. A few of the places we’ve been because of our photography are Thailand, New Zealand, USA, England, Wales, Greece, Italy, Canada, France and Turkey.

Out of the last 12 months we’ve spent over 4 months overseas. Last year we shot 40 weddings and only 5 of them were in our home town of Toowoomba. 2012 is shaping up as another full-on year of travel.

Already in 2012 we’ve spent a month in the US and we have plans to go back again in July/August to do some more teaching. We just returned from Melbourne and the majority of our weddings are again outside Toowoomba. Katie is traveling to Nepal in September and shortly after that we’ll be in Fiji for a wedding.

We have plans for teaching throughout Australia this year and next year as well. Katie and I have decided that we will travel anywhere in the world to teach and take photos. Seriously.

So, if you want us to come to your town, area, state, country or planet to teach or photograph your wedding … please get in touch and we’ll work out how to make it happen.

The second reason I’m so stoked to win for my travel photos is this:

The way I approach travel photography is exactly how I approach wedding photography. My goal is to always be an observer first and a photographer second. To be present and witness the moment, instead of trying to create the moment. To produce honest and truthful wedding photographs without interfering or interrupting the flow of the day.

This style of photography makes my soul sing. Everything I am as a photographer is represented in these images. One of the unspoken reasons why I was so hesitant to enter my travel images into the awards is that they are so personal to me. I couldn’t bear to have them judged and critiqued.

To be acknowledged in this way for photos that come from the core of my very being, that is truly something special.

A final thought or two or three, maybe four …

In the car on the way to the awards dinner Katie said to me, “Now, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but if you win tonight make sure you don’t waffle on like you did in your wedding speech.” Three things about that make me love Katie even more, if that’s even possible.

#1 – Katie always believes in me even when I don’t believe in myself. I don’t know how, but she knew with 100% certainty that I would win.

#2 – No matter how many amazing things happen in our lives, Katie always keeps us grounded.

#3 – All the adventures, the amazing places and the wonderful people we meet along the way … that is all meaningless if we didn’t get to travel together. We spend almost every waking moment together and we travel the world together. It blows my mind daily that this is what we get to do with our lives. My sister-in-law Tina commented recently and said, “You guys seem to have a lot of best days ever!” Yep, we sure do!

I truly believe that people don’t say ‘thank you’ enough, so with the risk of sounding like I’ve won an Oscar, I want to thank a few other people.

My 2nd biggest thank you (after Katie) goes to all our couples – past, present and future – you have changed our lives in more ways than you will ever know. Thank you for being part of our story by inviting us to be part of yours. And the final thank you goes to the photographers who trust us to teach them the why and how of our photography and business. Teaching is something we take very seriously and we will never take your trust for granted.

The actual final thought …

So, following Katie’s advice, I kept my thank you “speech” last night short and sweet, and this is what I forgot to say:

I truly believe in the power of photography to change and improve lives. Not just the people we photograph, but our own lives as photographers. 6 years ago my job had become one that I hated. 3 years ago my video production business had become soul destroying. I called Katie at 2am from my office one morning and sobbed over the phone to her. “I can’t do this any more, it’s killing me.”

Even though I’d helped Katie run her portrait photography business, I’d never really taken photos. I went to America for a month as a video guy and came back a photographer.

Everything we have done and everywhere we have traveled in the last 6 years is because of our photography.

The crazy thing is, as passionate as I am about photography. I’m even more passionate about helping other photographers achieve their goals and dreams by teaching them, in very practical ways, how and why we do what we do.

We’re not rockstars. We are Matt and Katie from Toowoomba, Queensland. The photography industry doesn’t need more rockstars. What it needs is teachers.

The world is full of infinite potential and life is too short to not be chasing your dreams. We’d love to play a part in helping you achieve yours.

~Matt~

Yoda said that. More from him later.

A drama flared up in the wedding photography industry late last week. Anyone in the outside world wouldn’t have noticed, but within the walls of the wedding photography industry there were ripples. Maybe even a little seismic movement.

The crib notes are this. A well-known photographer published “a system” with some advice (some good/some questionable) for new photographers. Many experienced photographers took offence. Rightly or wrongly, it’s not my place to say. I don’t think I even know any more.

Tweeted pitchforks were raised and Facebook torches were lit. And like my mum (and no doubt yours) always said, “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”

On Friday when the drama was going down, Katie and I were flying to Melbourne for a wedding. Even though I was interested, I couldn’t really join the conversation. I quickly put something pithy on Facebook and Twitter and then moved on.

Dear Photographers. Forget about the drama. Worry about your clients instead.

Taking my own advice that’s what I did. I ignored it all and moved on to more important matters, like shooting Yu and Jordan’s amazing wedding. The wedding was so wonderful that I’d entirely forgotten about the drama until today.

This morning I jumped on the internet for the first time in days and the drama is still raging. Wow.

As I often do, I opened up Textedit on my laptop and started typing. The difference is that usually I don’t publish what I write. It’s just a good exercise to get the thoughts out of my head. And to spare Katie yet another photography related discussion with very little husband and wife merit.

This is what came out …

Negativity will poison your life, your photography and your business. It seriously will.

Not pointing any fingers. If you think I’m talking about you, I’m probably not. If you get defensive and mad at what I say then … that’s ok. Tell me about it in the comments.

Finger pointing isn’t the purpose of this. Telling part of my story is.

In 2010 I was in a spiral of negativity. I was obsessed with what other photographers and our competition were doing. Local photographers, interstate ones and even those overseas. Photographers who didn’t know that I existed and that I’d never met (and probably never would) were making me angry. Really angry. Successful photographers. New photographers. It didn’t matter. I was an equal opportunity cranky pants.

Our business had over $12K in overheads per month and Katie was very ill after being hospitalised from burnout and exhaustion. The pressure on us was huge, to put it mildly. This was early-Matt and Katie Photographers-days and our portrait business was wildly successful but also wildly out of control.

And here I was spending all my time and energy being a miserable jerk who was blaming everyone else in the industry because I wasn’t achieving the “success” that I deemed to be so rightfully mine.

A few photographers on an internet forum who knew our situation even called me on it after reading some of my negative rants. They called me out publicly and directly. At the time it made me so mad and it was embarrassing. But I’m so thankful that they did.

On top of that, a quote from a photographer friend in an interview stopped me in my tracks. Jonas probably wasn’t trying to be profound but one line from the interview turned my life around.

Here’s the quote:

“I honestly think people worry too much about the state of the industry and not enough about the state of their own business.”

That stopped me in my tracks. That was 100% me. All of my energy was focused externally. I was living and breathing negativity. I was railing against a faceless industry that had somehow turned against me. Or so my perceptions told me.

From that day I vowed to change. I took all of that anger and negativity and channelled it into my photography and my business. It didn’t take long for that anger and negativity to change into positive energy and momentum.

Fast forward to 2012 and since that day in late 2010 we’ve achieved success (our own definition of it) that I could never have dreamed of. In the last year we’ve spent nearly 4 months overseas because of our photography. Weddings in the UK and America. Holidays in Santorini, Paris, Rome, Venice, Wales and San Francisco and so many other amazing places.

We currently have more wedding enquiries than we could ever hope to possibly shoot even if a year had 150 weekends. New ideas are flowing constantly (mostly at 3am) and our next 12 months is looking even more insanely awesome than the last.

We’re not rich but we are happy. Happier than we could ever have imagined.

Again, I’m not pointing any fingers. I’m not saying we can’t discuss, debate, disagree, talk and care about our industry. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t stand up for what we believe in. Or that we should all join hands and sing Kumbaya while skipping through tulips. Not at all.

I’m also not here to tell anybody what to do. I don’t think anybody should dictate what your photography journey should or should not be. Sure, there’s good, better and best but not really any right or wrong.

As the saying goes, I have no dog in this fight. Well, maybe a small one (preferably a Norwich Terrier) because I’m passionate about helping and teaching other photographers. And because we’ve got some pretty incredible plans for teaching this year.

All I’m doing is telling part of my story for people to take from it whatever they will.

Here’s what I’m saying … maybe I am talking to you. Maybe you agree or disagree with me. That’s ok too.

Or maybe you are right in the middle of doing what I was doing back in 2010.

If that is you, I’m telling you today that your energy is misdirected. All that negativity is poisoning your photography, your business and your life. It is killing your dreams and sapping your potential.

Ultimately we all reap what we sow. What we put out into the universe is what we will receive back.

I was certainly getting back what I was putting out there.

Imagine this.

Imagine that you were using your time and energy differently. Instead of whinging, complaining and fighting on the internet, you decide to put your time and energy into your own life and business instead.

You know, to spend more time with your family. To make sure your clients are happy and that you’re not drowning in a backlog of past weddings. Maybe you could be updating your website or blog to better reflect who you are as a photographer or even fix a few spelling mistakes. Whatever.

Please stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and start worrying about yourself, your clients and your business. You need to do this for yourself, and you need to do it for your spouse/partner/family/children.

I’m far from perfect. Good grief, here I am writing this instead of answering e-mails or going through the photos from Yu and Jordan’s wedding. I do need to take my own advice, that’s for sure. Or maybe this needed to be said because someone might benefit from it. That someone is most likely me. Life is a balancing act and I’m trying to get better at it every day.

As wedding photographers we have one of the best jobs in the world. Every day I’m grateful that this is what I get to do with my life.

So, on that note I’ll finish.

Positive or negative? Which will you choose. Or as Yoda once said, “Give off light or darkness. Be a candle or the night.”

~Matt~

p.s. If you don’t have a clue what drama I’m talking about and you’re confused by this blog post … good for you! You’re on the right track!

p.p.s. Here’s a photo from Yu and Jordan’s wedding. As well as choosing us for their wedding, Yu and Jordan flew us from little old Toowoomba to Melbourne and then to Jordan’s parent’s property in Daylesford. Yu and Jordan then proceeded to have one of the most heartfelt and moving weddings we’ve ever been a part of. Words couldn’t describe on the day how blessed we were to be there, and words are still inadequate now.

Rubbing my eyes as I looked around, the house was a complete mess! It looked we had been hit by a bomb. I’m sure that if a burglar broke into our house they’d take one look, assume we’d already been robbed and then move on to the next house.

Cups and plates everywhere! Pieces of paper scrawled with notes scattered across from one end of the house to the other. Shoes on the floor, boxes and books on the couch… and I swear we used to have a kitchen bench underneath there somewhere?

I’m not by any means claiming that I’m a good house keeper, but it’s not often the house get THIS messy!?

This is a good thing though! You see, Matt and I have been on a creative streak!

You know, a creative streak…. where you are so excited about your ideas that you put your head down and you work work work!

You are so focused you don’t see anything but what you are working on. You get up at the break of dawn to get stuck into things straight away. You forget to eat, then you work until the early hours of the morning until you can’t keep your eyes open any longer.

Yep. That sort of creative streak.

Matt and I are working hard on some very cool ideas and projects at the moment. We are sooooo excited and we can’t wait to share them with you!

The first one we’ll be sharing is a new educational product for photographers. Stay tuned. It’s great and it’s nearly ready for launch.

We’ve also shot so many super-awesome weddings. We can’t wait to get back into sharing them with you!

Matt is in Brisbane today. While he is away I’m going to take half a day off to tidy the house up a bit.

I just wanted to check in and let you know that we have some exciting things in the works!

Here are some photos of our kitchen on a good day (I love our kitchen), but it doesn’t look like this currently!

Katie.

Today, in Telluride, Colorado that dream came true. In a pretty awesome way.

Possibly the best day ever.

A huge thanks to Jami Davis and Dana Ohlsen for capturing this special day, and for making it happen in the first place. Thanks to Jami’s husband Ryan too!

I’d stepped outside to get a long exposure shot of the old community hall in which Katie and Josh’s reception was being held. During that moment I was transported back in time. It was a feeling I’d been trying to put my finger on all night. Elusive. Like trying to remember the name of that actor doing a cameo in your favourite TV show.

Gotcha! That’s it! Tonight felt like the annual community dance.

Not just one from 20 years ago in the small country town I grew up in. But 40 or 50 years ago. Back when our parents were teenagers. Everyone in town coming together to celebrate and let loose. For one night, all the troubles of the world totally forgotten.

That’s what Katie and Josh’s wedding day felt like. And it was magical.

Katie’s dress was custom made by Melanie at Silver Sixpence. The broach on Katie’s dress was worn by her mum on her wedding day. Personalised buttons were made for all the guests. And the old Biddestone Hall outside Toowoomba was transformed. Despite all the obvious hard work that had been done, everything about the day felt effortless. It just all felt so … right.

Oh, it was also our 6th wedding anniversary. At the time, (my) Katie wasn’t too impressed that I was thinking of booking a wedding on our anniversary. After the wedding, we were driving home chatting and reflecting on the day. Katie said she wholeheartedly agreed with what I said to her at the time …

“I’ve got a very good feeling about this one.”

~Matt.

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player.
(Download) this music.

Music Credit: James Vincent McMorrow “Higher Love” and Matt Corby “My False” – Buy on iTunes here and here.

Katie (bride) kindly took this of us to commemorate our anniversary.

Then we thought about it some more, and decided to give it a go. Why not? Life is short, we enjoy teaching other photographers and in all our trips to America we’ve never been to Colorado.

Like Jami, we’re firm believers in putting things out there and seeing what happens. That’s how we spent nearly 3 months overseas in 2011 and shooting weddings in the UK and Florida, USA.

Short story … after announcing it 2 weeks ago, 10 lovely photographers have already registered for our Colorado Workshop. That means there’s only 2 spots available!

To find out more and to register for the Colorado Workshop just click HERE.

Then we’re going to Vegas baby! We’ll be there for the WPPI conference and again we thought … why not?

We’ll be putting on an intimate, small group mentor session in Las Vegas, just before WPPI kicks off. Most likely a day between the 16th and 20th of February. It will be limited to only 5 people so that we can maximise one-on-one time with everyone.

We’re working on all the details at the moment. To receive all the information once it is ready, just click HERE and enter your e-mail address. People who sign up will be the first to receive the info and will get a head-start to register before everyone else.

Here we were thinking that we wouldn’t be doing much traveling in 2012! Goes to show you never know what extra special things life has in store for you just around the corner.

~Matt and Katie.

p.s. This photo is from the wedding we shot on the weekend. It makes us happy!

Sharlene and Danica (Kiara’s mum and sister) worked so hard to provide an extra special experience for all the guests. We’ve been on Sharlene’s case for years to start up a styling business because she is so talented! You can check out her blog here: Sweet Stella

It was such a happy wedding with Kiara and Callum grinning from ear to ear almost all day! They were simply so excited to be marrying each other, and the support and love from their friends and family only added to the joyous atmosphere. All the personal touches and gorgeous styling were the icing on the cake!

I’m also super-excited to let you know that this wedding is also featured in the Autumn 2012 issue of Cosmo Bride magazine which hit newsstands yesterday. Yay!

~Katie.

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player.
(Download) this music.

After a few days of easing into the new year I’ve become more comfortable with letting go of 2011, and I’m ready to embrace 2012.

Here are a few of my favourites from 2011. I tried hard not to over-think the choices other than to go with my gut and pick images that really sum up my approach to shooting weddings.

~Matt.

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player.
(Download) this music.

Music Credit: Passenger “Month of Sundays” and “The One You Love” – Buy on iTunes