Reminds me of a dream, where my Arowana was swimming in the up in the corner of my bedroom. Radio controlled fish. A plus of living with a flatmate who’s also into toys!
Another plus, when his girlfriend makes you a bowl of delicious Laksa when you get up and stroll into the kitchen at midnight.
My sister Jamie outdid herself with Xmas Ham this year!
Always excited to see what Richie serves up in regards to beer. Love the bottle, loved the beer (hops, a lot!).
Teach’em young?! A wooden washing machine and kitchenette.
Mum. Time to open pressies!
BBQ tools for Richie!
I got the boys cars, of-course! A Ferrari F1 car for Leo (which Miles ended up loving lol) and a WRC rally spec Mini for Miles.
Jasper getting in on it.
Nyaw Layla.
Mie and Miles cuddle time.
Teach’em when they’re young? Now this is more like it!
Use the Force, Leo.
Elizabeth Bay.
What a view!
Nanami’s Mum, finding her Zen.
The dining room.
Detail.
Yoshi and Olivia hired Sydney based Photographer Robert Walsh, be sure to check out his folio, love all his architectural photography.
The front room.
The kitchen.
Hey Yoshi! He’s so photogenic! Don’t you think?!
Yoshi and Olivia reviewing Robert’s shots.
Today I hung out with Yoshi and Olivia of Facet Studio, who have just finished renovating Nanami’s Mums apartment. If only I had before shots… there’s just so much more light now! The darkness and heaviness has now gone and there’s just such a much better flow through the apartment now (so interesting as there’s almost always 2 ways to get into the one room). Love the subtle Japanese influences too. The carpet reminds me of tatami mats, the dining room reminds me of a traditional tea room.
Scorcher today. Got a message from Krysti: “drop everything that you’re doing, let’s go for a swim at Little Bay Beach!”. Nek minnit…
I used to come here a lot as a kid (Dad used to take the whole family and he used to rock fish whilst I played in rock pools all day).
After our dip we did a bit of rock pooling, then we thought we’d get some lunch. Not sure about you guys, but I’m always starving when I come out of the water!
We dropped in to check out Jonno’s new shop “Black Betty”. Krysti so passes as Black Betty, don’t you think?!
I got a mad park, right outside :)
It’s next door to the Subway, and shares the same space, which is a little strange, but Jonno’s done really well with the interior design, really spacious, inviting and comfy.
The menu. I’d pretty much like to order one of everything please!
We went for the poached chicken and slaw over toast. Was so delish, not a bit of it was left on the plate when we were done. The slaw itself has a very subtle Asian flavour to it ,very nice.
We also went for the fancy ham, cheese and tomato sandwich which went next level thanks to a dash of French truffle oil.
And of-course, we couldn’t resist the cronuts!
A guy from Single Origin dropped off some new coffee whilst we were there.
Jonno was pretty excited to give it a go using this Japanese contraption that very much looked like a hardcore coffee bong.
We had it both hot and cold. Subtle, light, SO good cold! Really reminded us of drinking cold coffee out of drink machines in Tokyo.
Long time JDMST member Jonno Sea (one of the OG’s! AKA Rodent on the forums) has opened his 2nd coffee shop, this time around it’s named after his black MX-5 Betty, and the guy is bringing hipster culture to Kingsford/Kensington, which I think is a brilliant idea (there’s plenty of Asian food here already!).
Black Betty Espresso Co.
231 Anzac Parade, Kensington
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/BlackBettyCo
Nana, baking.
Putting the little Weber to such good use!
Ribs even!
To the pool!
BFAM.
BFAM and Nanami.
Fuzzy carpet.
Fay taking some pics of the waves crashing on the rocks.
My BFAM (Brother From Another Mother) Christian Layugan is in town from Miami (check his awesome work here) and he brought his girl Fay along too (follow her here). Sun was out so we put my BBQ to work again (well, BFAM did all the cooking!), and we hot the rock pool too (glad I had a dip yesterday as it’s raining and grey today!). I rarely get to see my BFAM, but when I do, it’s just like yesterday, got to love that, right?!
First up this morning I had a video shoot with young Daniel Motta who wanted to shoot my MKVR32. Who was I to say no! We shot at the beach house, then did some drive by’s at Botany Bay.
I came home to a driveway full of cars.
And a house full of mates! Krysti, Robbie, Glenn, Ann and Alain were crazy prepping a feast in the kitchen.
Robbie’s beef patties. Next level!
One of the best things about my house in summer is being able to leave all your valuables behind and just walk down to the rock pool at the end of my street.
The pool can’t be seen from the street, so it’s usually quite quiet.
34 degrees today! Water was freezing, but so perfect!
Robbie spotted this piece on one of the safety poles around the pool. Very nice.
Spotted on the walk back, the big game’s on tonight!
Walking back up the hill, ready for a meal.
Glenn, the fresh prince of Maroubra.
Ann, getting a tan.
Krysti, getting a… well… just baking.
The deck, finally being used!
Robbie breaking the BBQ in, in style.
Alain, food coma.
Alain’s evil cocktails are kicking in now, OK, no more posts from now, let the night roll on!
Sick of buying a new BBQ every year (I’ve bought so many cheap ones, all of which rust out to fuck every single year due to the sea salt/living by the beach). I thought I’d finally spend up on a quality unit and I ended up going for the Weber Q100. It’s tiny, but it’s well made and it’s super portable so I can wheel it into the house and store it in the pantry when I’m not using it. Should last me a good while (5 year warranty on it which is great!).
I got in touch with Shontelle early last month to organise a shoot and it went down today at my place. Shontelle drove all the way from the Central Coast to get here. I was hoping for a sunny day (as always) but unfortunately it was a grey and rainy day, still, the sun did peep out a few times so I snapped away when it was out. Shooting and hanging with Shontelle indoors was a warm way to spend a miserable morning! I’m quite happy with some of these shots. Hope you like them too.
For more info on Shontelle, like: https://www.facebook.com/shontellemcfarlanemodel
She’s also represented by EDGE Models: https://www.facebook.com/edgemodelmanagement
Alain and Glenn following the video installation guide.
We have light!
Almost there!
As soon as it was finished we turned the lights out in the lounge room and… Boom!!!
We then went to the bedroom to test it out, awesome!
Whoooo!
I stumbled on some images of a bedroom on tumblr lit up with the galaxy, after some hunting around I found the device! It’s a cheap LED powered light which you have to build on your own. The instructions are rubbish (they’re wrong) but there’s an easy to follow video online which makes putting this gizmo together quite easy (not that I did a thing, Alain and Glenn made it!).
The results are stunning! Can’t wait to do a shoot with it!
Another Day Another Shoot! Quite a while back Dale from DM Motorsport (who worked the wheel alignment on my MX5) asked me if I’d be keen to shoot his girlfriend Elissa. We never managed to hook it up until today.
Turns out Elissa’s studying graphic design, she also work part time as a Hooters Girl! Surprisingly it was a really tough shoot. Low light which I’m still not 100% comfortable in, and Elissa was super nervous (despite us both sharing an interest in graphic design and me talking my head off as usual!!!). I do pride myself on making my models feel comfortable, and have had such great feedback from the girls I’ve shot with in regards to this, but Elissa’s not a model and I’m not that great with direction, that and the low light made for a lot of shots I just couldn’t use.
In the end I’m glad we moved from the bedroom into the lounge room where I got Elissa to just sit, chill and play with her phone. I took myself out of her face, whacked the 25mm lens on and stood quite far back to capture some of the shots above, which I’m really happy with actually. Little lesson in persistence for me!