Melbourne Wedding, Engagement, Newborn and Baby Photographer

Typically, the children chose today, the last day of my Photo Of The Day challenge, to be difficult.  And I was too tired to bother.  Some battles are worth fighting, and sometimes it’s best to roll over and surrender.  Then pick yourself up again, and go grab some flowers from the front yard.  They’re much more cooperative.

I’ve really enjoyed these last 30 days, and the images that have resulted.  So much so that I’m already thinking of what I can do next.
Ideas so far are A Month of Macro, or a Month of Strangers (I like the idea of this one, though it scares me silly).  I’d love to have some more ideas thrown at me though, and if I get enough I might even put it to a vote.
Please, leave me some inspiration in the comment box below.  I might even come up with a prize for the winning suggestion.

This is not the picture I imagined having here today.  I’ve had this day in my calendar all month, and then some, so I had a rough idea what the day would bring. Or so I thought.

My dad is one of 10 (yes, TEN) children, him being in the middle somewhere. So we have an uncountable amount of aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews spread amongst us, and today as many of those as possible got together for the first family gathering we’ve had in who knows how long.  Many of them we hadn’t seen since our wedding, 9 years ago.
Me being me, that is camera attached to my hip and unable to go anywhere without it,  I totally expected to be snapping away all afternoon, capturing the day and the people that made it what it was. But for once I decided just to take part in the festivities and remember them firsthand, rather than through my camera lens. And it was nice.  And there were plenty of other people there to record the day for me anyway.

What I did end up recording was the entrance to the caravan park we were staying in, which wasn’t quite what we were expecting.  We’d left it to the last minute to decide we’d actually stay down in Geelong the day before the reunion, to save travelling on the day, and everywhere we rang had been booked out for weeks.  Until this one, who happened to have a cancellation just before we rang. Coincidentally.
I need not say more, but this petrol pump was probably a good indication of the state and era of the rest of the park. Though it did seem we were given the two best cabins there. Mercifully.  Nevertheless, we did enjoy ourselves.  It was just somewhere to sleep, at the end of the day. 

They can fight  off sleep as much as they want, and do an almost believable job of pretending they’re not tired. At all.  But their inability to cope with the word ‘no’ (without tears), and the yawns hidden behind upheld hands or turned heads is a dead giveaway.  And what better way to deal with it than a nice long drive in the car. Guaranteed they’ll be off to the land of nod quicker than we can get comfortable behind the wheel, choosing our favourite CD to pop in the player. Which we promptly turn off because now we have silence.  A brief spell where we can hear our own thoughts and hold an uninterupted conversation. Or we simply sit and look, me over my shoulder and matt through the rear-vision mirror, at how peaceful they look. How alike they are, and how beautiful. And how blessed we are to have them.  And we feel just as refreshed by them napping as they do. Sometimes more so.