• To put you out of your misery: no, Michelle hasn’t given birth to iArms 2.0 yet. That said, we’re less than a week off the official due date, our little girl has “engaged” (whatever that means!), and we’re ready to meet her aaaaanytime now. Follow me on Twitter if you want too much information when everything’s underway!
• Related: Michelle is now officially unemployed! She decided to do the full-time mum thing with baby #2, but I’m hoping she’ll find a little time for OFD later in the year … she has some mad biz skillz
• Josiah is two!
• My issues with depression and anxiety aren’t fully in the past yet, but happy pills have made for much progress, so… yay!
• We’re rebranding! Kinda sorta. I’ve been planning to launch a commercial photography brand for a while, and now that we’ve acquired some studio space, it’s finally happened! Luke Arms Photographer is now live, with its own logo, website, blog and Facebook page. As you can see, we’re specialising in a particular style of headshot photography, but LAP will also host some personal projects and fine art work eventually.
• Meanwhile, OFD isn’t going anywhere! We’re improving our processes, giving our blog a facelift (fancy new portfolio section coming soon) and shooting fewer weddings to make way for more family sessions, but in every other way, we’re business as usual
• Being the Newcastle coordinator for Heartfelt has been really special. Working with such a selfless team of photographers to deliver this profoundly valuable service to families is a delight, confronting as the work itself can be. Please continue to talk about Heartfelt with your friends.

That’s it for now!

Just a quick note to let you know that plenty is changing behind the scenes at one fine day, and that we’re not far away from starting to unveil everything we’ve been working on. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, one change I *can* tell you about relates to our photography course.

Earlier this year, I was approached by URCreative, who were looking for a tutor to deliver some of their photography courses in Newcastle. I gave it some thought and decided that working with such a large, well-established course provider would be good for me (no more course admin/marketing/development!) and for my students (less costly courses, more options, better resources).

So, I won’t be running “say no to cheese (the course)” anymore. Instead, you can register for a URCreative course in Newcastle by clicking here (you’ll probably want to check out the course info here too). At the moment, I’m the only Newcastle tutor, but that will probably change in the future.

And to pretty up the post, here are two photos from a certain event last month

Anyway, as you might have guessed, we’re expecting again! Michelle is about 10 weeks pregnant and not enjoying morning sickness a whole lot, but whenever the nausea passes, we’re both super-excited about it Our new bundle of joy will arrive around 10 September, if all goes to plan. Can’t wait!

That said, happy as we are to be making this announcement, we’re very mindful of our friends who want to be pregnant and aren’t There’s nothing we can say to make our news easier to hear, but know we’re thinking of you and praying that your turn will come soon.

Now, there’s a chance we’re expecting twins, but that’s not why I alluded to two new family members After last year’s failed attempt to add Radar to our family, today we found a more suitable companion for Bella (or so we hope). Her name is Holly, she’s a 6.5-year-old beagle, and she’s beautiful! Thanks to the RSPCA for entrusting us with her (I recommend their Adoptapet iPhone app, by the way. Or, if you can’t adopt a pet anytime soon, please consider donating!)

Anyway, like it nor not, 2010 is behind us, and another 365 (well, 348) days of as-yet-unknown challenges, opportunities and merriment lie ahead. My resolution for 2011? Not to wake up in December wondering where the year went!

Last year was huge for us, both personally and professionally, and 2011 is shaping up to be even bigger. We don’t have any start-of-year announcements to make, except that we’ll be continuing to grow, improve and learn this year. Oh, and we’ll be getting a lot more photos up on the blog, too

But first, we’d like to say a MASSIVE “thank you” to everyone who helped us have an awesome 2010. Here’s to being able to look back on an even better 2011!

Of course, it’s been a rotten start to the year for millions of people, especially those devastated by La Niña floods in Queensland, Victoria, Sri Lanka, Brazil and elsewhere. Our prayers are with you all, that you’ll be able to heal quickly and draw strength from those things that can’t be washed away. We hope that your 2011 will somehow end a lot better than you can imagine right now, and we promise we’ll do what we can to help make that happen.

Finally, to pretty up the post, here’s a dodgy family self-portrait for you to laugh at. We might have to practise these

PS: If you want to see more of Michelle and Josiah, check out our Tumblr sites: mine is here, and Michelle’s is here.

PPS: If you’re waiting on an email from me, I’ll be catching up on my inbox today and tomorrow. Sorry about the delay.

Some of you have been worried about us. Don’t worry, we’re alive and well. I’ve just been too busy to blog!

Shooting three months of back-to-back weddings can really take it out of you. Add a bunch of projects we’ve been working on for 2011, and not even the Pomodoro Technique is much help!

Happily, we have Jess starting to help look after our clients, which has been awesome. And over the last couple of months I’ve been making good progress with those issues I blogged about six months ago. Yay for therapy

Meanwhile: Josiah is 16 months old and Christmas is less than a month away! Does anyone else find either of those facts shocking?!

Later this week, I’ll reluctantly accept the imminent passing of 2010 and post some Christmas gift inspiration. Check back if you’re running short on ideas!

Until then, enjoy some cuteness from Joey. He’s not walking yet. Why walk when you can climb?

Finalising our plans for the new space has taken a bit longer than we’d have liked, but now that we’re good to go, it’s time to announce course dates for the rest of 2010.

For the first time, we’re offering both a day course (10am-1pm) and a night course (6pm-9pm). They’ll both be starting on Thursdays from 26 August.

More information (including Term 4 dates and registration details) can be found here:

http://course.ofdphoto.com/

And because every post needs a photo or two, here are a few I took on a recent field trip. I love Morpeth

My other presents were cool too. Like my Kindle from Michelle. And season 2 of The Office from Joey. The UK version, of course. He’s classy

Thanks, everyone!

(Then I remembered that 1 June is 2 days before 3 June, and 3 June is my birthday. And I felt better )

Sadly, the year hasn’t quite gone to plan so far; I’m still struggling to keep up with the demands of OFD, and in recent times I’ve started to accept the reality of depression’s role in this struggle. Happily, I’m getting help (with both the work and the illness) and everything is still moving forward, so there’s nothing to worry about! It’s nice to be on the cusp of dealing with the issues that have been holding me back, and meanwhile, my love of photography is only growing stronger

In other ways, 2010 has already been awesome. Josiah is now closing in on his 1st birthday and is the happiest little crawler and climber we’ve ever met … Michelle is coping really well with the huge demands of being a mum … Steph has been getting ever-more awesome at post production … our photography course is humming along nicely … I was lucky enough to meet, photograph and be inspired by Dainere … we’ve made a whole heap of new friends and taken thousands of photos that we love … there’s not a lot to complain about, really!

I won’t say much more, except that I’m taking each day one at a time, trying to get better at looking after myself, my family and my clients, and that I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to steadily increase my blog posts along the way.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Josiah. More to come from our 1-week break in the Gold Coast soon

For the benefit of any non-night-owls who might be attending, we’ll be keeping the break short and trying to finish up by 9pm each evening, so you’ll need to bring your dinner with you, or eat beforehand. I’ll remain available for further discussion until 9.30pm

Click here for full details. Please note that the course structure has changed slightly; we’ve allocated less time to off-camera flash, and more time to portraiture.

We’ve already received strong interest in this second incarnation of our photography course, so register soon to avoid disappointment!

UPDATE: I don’t have any reviews from current students to share yet, but I’m hoping some of them will leave some love in the comments!

Hayley and Fitz are getting married tomorrow, and I’m off to Canberra to shoot it. Can’t wait!

I’ll also be photographing a very special family in Canberra on Sunday morning. More on that later.

Meanwhile, an update on our photography course!

It’s been dubbed “say no to cheese (the course)” and we’re more than halfway through the first one. I’ve been really pleased with how much everyone has been improving, and I’m pretty sure all 8 students have been enjoying themselves! I’ll share some of their photos in a future post (if they let me)

We’re in the process of finalising dates for the next course, but it looks like we’ll be going for Tuesday nights, 6.30pm to 9.00pm, from 18 May to 6 July. Registrations will open soon, but if you’d like to get a 24-hour head start on everyone else, email training@ofdphoto.com ASAP!

And because a post with no photo is hardly a post at all, here’s a recent one of Josiah in his new pram