Sometimes we do get a lucky break with amazing backdrops for a family photo shoot and this shoot was perhaps the most exciting location I have been to in Sydney for photography. The Sydney Cricket Ground is majestic and steeped in history and has an aura about it that is nearly spiritual as an arena of sporting greats.
This photo session was made possible thanks to Marilyn and the Woman's Cancer Foundation. Marilyn and her sons are huge fans of the Sydney Swans and have been loyal members of the club for may years. They even have there names engraved at the entrance of the clubs from door.
Storybook photography will be donating $1,500 to the Woman's Cancer Foundation once we finalise our book on mothers and daughters. This will be a long term project and hope to have the book out some time in 2017. Marilyn is just one of the many women who have benefited from the support from the Woman's Cancer Foundation.
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Last Sunday we set out to enjoy a day out doing what we love to do as a family. Keeping the theme of mother and daughter live, this seemed like a perfect occasion for some more images for Storybook Photography. The shoot started from our front door to the closest station in Newtown where we caught a bus to the city as the train lines were being repaired.
The weather seemed a little overcast and dreaded the idea of rain interrupting the session but by midday the sun was out in full making exploring the Sydney Biennale an absolute delight.
We have been to quiet a number of Biennales and found this one particularly good. Each piece of art was beautifully presented within it's space. Cockatoo Island is a bit of a photographer's paradise anyway so with art added into the mix, inspiration just flowed through the lens the whole time there.
Telling the whole story of the day allows so much more creativity and connections to be shown. A greater freedom to be shoot in an editorialised and true fashion. The concept of the shoots are ultimately create a storybook from each shoot that is captured. There are always a few more classic images that propose to be portrait in style, however the overall style is done in an editorial and creative spirit.
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Our Portrait albums are storybooks that make just one of the products we offer from the mother and daughter shoot. They are handmade in Sydney by bookbinders who love their trade and each book is made from archival materials that will assure you that your album will be as beautiful the day you receive it to then be handed on to your future family.
Registrations to the mother and daughter photography sessions can be made on our registration form and a $75 participation fee will help us raise $1,500 for the Woman's Cancer Foundation. Our albums cost $1,950 to purchase and are carefully designed by us at Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga. We do have many other products available for those who prefer to have wall art. Our family portrait albums are just one of the many art displays that we have to offer.
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I was looking forwards to this shoot of my mother, sister and niece in Avalon NSW. My sister Nikki and niece Lila spend much of their time designing and creating amazing art at home. My mother Suzanne lives just down the road in Avalon and came around for a cup cake, tea and a chat after the tie dying session.
Love, fun, colour and plenty of playfulness is what this mother and daughter shoot captures. Nikki and Lila set up in the back yard a table where they spend much time dying fabrics and designing amazing pieces of clothing.
As part of our mother and daughter photography shoots we are searching for candidates interested in having the special family bonds between them captured in an editorial and artistic manner.
$1,500 will be donated to the Women's Cancer Foundation once 70 or more stories are told for a coffee table book.
To register to be part of this project you can fill in your details on the registration page.
Every session will take about one to two hours to complete and the photos will be available for purchase. Why not make your own storybook with your story as seen below.
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Across Australia, February was Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, and several events were held for fund raising.
We Can Walk it Out was held on the 28th February 2016 in Melbourne.
The same day in Sydney Storybook Photography were covering a fundraising event at Menangle Park Harness Racing Club, which is just past Cambelltown in Sydney.
We were invited to take photos of the event that can be seen our gallery page.
An Unbelievable $50,000 was been raised from racing event over 40 days. Harness Racing Victoria, NSW and Canberra donated $200 each time a female driver came first, and Tabcorp matched this making each win raise $400.
#GetRealSupportTeal is the signature # for fundraising at the events that the WCF is holding.
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Some 10 years ago I photographed Jane and Shane's wedding on a beautiful day in Sydney. Since their wedding two lovely daughter's are now part of the Langof family.
I have been privileged to have been asked to photograph Jane and Shane's family on several occasions since their wedding and at the past shoot in October 2015 I discussed the new project that I was going to launch in 2016.
Our first plan was to photograph Jane and Amelie around her piano lesson which was a great idea. Jane said that she spends many hours every week encouraging and supporting her daughter with her piano lessons. However there was a bigger story to tell about netball. Jane's story can be read below.
Australian culture is so much about the love of sport. However as the daughter of migrant parents, being a high academic achiever was the only focus in life, and sport was seen as unimportant. So I ended up being the slowest runner at school, and couldn’t catch a ball. I felt quite hopeless and frankly too embarrassed to participate in any school sports. Fast forward a few decades to having children of my own and I vowed that what I experienced on the sporting field would never happen to my kids. As soon as the opportunity arose Amelia was signed up for netball. After watching a few games, I started to understand the rules for the first time, and eventually became rather obsessed with the sport, learning what I could from the internet. One day at the girls’ coaching session a parent was needed to make up a team for a game, so I volunteered, and let’s just say I took things a little too seriously. At that point I realised I needed to join a netball team, and called the local club. Most of the players had years of experience as youngsters, so I was way behind, and to make up for missed time began playing in three comps a week and started coaching Amelia’s team. I feel lucky to have finally discovered a love of competitive sport, and to share this experience with Amelia. When my daughters grow up, I hope to be fit enough so that we can play in a netball team together!
]]>Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga will be creating a series of books covering a range of themes.
The first project that we will be covering is about mothers and daughters. What we will be photographing with this series of photos are stories about the bonds of love and time spent together.
We want to hear all the stories between mothers and daughters. Go to a location that you love to go to, photograph an activity that you share together and create a beautiful book full of amazing stories of the bonds between mother and daughter.
All stories are worth telling, from loving to take your dogs for a walk together and sharing a sporting activity passion to just living to spend time at home in each others company.
All ages, all stories, all women are wanted to be part of the project.
Your participation fee of $75 will help us raise $1,500 for the Woman's Cancer Foundation.
Fundamentally we will be wanting to know a story around a theme that we will be focusing on. Currently we are after stories about mothers and daughters. In this project we are capturing special moments that mothers and daughters love to share together. These stories can be about love spending time together as much as doing an activity. Such as doing a craft, a sport or going to town and shopping or going to an art gallery.
Registration to be photographed for this project can be done on out registration page. A $75 participation fee will go to helping us raise $1,500 for the Woman's Cancer Foundation. All additional money collected from the $75 will go towards the cost involved in getting to and from each one of our photo shoots.
Once each photographic session has been completed we will be inviting the family to come to our studio to view their story in a beautifully designed storybook that will be able to be purchased. There will be a range of other options available, such as storyboards as wall art and folio boxes with multiple images from the shoot mounted in archival mat boards. Prices for our art will start at $250 for a matted image.
The end result from all of the photographic sessions will be a coffee table book that showcases all of the wonderful stories told by the mothers and daughter that were photographed. In total we are looking for at least 60 sessions before considering publishing the book within a time frame of one year. The project will start on the 1st of March 2016 and finish on the 28th February 2017 or before if our target is reached much sooner.
Between now and the end of February we will be slowly releasing samples of shoots that will showcase the style of images that will be produced to make our storybooks so different to the standard family style photo shoot that we are used to seeing.
This concept is in some way influenced by the success I have had publishing 3 dog books with my business called My Dog's Territory. The concept of these books were to photograph dog's in their own territory. Up to present we have published a dog book call Balmain Dogs, Annandale and Glebe Dogs and Marrickville Municipality Dogs. In May we will be publishing our most recent book called Sydney City Dogs.
Laura Ruffino told the media that her best friends Elizabeth Diamond since fifth grade made a pact that she would take her children if something happened.
After the death of her best friend her four daughters were taken home by the Ruffino family and the upstate New York community stood by and helped raise money to help with the extra expenses incurred.
More about this story can be found at the following BuzzFeed page
]]>Every mother and daughter has a story and we want to show all the diversity of the relationships from having shared a joyful moment together and even having shared difficult moments and how they were over come. The photos do not need to retrace and be taken with the locations being replicated. Sometimes a symbol in the background or a detail of the story next to your story is all that is required for this to be included.
In the image on this page the three generations of mothers and daughters love dogs. What is your joint love?
I thought I'd give you a few ideas of what we may be after when it comes to being part of our book as there are many interesting ideas and angels to use.
For all mothers with new borns and toddlers the shoot can be playful moments spent at home, going out for walk to a local park and time spent with other similarly aged children at friends places or at mother's groups.
As your daughter gets older they will discover new interests of their own and passions that they will follow. These interests can be about sporting activities such as bike riding and playing a sport. Some might love to cook or do artistic creations. Perhaps you prefer to go out together and meet family and friends at parks or at their home.
Other stories that can be told can be about a personal life event that you both may have gone through. These events can take form over talking difficult or joyful moments that you both may have gone through. The photo session can be about the story that you would love to share. This kind of story can be about having achieved a personal goal in a sport, academic or having overcome a challenge.
The challenge that you may have overcame together may not always be something that we can visualise with photos, however by telling those stories and being photographed together can be just as powerful. Sometimes the story can be about having overcome a health adversity or getting through an intriguing story that may have happened overseas.
There are so many stories to be told and would love to hear yours. I would love to be able to cover as many stories possible and document them in a book about mothers and daughter.
To participate in the book you just have to head over to our registration page. A $75 fee help us raise the $1,500 we will donate to the Woman's Cancer Foundation and cover travel expenses to get to and from each shoot.
I look forwards to hearing from you.
Pierre Mardaga
Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga
]]>The Women's Cancer Foundation has raised millions of dollars since it's inception for gynaecological and ovarian cancers.
The statistics in Australia today show that 70%of women diagnosed with this cancer do not survive the disease.
Currently there is no vaccine or detection programs available which has means that many women are not diagnosed until it is in the advanced stages of the cancer.
Unfortunately there is a misconception that pap smear tests and immunisation will cover all of the cancers but it does't.
The research taken on by the Women's Foundation for cancer sets out to fund more successful vaccines and more research nurses to save women's lives.
Should you wish to make a donation directly to the Women's Cancer Foundation simply head over to their donation page
At Storybook photography by Pierre Mardaga I will be donating $1,500 form every book series we complete. At this moment I have a wonderful project about Mothers and daughters that you may feel like being part of. You can sign up on our registration page for your photo shoot.
On our registration page we have listed a few ideas as to what kind of story can be told. Here is the list of some of them. Sporting activity (walking, cycling...), Craft (Sewing, pottery...), Gardening, Walking your dogs, Overcame a major life challenge, Shared a joyful moment, Going out together, pure love for each other
There is also a field where you can fill in your own ideas. Most importantly is to not get overly concerned about the story right now but just come up with a theme. Once we see the theme you would like to cover we will discuss with you the best way to achieve this story in photos. Every mother and daughter has a story to tell and it can be as simple as just love sharing time together at home. Just don;t over think the concept and register with the desire to get beautiful images together.
We would also love to get multiple generation shoots done as well. Just imagine the beauty of a shoot with great grandmother and daughters all together. No further story would be needed to be told than being privileged to cherish this special moment.
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The following posts will cover more of my background in photography with personal and commissioned work that I have photographed over the years.
]]>What this means is that most of the projects that I intend to cover from here on will have a theme to focus on and end up with a book being published. Since May 2014 I have published three Dog Photography books that you can find by clicking here. Since then I have photographed almost 400 dogs around where I work and live. The books are called "Balmain Dogs", "Annandale and Glebe Dogs" and the most recent being "Marrickville Municipality Dogs".
I am currently working on a fourth book called "Sydney City Dogs" and to find out which areas we will be covering in this latest book you just need to click here. My Dog's Territory will continue to be the business name for now that will be promoting the dog photography and Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga will be the hub under which all my personal projects will be sheltered to allow an over view of what I am doing.
Welcome to Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga.
Being the first blog for Storybook photography we should introduce ourselves. Storybook Photography by Pierre Mardaga is a business that has been created after a 20+ year career as a professional photographer. Most of the years have been creating memories as photographer of weddings and families. With over 1000 personalised storybooks created the beautiful people who have entrusted me to be their photographer I recently decided to add another layer to my photography.
In May 2014, I started to photograph dogs in Balmain for a book about the local pooches living in the same areas as my studio. I do love dogs and thought this would be an exciting project to undertake. Little did I know at the time that this concept would take me on a new journey being a dog photographer covering many new areas around Sydney and publishing a new dog book every six months.
Now beginning in 2016 a new concept is about to start using the same idea. That is publishing books with a specific theme. This time the theme is about mothers and daughters. We look forwards to hearing your story and putting it all together in a book.
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