2006 – first Greek Orthodox Christening I blogged about, baby exhausted on mums shoulder with the Archbishop in the background.

2007 – Something to smile about. I was playing with my new toy, a remote flash trigger. Had my boys sitting on the back steps while I was experimenting and captured without a doubt my #1 favourite photograph of all time.

2008 – A candid shot of Marcus and his mum. At all christenings / baptisms, if time permits I take candid shots of the baby with the godparents and family. Loved this one taken outside the church and a beautifull sunny day in Sydney.

2009 – Eleni in the baptismal font. I attampt to take this type of shot at all christenings / baptisms. For my blog I also like to experiment with post processsing, and extremenly with the way this one came out.

2010 – I use a lot of flash photography in Christenings & Baptisms, however if natural light permits I’ll always take that option. Setting sun coming in through stained windows creates an environment for stunning photographs.

2011 – Another candid photograph taken at a christening / baptism. This father son image always makes me smile.

2012 – Stay tuned.

Wishing everyone a great Christmas & fantastic 2012.

.

I rotated 180 degrees from where the previous photograph was taken, and got this family portrait overlooking George’s River in the St George region of Sydney.

If you’re a parent, imagine having three children under five in a studio & trying to get natural & relaxed photographs. I think the photographs speak for themselves.

The blatant plug for my services, a link to my contact page if you’re interested in a Photographer that shoots family portraits in the great outdoors of Sydney.

I also enjoy it from a photographer perspective, shooting outside in the natural light, no flash, and high speed movement is a huge change from the christenings & baptisms I normally shoot indoors.

Some shots taken of my sons team.



My son just scored his first (of hopefully many) goals for the season. He’s the one getting jumped on

The under 8s now have a goalkeeper, my son’s first time in goals seemed to be getting the hang of it quickly.

This local derby was a non-comp day. All the kids were playing by the small sided football rules. Here’s some shots taken of the U6s & U7s.

More photo’s are available on the Carss Park Football – website.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” Walt Emerson

Not in Australia

a bit of architecture

More pretty flowers

If you look carefully, you can see my son on the bridge looking at the fish.

One of the shops we came across.

Only a handful of the photos I took that day. All these were taken at the same location within walking distance of each other.

In Sydney, Australia, the Greek community celebrates it firstly with a remembrance ceremony held at Martin Place. It is then followed by a march down George St to the steps of the Sydney Opera House, where the day is celebrated with singing & dancing.

This photograph I liked because it highlights the contrast of the different uniforms. The ‘Greek Digger’, Army, Navy, Greek National costume.

The NSW State Premier Kristina Keneally, was there as well, very photogenic as usual.

All aspects of the Greek Community were represented, in this photo we have the principal & students from All Saints Grammar.

Many dressed in various interpretations of the Greek National Costume having a great time.

A sea of hats, proudly brought to you by All Saints Grammar

Students from St Euphemia, with the crowd sitting on the steps of the Sydney Opera House on the right, the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. If you look carefully on arch right next to the Greek flag, you can see the people on top of the bridge doing the ‘bridge climb‘.

Finally, the one that brought a smile to everyone’s face. This kid is so young he could barely walk, yet here he is in the Greek National Costume strutting his stuff.

ZHTO H ELLAS!

It was the biggest crowd of the year, the cove was a sea of blue supporters.

Second half, Sydney was up 1-0 and the action was happening at my end of the field, Brosque making a few moves.

Soon after, Aloisi nailed it, taking the shot.

He soaked in the roar of the crowd

Then was joined in by his team mates.

The cove went crazy.

Final result, 2-0 congratulations.

A sneak peak on what our family & friends will receive as their Christmas card this year.

Yep, the boys are growing.

For everyone else, you can have this on-line version.

A Safe & Merry Christmas to you & your family, and may 2010 be filled with health & happiness.

John & Family.

You can see 8 kids in this shot, the fact that it’s 4 a side gives you an indication of how close they play. Also makes it easy for a photographer.

Kapa

My first effort – Hacking:
If you lack the talent to match your opponent, there is only one weapon at your disposal.

The dust has settled, things are almost back to normal, I’m looking forward to 2009 with a positive outlook. Stay tuned.

The giraffe is a favourite with all the family, here is one of my favourites of the day, with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

The Apprentice (my 5 year old) was taking photos with the pocket camera, and captured this candid of me which shows just how far my MO has grown for Movember. Have you sponsored me yet? If not, details on the two previous posts below.

BIG thanks to those that have already sponsored my MO to GRO. As promised, picture update below.

Remember, I’m doing this to raise funds for two men’s health issues that don’t get enough exposure or funds: Prostate Cancer and Depression.
Sponsor my Mo by clicking this link

How can you help? Donate to my Mo by either:

Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
Write a cheque payable to ‘Movember Foundation’, referencing my Registration Number 1408621 and mailing it to:
Movember Foundation
PO Box 292
Prahran VIC 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men’s health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue – the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.

Did you know:

Depression affects 1 in 6 men….most don’t seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer – equivalent to the number of women who will die from breast cancer annually.

Update: 1st November:

Here is a “clean” shaven image I took this morning, stay tuned for updates.

Kapa

Full frame.

Cropped

It’s a shame I have to dumb down the images for the web, the amount of detail and colour in this image is amazing when viewed full screen. Although in this image you can see a bit of the bottle brush hanging of it’s beak.

Taken in the backyard of our home, there’s a number of items of interest in this photo. It would have been taken Easter Sunday, a day Greeks celebrate by cooking a lamb on a spit. The spit itself consisted of a souvla, and everything else was made from items scrounged around the yard. The fire was enclosed in concrete bricks, the souvla itself was held up by two iron bars tied together with wire, the old “hoover” bottom right used to blow air onto the coals to speed up the heating process. A couple bags of coal (bottom left) in readiness to keep the fire burning. Most importantly, even at a young age I knew how vital it was to keep hydrated when cooking, the amber ale even back then was my choice of beverages.

Lamb Spit is one of my favourite foods, actually any bit of meat cooked on an open flame makes me act like Pavlov’s dogs, but lets not go there now. Moving forward 30 years to today, I’ve decided to document & photograph the entire process, I’ll call it my Greek Easter Lamb on a Spit recipe.

Firstly, get yourself a lamb (stating the blatantly obvious), however there is a few things to look out for. You don’t want one that is too fatty, however you do want it to have good thighs & shoulders, with plenty of meat on them which of course comes with a bit of fat, so there is a bit of a balancing act between meaty & fat. I proudly support our state farmers from New South Wales. My butcher can actually order lambs from Mexico Victoria (south of the border) if we wanted to.

From here on, I will refer to “the lamb” as Terry. Actually, every lamb on a spit I cook is called Terry in reference to a great league player that had his prime in the 80′s.

First thing I do is clean a whole head of garlic (you read that right, a whole head, not just a clove) and slice them into thin wedges. Soak them in olive oil, salt, cracked pepper, and to give it a Greek / Australian flavour, both oregano & rosemary.

Rehydrate – Crown Lager

Terry comes in at just over 14 kilograms, lay him out to prepare. Ideally you do this the night before to let the marinade soak in. Lay Terry out on a table, and make sure all you hardware is washed & dried.

Mount the fork into the shoulders, then tie the front legs into the frame.

Force the U bolt into the middle of the back, then tie it off with the wing nuts. Notice at this stage I have also thrown about 3-4 handfuls of rock salt into Terry’s cavity.

Mount the rear legs onto the frame.

Now throw a few whole lemons and onions inside the cavity and get ready to stitch Terry up. Before you do however, grab a handful of the garlic mix you created and massage it into the inside walls of the cavity, leave the garlic bits inside.

Many people use wire to stitch Terry up and tie him to the frame, in my opinion I think there are health risks with having food in contact with bits of wire you buy at a hardware store and exposing it to heat for 4-5 hours. I use a quality cooking twine and the hardware is all stainless steel.

It’s pretty obvious why I’ll never be a surgeon.

Rehydrate – James Boag

Now comes the fun bit. Using a sharp knife, cut into Terry at an acute angle just below the skin, and shove in a piece of garlic. Use your fingers and stick it in as far as it goes, doesn’t matter if you crush the garlic, all the better.

Do this on all the meaty parts, shoulders, thighs, neck and on both sides of the spine. If you run out of garlic before you run out of places to stab Terry then you’re doing great.

Once you have finished with the garlic, you should have a bowl of olive oil with the herbs left. Pour this onto your hands and massage Terry’s entire body.

Your needle may not be stainless, if that is the case, after washing it wrap it in a napkin soaked in olive oil & you won’t have a problem with it next time you need to use it.

Rehydrate – Cascade Premium

Get Terry out of the fridge at least a few hours before you start to cook him, ideally he should be at room temperature when you put him on the coals.

The first hour is the most critical, have Terry up high and keep an eye on him. If too many juices are flowing out then the heat is too much and you need to back it down. Ideally, you will have drops of juices falling off for the entire cooking process, around 4-5 hours.

The secret to a great lamb spit is to C O O K I T S L O W L Y , ensuring the juices are still in there until the end so that it doesn’t dry up.

In about an hour, you need to get the blessing ready. In a bowl, mix 50/50 freshly squeezed lemon juice with olive oil, and smother it with salt, cracked pepper, oregano and rosemary. Use a stalk of oregano (or basil) as a basting brush.

Rehydrate – Hann Premium

Now every 20 minutes or so, bless Terry making sure you get plenty of blessing on the meaty parts of his body.

Something I should have mentioned earlier, however it’s more noticeable in this photo. Terry is pretty lean around the ribs and stomach. For this reason the coals are mainly placed at the two ends of the spit where the meaty parts are, the heat generated from the ends is enough to cook the lean parts in the middle.

Rehydrate – what was I up to?

Terry with a beautiful tan, and the meat starting to come off the bone, mostly noticeable around the shoulder blades, shoulders and thighs, he’s just about ready.

My watermark hides the coals, but I do use real charcoal for cooking, not those artificial petrochemical ones created in a factory. If Terry makes the ultimate sacrifice for my culinary delights, the least I can do for him is to sacrifice a tree or two to get real charcoal to cook him.

Get Terry off the fire and start hacking into the carcass. Ideally your guests will have grabbed plates with salads and fillers and will be grabbing bits of lamb as it’s being cut, it’s best when served hot & fresh.

That t-shirt reminds me, it’s time to re-hydrate (my face wasn’t red because of the heat).

One of the disadvantages of being bi-lingual is not being able to find a single word in English to match a word in Greek, the expression for what you see in this image (and what it tasted like) is LOUKOUMI. If you don’t know what that means, suggest you grab a Greek mate and ask.

Huge thanks to my beautiful wife who as usual looked after EVERYTHING else while I only looked after the meat, her efforts are fantastic.

Now since this is the first recipe I’ve ever posted, I would love to hear some feedback. Use the comments / leave a reply on this post. Link to this page (http://blog.johnkapaniris.com/2008/03/01/lamb-spit-greek-easter/) if you have a website or your writing something in a forum. If enough interest is shown, I will start to post some more of my recipe’s. The next one I have in mind is a joint effort I make with my wife, Stuffed Lamb Fore Quarter which is cooked in a Weber barbecue. Bet you haven’t heard of that one before?

Firstly apologies and thank you to all those that tried to or succeeded in contacting me over the past few weeks. I have finally returned all calls & e-mails, if you haven’t heard from yet me yet drop me a note or ring b/c your message has gone MIA.

I took a break with my family and got away from Sydney for a few weeks. Since I know a number of relatives and friends read my blog, and for past and future clients to get a bit of a feel to my personality, I’m going to indulge myself with a few snapshots and comments from the past few weeks.

All images taken with my pocket sized P&S, love the ease of use & quality it delivers.

I’ll start of with new years eve dinner at the Italian Forum at one of our favourite restaurants Sapore by the fountain.

I’m the one on the right

This was followed by a light rail ride into Darling Harbour to see the fireworks.

We were right under the action and the noise started to scare the young one.

A couple days later we loaded the car & headed north, first stop Coffs Harbour where we did the tourist thing.

That night we went to the local carnival where the kids had fun on the rides and I played with the pre-sets on my camera. I like these, straight out of the camera, no post processing.

Eventually we reached our destination, beautiful Burleigh Heads where the view from our 18th floor room would have been fantastic if it hadn’t been for the weather.

This sign was up for the first few days we were there, heart breaking.

However Queensland didn’t fail us and soon the weather was fantastic and we headed of to the theme parks.

Here is a photographers tip, never store your camera next to an icy cold drink bottle, the lens tends to fog up.

And the boys did what they loved doing.

Should also mention thanks to my brother for lending us MIO that did a fantastic job at not getting us lost, unfortunately, this model is not designed to avoid traffic.

Another gorgeous day, another theme park, somewhere in there you’ll find my sons.

Now for some reason the girls wanted to stop into a certain hotel with an Italian sounding name that is apparently the bees knees. What better place to refresh ourselves with coffee and milkshakes

Finally on our way home with a stopover at a great little place called Forster.
Part of the “Great Lakes”.

I spend one morning baiting hooks with live worms.

Not pleasant but the end result was worth it, both boys caught their first fish.

If you look carefully, he jagged this one by clipping the gill, the bait it still on the hook

When I threw this one back in, the young one got quite upset. He wanted to take it home and put it in a bowl to keep it as a pet.

That’s it for now, next time you hear from me I’ll be updating the blog with some fresh images from the most recent event I’ve covered.

Have a healthy & safe 2008.

PS: For those readers that live in or near New York, there is a 4 year old girl that they are desperately trying to find a bone marrow match as she has been recently diagnosed with MDS leukaemia. My mate & great photographer Christos from Long Island is supporting this little girls cause by publishing testing locations & dates as well as rallying people to come in for a swab in an attempt to find a match.
Click on this paragraph for details.

The image itself was begging to be converted to black and white, and once I done that ended up being printed on a 20″x20″ canvas and is now proudly displayed on our living room wall.

Now if that wasn’t enough to smile about, I entered this image into a “smile” competition, and out of over 37,000 entries, I’m very happy to say that I am a finalist. Stay tuned, in a few weeks I’ll find out if I made the grade, got a consolation prize, or ended up taking home a huge print of it which is how it is being displayed for judging. Irrespective of the outcome, I can honestly say I’m absolutely chuffed.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Atrium, pretty obvious why they call it that.

One of the nights we went down to Boat Quay where we were inundated with sprukers trying to get us into their restaurant. Everyone was offering the same deal, everyone had similar menus, in the end we picked one that had a table along the water.

Even managed to get to the night zoo where you can have a close encounter with some friendly wildlife.

The day I was leaving managed to grab a bit of time down at Chinatown, where everything looks the same.

A remote flash trigger, is used to fire a flash that is not connected to the camera. If anyone has seen me work, you will have noticed that I’m a fan of using and off camera flash, usually with a long cord. These remote triggers will allow me some more creativity, flexibility and options when shooting. Here are some examples of what I can achieve with these.

My wife, cooking a delicious dinner (and telling me to go play somewhere else). The foreground of this image is lit using the ambient light from the kitchen, a tad underexposed however it suits the picture. The flash is sitting on the bench top behind her, giving her a “rim light” around her body & hair.

With a remote trigger, you can also place the flash into objects & confined areas. This will give the illusion of a light source from somewhere unexpected. My young one looking into his backpack.

And of course, the very old trick of making it look like the light source is coming from the computer screen. In all images of someone working on a computer, you can guarantee that the glow coming from the computer screen was generated by a remote flash.