This is Maud Island, it's a scientific reserve and serves as a predator-free island sanctuary for native NZ species, it even has it's very own species of frog!  Not surprisingly called the Maud Island Frog. 

You can go check it out at Google Maps.

Still flying....  Highfield Estate.

I'm rather behind on blogging the gorgeous people I've been photographing lately!  So I'm going to play a bit of catchup over the next few days.

I recently got the opportunity to photograph Debbie's lovely family, as well as her brother and parents.  We went up to Waihopi Valley where her parents live, and played around a bit, as you can see!

This is Thomas.  I would really have loved to name one of my boys Thomas, but then he would be Tom Jones, and I think you just can't have that for a small baby.  Plus, I only had one boy!  Anyway, I digress again.  I think Thomas is quite a little stud muffin, don't you?

This is Ned and Lucy, equally as gorgeous!

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This is their much loved Grandad, Tom, with his trusty horse, Mate.  These guys go way back, and are really awesome friends.

Ian has a really awesome looking Harley.  I don't know anything about motorbikes, but I did know that this was a particularly cool one!

I'm pretty sure Tom isn't old enough to ride yet.  But he sure looks the part!

Perhaps a little bit short still.

Clearly Lucy is even sorter still.  But OH SO cute, just look at those blue eyes!

Thanks for inviting me to come and capture your family guys! 

In other news:

My Christmas shopping is not done yet.  Some of it is, but a big lot of if is not.  I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year.  Sophie (2.5yrs) is quite convinced she's getting cake for Christmas.  It's fun watching her looking wide eyed at all the decorations, and the presents under the tree at Nana's house. 

I don't really mind what I get, as long as it's chocolate.

The Marlborough Sounds. 

Horray!  The photos are online!  Paul was up until the wee hours finishing up and when I got up this morning there was a note on the desk with the gallery info.  Yay!

The Sharon Rennie School Of Dance production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has been sorted, tweaked and uploaded to an online gallery for all the ballet Mums and Grandmas out there.  There's over 1200 images all up, so you may want to go straight to the scene you or your cherub is in. 

We're doing it a bit differently this year, you can't buy prints, but you can buy them as digital files.  This way you can print them as many times as you want, put them on facebook, or put them in your Christmas cards (if you're way late like me).  They're only $7.50ea.  Do your selecting and paying online and then we'll email them to you in full resolution (without the watermark of course).

If you have a very slow connection, or if you don't know what to do with them if they're emailed, we can send them to you on cd for $5. That way you can just take the cd to Topshots or somewhere like that, and they'll print them for you.  The files are big enough to print beautifully up to an A4 size or even larger.

Okey Dokey, if you have any questions, feel free to email me or you can leave it in the comments box below and I'll answer it here if it may be helpful for others too.  If you want to let your friends and family know about this gallery, give them the following link to bring them directly to this page:  http://www.jessicajones.co.nz/ballet

Oh, one more thing.  The photos are from both the afternoon and evening sessions.  Paul has put them in order so it will be easier to find who you're looking for.  You will notice though, that the lighting is a bit different - like the afternoon might have blue lighting in a certain scene, whereas the evening one might be red.  You can tell which is the afternoon and evening by the filenames directly below each photo. The filenames ending with an 'A' were from the afternoon, and the ones ending in 'E' were the evening.  We've split the finale up because they were so different with the flowers etc.

Thanks again to Sharon Rennie for being so patient with our girls all year, and putting on such a fun production for them to dance in.  Also - YAY for the tutus :)

So sit back, and let the pictures begin!

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Because a blog post looks really boring without pictures, here are a few more:

This was before the performance.  I think next year if we do it again and if there are enough parents who are keen, I'll set aside a specific time when you can come in for individual shots, that might save the big rush beforehand. 

I'm sorry, but I have to add another one of my kids in here.  Like all parents, I think mine are cuter than average :)

The lighthouse at Cape Campbell.  Gorgeous!

So we're doing a bit of a 'fly over Marlborough' theme for the next few days.  Paul gets to go out on these wonderful adventures with Ben from Windhawk Helicopters.  Very cool, although surely it must be my turn soon?

Check out the sheep!