It’s amazing how much attention is given to the little details that make up a wedding. I adore the incorporation of feathers into this bridal bouquet by Lilyvale Flowers to make it just a little bit different.

This picture is another in the series from our recent styled shoot – a classic garden wedding.

~ Pav

P.S. The flowers Lilyvale uses are silk, and they’ve made me rethink my views on artificial flowers. They look lovely, last forever, and they weigh about a quarter as much as a bouquet of real flowers (a bonus when you’re carrying them around for hours). They’re certainly an option worth considering.

I love shoots that involve fun props, be they giant red balloons or sparkly bunny ears. Props add a touch of theatre and can change the whole feeling of a picture. As far as I’m concerned, the more fun the prop the better. If nothing else, it lightens the mood and makes the whole process a little more fun for everyone involved. It’s pretty hard not to smile when you’re wearing sparkly bunny ears.

~ Pav

Last week I explained why I take photos of drain covers, and why that makes Japan so interesting for me. Today is our last day in Japan, so I thought I’d share another photo that I’ve added to my collection.

This was taken on one of the islands in the Seto Inland Sea, which we visited as part of the Shimanami Kaido bike ride we did. The bike ride starts in Onomichi City and meanders across six of the islands in the Seto Inland Sea and the bridges that connect them. The entire ride is 75km, but we only did about 30km, by which point we were both freezing and I was in agony, having remembered that the fact that Geoff rides a bike pretty much every day doesn’t make me a cyclist too.

~ Pav

We’re on holiday in Japan this week, so this week’s photo post is from one of my personal projects. While it may seem strange that I have a personal project which includes drain covers, I can explain. My interest is in what I describe as footpath art, the art we walk over every day, often without seeing it. It started in Brisbane when after years of walking down Albert Street, I finally noticed the bronze plaques by Brona Keenan that form part of the Albert Street Literary Trail. Having discovered that I’d been walking over art I hadn’t noticed for about 15 years (seriously, they were installed in 1996 and I finally noticed them in 2011). I couldn’t help but start to notice this kind of art all over the place, and being me, to start to take photos of it. Japan has it’s own special variety of footpath art – illustrated drain or manhole covers. These are beautifully detailed designs specific to the local region they’re in. Sometimes they’re painted and sometimes they’re left plain, but they’re always interesting. I even have a coaster on my desk which is a small rubber version of the standard Osaka drain cover that we found last time we were here. So this is the latest edition to my collection. It’s from the Abeno ward of Osaka.

~ Pav