Oh Gold Coast! I live just an hour from the Gold Coast, and it’s a pretty special place to live. It’s beautiful, sunny, easy-going, and just fun… just like the people who live in it.
Last week I hosted a photography workshop alongside Rachel and my friend from Olympus, Alex. By host, I mean I made up some gifts, bought some flowers and I mingled. Rachel did all the teaching and important stuff, Olympus provided the good food, and the cameras.
This time, being so close to home, I decided to take Lacey along with me. She is quite the social butterfly, so I knew she’d love it… plus when I mentioned it she said she’d like to teach everyone all the things she knows about photography {which according to her is A LOT}.
The workshops are about mama and kid time. It’s about sharing a passion together, and just having fun. It’s not stressful, or too fancy, or complicated. It’s really laid-back and easy, and I think that makes it fun for everyone.
We work through a few basic photography skills: colour, framing a photo and rule of thirds… and then it’s time to play. Each child is given a little toy animal to play with, and make the star of their photographs.
These little animals end up in the weirdest and coolest of places. At each workshop it changes; some kids name them, some make stories around them, and most just have a whole lot of fun.
Here you see Panda and Dog just hanging out, in the wild.
Here one guest looked for colour, and how to make her dog stand out.
Spot the monkey in the flowers!
My most favourite part of these workshops is seeing the kids get inspired and bond with their mums, and meeting readers. And the food, I love the food.
For the Gold Coast workshop we used a space at the QT hotel. It’s one of my favourite places ever, so I was glad they could make room for us.
For the workshop the kids are given a Olympus Stylus Tough TG-4, which is not specifically a kids’ camera but is a good one for them to start with. The parents are handed with OM-D E-M10 to play with. Each person gets to take home the memory card so that they can keep their photos from the day.
We’re not trying to get people to fall in love with the cameras, this is just about giving everyone a space to have fun together, particularly with their kids… but every workshop we’ve done, people fall in love with the cameras. I’ve heard so many times now, “I can’t take a bad photo with this camera!” Apparently Santa is getting lots of requests for cameras this year.
Jenna from Loves Bites Cookies made the sweet camera cookies. They’re yummy as well as pretty.
Towards the end of the workshop I remembered that there was a colourful chair on each floor of the hotel, so I grabbed Lacey and her friend, and they each picked a number… stopping at that floor to take photos of the chair, and the animals ON the chair. Such fun!
I know not everyone can make a workshop, but please don’t let it stop you from getting outside and sharing photography with your kids. It’s such a beautiful thing to share. {But Adelaide, you can join us if you please!}.
Thank you to everyone who took time out to hang with us, and share the day exploring photography with us. I had a blast, and hope you did too.
You can read blog posts from others who attended {there were a mix of bloggers and non-bloggers} here:
♥ My Inner Pollyanna
♥ Kirsten & Co
I’m an ambassador for Olympus. You can read more about our relationship here.
Thank you so much for such a fun afternoon! Sophie and I had a wonderful time x
Thanks for coming. Loved having you. x
It was so much fun! Bronte’s dog is still making random appearances around the house… poor thing would roll its eyes at the amount of shots if it wasn’t made of plastic. *lol* Oh, and that cookie… and the glitter… 😉 xx
Ha ha! I’m sure it’s eyes are still rolling all the same. 😛
Well, either Willoughby let out a really well timed whine this morning or it’s not a plastic dog after all…
Looked amazing! Not as cool as Sydney’s but still really fun 😉
You are too funny!
I’ve just gone through Moos photos and they are great, I’m about to write a post, just been a bit busy – silly hypertension diagnosis!!! xxx
We recently gave our daughter an old camera we hadn’t used in a while, we could hear the shutter going off in her room when she was meant to be asleep. Later that night we snuck in and looked through her photos and ended up having to go outside so we didn’t wake her with our hysterical laughing. Pictures included a mirror shot of her butt, closeups of the dogs teeth, closeups of the dogs butt, My Little Ponies, and a few absolutely BRILLIANT selfies. The best.
It was such a great day, thank you! I was really surprised at some of my daughters photos and she has told me she would like to make it a regular thing that just her and I go out to take photos together. Such a great bonding activity. And I finally ate my pretty cookie, tasted just as amazing as it looked.
How can I find out when and where your workshops are? Will you be in Perth soon?
I’ll have a post about Perth coming up soon. We’ll be there on November 14th. 🙂
Indigo & I had a fantastic time! He has been using our camera a lot since the workshop which is wonderful to see. Thank you for a lovely day xx