THE WEDDING OF MAUREEN & SANDY..

“You are GOOD! The invitation set as markers, the hearts, it all makes sense. The pictures tell the story of our Wedding.”

- Maureen Santoso (uploaded 01/05/10)

How fun was this? When I met Maureen and Sandy, they gave me free reign when putting their book together. It was their understanding that anything I did would be awesome - and the final product is! The ideas flowed right away because they had such great collateral: cake-top decorations of themselves made out of wood.. unique fan-like invitations.. an abundance of photographic choices.. etc. There was so much to work with and I can only thank this couple for choosing me to layout their wedding album.

© Images courtesy Saxon Cole Photography.

DAN & TAN: NORTH & CENTRAL AMERICAN ADVENTURES..

"Wow, we were like two little kids opening up a Chrissie pressie with every new page! We are absolutely rapt and clearly made the right choice, with you designing it!"

- Tania Baldwin (uploaded 22/03/10)

It's great to put together travel photobooks because that is where I started this business - with the creation of my own travel blogs! But this time I was commissioned by Daniel and Tania Baldwin to have their mammoth journal converted into a cohesive book. Hours of proof-reading, layout and exporting have resulted in this 220 pg collection of travel stories and photographs that span a few months spent in North and Central America during 2007-8.

Only a short amount of time spent only in a small corner of the globe. Stirs my own wanderlust..

OLI & KIRK, THE WEDDING OF..

"THANK YOU! Beautiful layout, you are magic at it. I love your eye for detail... I cant wait to post it!"

- Oli Anson (uploaded 19/02/10)

Oli invited me to photograph her small wedding after viewing my photographs from a previous wedding - what an honour! And while I felt my abilities as a wedding photographer where you need to be switched on every second to capture every moment, was somewhat of a challenge, I feel like the images have come alive in the album.

ANDRE & MICHELLE: THE WEDDING ALBUM..

"Our Wedding Album is exactly what we wanted it to look like..."

- Michelle Cherry

I was stoked to receive Michelle's beautiful wedding images. I knew from the get-go that what would eventuate would be a really beautiful album - and it is! With settings as beautiful as the Royal Botanic Gardens and The Rocks, the photographs leap off the page. After thorough back-n-forth examination, Michelle held the final book in her hands as if given a valuable gift - happy and satisfied.

© Images courtesy of Gemma Clarke Photography.

AVALON FARM SPECIALS..

"Better than ever expected! I'm more than pleased and so very glad to have met you."

Rose Basson, Cookbook (uploaded 05/12/09)

Rose approached me to make sense of the multitude of family recipes and history she wanted to hand down as a memento for her ten grand-daughters. More than just a cookbook (nothing is ever that simple!), this book is about things past (as we were), things present (as we are), and the future (as we may be). It is about change.. and it tracks the stories of the Basson family.. information that would otherwise have been lost in time.

© Uses images found from Google searches and photography by Cain Cooper.

PITCH TV - THE SEPTEMER ISSUE..

This month's PitchTV show is now airing onboard Virgin Atlantic planes, exposing the latest batch of video pitches from budding entreprenuers to the hundreds of business professionals who regularly fly with Virgin Atlantic. Hopefully among the people watching in the air or online here will be someone who might be willing to help take one of these business ideas forward.

September's PitchTV show features guest entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk who kindly answers some of the questions the community here posted online for him.

TYLER & TEGAN'S WEDDING ALBUM..

"We've displayed our book on our coffee-table, and everyone comments on it."

Tegan Eggleton, Wedding Album (uploaded 10/10/09)

Photographing my first wedding was a pure joy - beautiful weather, beautiful location, beautiful couple. Having designed the engagement invitations, wedding invitations, and place cards.. it was only a natural progression to put together the wedding album as well. It really is the icing on the cake so to speak, as I had a wonderful time putting it together

© Photography by Cain Cooper / Joshua Flint

BLURB MEET-UP..

Yesterday, I was first to arrive at the first ever Blurb meet-up in Sydney. Attended by about 50 or 60 fellow self-publishing bookmakers, I soon caught on that this will be no passing phenomenon. Scrolling through pages and pages of sample books displayed randomly on coffee-tables within the designated room of Paddington's Fringe Bar, I couldn't help but be blown away by the dedication of the artists, writers and photographers that have no other way to get their work into the greedy hands of people the world over.

I first discovered Blurb I think through a competition they were running called Photography.Book.Now. I entered Cain9ine's London Blog into the competition in hopes that I would at least be shortlisted for a category prize in the Editorial section... and maybe take out the grand prize of 25k and a chance to meet with the sponsors (Canon, HP, etc) to discuss the future of my photobook.

Anyway, so fingers crossed on that one... but regardless, I had to purchase a copy of my book in order to enter, so I hurried about fixing the format (Blurb have standardised formats to use... you don't have to use their software, but you have to adhere to the sizes) so I can enter and feel extremely confident that it would all work out. Thus creating a snowball effect... as now I want to create mini versions of Cain9ine's London Blog that cover each section of Europe in more photographic detail...

The great thing about Blurb is that they have a bookstore where you can choose to include your book for sale among the community of self-publishers like myself. Some of the uploads are of super high quality, including this one that struck my fancy... I will probably buy it in due course.

So I extend my extreme thanks to Robin (Susan Boyle eat your heart out!) for jet-setting across from San Francisco (Blurb's head office) to share the back page with us...

Oh, and for picking up the tab!

VIRGIN ATLANTIC'S PITCH-TV..

So, a couple of months ago I entered the Virgin Atlantic Pitch TV competition. The idea was to pitch my business idea (Cain9ine's Travel Blogs) directly to people who could make my dream a reality, and I did this by sending a 2 minute video pitch (see above).
Once a month Virgin pick out a selection of the best video pitches and then let everyone vote for their favourite online and on Virgin Atlantic's in-flight entertainment - to be seen by top business professionals from around the world. And woo hoo, mine has made it!

Vote if you come across it, yes... that'd be nice! Because if you do, and I win the competition, RB will get involved - which I don't have to tell you would be so cool..
PS. Yeah I know the eyebrows could get stuck like that!