Fifteen years of prep, then a camera
Redgum started because a teacher got tired of watching kids freeze up in front of a grey backdrop. That's honestly the whole origin story.
2011 — one kinder, one favour
Kate had taught prep in Bendigo for fifteen years. A kinder up the road asked her to have a go at their photo day because their usual mob had let them down, and she said yes mostly out of politeness.
She took them outside. Nobody sat on a stool. It took most of a morning and the photos came back looking like the kids the educators actually knew.
That kinder rang the following year. Then two of their neighbours did.
Now — four of us and a lot of driving
There are four photographers at Redgum. All four came out of teaching or early childhood work rather than out of a studio, which we think matters more than it sounds — everyone here has run a room, so nobody needs to be told how a three-year-old's morning works.
We cover a fair chunk of Victoria: Bendigo and the goldfields, up through Echuca and Shepparton, across to Castlemaine and Daylesford, and down towards Ballarat. Between us we're on the road most of autumn and most of spring.
What we won't do
Backdrops. Not even the nice ones. If the weather's genuinely unworkable we'll move indoors and use a window, but we won't roll out paper.
Themed props. No chalkboards with the year on them, no seasonal frames. They date the photo instantly and they're not about the child.
Deadlines designed to rush you. Galleries stay open a year. We're not going to make your families panic on a Tuesday night.
What we care about
Real light
Everything we shoot is available light. No flash going off in a child's face, no lighting rig in the middle of the yard. It's slower and it's weather-dependent and we think it's worth it.
Real clothes
We ask centres not to tell families to dress kids up. Play clothes photograph better and, more to the point, that's what your child actually wore to kinder. Dirt on the knees is fine by us.
Real time
We budget a full morning for around fifty children and we don't book two centres in a day. Rushing is the single fastest way to get a photo nobody likes.
The boring but important bit
Every Redgum photographer holds a current Victorian Working with Children Check, and we send you the card numbers and expiry dates in writing before we come out, along with our public liability certificate.
We work off your consent list, not ours. On the morning we sit down with whoever's in charge and go through it name by name. If a child's consent isn't clear, that child doesn't get photographed — we'd rather miss one than get it wrong.
