True Colours Long Lunch

Melbourne Cup Day. Hamilton’s fanciest hats, its biggest hearts and 350-plus people who turned up to eat well, bid hard and raise serious money for a cause that deserves it. That was the Kerr & Ladbrook True Colours Long Lunch on Tuesday 4 November and we were the ones behind the camera.

You know the Long Lunch, right? Three courses. Live auctions that get properly competitive. Silent bidding on your phone while you’re meant to be watching the race. Sweepstake envelopes doing the rounds. A band closing out the afternoon while everyone’s had just enough champagne to actually dance. It’s a lot of fun dressed up as a fundraiser, or maybe it’s the other way round. Either way, every cent of it goes to True Colours Children’s Health Trust, supporting Waikato families facing serious childhood illness.

The Brief? There Wasn’t a Neat One

Here’s the thing about events like this: nobody poses for you. Nobody’s standing still waiting for the “nice” shot. You’ve got a room of 350 people doing 350 different things at once and your job is to be in the right spot when it actually happens. The laugh at table six that nobody planned. The auctioneer working the room like he owns it. The exact second a bid war turns into a standing ovation. That’s not something you can stage. You either catch it or you don’t.

That’s the job we signed up for, and honestly, it’s the job we love most!

Why This One Matters More

Plenty of events need a photographer. Not many of them are raising money to help a family through the hardest year of their life. True Colours exists for exactly that reason: counselling, nursing and real support for Waikato kids with serious health conditions and the parents trying to hold everything together while it happens.

Every auction bid in that room, every dollar in a sweepstake envelope, goes straight back into that work. We don’t take being trusted with that lightly. Turning up with a camera is the easy part. What that day actually does for families we’ll probably never meet, that’s the bit worth showing up for.

What We Actually Got

• The arrivals, because let’s be honest, the outfits are half the point of a Melbourne Cup lunch
• The unposed, unscripted table moments, the ones that actually tell you what the day felt like
• The auction floor and the sweepstakes, full volume, full character
• The band closing it all out while the afternoon wound its way into evening
  

Right, Your Turn

Got an event coming up? Corporate do, gala, fundraiser, doesn’t matter. If you want it photographed by people who actually know how to read a room instead of just pointing a camera at it, we’re your team. Hamilton, Waikato, wherever you’re holding it.

Get in touch about event photography