Annie | Portrait

Tweet
I've been advertising a few free wedding photography packages to boost up my portfolio recently (still available before Jan 2013!) and off one of the messages Louise emailed to see if I did baby portraits. Now, I've taken pictures of my 5 year old cousin and some of my niece but never any of an 18 month old. I'm never one to say no to a photography challenge so I said I'd give it a go and last Friday we had the photoshoot!

Not knowing what the silly Lake District weather had in store I thought it would be a good idea to set up inside at first. I've got some studio lights (which I really don't use much) and a backdrop so I set those up in our large room upstairs. I wanted a more fun and whimsical look to the photos so I dug out mum's Christmas lights and started to hang them as a backdrop. Once I'd set it all up I took some test shots using the always willing Rosie... she's a pretty great model..

I fiddled around with the lighting a bit more and then I was ready - just as Louise and Annie arrived. We had a chat and a cup of tea, letting Annie relax and wake up from her car journey, then we went upstairs and started shooting. As I had the lights up already we went with a pretty pink fairy dress that I had in the house (it's filled with weird and wonderful props now!). Annie was a great little model and didn't make a fuss at all.

Once we'd got some fairy shots we changed Annie into a beautiful lace dress that Louise had brought with her. I love this shot:

I really wanted to get some outside shots and after we'd tried a couple more things (which didn't quite work) we changed Annie again - she really was a great sport at being a doll for an afternoon! - into the cutest outfit ever and headed out into our garden. We've got a great tree house with toadstools in so that was the first port of call and then went on to a few other places around the garden until Annie started to get a bit tired.

Editing was great fun and I really learnt a lot about photographing toddlers - it's much harder than I thought but Annie was as good as gold all afternoon. Here are a couple more shots I love:

 Adding some magic in the tree house

Louise and Annie

So there you go! Thanks for reading. xx

Depravity | Behind the scenes

Tweet

First post! I've been thinking about a blog for a while but kept deciding I wouldn't have anything interesting to say... so let's see how it goes.

I've got a recent shoot to tell you about but I'm waiting until the clients have seen the photos before I blog about it so I thought I'd go back and write about one of my favourite shots on my Flickr:

I bought the donkey's head off ebay quite a long time ago and had absolutely no idea what I would use it for but I bid at the last minute and suddenly a large box and a pantomime version of The Godfather were unveiling in my kitchen. The head sat in the house for a long time. I had a few ideas of what to do with it (one of which I'm still working on) but nothing leapt into my head. Then while I was up directing a show in St Andrews this image started to form in my head, I mulled it over for about a week playing with different scenarios until I had a definite concept and then we went for it.

David (who was up singing in the opera I was directing) was a very willing model and Katie came along to help out, which she did wonderfully as always.

It was a really fun shoot and we got many strange looks from dog walkers, especially as David decided to walk to the location wearing the head:

My kit for the shoot:

Donkey head (obviously!), Tripod, reflector (I use this all the time - one of the best pieces of kit I ever bought) and the wine bottle.

Once we got to the spot it was a pretty easy shoot to be honest. The weather was perfect and I knew what I wanted so it was quick to get David into position and take the few photos I needed. I'd just started doing expansions so I took a closer one of David and then took all the expansion shots I needed (and usually about 20 I didn't - I haven't quite mastered working out what I need and what I don't!) and we were done.

I did quite a big edit on this photo just to get the donkey's head looking right. The head itself is amazing but the eye came out funny in the photo and it's got a mesh nose so you can see where you're going (it was originally used in an opera so they'd have had to sing in it too). I'd originally planned to have a few more bottles laid about to place but it made it look too cluttered. So here is the before & after:

So there you go! My first blog.  Hopefully there will be many more to come. Thank you for reading!
xxx