Natasha, Amy, Sophie and Josh

It was bitterly cold yesterday but there was still a lovely late afternoon sun when I went out to photograph Natasha, Amy, Sophie and Josh whose father's I know as they product great canvasses for me.

There were some lovely textures to photograph them against, and they were naturals!

Here's a small selection:

And I just couldn't resist their inquisitive neighbour!

Helen and Ben

This morning I caught up with Helen and Ben to catch up on their wedding plans for May next year. They're marrying at Halstead House and their wedding sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun, but I'm not going to give away any of the details...

Today was a wander across the muddy fields to the canal for some portraits to break the ice before next year.

Here are a few of the images:

Jake, Lucy and Olivia

Half term, and a few portrait shoots this week.

Here are a few favourites from a session back in East Langton with Jake, Lucy and Olivia:

More Trash The Dress

Another chance to go out and get a bit of practice and have some fun today when we went out and had a TTD session in and around Market Harborough with Caroline.

We started at the ruined church of St Mary in Arden, near the station, and then wandered around the industrial estates (I'm sure that some of the drivers went by several times in curiosity, particularly when we were shooting Caroline on the back of a Honda motorbike!) before heading into town.

Some early favourites:

And introducing Daisy the dog (gulp!):

Great fun was had by all and the dress may even have survived for another day...

Siobhan and Squeak

I met Siobham earlier in the year when I went on the fabulous David Williams workshop in North Yorkshire. One thing most photographers with children have in common is that they never have pictures taken of themselves with their own children. They may take plenty of pictures of their children, but they don't usually get to be in the pictures too.

So, on the workshop Siobhan and I agreed that at some point she would come up to visit me with her daughter Squeak (aka Aisling) and I'd take some pictures. They came up recently, thankfully on a dry and relatively sunny day, and I gave them a tour of some of my 'secret' local locations before we met up with another local photographer, Mark Betts, for lunch (which has got me thinking; what's the collective noun for photographers? Answers on a postcard, please).

Anyway, these are some of my favourite images from the session.

Firstly, Squeak:

And most importantly, Siobhan and Squeak together:

It was great to see you again, and I hope you like the results!

Bronze, Silver and GOLD!

Since July I've been entering the monthly competition run by the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP), and I was pleased that all of the images that I entered have received a merit award; a bronze in July, and seven silvers in August.

Then at the beginning of this month my eight entries were judged as three bronze, three silver, and I was delighted to receive my first two golds, in the Children and Fine Art categories. The golds, which follow below, will now go forward to the annual competition and be published in the SWPP magazine.

Firstly, Ashlynne, judged gold in the Children category:



And this image of a misty morning in St Marks Square, Venice, which was judged gold in the Fine Art category:



Fingers crossed for future entries!

Pure Weddings magazine - Trash The Dress

The autumn edition of Pure Weddings magazine should be hitting the shelves soon, and it features a two page spread with my images from a Trash the Dress (TTD as it's know) session.

Trash the Dress gives the bride (and groom if he wants to get involved) the opportunity to get dressed up again, have a fun shoot, and not be too precious about the dress. It's not really about destroying the dress, it's more of a non-traditional and artistic way of having a fun time and getting some great fashion inspired images. Honest! Otherwise, what happens to the dress? It gets put away safely in a storage box and may never see the light of day again.

All of our brides have the opportunity of a TTD session, and if they really don't want to get their wedding dress a little grubby they can always look for a cheap one on E-bay!

The images featured in Pure Weddings were from a shoot last October in Edinburgh where Nicky and Scott ended up in the sea. It was a bit cold to say the least, but all in the name of TTD.




Weather permitting (i.e. we don't want it to be too good!), we've got some more TTD sessions coming up shortly, one with the promise of a motorbike as a prop.

Watch out for the posts in the next week or so.

A bit behind...

Things have been a bit hectic recently and the blog has been a bit neglected.

There have been a few shoots which I need to blog, some great news regarding competitions, the launch of the long awaited new brand, a magazine feature, and amongst all that I'm putting together some stunning wedding albums from some of the weddings that we've photographed recently.

I'll try and catch up with the blolgging over the next few days and then get back into the habit again.

Watch this space...