- Merry Christmas! -

It's December, which means it's officially Christmas...I'm so excited!  I'm looking forward to capturing the holiday season!

- Kelly; 'Ballerina' -

I'm currently working on a studio brief at college.  As one of my final images I wanted to create a photograph that was dynamic, striking and graceful.  As my model was sick the day of shooting, the lovely Kelly stepped in and I have to say, made quite a good fake ballerina.  I'm so proud of her!

This shoot was a massive learning curve for me.  The studio was not my strongest ability, but I feel a lot more confident with all of that technical stuff now!  It was really interesting and I learnt that I'm a bit of a control freak.  These aren't the edits I will be using for my final picture, these are specially for 'commercial use'.

Anyway, here are my favourite images from the shoot...  Three cheers for Kelly!!

- Jenny & Padhraig...Round 2 -

I was lucky enough to get another opportunity to photograph my friend Jenny and her husband.  They came to England for a couple of days so I met up with them to do a mini 'Rock the Frock'.  Jenny was a real trooper even though she wasn't feeling too well.  The weather was on our side this time so I had a chance to get some beautiful shots.   I also experimented with a few different editing techniques.

- New Logo! -

Hello! In between churning out lots of college work and sleeping, I've decided to create a new logo!  I felt the other one was dated, and didn't suit me.  So here it is...Just finished! I hope you like it.

- Ethan & Izay -

Well it's been a busy summer holiday, and with no computer to update my blog, there's gonna be an overload of posts over the next couple of weeks!  I've just started back at college, my second and final year with Tameside.  I suppose I would be quite sad if I wasn't so busy!

Over the holidays we had a photo journaling brief.  Basically, we had to document as much of our lives as we could!  I had A LOT of fun doing this, but like i said, lots of blogging to catch up on.

In the holidays I had the opportunity to go visit my parents.  when I got married I left them behind in the lovely sea side town of Bridlington, on the East coast of Yorkshire.  This also gave me the chance to cram in some quality time with my nieces and nephews who I hardly ever get to see!

- July 4th - 

For my sister's birthday we spent the day at Thornwick Bay, a beach our family has been visiting since my dad was a toddler!  We took Ethan and Izay, 2 year old cousins.  The younger babies were too small to spend the day on the beach because it was too hot! so we smothered the toddlers in sun cream and took them rock pooling, naturally I took my camera...

It was an ideal day for shooting! So sunny and clear.  Also the kids were happy so it made for some interesting pictures.  I always prefer to photograph kids on location, sheerly because their reactions are so natural.  Here are my favourites...

Look at these cuties... Izay (left) & Ethan (right).

- Jennifer & Podge -

So here they are.  My first ever wedding portraits!  The first step in what I hope will be a long and busy career.  And they threw me straight in the deep end!!!!! The couple had a civil ceremony in Northern Ireland then flew over to Manchester and drove up to Preston for their Temple wedding.  As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have the privilege of being married for eternity, not just 'till death do us part'. It's a beautiful ceremony in a very peaceful place, the perfect end to a busy, hectic day.
Because there was so much travelling involved everything went wrong! The bride and groom were nearly 40 mins late and almost missed their own wedding! In the end we had literally 3 minutes for portraits and that was only because we walked up to the Temple from the Residential buildings at the bottom of the grounds.  I would have LOVED to photograph these two more but sadly we weren't able to.
Jenny looked absolutely beautiful and didn't let the rain ruin her special day.  Well here they are!

This one is my favourite! I think it's a really beautiful photograph.

This one is really lovely too.  She looks so beautiful!

I like this picture but I wish I could have brought them forward so they were more prominent in the image.  But they were so late I didn't have time to move them.

I think this could've been a really gorgeous picture but I didn't focus it properly! I'm quite mad at myself about it but all I can do is learn from my mistakes.

- My New Lens! -

This weekend my friend got married.  Her name is Jenny and she married a lovely young man called Podge (Yes, that is his name.  It's Irish so it's pronounced like Porrick.).  We had some time while we were waiting for them so...I got a chance to play with my new lens.  We were waiting in the grounds of the LDS Temple in Chorely, Preston.  It's a beautiful building surrounded with lovely gardens so I practiced on the flowers!  They're all taken using natural light and a 75-300mm lens.  I didn't use the macro setting on the lens, but I'm gonna give it a go pretty soon!  I'm not used to still life but I think they're not too bad.  What do you think?

I love the shape of this flower.  I also like the red/green contrast.  I like the highlights on the petals too, but I do wish the colours in this image were a bit more vivid.

I don't like this image.  Even though it's quite bright, I think it's kind of a sad picture.  It just seems a bit lonely.  I don't like the composition of this image; I generally just find it to be a boring photograph.

This flower has caught the light so nicely! The highlights make it look delicate and silky, despite it's imperfections.  I like the contrast between the light petals and the shadowy background, I think it makes the flower pop.

I can't make my mind up about this image...  Likes; lots of detail, nice highlights on the leaves, the dark pink flower has a really interesting shape and I like that the image is predominately green & white with only hints of pink.  Dislikes; too busy, not vibrant enough and I don't like the shade of yellow in the middle of the flowers.

The arches in the Temple grounds...A gorgeous place for a portrait!  I love the smooth curve of the path and the straight lines of the bench.  I think they sit beautifully with the wildness in the gardens.

- More Flash Practice! -

Well...I've been practicing with the flash again this week.  This time with a ring flash, just a couple of quick shots here and there.  Hopefully I'm getting the hang of it!  Of course, these were shot in my living room! The ring flash was pretty small, it was just one I borrowed from college to give it a go.  I started with it being attatched to my lens but I didn't like it so I just switched to using it hand held.  All of these images were taken holding the flash.  I haven't used any reflectors either.  18-50mm lens.

This one is my favourite! I love the contrast of the background and him.  I also love how the light falls on his face and the shadows it makes in hhis beard, on his ear and his neck.  I think this photograph suits being landscape because of the simplicity of this profile portrait.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet...I like the composition but I think the lighting is too harsh.  I don't like how the light has caught his eye or the shadow from his nose.  I think bringing the light round closer to me would be more flattering to his features.

What's that? A colour portrait? Yes. I gave it a go.  I don't like this image though.  I like the composition, and how the light falls on his face, but I don't like that it's a candid.  I think it would be a much stronger image if he was looking into the lens. 

- Matt & Stacey -

Matt is James's friend, who recently introduced us to his lovely girlfriend Stacey!! Of course...I had a go at taking some pictures of them! Again, I used natural light and got myself some black and white portraits...just for fun of course.  These were taken with my kit lens, but I JUST got a 70-300mm lens today and I can't wait to use it!!
Here are my favourites:

- Suzanne & Alison -

This week I did my first ever photographs for a party!!!  I was absolutely petrified, but it was excellent practise at crowd control.  The party was for two lovely ladies that my husband works with.  Here are my favourites...

These are the guests of honour! Suzanne (left) & Alison.

Allison saying goodbye to a close friend.  I love th higlights on her in this photograph.

My James with the gorgeous Sammy...Look at those eyes!!!

The girls with their cocktails.

Really nice colours in this image of the dance floor...

- Environmental Portraiture -

In the final term of my first year, I've been learning about environmental portraiture.  Again, my tutor has set me a task to push me out of my comfort zone, one of her many skills that makes her such a brilliant teacher.  Looking at my pictures, it's obvious that I have a tendency to crop my images pretty tight to the subject.  This is something I have tried to rectify recently.  Also I've been learning the art of a flash gun, something I used to see as pretty tacky.  So here they are.  The final images for this brief which has pushed me to my limits.  The great thing about being pushed are the things I learn.  Anyway, enough chit chat...

A simple portrait.  Natural light with a reflector filling in the shadows on his face.

James with his books and cameras in his grandma's old rocking chair.  Just a few things in our home that make me think of him.

Flash on a tripod.  Had a few difficulties with light being bounced around our white living room.  It was easy enough to solve by placing a black reflector(?) in line with the flash to absorb the light.  I love the simplicity of this shot, even though it isn't framed in tight.  For this brief we had to make a magazine layout.  I used this as my front cover.

This isn't really an environmental shot, but it is part of the brief.  We learnt on this project to use a flash gun, a piece of equipment I have recently made friends with!  I am in love with this image.  I was able to get it to look exactly how I wanted, despite being inexperienced with the equipment.

This image is my favourite from this project, and probably one of my favourites from all my work.  At this point me and the flash gun were getting much better acquainted.  This image helped me to see the potential in myself that others see.