Andrew & Pia – A year of marriage

It’s crazy to think it’s been a year since Andrew and Pia got married, a lovely celebration and a big day everyone had been waiting for. To mark their anniversary I wanted to look back on their happy day and see how their first year as man and wife has treated them.

 

Black and white bride and groom portrait

What was your favourite part of your big day?

Andrew: “When Pia walked through the door.”

Pia: “When I was standing there with Andrew, it was like I didn’t need to think about a thing. He also gave me a massive bear hug when they pronounced us as husband and wife which made me feel so safe.”

Do you have any advice you would give your past selves or anyone else about to embark on their own wedding?

Pia: “Don’t stress, at the end of the day everything will happen, and because you are marrying the right person you will have a lovely day whatever happens.”

Andrew: “Plan and make several lists in time order, also buy plenty of alcohol. Remember: you’re not marrying a cake!”

How has the first year gone by for you?

Andrew: “It’s been fantastic!”

Pia: “Nothing has really changed, just a sense of calming and a feeling of security and safeness.”

What have you learnt from each other in the last year?

Andrew: “Pia farts!”

Pia: “She can’t post that! What I have learnt is that it is possible to feel complete.”

What has changed since you’ve been married?

Andrew: “Nothing has changed, just a continuation of how it was before we were married, you just feel more complete. It’s the natural progression of a good relationship.”

Pia: “The ceiling needs painting Love.”

You did buy a cat, Eva, as a wedding present to yourself…

Andrew: [Chuckles]”Big mistake…”

Pia: “She is both of ours then – she’s crazy, lovable and fits in our home perfectly. We’ve been through some troubles since we’ve been married and if it was possible it brought us closer together, things have happened and we’ve been a huge support to each other.”

What advice would you give people about to celebrate their first anniversary?

Pia: “Don’t overthink everything, nothing needs to be perfect, keep things simple.”

Andrew: “Everyday is an anniversary.”

What were your favourite images from the big day?

Pia: “I have two; the one of George and I, even though he did drag me down the aisle, and Andrew and me hugging – we didn’t realise you were taking that and it just captured the feeling that in that moment all that mattered was Andrew and me.”

Andrew: “This one was mine”

Black and white bride and groom portrait

Photographing their special day was a pleasure and I wish them many more happy years together.

“You don’t need a camera anymore”

Yes, this is going to be one of those Phone vs. Camera debates – let’s sit tight, it’ll be over soon, I promise.

Now we all know that camera phones or “Phoneography” has helped me find my spark again, after a great workshop on phone photography I found myself reaching for my camera (after dusting it off) at every opportunity. However, there is this big stigma around phone photography.

These are my opinions and by all means let me know what you think.

Phone cameras are amazing, to me they help make the world a prettier place on a day-to-day basis – I’m excluding selfies from this equation. There is no harm in a little post on instagram after you’ve had a great day or you’ve forgotten your camera at the worst opportunity. To me it was great fun learning about all the things my phone could actually do.

This is where you hear the “but”. A phone was never designed to replace a camera in the way a photographer uses them, they were there to give everyone the chance to capture a shot at a moment’s notice. One experience I had photographing a wedding sticks out in my mind where someone with an iPad stood next to me and said, “this iPad makes that camera of yours redundant”. Now I am all one to commend technology and embrace change, however when you have a massive tablet in front of your face, you’re not enjoying the happy day are you?

Something else to bare in mind is the happy couple have paid for someone to capture their day, they do not want a photo (unless requested) of 20 iPhones capturing the big day too. I seem to be picking on apple a bit there, and I do apologise.

You cannot just waltz into a wedding prepared to photograph it and say to the bride “I left the camera at home today but it’s ok I have my phone” – she would throw the bouquet at you, and then demand a refund.

So what do you think? Should we all be selling our equipment off now and give up? I know I won’t be. As for him, I’m happy knowing that all the images that were taken on the tablet were blurry.

We run the world

Today I’m talking about us girls – no sexism intended! In my previous post, I briefly mentioned joining an all female photography group, a place where female photographers can feel safe and inspired while offering photography workshops to develop skills, or even just for a chat.

Street portrait of brunette model

Every month we will be participating in a competition based on a topic or phrase and our first was “Women only” – very fitting to start us off. Mind maps and lists later I had an idea, something a bit out there(“You’re a bit weird, darling. A good weird though!” – the boyfriend said.) but I wanted to stand out, there’s no point in hiding it all away, plus as a push to my confidence I had forced myself to do it. The shoot did not go to plan, I had one specific idea that was not going right, until my last shot where something had finally fallen into place!

Blogger lifestlye portrait of model in highwaisted jeans, leaning against a wall wearing sunglasses

Now you might be looking through this post and seeing images I took of Chloe and Maddy and be thinking “This doesn’t look very Women Only to me”, and that’s because I won’t be sharing my image on here. The reason being is it took a lot for me to share it with a group of women I don’t even know, and the people that know me know how hard that would have been. It’s an image that will prompt a lot of debate, and a debate I’m not ready for, maybe one day though!

I did receive a runner-up prize for having confidence in my work, which seems pretty ironic now. The criticism is always something I will struggle with, but hopefully, as I progress I get used to it and don’t take everything to heart. We’ll be going for the win this month!

Oh! So these images of the girls and the reason for them (if you need one) is I was given a new lens for my 22nd birthday. It’s a very exciting bit of kit that has me reaching for my camera bag every day – she says even though she left it at her boyfriends for 4 days, seriously, who manages to leave a camera bag behind? All the images above were taken with it, big thanks to the girls who just wanted a quiet drink but, it was the golden hour and I just needed to practise!!

Lifestyle full length portrait of hipster woman walking through a model

Bluebell Photoshoot with Evie

“Why aren’t they pink?” – Evie

April 2017

To mark the beginning of Spring, I had the pleasure to shoot a gorgeous little girl and her mother. Evie and Danielle were a pleasure to have a session with, a time full of laughter and love, which makes me smile just by being able to share the images. Not only did I want to show Evie’s character, the love between mother and daughter was more such an important thing that I had to do justice.

Mother giving a daughter a piggy back and the daughter laughingMother hugging daughter in a field of blue bellsToddler sat on tree stump surrounded by blue bells

To start the session off with “Why are the Bluebells not pink?”, was telling to how much fun we were going to have. Evie played, jumped, ran and laughed, so quickly it was almost a challenge to keep up with her. And her beautiful ginger locks were a perfect contrast with the backdrop of bluebells.

black and white mother daughter portrait with daughter kissing

Evie was full of laugh’s until the last ten minutes when she told me it was time to go home, however, not before capturing this gorgeous moment between the two of them. All I can say is it was a pleasure to spend time with these ladies, get to know Evie, and start looking for other locations with Pink flowers instead of Blue!

Mother and daughter sitting in the bluebells

 

Let’s go wild with Indytute

This one is for all those Instagram lovers out there, Urban Photography Safari is waiting for you!

Speaking as a bit of an Instagram addict myself, regularly refreshing my feed to surround my day with pretty aesthetics, Indytute offers a course to enable you to take pretty pictures for the iPhone novice with a fun meet-up surrounded by like-minded snappers.

Urban safari portrait with graffiti wall

As a present I wasn’t sure what to expect, shooting with a phone, that is something I’ve had drilled into my mind as a no no I thought, but as a gift, I went with an open mind. When was the last time I actually shot anything anyway? The thought just intimidated me at this point. So even if I could feel inspired for an hour in my day, what’s the worst that can happen? I could enjoy myself and reduce the fear of being judged, something I struggle with on a daily basis.

Full length portrait in front of a graffiti wall and window

I ran to Shoreditch with DSLR, determined to dust off the cobwebs, accompanied reluctantly with my S6 edge in tow. Searching for someone that looked remotely creative, which in London is more difficult than it sounds, and began from there.

James Millar is a fun and engaging Photographer, specialising in documentary photography. He spotted my camera immediately and, even though it was a course for the phone lovers, helped me use this towards the end of the session. We started off with the basics, composition and rule of thirds and moved from there to approaching people with Street Photography – a big challenge for me. What can I say? I was converted and since then my Instagram has never looked the same again.

If you are struggling with being creative, I would highly recommend this course, it motivated me just by being in a different environment and surrounded by people that were just as excited as me. Take a look, for £22 I would highly recommend it.

Street photography with people walking in front of a blue house

 

Girl Power

Let’s take ourselves back to when we’ve felt the least inspired – so unmotivated you forgot why you even began a hobby, task or idea. If you’ve never felt like this then I commend you, you can even say envious, and you can stop reading now. But, since my time in the studio, my creativity has been abandoned, ignored for other things thinking they were a priority. This is ridiculous, I am beginning to think of creativity as a flower, it needs to be nurtured and cared for and it will flourish, without this, it will shrivel up and die (a bit dramatic there Beth – but I’m nothing if not a drama queen).

So what are you going to do about it? Sit and moan and think the world owes you a favour when you’re too scared to even show the world what you have to offer. Poor self-esteem ruins creativity, it makes you think not one person wants to see your idea, and yet that is a reason to stop? No!

Full length portrait in front of a graffiti wall and window

Recently I attended a small photography course in London, how to take better photos with a smartphone (that is a debate for another day) and from there my work just snowballed, now all I want is to take beautiful photos and share them with the world.

From there, with an image here and there, I found an advert for an all-female photography group. Not intended to offend any males, however with so many photography groups out there, for someone, especially someone like me it can feel overwhelming and daunting to attend. But, this group promised to deliver fun and inspiring meetings that are within a safe environment. What can I say? It certainly delivered that, an atmosphere where women could express their feelings, ideas or even worries without the fear of looking inferior or being judged and be surrounded by like-minded women that are just like you.

With monthly meetings and competitions, PoZers’ offers us a chance to develop our skills, ideas and confidence and I just cannot wait to see what we can all come up with.

Here come the girls!

Photography Alevel Work

With things getting slightly on top of me I took the time to look back at some old work, work that I’m still to this day not sure how to feel about, but have been encouraged to share. I know this is personal but I’ve always felt self conscious about my portfolio, and anxious about how others may perceive it but as it’s a Thursday I thought I would keep up with the tradition of Throwback Thursday and share some little bits.

These two were from my first Unit on my college course, a topic based on Urban Landscape and of course, me being me I managed to distort the criteria to suit my love for portraiture. Moving around busy London, being shoved in all different directions, caught in the atmosphere and a lady doing a “duck face” in Carnaby Street made for an interesting day and some real characters.

Street photography style portrait of a woman waiting to cross the road in london

 

For those of you that don’t know me, being subtle isn’t my greatest talent so the image above was made even more special by the subject’s attention elsewhere. And who doesn’t love people watching anyway?

Within my Second Unit, I chose to look into pattern, another distorted topic with parts inspired by De Joode’s Wallpaper designs with the help of some lovely models.

 

wallpaper pattern using repeated portraits as a patternwallpaper pattern design using a studio portrait session

These two were to develop my studio skills, the one below being my first attempt at Medium Format Film processing. The quality of 120mm film shocked me, I loved and loathed it, the quality was fantastic as well as the new method I was learning, but the negative sure picked up any dust it could find! This shot of Dannielle was my favourite, after three attempts of removing dust there was only a little speck, but with time gathering dust in my portfolio the shot isn’t as clean as it was, and yet its still one of my favourites.

Medium format film portrait of woman

Further experimentation in the studio got us to work with Shadow Portraits, a fun alternative to the 18th-century Silhouettes.

 

shadow portrait of side profilesilhouette portrait of woman waving

Bex and Beats

This week I was lucky enough to collaborate with the talented make-up artists Bex and Beats.

After being away from the camera, and posting, for too long due to exams and just general block, Bex and me finally got round to organising a collaboration. Bex is a Make-up artist, currently doing a degree in Media Make-up, and has some absolutely great ideas. She got her friend Beats to model, another Make-up artist, who works so well with the camera. Bex was the one who came up with the idea of going to a little forest, just to see what we could do. All I can say is what an awesome pairing! Bex had great ideas and Beats was more than willing to put them into action, I was very spoilt.

Two hours worth of Prep resulted in two primary colour concepts by Bex, which certainly put my morning routine to shame. I’ve never seen so much MAC, I say enviously! We then strolled off to the Forest, while it was chucking it down with rain, and managed to find a spot just undercover.

Behind the Scenes:behind the scenes reflector portrait

The joys of impromptu Photo-shoots mean you take a reflector which is only six inches smaller than the actual assistant. Poor Bex.

Always test your equipment before your shoot, I say that regretfully after neither of my flashes worked and had to use my built-in which unfortunately didn’t have the strength.

On to the Photos, I hope you enjoy them.  The image above was my favourite from the shoot, my last shot in fact, taken using the old notice board just outside of the forest. For once I shot with colour, which makes a change but I had to show off that fantastic make-up!

I may have spoken too soon with using colour, but I couldn’t resist with some of these shots.

close up black and white portraitblack and white fashion portraitblack and white fashion photoPortrait of Beats with leaves in the backgroundBlack and white close up portrait of beats

 

Powder Paint Photoshoot

Another throwback Thursday, I know this is getting dull, new shoot soon I promise.

But I thought as it’s Thursday, I have to do something! Going back to last April I dragged my poor friends out into the cold to play with some powder paint. This was all aimed to go towards my Unit 4 topic for photography, of which I stupidly chose ‘Abstraction in the Landscape’. I know, I’m a portrait photographer, what part of me honestly thought that was a good idea? But me being me I managed to somehow make it link back to Portraiture with the inspiration of Tyler Shields Chromatic series.

Which brings me to gathering all my friends, twice, to attack each other with powder paint! The things I’ve made them do…

And I couldn’t leave out a bit of Bromance.

Powder paint being thrown at two men