THE JOY OF A NEW LIFE

Baby Alistar 7 days old 

For awhile now I have been trying to specialize in the areas of maternity and new born baby picture, I now aim to take this further offering maternity sessions right through to babies first or second year, returning to take pictures of baby and family every three months. The early years to me as a mother are some of the most precious years, The joy of watching your child turn into a little person, Those wonderful little mile stones from first smile to branching out into the world with first steps.

Of course these session could be booked after the second year for a session on the same day each year until the child reach,s 18 I feel this would make an amazing family  history book, To capture the way the family change and grow from maternity through to adulthood. Just contact me if you would like to arrange a wonderful pictorial family history.

So how and what is involved with taking images of a wee little one. For a start for me as a photographer there is nothing so special about taking babies first portrait. It is an honour when parents ring me and ask me to take these pictures. My youngest little one this year was just 4 hours old. There is something amazing about a new born a miracle we take for granted, but babies soon lose that little newborn look within 7 to 8 days its gone forever.

To photograph babies means I have to be flexible. Its best to schedule the session for just after a feed although of course new borns  have no idea when lunch time is let alone night time . I know how  difficult being a new parent is this is why I come to you, There is no time limit on the session as your little  baby hasnt a clue on time. While I am with you  its fine to take a break for feeding in fact sometimes this is a great time to get some beautiful images of the closeness of mother and baby. Just recently two of my new mothers have asked me to take images of them breast feeding and believe me that are wonderful close moments capture forever.

I ask that the room is warm enough for baby to be comfy with no clothing on, and special outfits put out as plenty of time  for clothing changes, I need a little space but not much. I try not to use flash but do use a modeling light. I bring  soft white clean blankets with me and its really helpful if dad is present just to hold these up a little. The session is relaxed with plenty of input from mum and dad as to what type of images they  would like.

Unfortunately it can be pot luck to get a picture of a newborn whom has their eyes open after all the first 10 days or so are spent doing what babies do best feeding and sleeping.

As a mum myself I understand completely that your baby is the best baby in the world, I also understand how important and precious the first few weeks are.

To arrange a baby session to fit around your needs please do feel free to contact me for a chat

Below are  some beautiful little bundles of joy I have photographed in the last 6 months as you can see each one is a unique little miracle  and a pleasure to photograph

Baby Josh aged 4 days

Baby Hector 10 days old

Baby Sienna 4 hours old

Baby Ethan 10 days old

I've Been Thinking

Something we all do from time to time, Only with the recent crash of my computer and its data, including backed up data,. I have had to ask myself many questions. One of those questions is am I enjoying what I'm doing?

In truth the answer is no!, Why  you may ask is the answer no,
So I begin by  telling you about a simple wedding, Right now times are hard, people dont have  x amount of money for luxuries, Unfortunately people seem to see wedding photography as a luxury. So let me tell you what is involved for me. I take time to come and visit you and show you some pictures and albums and chat to you about what style you would like. These pictures and albums were not given to me free I had to work on them make them up and pay for them. We  then have a quick pre wedding photo session,  Ok you might say I get the easy job here just taking a picture, well no I dont its a skill, You see to get nice images I have learnt how to use my camera , Its not just about pointing and snapping, Its about reading light and distance, its about posing, and looking at the background and other distractions.

I then come home and work individually on each picture I have taken.  Yes each single image gets my personal attention, blemish are removed, skin softening can be done, each image tone is adjusted to give my clients the best.

Come your wedding day I will work flat out all day, and the next day in fact every day for at least 14 days on your images,  Once your happy they are then either placed in design software to make your album or uploaded to a master printer for printing.

From start to finish I work personally on them They are not farmed out for some one else to do. You see I create something that is everlasting and I wont compromise by doing the £150.00 or £200.00 wedding. I have insurance and have had training, I have a professional camera and lenses that cost twice as much as the camera. I have access to top of the range products .

You see I wont and cant turn up on your special day with a camera set on a pre-set mode of portrait and then get your images printed by either some high street store or basic on-line photo store and charge you £150.00 for that service.

The shame is this is what many of you want, your willing to fork out thousands on venues, dress,s food,wine but when it comes to your wedding  photography you only want to pay a few hundred quid,
fine if you want images with people missing, horrid lamp post or road signs in the back ground, out of focus shots, fine if you only want your pictures to last for between 10 and 15 years.

So my first thought is to drop weddings as obviously a quality service is not  really what people want. Then I thought again no I wont drop them but I will place a new limit . The limit I have decided is 5 weddings a year. The price is as it is no cheaper.

Areas in  photography I will be concentrating on are families,children and babies, Why because unlike a harsh studio set up I offer something much more relaxing  and personal . Also unlike a studio if baby is unhappy or extra tired then the  session can be rescheduled for another time .

My first venture is Children's birthday party shoots and having completed two of these I found them great fun Lots of children running around having a great time meant some wonderful images for parents to keep. It also meant I got jelly and ice-cream to eat.

Secondly I am going back to photographing for myself, yes just random images I personally like to take, Maybe challenge myself to just taking one lens and using it for the whole week, Getting back to some arty type photographs

Time spent with a camera and lens is not time wasted, It allows me to stretch myself, it allows me to push my limits.

In future my blog will no doubt be more about me, whats been happening, what I have been doing.

Taking time out for myself and doing what I please

THE EYES ARE A WINDOW TO THE SOUL

Many people ask me how I get the eyes in my images so clear, well I could tell you about some expensive software that can add brightness and sharpness, I could describe a long way round it in Photoshop or I could tell you the simple way that I get such lovely eyes.

How do I get such stunning eyes in my images, well of course it requires top professional equipment so firstly is a pro body camera, Next of course is a pro lens. A pro lens is not your £500.00 pound lens or your £900.00 pound lens, Great glass comes at a great price and yes you do get what you pay for.

My second tip is to turn off all in camera sharpening. Thats right turn it off you see the sharpness that you induce either in camera or in photoshop actually reduces the detail rather then increase it.

It does not help either that digital images are always much softer then film, so this is where those expensive lenses come in, The better quality the glass in the lens the sharper the image will be.

An understanding of ISO, and white balance are important, I dont tend to rely on my cameras pre-sets but use the Kelvin scale, the lower end of the Kelvin scale gives a warm redder tone and the higher end gives a cool bluish tone

File format is important to JPEG and TIFF are compression file formats so the images are processed in the camera and then squashed down into a smaller size to save space on the memory card. With JPEG the cameras computer removes self similar pixels, for example a large area of blue in a landscape,s sky thereby reducing the final size of the the file saved.

TIFF files are also compressed but they use a different compression method allowing files to be reduced by around 50%

I shoot in RAW which isnt a format at all but the RAW unprocessed image data from the camera its advantage is no compression or control of how the image looks put simply a RAW file is a digital negative

Focus and DOF are also very important to keep eyes bright and sharp always focus on the eyes dont rely on auto focus and turn any VR controls to off

I class myself as an artists, my camera body being my brush handle, my lens being the finest brush for without the finest brush I would create a harsh image