Monday 10 May 2021

Bluebell photoshoot

Spent a lovely morning amongst the bluebells in a local forest.  It felt that the bluebells were a little later this year due to a particularly cold April/May, but when they did come out they were beautifully abundant!




Almost half the world's bluebells are found in the UK, they’re relatively rare in the rest of the world.  Bluebell colonies take a long time to establish - around 5-7 years from seed to flower.  Bluebells can take years to recover after footfall damage. If a bluebell’s leaves are crushed, they die back from lack of food as the leaves cannot photosynthesise.  The bluebell is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981).

Please note that during the photoshoot families are on paths only and no bluebells were damaged.


Monday 19 April 2021

Spring Blossom Portrait Photography

I LOVE two things at the moment........

One is Spring time, the soft golden hour sunshine...... Two my new camera.............

So I did a photoshoot putting those two things together, my beautiful model is stunning which also helps.....

For a photoshoot please contact me here





Monday 12 April 2021

Before and After - The Edit

 A quick before and after editing, Here we have a cute, adorable little puppy, who would not keep still!! This means grabbing any shots you can and adapting what you have when the pup looks great!  So our two issues are.....

1. The puppy does not keep still, so tracking and focusing on the puppy with a fast shutter is crucial to getting a shot in the first place.

2. Black dogs are notoriously hard to photograph (I think I may create a new post solely on this issue to help you out!!) as a black dog with black eyes will have very little contrast so working on midtones helps.

In the 'Before' photograph I wanted to look at 'cleaning' up the photograph, this meant removing the arm using the clone tool in photoshop (although a few mobile apps have a clone/healing function too now like Snapseed) I then removed the brown background at the top left of the photograph so that it did not jar your eye.

I then amended the yellow/blue slider in colour balance (ctrl +b shortcut) in photoshop towards the blue to make the green grass..... less..... errrr green. Again I could do another whole post on green grass! I'll save that for another day.

Lastly only if you zoom in you will be able to see little white dusty spots on the puppies face, these were removed in photoshop using the 'healing' tool.

A quick crop to take out a little of the foreground!! DONE

Before

After

Thursday 18 March 2021

~ Bluebell Family Photoshoot 2021 ~

Phew after last years cancellations I am delighted to offer a couple of limited Bluebell photo shoots this year........ Please let me know if you would like to book a mini shoot with me on Saturday 1st May I have two x 1 hour slots between the hours of 11.00am till 1pm


With this shoot you will receive 10-15 edited digital download images and either 10 6" x 4" prints or one enlargement print of your choice.  A mini shoot is £165.00
(USB with 10-15 images is an additional £20.00 and additional digital images are priced at £8.00 per image)

Please contact me here if you would like to book!

Full payment is made at time of booking.  N.B. Date/time dependant on weather and bluebells being in season - provision for an alternative date will be found.




Friday 5 March 2021

Family Photoshoot - Looking forward to Summer

 Last Summer I managed a couple of photoshoots, here is one I would love to share, this is the families 3rd photoshoot with me and its sooooo great to see them grow up.





Family photoshoots ~ Autumn vibes

In the very small window when we could work outside last year I had some wonderful Autumn photoshots, here's one I would love to share with you....

These two little ones were a whirlwind of fun and were very well behaved being directed to create many beautiful photographs.  


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Wednesday 24 February 2021

Before and After ~ The Editing

Photography is a varied business, Yes you take the photograph with the clients.... but then there's the other two thirds of the job.... The edit and the finances/admin.  Editing takes time, care and attention to detail, it sculpts a regular photograph into something that shows you as a photographer, your brand, your style.  I do not outsource any editing as I believe that as a customer you are paying for me to take a photograph and to style it to my creative eye..... Photoshop and Lightroom can work wonders but you need to have a great shot in the first place to then just make that 'good' shot a 'great' photograph.

I want to share with you some before and after shots so you can see the editing details involved and get a glimpse into how much time and effort goes into the final product before you see it in you gallery.

Here is the Second edited photograph.... this is SOOC (Straight out of camera) shot in JPG on my Canon 5D MKii


Opening photoshop, firstly I decided to crop the photograph to square - so I could use it on social media sites more easily.
Within the levels (ctrl + L) I pull the midtone and whites to the left to take out the darker shadows.

Then I used the gradient tool and selected white as my foreground colour and added a gradient from the top left of the photograph to the start of the buds, this gives a hazy feel to the background.

I then added a little saturation (ctrl + U) to pump up the pinks.  This makes the blossom light and airy.




Saturday 6 February 2021

Before and After - The Edit

Photography is a varied business, Yes you take the photograph with the clients.... but then there's the other two thirds of the job.... The edit and the finances/admin.  Editing takes time, care and attention to detail, it sculpts a regular photograph into something that shows you as a photographer, your brand, your style.  I do not outsource any editing as I believe that as a customer you are paying for me to take a photograph and to style it to my creative eye..... Photoshop and Lightroom can work wonders but you need to have a great shot in the first place to then just make that 'good' shot a 'great' photograph.

I want to share with you some before and after shots so you can see the editing details involved and get a glimpse into how much time and effort goes into the final product before you see it in you gallery.

Over the following weeks I will show you various techniques I use and try and describe how I make the decisions on what to edit.

Here is the first one.... this is SOOC (Straight out of camera) shot in RAW on my Canon 5D MKii

  
Its Autumn so lets make it look like it!! 🍁 I have cropped the photograph so that the boys are central, cutting out the dark tree trunk on the left of the photograph.  I have brightened by using the exposure setting in Photoshop bridge before opening in photoshop.  Using a colour balance layer I deepen the red and yellows and paint back in the skin tone and outline of the boys to ensure that the colour balance does not distort their faces and clothes. This single edit will have taken around 10 minutes.



What do we think? Better?









Tuesday 3 November 2020

Christmas inspiration - I can help!

As we approach Lockdown 2.0 in the UK and also Christmas, I am aiming to help out with a little inspiration!  Its inevitably going to be a tough time to get together in our usual large family settings over this period, so here's a way of spreading the family love....... at a distance!

Over the years I have pulled together large family photo prints for my own family which I have used for many purposes.....

Either as individual large framed prints, kids poster or indeed split up into 1000 or 2000 piece jigsaw puzzles!

If you have a collection of photographs either shot by me or indeed your own, I am happy for you to send them to me via Dropbox, Google photos etc. and I can create one single print which includes all the images!  I can add text and create prints in all sorts of sizes and shapes.

I can also take the hassle out of photobooks, send me your holiday photos (ok so maybe not from this year... unless you were lucky) the dates and location and I can create a photobook for you...

Here are some of my creations so far!

You provide the images and I will provide the technical formatting and sprinkling of fairy dust to help you produce all sorts of creations!  I can even help you order - Prices start from £25.00

Call me or send me an email and we can discuss your requirements 





Saturday 21 March 2020

Simple Home Photography Project for your Kids or Teens



Finding yourself stuck indoors with kids with little to do?  I have come up with a couple of photographic projects they might like to try.

They simply need a mobile, ipod or tablet (anything that has a camera and is linked to the internet)

1. - Stop Motion video

This is a really simple idea.  You can use anything... Lego, dinosaurs, dolls, cars, funny faces etc.  Its about setting up your camera and keeping it in one location, taking a shot and then moving the subject.

Image result for lego stop motion
There are a couple of apps which may help - Search for stop motion apps on your app store.  There are lots of online videos for ideas and how to do it.

https://tinkerlab.com/easy-stop-motion-animation-kids/

2. Colour 'Scavenger hunt' Pictures 

Send the kids off on a scavenger hunt round the house for items of a certain 'colour', Get them to display in whichever way they wish, then see how they want to photograph it!  Its another challenge to see who is quickest to put everything away again lol




3. Perspective photography

The idea is to take objects in a different perspective, its the relationship between the distance of the objects from the camera and each other.  With the help of my very willing model (not lol 😆) we have forced the size of the car to be unrealistic.  Search for 'perspective photography images' online for other examples.




4. Create your own 'home' studio.  

This can be a simple as a tabletop, piece of card or fabric (duvet cover) etc as a background, a table lamp or poised lamp and some glass or textured objects.  Perfume bottles or collections of interesting items can be arranged and change where the lighting source is coming from




5. Selfie time... or portrait time

This can be photographs of yourself or someone in your house.  Edit the photograph in a collage making app to allow you to put 9 photographs together (i.e. Layout app (instagram)) and share your funny faces with your friends