Archive for October, 2008
ePhotozine Coverage
Posted by Paul in For Website, News on October 28th, 2008
Just a quick update on the MPA awards and the image that won – a press release has just gone out and there’s a write-up on ePhotozine.
Some nice comments from a couple of very respected photographers – though clearly their comments aren’t as important to us as the comments we get from our clients!
Cheers
P.
Sassy & Co. (again!)
Posted by Paul in Commercial, For Website on October 27th, 2008
Once again, we’ve been up at Sassy & Co in High Wycombe. This is fast becoming one of my favourite sessions, as it always involves a really talented crowd of hair and makeup artists, beautiful models and a real opportunity to create some utterly stunning images.
This time it was an evening session and, as usual, we rigged a temporary ’studio’ area in the front of the salon to create exactly the same lighting we would have in our permanent location. We also (as we always do) grabbed some environmental shots (i.e. outdoors!) and, though it was pretty damp and dark, they look really edgy and cool or, more probably, cold!
The models were awesome (really good fun to work with as well as stunning!) and we have a whole load of shots for Sassy’s PR and advertising and for their front window displays – looking forward to seeing some of these as 7ft high display boards!
I’ve just uploaded a few from the session to have a look – let us know what you think.
Cheers
P.
UK Parent & Child Portrait Photographer of the Year!
Posted by Paul in For Website, News on October 20th, 2008
Well, it’s been quite a year for us so far – by far and away our busiest and most successful ever – and yesterday was the icing on the cake.
So please forgive me if I blow my own trumpet just for a minute or two. Well, if I don’t, who will?!
Last night was the prestigious British Professional Photography Awards held at the Newcastle Hilton (I am sitting, rather bleary-eyed, typing this out on the train back home – ah, the joys of modern technology!) where hundreds of the best photographers from around the world came together for a ‘glitzy’ – their adjective, not mine – ceremony. Cool. Lots of great photos to look at, nice food, great company (along with an awesome husband and wife photography team, David and Jane Stanbury, we were guests of our album supplier, Spicer Hallfield who supply both our stunning Digital Artbooks and our gorgeous Seldex matted albums) and possibly just a smattering of wine and champagne.
And on top of that, we won three major awards!
The first award is the title of “Parent & Child Portrait Photographer Of The Year”. I’m really excited about this award given that, as you may have noticed from this site, a major proportion of our work is in family portraiture.
We also won the title of the Master Photographers Association “Best Licentiate Panel” for this year. This one is of real personal satisfaction for me. The panel a photographer submits for assessment into the MPA (of which I am now a licentiate member – hence the ‘LMPA’ after my name) is a selection of 20 images of real client work over the past couple of years. For our panel to be recognised with this highest possible accolade shows that the photography our customers can expect from us is consistently of the highest possible standard. Which, I reckon, can only be a good thing! 
And, as if that weren’t enough, we also received an “Award of Excellence” (i.e. got down to the best two) in the Classical Portrait category. Not bad for our first attempt at the awards!
So to all of our clients and friends of our business, a huge ‘thank you’ for allowing us to capture gorgeous award-winning images that we absolutely love as much as you do. The esteemed panel of judges seem to agree.
I’ll put my trumpet down now. 
Cheers
P.
UK Parent and Child Portrait Photographer of the Year (has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?)
Mary Miller and Family
Posted by Paul in For Website, Lifestyle on October 17th, 2008
Well, it’s been a very busy but very commercial sort of week, hence the lack of any blogging going on. Hopefully I’m going to get to put some pictures up here of some of the stuff we’ve done including shots for Sacla, Cadbury and Sassy. I love doing commercial work almost as much as I love doing our more regular lifestyle/portrait work – the big difference is that the timescales always seem to be condensed by which, I mean, they’re usually overnight. Hence the lack of any creative writing going on. The BBC iPlayer is a godsend. Makes the early hours more bearable!
Anyway, this session with Mary, Garry, Ciaran, Declan and Callum at Coombe Hill was possibly the best-timed we’ve done this season. It was an unexciting cold and gloomy early Saturday morning when we trundled up to the carpark and, by the time we left, it was a dismal wet and windy Saturday afternoon. However, the two hours we had in between was, while admittedly chilly, the most beautiful sparkly autumn light! Perfect!
The photos we have a perfect for the Millers as they’re all very much outdoor people and were all perfectly comfortable being out in the elements. I couldn’t help feeling they would have considered a minor hurricane something to be enjoyed! I particularly loved the session for that. It’s always perfect when our subjects are comfortable, particularly when working out in the cold!
I have some quite unusual shots taken at the end of this session using our high-power portable video light. This thing is quite distinctive and gives a very characteristic light (quite unlike using a flash gun) and we have some really edgy images of the boys in the woodland area. My kind of thing!
Let me know what you think.
Cheers
P.
Catharine and Jon’s Engagement
Posted by Paul in Events, For Website on October 9th, 2008
I dooooo like a good party. Particularly when it’s a group of people I know and like being with – and this is one of those groups of people. Just lovely.
This was Catharine and Jon’s engagement celebration (with just a hint of Catharine’s birthday thrown in for good measure) with their family and it was an absolute ball!
Jon proposed to Catharine in Italy, on bended knee and with an applauding (or, more probably, a-whooping-and-a-hollering) American audience by all accounts. Romantic fool. Puts the rest of us to shame.
Still, I do love the small role that we play in all this – capturing timeless images of families, kids and couples that leaves a wonderful legacy to stay with people for a great many years. At least, that’s my view. Admittedly, I may be just a little biased!
It’s always fun shooting a family gathering as we can get some really nice images out of it without necessarily having to stage the setting in any way. Though, of course, some of these photos are clearly a little more posed than others, they’re still really chilled and natural. And, these types of shots make really beautiful small coffee-table books to relive those moments over and over (or possibly bore your friends with over and over!)
On top of all that, everyone made me feel unbelievably welcome and Catharine’s mum played a wide and varied selection of music from the er… 80’s. Now THAT’s What I Call A Shoot!
Cheers
P.
Nadia, Andy, Madeleine & Toby
Posted by Paul in For Website on October 6th, 2008
I know, I know, it looks like all I do is meet up with people, chat, laugh, drink coffee and take pictures. Well, the truth is that is exactly what I do. With the added detail that the pictures we capture are beautiful! Mind you, I would say that of course!
I don’t know why I like Saturday morning sessions so much but there is something about the atmosphere at that time of the week that is lovely. Maybe it’s just because everyone is happier on a Saturday. Or maybe it’s just a throwback from doing a 9-5 that Saturday always feels fresh and exciting. The start of 48 hours of NOT sitting at a desk. Either way, this does seem to come across in the images we captured on this beautiful autumnal session.
Our target for this shoot was simple – capture some really beautiful black & whites of Madeleine and Toby for wall-mounted frames. Now I realise that the target of EVERY shoot is to get some beautiful images but I was really excited to be asked to do this one as Nadia has a fantastic eye for art (and photography in particular) and so I the images had quite a bit to live up to. And they have!
The session started cold, misty and gloomy. Not unusual really for this particular area – the vale is renowned for it – but not necessarily great when trying to keep people warm and comfortable in front of the camera. However, half an hour (or roughly one cup of coffee!) later the sun started to burn through and we had that magical crystal light that this time of year often brings. And with it came a set of images that we’re really really excited about!
Can’t wait to show the rest to Nadia and Andy (and Madeleine and Toby of course as they were consummate professionals throughout!) and to order some really beautiful frames to set them off perfectly.
Let us know what you think.
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