Beautiful Portraits

Well you all know that I love my work, so much so it really doesn't feel like work. On top of all that I also get to meet some of the most interesting people doing the most interesting jobs, each with their own unique vision.

 

So here are some of the lovely people I have photographed over the last two or three weeks...



Rachael Brown, AFH Wealth Management

Michelle Lerner, Lewis Adam Estate Agents

Rachael and Michelle, although running very different companies, share an office and both of the images above were captured in the same part of the office. Michelle wanted to show where she works and where she will be sitting with you when you visit her. She wanted to put her customers at ease before they had even said "Hello". Rachael needed an image suitable for her social media profiles (Linked In, Twitter) and so I put my grey backdrop up and shot Rachael in front of that.

 

I have organised my business and purchased kit that means I can be totally mobile. This means I can come to you and capture you in situ and if you have a number of staff then that means less disruption if you want photographs of them all.

 

I believe the shoot above shows that I can bring the studio to you no matter the size of space you have. The end result will be images you love, that tell your unique story, that you cannot wait to get on your website and all over social media.

Cheryl Morris, Creative Word PR

Next I visited Cheryl. She was very nervous about having the photographs done but wanted a variety of portraits for use on her website, on social media and also to support Press Releases and articles. I gave Cheryl top tips about posing and how photographers work; I let her choose her favourite backdrop, her preferred tops and jackets and put her at her ease. Part of what I do is calming people down, so I have learnt to tell jokes and make people laugh, relaxed and happy is the way you want to come across to your customers so that's what you need to look like in your photos. I also captured shots of her at work so that she can tell a much better story about what she does and how she does it on her website. I have a case study about this shoot - here.

Paul Blotheridge, Concept InfoTech

Paul Blotheridge, Concept InfoTech

And last, but not least, Paul. He wanted to show off how he can work just about anywhere and so after a breakfast network meeting we turned one end of the Café into a makeshift office. He was working as he took a call whilst I was shooting him. When then popped outside and made use of a brick wall to add some texture and captured a head and shoulder shot that Paul can start using on his social media profiles.

 

Happy clients. Happy me. Love what you do folks it's the only way to do this Rat Race thing.

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When it happens, it really happens ...

I've been wonderfully busy over the last week - which is the best feeling in the world. I have had clients each day for 7 consecutive days. Yep - I even work at the weekends!

So here's a quick review of what I did:

• Individual Business Portraits x 3
• Product Photography
• Fashion Shoot
• Business portraits - 23 people in 2 poses 
• Event Photography
• Family Portrait

Written down in a list like that it doesn't seem so great - but believe me it was fantastic. Also as well as that list of shooting I have also been to 5 networking groups, delivered a ten minute presentation on how to get the best out of your phone when capturing holiday snaps and had two 121 meetings to find out more about other people's businesses. 

 

Here's some of my work:

Fashion Shoot

 

 Product Shoot

 

 

 Event Photography

Portrait number 1

 

Portrait number 2

Pose number 1 for 23 members of staff

Portrait number 3

 

 

Family Portrait

Well when you group them together like that it seems that I am mostly a portrait photographer. I have meet some amazing people and had such fun and laughs with them. I have been told there are some lovely testimonials coming my way as well. 

 

Another great achievement this week was that I got to make use of my new lighting kit which I bought at the Photography Show back in March. I like them and will be make much more use of them in the future. Firstly thought I need to sort out a proper bag for them so that the lights and the stands they need can be easily transported/carried/moved about. This week was a little tough in that respect. But I have done a little research on Amazon and think I may have found a solution that saves my back and shoulders.

 

I have learned an awful lot from this week. And I am gloriously happy.

 

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Slightly annoyed

I have messed up a little bit.

 

I decided to take advantage of a deal on getting 100 6x4" prints from Jessops for a very reasonable price. I thought this might be a different way of handing out my work to people, something a bit more than a business card and something nice for people to keep.

 

I also purchased a ink pad and stamp so that I could put my details on the back of the photographs.

6x4" photographs stamped on the back

I love the prints and I love the stamp - look how cool those look?

 

However I had forgotten how none absorbent photography paper is. I have stamped lots of the 100 and the ink on the back - even after a day - is still smudging.

 

Grrrr. If it doesn't dry I will not be able to hand them out as they will smudge onto the front of the photograph they sit next too. Perhaps I could put them into an envelope - but that takes away from the idea. Slightly annoyed with myself. However if they do dry I will be very chuffed. Any suggestions on how to get them dry. I have tried using a hair dryer and also blotting them - but still they remain smudgeable!

 

Answers on a postcard please.

 

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Want a busy week? Here's how ...

I have had another tremendously busy week and one that is varied, interesting and immense fun.

 

It started with a shoot at a Solicitors in Leicester. Lovely people I have photographed them before but as they have taken on more staff and refreshed their website they felt it was time for an update.

Solicitor Portrait shoot using the peeling paint door backdrop

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Next I was in Derby to shoot Alive Fitness. Particularly Susan Booth who is a wonderful woman. She and Debbie are planning a very interesting sounding day (9th April) called Va Va Voom a day for women over 40 to discuss what the changes in life mean to our bodies and how we need to deal with them so that we can continue to be who we are and who we want to be. I have signed up for this day and am really looking forward to it. Susan's energy and straight forward way of delivering information means I will enjoy the day. Debbie's wonderfully clear sighted and relaxed approach helps you clear your mind so that you can be who you want to be.

Susan with her team planning the Va Va Voom day

Debbie and Susan - the terrify twosome

Food will help

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The Easter weekend had me running around in the rain capturing delightful images of a group of children taking part in an Easter Egg Hunt - on horseback. I loved every minute and wished I had done things like this when I was a kid.

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I belong to a couple of brilliant networking groups and this week I was photographing my Friday morning network so that they could have some new images for the website. The 10 minute session was a great surprise as Stewart talked us through his hobby - rather than his successful Drainage business. As you can see his hobby is brass bands and he brought along an instrument for us to have a blow.

Kevin seems to have done this before

Sally loving having a go and making us all giggle
 

 

I love my job, particularly the variety of jobs I do. My clients are pretty impressive too.

 

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What a week

It has been a great week... well that is my feeling as I sit here sipping my cup of Earl Grey on a Friday morning. So let's have a think, why am I thinking it has been a great week.

 

Firstly I was out and about with my camera shooting things this week - this always fills me with joy. Portrait, Architectural and Event Photography and a fabulous photo restoration were in the mix. Having work to do means invoices are being raised and that always makes me happy.

The beautiful Fiona

A rather splendid equestrian property in South Leicestershire gets the star treatment

Rain stops nothing

I have been speaking to my accountant to make sure I understand how my income tax will be affected by having become a Landlord at the beginning of the year. Seems all is in hand, I understand all that I need to do, what to look out for and I also cleared up a couple of things I didn't know about. Now I don't have to worry about this and I can concentrate on pushing my business forward. This really makes me happy. 

 

I started going to a new networking group this week and met some really rather lovely people who, after only that first meeting, are asking me to work with them. This makes me happy.

 

I also met up with people I networked with last year. We had all lost touch when the group closed so we planned to meet for a curry and it was great to catch up. I had missed them. It wasn't long, I think the poppadum and chutney's had been cleared away, before work was being passed around the table. Old networking habits never die. This made me happy. 

 

I have talked through a plan I have to rationalise parts of my business. Hearing myself say the words, rather than just having the thoughts rumbling around my head, has really helped and has made me realise it is the correct thing to do. There are parts of the business that are costing money but not bringing in any money. I have to say this is a little like asking a member of staff to leave - but I think needs must. So over the next few months I am going to be making the changes. I shall keep you informed. Sad as this is, it does make me happy.

 

On a personal note: I bought myself a rather large amount of wool this week, mostly purple, to add to my stash and have started working on a project with it. This makes me happy.

 

In summary: I think I can now see why this has been a good week and why I'm feeling happy whilst sipping my Earl Grey.

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Client Images

Yes it's that time of the year again when I need to back up, label and store my client images for the previous year.

 

I once again ordered an external hard drive, 320GB this time, and have spent a bit of time this week getting my 2013 client images all back-up and carefully stored away.

 

It is important for my clients to know that if they lose the images I create for them that I will always be able to easily access my copies.

 

So rest assured if I have done some work for you over the previous 3 years then I still have your little beauties snuggley tucked up and looked after.

What is the collective noun for external hard drives?

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Workwear

Decided it was time to get kitted out with work clothes that have my logo on them. When I am out and about working - and particularly when I have an assistant - then people know who it is that is capturing all these images. I have been networking with Dean who runs ept services for a while now and during that time I have been impressed with his products, his passion, his commitment and I was soon to find out - his prices. Today I was asked to go and approve the embroidery interpretation of my logo - and here it is ...

Soon to be worn workwear

I have allowed the logo to be tweaked a little bit so that it works - embroidery is a very different medium to print - and I think we have landed on a pretty good option. Now it has to be embroidered onto 2 tee-shirts, 3 polo shirts and because I am a wuss - a fleece!

 

It will be a week before I can pick up the finished items and when I have them there will be photos of them being modelled.

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Direction

I have been putting into place a plan I developed over Christmas and it is starting to bear fruit. Once I have things in writing and some work underway I will post more information. But this is exciting stuff and involves a whole bag full of photographic elements. 

Brrr its so cold - but this news is very warming.

Plans are being put into action

 

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Client Images

My little package arrived today containing the new 250GB external hard drive. (Read my New Years Resolution post to see what I am talking about). This means I have been able to get all client images onto individual sticks/drives. These are now perfectly labelled and stored in a safe and secure box in the office. I can now rest easy. I have also backed-up the entire files/folder/system from the computer hard drive. I did this old school and next week will try out some software that means I will be doing incremental back-ups.

I have been told about SkyDrive for my day-to-day files/documents and I might investigate that too.

Think this story needs an image and as all I can see out of my window is snow I thought this would be appropriate.

It was a bitterly cold 5 mile walk to have a delicious Sunday roast

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Pensions and stuff

What with the news about the changes to the retirement age, the changes to NI contributions, the equalising of policies whether you are a man or woman and the changes to all sorts of benefits - meant I thought I had better get my stuff checked out. 

Quick trip round to see my friendly local financial adviser and it seems:

• I have 17 years in which to make up 5 years of NI contributions - that shouldn't be too difficult to do
• I have the best pension schemes available already. They will just sit and rise with inflation until 2024 or 2027 depending on how successive governments change the rules
• My pension can be left to someone if I require - so I need to start speaking to potential beneficiaries and see if they are interested - form an orderly queue people :-)

So I am sitting pretty with very little to worry about (at the moment). And relax.

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Navel gazing

Nothing to do with ships but a chance to think things through out loud.

 

I have been very remiss with my blogging since July - there are a couple of reasons for this - but a new year and a chance to think about what I want from my business have brought me back here.

Speaking to fellow creative business people it seems to me that blogging is still a worthwhile pass time. It is therapeutic for me and also it is a nice piece of publicity for my clients.

Here are my plans then to blog more frequently to talk about:

• the work I am doing,
• the work I would like to do,
• exhibitions I visit,
• exhibitions I exhibit at,
• talks I give,
• people I meet,
• issues I have with my equipment (there's always something),
• successes,
• failures,
• behind the scenes images,
• personal projects,
• quotes,
• mucking about with Instagram
• and a bit of fun.

I will not be getting all serious, I will not be getting all techie. Hopefully it will be like sitting down and having a chat with a friend.

I think I need to revisit the labels I put onto my blogs too as they do not seem appropriate now and it will be easy for you to flit around posts if they are grouped together in a more coherent way.

Right well let's get started.

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Instagram - October

Decided I should let changes in my personal life to lead me through the start of October and then let Autumn take over for the end of the month: 

 

October:

October - New Life and Autumn Colour

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Instagram - September

Feeling brave after the success of July and August so I thought I would have a very specific theme. Seahorse. I have so many around my house that I thought this was going to be easy. Helen in Canada was really enjoying these as her mum used to love seahorses so to celebrate her birthday I made a pack of notelet cards and posted them to her. the Seahorses have gone transatlantic.

September:



September - Seahorse-tastic this was a great idea that was only finished
with the help of friends as my supply of seahorses dwindled!

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Instagram - August

Getting into the swing of the whole Instagram package now and thought I would be a little more personal with the images through August. If you know me then you know what some of these images refer to. If you are a friend on Facebook or follow me on twitter you may have also seen some of the comments on these images. Towards the end of July my cousin in Canada began to comment on the images and it was her that made sure I carried on into August - so thank you Helen.

August:

August - Lots of exciting things happened during this month and they are subtly
represented here. I couldn't resist the copy of the photograph of my Mum and I

 

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Instagram - July

I may have mentioned that since acquiring my iPhone I have been distracted by using the instagram app and posting images onto twitter and facebook via that. This has meant I have been failing to put things on this lovely blog - so I thought I would show you what each month of instagram images looked like shown together.

I started it in July - so let's start with the July Challenge images. These were random and not at all focused just me getting used to how it all worked and what I could (or could not) do with the phone's camera and the instagram package.

July:

July - Started with finding the letter 'T' and moved on to the letter'O' or
circles then parallel lines and then numbers and letters

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Evening out to a gig to see John Cooper Clarke - the Salford Bard. Some people just get better with age and although I do believe his legs are even thinner than they have ever been - he was in fine voice and exercising his raconteur skills. I have to do something with his joke: "What does chesse say when having a photograph taken?"

 

The gig was in Birmingham Town Hall - what a spectacular venue. Let's see if I can find images to show you:

The thin legs of John Cooper Clarke



Walking around the bubbly building to get to the venue



The ceiling inside the bubbly building

The ceiling inside the Town Hall - it was rather spectacular

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My view of the Olympics

I do enjoy sport - but I do not have a 9 days attention span for it! It has been on most of every day in my house - so I have been working hard in office or studio and dipping in to see how everyone is doing now and again. Been super impressed by the achievements but I cannot watch it for 10 hours a day!

Decided to show you my view of the games ...

The Aquatics Centre

A Runner

I think this is Gark Linekar

Thank you for wacthing the Olympics via glass-cam!

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Printing

Today I am mostly ... printing.

I am making up some products ready to take to a meeting next week where I am hoping I can start to sell them in quanities.

The printer is whirling away and I am limbering up my scalpelling hand. Any excuse to do creative things I say.

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Calke Abbey

Ladies from London came up to see us this weekend - we took them to Calke. Always a pleasant day out is Calke Abbey and good to see nothing has changed. Actually something has changed and that is that you can now take photographs inside the house. Wow. Thankfully I had taken my Fuji point-and-shoot camera with me so I decided to have some fun.

Some of the many poor creatures stuffed and mounted at Calke

Another in my series of interesting staircases

The exit from Calke is via the Beer Tunnel
This reminds me of a Joy Division album cover

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Exhibition Preparations

Images have gone to Burton in the back of Steph's car; banner in its bag ready to go; cards, notelets, postcards and business cards all being arranged on a table with a sparkly cloth. I think I'm almost ready.

Table ready for exhibition - things to sell and business cards for people interested in my work

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