Baby Freya | Portraits

I had the pleasure of meeting up with some ex-wedding clients, Stephanie and Lee, recently ... a friend had gifted them a portrait session and some products with me when their baby was born. Freya has got to be the happiest baby I have met for a long time, giggling the whole time ! Some of her little expressions were absolutely priceless, as you can see.

Some faves ...

Claire & Jon | Pre Wedding Shoot | Shugborough Hall

I met up with Claire & Jon on Saturday morning, primarily to take a look around the Tower of the Winds at Shugborough Hall, where their ceremony is to be held. It is notoriously difficult to get in to see Shugborough, but as Claire previously worked there, it was no problem ! We had a really fun time being shown around by the super friendly Ron, one of the grounds staff.

It is truly a beautiful location, so while we were there and while the light was so fantastic, we took the opportunity for some pre wedding shots.

A few faves ...

TJ & Kian | Portraits | Trentham Gardens

I had a lot of fun last week with Nina and her boys ... Kian is 8 months old and TJ is a 2 and a half year old spitfire ! Man, so much energy packed into such a little body LOL

The idea was to let them have some fun in the leaves and park at Trentham Gardens and to capture an autumnal feel ... the weather was kind to us and we weren't short of leaves and autumn colour.

A few faves ...

Lynne & William | Pre Wedding Shoot | Aberystwyth

This weekend I travelled over to North Wales to meet up with Lynne and William for their pre wedding shoot. We actually started off at the beach in Ynyslas but headed over to Aberystwyth before we got blown out to sea !

In Lynne's own words, here is the reason we were there:

We met at uni in Aberystwyth 6 years ago and quickly became great friends and partners in crime! I told my best friend within 2 weeks : "I bet I end up marrying Will." A year and a half later we got together and here we are! As for Ynyslas, we've spent many happy summer days there together and with friends, and many very windy evenings there walking our dog in later years! It's just a beautiful place, that has some great memories for us as a couple and as being lazy students!

Without further ado, some photos from a very windy Wales !

Aberystwyth (the old uni) and some seriously choppy waves ...

The Importance of Backing Up

I get asked, on occasion, what measures I take to ensure my client's treasured images are kept safe. I'm about to share what I do. I'll keep it simple for those not too "geeky" LOL, but I think it is an important subject and one that my clients should be made to feel comfortable with.

Once I come home after a shoot, the RAW files are loaded to my main production machine. Never the laptop. Why? The laptop is my admin machine and has 1 hard drive. Too risky. Also, it is not hooked up to a colour calibrated monitor and therefore completely useless for processing files. The production machine has 2 "mirrored" drives, making it safe for a hard drive failure, as everything is mirrored onto the other drive.

But that's not good enough for me. Usually, I am pretty tired after a large event and I like to have my client's files in 2 locations. So, they stay on the memory card until I can get to the next bit.

I have 4 external drives, 2 500gb lacie porsche drives (1 with current weddings and 1 with portraits and other work), and 2 1 TB mirrored drives. See that mirroring thing again? Talk about paranoid !

Every single file from the event is backed up to the appropriate drive. They are now in 2 places, good to clear the cards, ready for the next job (it is worth noting at this stage that I have enough cards to shoot 5 weddings and a couple of portrait sessions without clearing them off).

Every single time I process a shoot, the processed files, changed files, album layouts, blog files, get backed up to the appropriate drive.

So, what happens once the job is finished? All files are backed up to Archival quality DVD (s) and placed in the client file. It is also useful when clients purchase the "digital negatives" so that we have an off-site copy of the files ... something to consider if you haven't already :)

And that's it.

And now for a little humour to back this up ... enjoy ! :)

Loren & Family | Studio Portraits

Loren's mum contacted me a few weeks ago to book a studio session for her. Apparently, Loren has been feeling quite self-conscious recently and so mum thought a studio session with a professional photographer would do the trick. Loren is very tall and slim and so towers over her friends ... I had exactly the same issue when I was in my teens and so I could relate very easily to the issue.

We had a great time and even managed to get a couple of shots of mum and dad.

If you'd like to enjoy a similar experience, please get in touch !

DJ Morais | Web Coolness

If you've been following the blog recently you will have seen some portfolio and portrait shoots with the very cool DJ Morais. The main reason for these sessions is for Richard to use the images on his new promotional website ... it is currently under construction, but there is a home page and one of the images from a recent shoot in Birmingham ... I LOVE seeing my work in use and I just wanted to share this with you.

There are 2 more sessions to go ... 1 secret one and 1 gig ... I can't wait for that one !

Check out the site so far ...

You can check the progress here :)

Baby James | Portraits

You may remember Caroline & Simon from their wedding at Sandon last year ... I recently bumped into Caroline's sister while I was out shooting a session on the canal in Stone and she told me they were expecting a baby! All my past brides get a complimentary baby shoot, once they get around to having babies, of course LOL ... I happened to shoot the portraits on their wedding anniversary, so the timing was great !

James is totally adorable, 5 weeks old and cute as a button ...

BIG yawn !

What a cutie ...

The happy family ...

Awwwwww ...