Cutie pie : North Herts Portrait Photographer

 

The new-borns I have photographed this year have all been within the first two weeks of their life's. This is considered the optimum time to get lovely relaxed images of a new-born. New-borns are generally, much more sleepy and “ bendy” during this period.

However, I recently was contacted to take some photos of an 8 week old little girl.

Her mum said she was a very relaxed laid back baby and that she should sleep through the session.

Of course she didn’t.

I managed to grab a few images of her asleep in the first few minutes.

But then she woke up, and wriggled through out the rest of session.

that meant her limbs were flying all over the place.

We tried a different approach and took her outside to grab some shoots in the meadows.

 

 

 

Mum was so pretty, I grabbed a few of her on her own as well.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s always interesting to see what photographs people order after their sessions.

I always have my favourites, but everyone sees things differently.

I loved this image so much that I ordered a large, blow up of it for my portfolio wall.  I choose to order it in a special photo paper- Fuji colour Crystal Archive Digital Pearl Paper. It has embedded pearl like crystals, which produce a high gloss reflectance in the highlights.

I knew the bubble that Amalie is blowing would look perfect, printed with this paper.

Amalies parents bought images to put in a multi aperture frame they  had found in TK Maxx, and a larger image that will go in a matching frame.

Sadly, they didn’t buy my favourite shot above.

Great news

 

My niggly leg pains, in what I call my “good leg”, seem to have disappeared. I feel perfectly “normal” at the moment. Just like I used to, before my back decided to give up on me in 2009.

My ALIF operation last October has been a great success. I am so glad I went ahead with it. In fact the pain I lived with, is just becoming a distant memory. I feel though, I am forever changed by it. I rarely go out now, and I used to be quite a shopaholic, but I am happy just staying in pottering about. Trying to improve with my editing skills and photography techniques.

I had my last appointment with my surgeon recently. I had a CT scan, which was a first for me. I got to bring home a CD of all the images of my insides. I thought I would share with you my nuts and bolts.

It looks like I have a plug in my back now.

 

It’s so weird to think that is inside me. From the day of the operation I have never felt as if anything has gone on in my back. Not one twinge or discomfort in that area. I think it massively helped that my surgeon used a rare approach of putting the metal work in, via the front of my body. I just had abdomen surgery to get over.

I did receive a report of the CT scan findings. It wasn’t all good news as they could see evidence of more degenerative spine problems, but I will just wait and see, and deal with that if it ever happens. I still have another year and a half before the bone graft will have completely covered the problem area. But to feel so well so soon, has been a great revelation.

PMLE : North Herts portrait photographer

 

I hope everyone enjoyed our rare days of hot weather last week. We made the most of it, as our daughter Tasmin was away sailing in the South of France.

We packed up a picnic and headed to our favourite beach in Norfolk. Holkum beach.

We took Teddy with us. But he is worse than taking a toddler, he never rested once for the 2 hour journey or his time on the beach. He sat in a hole dug in the sand, waiting in case any of his beloved leaves came flying past. He has OCD bad, and spends his whole life outdoors looking for leaves ?

This was the only day I was out in the sun, as I suffer from Polymorphous light eruption. I don’t normally get it in England, just when I am on a beach holiday, but my hands and one arm are extremely uncomfortable covered in itchy, red bumps. My son’s body is also covered in Urticaria. So we are a right pair. Popping antihistamines.

A sensitive sun cream ( here) from Australia I ordered, has just arrived ready for my trip to India later in the year. Part of the problem I have with the rash, is it is aggravated by applying sunscreen. But of course, to block the suns rays, I have to apply it. This blocks my pores and just makes it all worse. I’ve found in the past applying pure coconut oil helps a lot.  I’ve tried pre trip medication from the Drs, I’ve had special sunscreen on prescription, but I normally have to apply steroid creams and just wait until it passes.

If anyone has any tips for my annoying problem, I would love to hear from you.

A Summer short break in London:North Herts Portrait Photographer

Hubby had a week away from home, working at The Farnborough Air Show.  I was lucky enough to join him for a few days, at the end of the week.

This year Hubby had chose a different hotel, to the one his company normally stay at, in Mayfair, London. We had checked it out earlier in the year. The St James Hotel and Club was amazing. It’s perfectly located for everywhere you would want to go in London.

It has a back entrance that goes straight out to Green Park

add in a Michelin Star restaurant. I put on a couple of pounds in the short stay there. I think that was from the breakfast alone.

( that’s hubbys healthier looking breakfast)

Hubby was out in the evening, with all his work colleagues who had flown in for the air show. So I made my own plans.

I arranged to meet Jennifer and Dwight in the hotel, to give them their photo order from our earlier shoot (here) and (here)

They are going to be leaving our shores soon and returning to Texas. It’s a shame, as they were such a lovely couple, and I was looking forward to meeting their new arrival, due later this year.

The weather forecast was dire. Torrential rain was forecast for my entire stay. I headed out with an umbrella and mac, and set off for Greenwich. It was somewhere I hadn’t explored before, and I must say somewhere I won’t bother visiting again. I got to explore Canary Wharf on the way there.

There were so many things I was tempted by at the food market, but I was still so stuffed from breakfast. I only bought a passion fruit curd tart, that I ate that evening after dinner.

Because it stayed dry, I decided to risk the rain showers and take a boat up the Thames to Westminster. It takes about an hour, and I got to see parts of the Thames I hadn’t seen before.

You get to pass iconic images of London and see them from a different angle.

We are so lucky to have been given the opportunities we have with Hubbys work. We never take it for granted ever.

Twice the trouble: North Herts Portrait Photographer

Some people can think that to have twins can be twice the trouble, but I got to photograph the most delightful new-born twins recently, who were twice the pleasure .

What makes them even more special is they are IVF twins and to add to their perfection, they are a boy and a girl.

What could be more perfect.

The alphabet bricks I bought in Chicago have come in handy on my shoots lately. An image like the one above, makes a great addition to a multi-frame of photographs, as you’ll see below.

The twins were so good and with the warmth of the room and the continuous white noise from a fantastic iPad app I have. They didn’t stir at all.

I was sweating buckets, as it was a rare, hot sunny day.

Little Ryan was so laid back, and nothing would wake him. I managed to catch him having a cute smile.

Every new-born photographers dream.

The twins mum found an amazing frame, so a collection of images for the shoot could be ordered. The frame was huge and was the length of a 3 seater sofa !

I look forward to meeting this delightful family as the twins grow up.

It was so lovely to have created a lasting memory for them.

10th July 2012

Blog removed…..

Rain,rain go away

Is a song I used to sing as a child.
I thought it was time I wrote a quick blog about the weather. In April I wrote a blog about the drought we were suffering here in the UK . Well it has rained almost the entire time since I wrote that blog. So I thought it only fair to write one about the lack of blue skies here in the UK, to unjinx the weather.
Fingers crossed it will have worked and I can finally get my summer clothes unpacked from their boxes.

The Bedwell School:North Herts Portrait Photographer

 

This Saturday me and my husband went back to our old secondary school, in Stevenage. It’s all being demolished. They have tried over the years changing it’s name and uniform, but it still has a bad name in Stevenage. When we went there, it was considered one of the best schools in our area.

All because of this man, below. He was about 7 foot tall and intimidated the life out of everyone. We were all gobsmacked when he arrived at the open day. Queuing up with everyone else.

He turned a failing school around in the 70’s & 80’s. Sadly, he told me he is ill and isn’t expected to live much longer. But I am sure he would have been pleased he got to travel back in time for a few hours and hear how instrumental he was in bringing discipline in to the life's of so many teenagers at a time when it was really needed.

left is my sister in hysterics as a friend of hers is recounting a story of how Mr Wallace picked him up by his jumper and left him dangling in mid air.( That’ s my old form room, with the window open)

Mr Wallace remembered my sister. That just goes to show how naughty she was. She spent most of her lessons sat on her own or outside. I think she rebelled the moment she set foot in that school and heard the teachers saying to her “ I hope you are going to be as good as your sister, Karen”

My sister couldn’t wait to step on the grass without being shouted at. None of us remember every stepping on it.

Me and my husband had a long walk to the school from our estate where we lived. I even used to have to come home at lunchtime, as I was banned from school dinners. No wonder I was so thin when I was there. My friend wrote on our Facebook memories page that she remembered “Karen loved her crisps for breakfast, dinner and tea. She still turned out with a model figure.” I wrote to her things haven’t changed much, except my figure. Those crisps have caught up with me a bit now.

It came as a surprise for my husband and I that we had both sat in the same spot, in our old form classrooms. Our rooms were in the main building on the first floor. It was either freezing in the winter or boiling in the summer, because of all the glass. My kids couldn’t get over how hot it was in the school on the day we visited. And the classrooms have working blinds now, where as we had broken venetian ones.

We both sat in the cool kids spot in the classroom. The right was for the thicko’s and the left sat up against the windows, were the kids you have no memory of their names !

My old photos were displayed all over the school and in the open day pamphlet we were all given as a souvenir. It was weird to see myself all along the corridors. This is me on the left, dressed with a friend as Laurel & Hardy in 1976

This is us both on Saturday.

Mr Bailey was a teacher who taught us in the Humanities block. Poor man was employed in a school with very street wise kids. As someone put on the forum , he was a nervous breakdown waiting to happen. I remember someone from my year throwing a chair through his classroom window during a lesson. Every class used to flick ink at the back of him as he wrote on the board. Kids put drawing pins on his chair and one class said they used to all hum to confuse him. Crowd control was not his forte. It would appear he is know working in our local museum and someone said we should all go down there and do a conga through the museum for old times sake. It didn’t help that he had a limp and the teacher next door who used to come into help him sometimes, had a lisp ! Poor man.

I was so pleased that our children joined us for the open day. It was great to share with them all our old memories and to show them the school where both their parents and Aunts had attended.

Here’s me sat on the exact same spot now and 30+ years ago.

I cracked up when I heard one group of girls used to pop to a friends house for a drink, whilst the rest of us had to do a cross country run around the entire Stevenage lakes. Their mum used to drop them of in her car, they’d dirty up their faces and run back into school. It turns out, one time they were dropped off too early, and one of the girls ended up running for the school, because of her amazing fast time. LOL. Me and my mate used to hid and then take a shortcut across a bridge, which cut out a quarter of the course. We would still be one of the last ones though.

There’s me under the red cross in a 1979 photo that is a quarter of an entire school photo I have.

We were amazed to find that some graffiti that an old boyfriend of mine had written high up on the wall, on the stage was still there from 1981 !

Of course, someone had to set the fire alarm off towards the end of the open day. The usual suspects in my year weren’t there, so I have no idea who it was.

We had a great day, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

The secret is out : North Herts Portrait photographer

 

We had a wonderful afternoon here in Baldock, with Jennifer and Dwight when they travelled up from London for a photo-shoot. A relative of theirs had seen my work and recommended me as the perfect photographer to capture them in this exciting new stage in their life.

Jennifer is pregnant and wanted some images of them as a couple before their life changes forever, with a new baby.

They were such a prefect couple and were so natural in front of the camera. I hardly had to direct them. Even their clothing choices were perfect. Especially in the environments I had planned to shoot them in.

I had wanted to shoot them in the bluebell wood, but sadly the bluebells were not looking at their best, but a rapeseed field near my home would be a perfect backdrop.  I had received lots of comments on a photography workshop when I posted a photograph of my son in such a field. It would seem our yellow fields, that are in abundance here in Hertfordshire, are not a normal site in the States. So what could be better than putting an American couple in a typical British field.

I suggested to Jennifer and Dwight that we could include a little announcement capture that they could share on their Facebook pages. It was posted on their Facebook page yesterday.

Yep, they found out this week they are having a little girl.

I look forward to getting together with them again soon. Poor Jennifer has been having trouble choosing what images she would like, she loved them all !