One of my first pictures taken when Ellie was just 6 months old, almost 6 and a half years ago.
This one taken the following year. This was taken with my old camera.
This was taken using my cool-lights. Whilst not a bad picture, I found that using the cool-lights were quite limiting and realised that to get the best results, I would need to use strobes.
This was taken using on-camera flash and tweaked in paintshop pro.
Jo is hard work in front of a camera. I normally have to take several shots until she realises that I won't go away until she has relaxed a bit and I've got the shot I'm after. Getting people to relax in front of a camera has got to be the hardest part of portrait photography.
Ellie, on the other hand has been brought up in front of a camera and so she really plays to the camera. This generally works really well but sometimes when I'm after a certain shot, it can be hard work to get her to take it serious. In every photoshoot there is normally one of her dancing like an Egyption.
The photoshoot of Ellie and Bryoni kinda showed off their contrasting personalities. Bryoni seems that little bit more serious and takes things more seriously whereas Ellie sees a camera and sees it as her cue to mess around and have some fun. Kim is a bit like Jo and is hard work. Again, it is only when she is resolved to the fact that she needs to relax that I then get the shots that I'm after.
Jack was interested in everything apart from the camera so I found this photoshoot quite tough. It was one of those times when I really wish I had a squeaky toy or anything that was more interesting than the rest of the world.
Taking photos of Ellie is always a pleasure because she is so relaxed. This last one was taken with one of my new photo backdrops really just to see how they would come out for doing school photos and I'm quite pleased with the results.
Lexi was an absolute dream to work with. A constant smiler. I think this made it quite difficult to shortlist the photos because almost every one of them came out really well.
My first photos of a newborn since Ellie was born and using my new studio strobes. In hind-sight, I think it would be a good idea to story-board the shots that I would like to get so that I can refer to it and tick them off as I get them. Something for me to do for future photo-shoots.
