Christmas Portrait Mini Session 2016
Lately I've been gathering a few studio bits and bobs that my kit was lacking and so Rory has spent a lot of this week in front of my camera being still (or as still as you can be when you're 3). And so as a thank you for helping me out, I let her put on her prettiest dress and sparkliest shoes and shot her christmas portrait a little early this year.
It's so typical that the photographer would end up with a kid who dislikes having their picture taken.
Photo Challenge Week 47 Landscape: Abandoned
Week 47 Landscape: Abandoned
For this week's landscape, I headed to Rindleford, to the woods behind the house where my husband grew up in search of an old cave house he came upon there when he was younger.
We had to walk a bit through through muddyy, boggy ground to find the place, and it was strange, because while I pride myself on my childhood weekends and summer holidays spent in among nature, I'd never realised before how tame that nature had been. The wood at Rindleford is so small, only really a narrow strip of trees between feilds. But to be in amongst that narrow strip of trees, with no sounds besides those of the birds above and the squelching leaves below and no meausre of how far you've come, no markers save for the muddy puddle path, it's frighteningly easy to imagine how simple it would be to find yourself lost in a wild place, how quickly dark descends, and when it does, if you aren't prepared for it, you're stuck. And the further we walked, the more aware of this I became, the more the potential for disaster began to creep into the back of my mind and I realised just how much of an urban girl I truly am. And perhaps that I may have watched a few too many horror films. But as creepy as I found the woods and it's little forgotten houses, I couldn't resist paying homage to the Blair Witch-y vibes it stirred up in me.
Photo Challenge Week 46 Portrait: Backlit
Another portrait week starring Rory? Well, yes.
I knew I wanted natural light for this week, and since the best light this time of year hits my house in the middle of the day I thought I'd take advantage of it and so of course my subject had to be my kid. Luckily, my oppertunistic approach to this week worked out well, as Rory happened to pick this cool little Alice in Wonderland-esque outfit too, which when she stood in our hallway in a patch of afternoon sun gleaming off the hallway tiles, the dress caught the light and illuminated the space in a red light reflection. It's shots like this that are my justification for my choice in carpetless floors and as many white surfaces as I can get away with. They may not make the most interesting interiors to look at, but they do make brilliant reflectors of light, and make for great photographic oppertunities.
Rememberance
A beautiful display of hand knitted/crocheted poppies to commemorate fallen WW1 sodiers, this Rememberence Day at Bridgnorth Castle Walk.
"We shall not sleep, though poppies grow..."
Photo Challenge week 45 Artistic: Nostalgia
For me, nostalgia means tradition, honouring old ones and creating new ones with my own little family. And nothing takes me back quite like the memories of staying up late, huddled around in the cold watching a good firework display.
(Composite shot of the firework displays in Low Town and at EDG in Bridgnorth as seen from the Castle Walk)
Photo Challenge Week 44 Landscape: A Tree
A nice on for this week, and not really a theme that required much planning besides looking for an interesting subject so I took a walk through Astley Abbotts and photographed what I found; lots of berries and changing leaves, colourful country lanes and fog blanketed vistas. Beautiful.
Leonie & Adrian
Leonie & Adrian were married at The Bond Company in Digbeth, the wedding day taking place on a mercifully crisp and sunny autumn afternoon with kind of perfect light you can only get late in the year streaming in bright beams throughout the venue.
After the ceremony the guests had cocktails at the canal side while Leonie, Ade and I roamed the city streets looking for the best pieces of graffiti to use as backdrops for their formal portraits, which I might add, is the greatest idea anybody ever had, ever because it looks amazing.
All of the guests were invited to bring along a homemade dessert for a Bake-Off style competition, there were games of conkers and a disco bouncy castle, a Polaroid photobooth and the first dance a mash-up of some of the Bride and Groom’s favourite Drum & Bass tracks.
I had SO much fun at this wedding, ate some wonderful food, met some sincerely wonderful people and I wish Leonie and Ade all the love and luck in their future together as husband and wife.
Venue: The Bond Company | DJ: Jason King of Discowed | Shoes: Irregular Choice | Cake: A collab between Leonie's lovely sister and The Hummingbird Bakery | Food: Low & Slow + Buddha Belly
October
October began with Rory's fancy dress birthday party and a trip with her cousins to Ludlow Castle where I simultaneously faced my fear of heights and enclosed, dark spaces and possibly exacerbate the problem. I'd never been so glad not to have been born a medieval queen/maid than I was at the top of that tower, beautiful view though. We acquired some pet goldfish, watched a riverside outdoor screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas and spent the rest of the month using Halloween as the perfect excuse to buy all of the gothic style interiors, to read all of the creepy books and to walk around town in full costume without feeling extravagant.
Happy Halloween!
Halloween for me is about watching spooky films and reading strictly horror novels until I can't walk around my house at night for fear of ghouls. It's also about dressing up and flexing my Photoshop skills to turn myself and loved ones into visions of terror.
Since swapping over from my blogspot, to this platform a few posts got lost in transit. So I've combined all of my favourite halloween pictures into one post including what they were before I edited the life out of them (well for most of the shots anyway, my archiving skills haven't always been what they are today!). Aren't I good to you?
Happy Halloween!!
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