Wonderfully asleep and very contented I was able with her mums assistance to carefully get her into the poses and hats without any distress and capture these lovely newborn baby photos before she woke up a little again ready for her next feed.  This contemporary style of newborn photography is now our signature style and we are continuing to build a large selection of backdrops, hats and other props to match both the sex of the baby and their skin, eyes and hair colouring.

Mum managed to get a quick glipse of some of the images before she left and I hope you like them as much as she does.

As well as getting some great portraits I also focussed on some of the little details until she decided the session was over !

Here are a few of my favourites from the session, view the full to see the 5 images. The parents have a password protected gallery to view the entire session.

On a changeable day the tennis, and practice, was interrupted by several rain showers but the evening cleared and produced some excellent doubles and beautiful light.

I was stationed on court 9 with a view over to court 10 and had the pleasure of photographing the matches between Richard Gasquet and Rajeev Ram and then the doubles match between Novak Djokovic / Jonathan Erlich and the British pairing of Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray with some glimpses of Marin Cilic and Andre Sa playing another British pairing on 10.

When the clouds broke and the dry spells long enough the practice courts also saw a lot of players either warming up or getting a good hit for tomorrows play – notably Rafa Nadal who played for over an hour with a huge crowd in attendance so much so I couldn’t get anywhere close.

Here are some images from the matches. Click on an image to view and then step through the gallery…

So today we got some of the very first images using our blankets and cocoon to get these sleepy, dreamy images for her parents. Needless to say these were not the first items we brought out but nothing a little washing won’t fix. We warmed the studio up to ensure that this little one didn’t feel the cold, and made sure that everything was in place to make it as stress free as possible and once fast asleep and comfortable we worked to get the photographs.

The full set of images will be ready soon for our clients to view and make their order, and of course our congratulations go out to them for her safe arrival !

We are looking to follow this session up with another in 2 weeks to get some more images with a different look to them – so check back soon, we also have another newborn session booked to happen soon. So there will be more babies on the blog shortly.

But back to the pre-wedding shoot which took place on a warm and sunny day. After a short walk around the venue we found some of the feature locations at the Powdermills Hotel, working in open shade as usual for soft light and also with some lovely directional lighting in and around the terrace.

I’m really pleased with the images I made for Helen and Graham, who both relaxed into the shoot very quickly and it really shows in the photographs.

Here are a few, the rest will be online for Helen and Graham to view shortly from their main page on the website.

This year both Pat Cash and Andrew Castle visited the tennis club to be part of this well prepared, and executed event.As with last year my brief was fairly straightforward. Capture the day, photograph some PR images of the celebrities with the sponsors and their families, and then shoot the tennis matches.

The day started wet, very wet but the tennis clinics still took place with heavy rain visible in the images. Some came prepared for the rain, and some didn’t. I was beginning to rue not having a change of clothes. Even the balloon man was making umbrellas. However almost to the minute the rain ended at about 1pm, and apart from a short shower the weather improved and the crowds arrived to watch a feast of doubles matches including the main event Pat Cash and Andrew Castle vs Chris Wilkinson (director of tennis) and Michael Privett (mens club champion).

For those who came to the day a gallery of all of the images will be available from Monday 31st May (planned) for you to view and if you wish to purchase prints. You will have details on the back of your open day programme, on an A5 flyer from inside the club or I’m sure someone at the club will help you. The gallery can be accessed from the Open day page on the website which can be seen here.

Here are a few taster images from the day (and yes the younger brother is licking rainwater of his siblings back !). Click the main image to start the slideshow or pick from the thumbnails.

This year the club has Pat Cash and Andrew Castle returning to do battle in some exhibition tennis with Chris Wilkinson, the club’s Director of Tennis, and commenter/umpire Matt Chilton also there – it promises to be bigger and better than last years amazing event.

There will be tuition from the morning for kids through to adults and then the matches take place mid-afternoon, which means I’ll be shooting a mixture of photojournalism, PR images, portraits, sports photography, and some good old fashioned “grip and grins” over the course of several hours.

Images will be available to view, and purchase, from an online gallery shortly after the open day – details including the password will be provided in the event programmes and in loose flyers at the club reception and in the bar. There will also be some feature images here on the blog over the weekend as well.

We have a landing page already for the event, which also has links to last years gallery, blog entry and a highlights slideshow so if you want to see what happened last year and to get a flavour of what it should be like on Saturday do take a look here: Open Day page.

The tennis club has it’s own website which will have details of all the activities and the schedule for the day.

Finally an image of the exhibition match last year taken from the fitness suite to keep you going until the weekend.

The images are now online in a private gallery for the client to view and download their chosen images for use on their website and PR materials.

Our individual business portraits can be conducted like this one in our studio for speed, and ease and to keep costs down or we can visit your offices or locations to photograph management or staff in their working environment – and for multiple people or a whole company we typically work on our day rates.

I’m making no political statement, nor any bias to any one of the political parties but it is clear from the TV debates that an individuals personal image can have a dramatic effect on the general public’s perception of them, and their party, which is why I was so surprised to see a such a motley collection coming through the door. So I’m a photographer and I notice things technically and artistically but it was clear that only one of the candidates had used a professional, or talented amateur, photographer to take the photographs on their flyer. Some of the images could have been castings for the role of an axe murderer so horrible was the lighting and composition and the expression of the candidate, and others simply were so poor.

I didn’t meet many of the people who were standing, so my opinions on them as local candidates were only influenced by the words on the flyer, and the images – and we all know a picture speaks a thousand words.

So here is a tip for election candidates, local, council or general election, or just for you or your parties website. Get a decent PR portrait taken, invest in a professional to accompany you for your key baby-kissing moments and don’t leave it to chance. It needn’t cost you the earth to get some PR images for your campaign use and a skilled professional photographer will make you look your very best and convey in an image your character and beliefs far better than 100 words of spin. So out of the many £1000′s of pounds you spend on campaign literature drop a few hundred pounds on professional photography next time. It could well make a significant difference to how you are perceived by the general public.

Not even making a basic effort to present a professional image says a great deal in this world of media coverage and personality based politics. People simply expect more in this area than a snapshot against a wall.

I approach a baptism or christening in a similar way as I do a wedding, documentary photography as much and as discretely as possible to ensure I capture the emotions and story of the event and family groups to provide the record of the families and friends present as well in this case as the godparents, and then of course all the details which go to completing the story of the day.

The baptism took place during the normal sunday service and I was warmly welcomed by Father John and allowed full coverage of the service with my discrete methods, I was well position to capture both the families reactions and the actual baptism itself. Back at the house for the family gathering I looked to get lots of images of the family enjoying the day and then some images of the guests and formal groups of close family with the newly baptised little one.

Here are some images from the baptism.