Leona's Head-shots.

These are a couple for Leona's acting profile...

P.O.A

Recently, a silly little nagging feeling keeps popping up in this small brain of mine and it's because I'm not doing enough to get to where I want to be (and that's taking photos of children and weddings).  I keep letting myself get distracted and I didn't even create a blog post in the whole of October!!!!


So, to sort this silly little nagging feeling out I've started a plan of action.

I am...
A) Going to submit more pictures to Getty Images. Even if I do hate doing the model release forms.
B) Keep taking Images.

C) Buy that 24-70mm f2.8 lens.
D) Take photos of children at my church... Or in other words... build up my portfolio.
E) Create flyers for local nurseries and schools. Starting with OLI (the places I did the nursery photos for before)
F) Keep up to date with photographic magazines

Ideally I want to have the flyers and posters designed and ready for Easter time because Easter will be the time that every parent in a 5 mile radius of me realises that they NEED to have their child photographed by my fair hands.

A couple of weekends ago I went to Photolive 2013 where I attended few seminars by wedding photographers- Gary Walsh, Catherine Conner and Kate Hopwell-Smith. They were all particularly inspiring... And today I picked up my "turning-pro" magazine and who should've written the first article? Cather Conner herself! What a small world.

Terry O'Neil

"You should only be a photographer if you really want to take pictures. If you don't then don't do it as a job. You must want to take pictures. I hate cameras though! They get in the way because the picture is in my mind and I do it, but you have to want to do it.

It was only when I stopped at around 65, doing it flat out, that I ever realised what a fantastic life I've had. When I look back and see all the people I've photographed I can't believe it. I wish I could have it all back" Terry O'Neil 

Christmas is coming!

It's only November but I work in retail so Christmas is practically tomorrow! I've mentioned it before but I work for The Body Shop and most of the time I really enjoy working for this company!

Anyways, for the past two weeks (...not continuously...) I've been sewing stocking shapes together so every person who works there can have one and if they're good they get a product and then the product goes into a stocking and then on Christmas Eve they get to take it home. YAY. And there's no worry about putting the product in the wrong stocking because there's a photo by each one! DOUBLE YAY. It makes me want to have Christmas ALL year round!

But baby Jesus was only born once so that can't happen.

Sophie is kindly modelling how happy everyone was to receive such a great stocking. Sophie also has a blog we should all look at...

http://popcornandglitter.blogspot.co.uk

Hat

I knitted a hat to go with that scarf which took me a million years. I used the same wool which was called Bonus Chunky and size 8 knitting needles... I made it by knitting a triangle shape and stitching it together at that back. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't do it like that... The shape wasn't quite right. It would be easier to get the shape right with knitting needles connected by wire.

Halloween

This year my friend Rachel organised a murder mystery party and it was the best murder mystery I've ever been too!... I've only ever been to one but it was a lot of fun.

An update (and a scarf)

The pictures are pretty self-explanatory... I made a scarf... Mainly under my mother's influence. She's a knitting queen and her jumpers/mittens/hats made me want to create my own!

If you're think about making anything with wool... I must warn you, you need a LOT of patience and wool can be quite expensive!

Anyway, changing the subject... I started working for The Body Shop. I like it there, the company's morals and ethics are great and I enjoy raising money for charity... This year The Body Shop are supporting TCT (Teenagers with Cancer Trust) and I've been shocked at how much customers are actually willing to give (shocked in a good way... mainly)

This means that my photography has been somewhat neglected although I do still want to do everything my webpage states... (wedding photography and family portraits). I am finding it very hard to market myself. I have no idea where to start! I made a facebook page but the only people that see/care about that are my friends and family! I made a webpage but this is attracting mainly friends and family too. I want to make leaflets and adverts but obviously this costs money and I haven't been paid from The Body Shop yet. 

I think a lot of it is to do with people showing people photographs. After Holly's wedding I got 3 people asking about it. But none of them really worked out (God I sound depressing) However, it's not all doom and gloom because there is a lot of cake in our house and I've been eating it all!

A Day-Trip to Brighton

 

Photographing the Rowe family!

The other day I did some more portraits (we went to Isabella Plantation)... And it turns out that early morning is definitely the best time to look at flowers and fish and plants!

 

Sammie and Chris

These are two gorgeous children from church! I asked their Dad if I could photograph them (a little odd of me) and here are some of the images:

 

Click here to see some more

Dress making

I started making another dress when I found John Lewis had a huge fabric sale..
For this dress I used a fabric design called Rowan Cameo by Amy Butler
and I used a Butterick pattern (B5029) which looks like this...

 

The pattern I used was this one and involved a lot more lining then I initially thought. 

I was making the dress for a wedding but ended up wearing it to my graduation instead... which turned out just fine because in the meanwhile I died my hair pink and the dress clashed horribly!

Here's some images...

... Sadly I do not own this car; I was being silly and this is what I did to my hair...

But I have a job interview next week (which is good news) but my mother is still badgering me to get rid of it :-(
...so I think my pink hair may only last for a week and a half!... I tried

Graduation

A week ago I graduated with a 2.1 from Bath Spa University... That was good, I was happy. And now I'm not a student anymore I thought I would hate it and feel lost and helpless but it's actually quite nice. The people in the photographs are my friends who I lived with for 3 years and I am missing them and all the nonsense we discussed in the evenings but nothing lasts forever!

A Lovely weekend at Center Parcs...

Amelia Constance

Yesterday I photographed a friend of a friend's university projects for her website. I wouldn't normally put photos like this on my blog but her work was so amazing; she deserves every bit of publicity. I honestly think her work is so beautiful and shows so much talent. The images we did yesterday aren't on there yet but here's a link to her website... http://ameliaconstance.com

 

A few more edits from Chris and Hollys'...