Easter Digital Backdrops

My Etsy Shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/518847367/easter-digital-backdrop-a-digital-prop?ref=shop_home_active_1

 

Easter Digital Backdrops

 

Here are a couple of my Easter digital backdrops. I sell my digital backdrops on Etsy in my Etsy shop, and I also use them in my shoots if they are requested by the parents. I’m using my nest again, but I figured I don’t own anything that says Easter like my newborn nest prop! I added some euphorbia flowers, that were taken from my garden and of course I had to use daffodils. The green/yellow combo is particularly nice against the red/browns of the wooden nest.

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We photographed the nest on a wooden floor with a damask background. The reddish colours of the wood (in the nest) pops against the wooden floor, I hadn’t really noticed those tones before. I also left a well in the nest so that I could fit a baby inside and it worked beautifully.

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I then decided I wanted to do an image that would allow a baby to sit in the nest. I changed the damask background as I didn’t want it to overpower the baby sat in the nest.

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I’m looking forward to Easter now, and I have to admit I had some mini eggs yesterday. Photographing digital backgrounds for Easter just made me think of chocolate!

 

Freya & Jake’s outdoor photography shoot.

Freya & Jake’s outdoor photography shoot

Wonderfully, I got to spend some time with Freya and Jake at their outdoor shoot a couple of weeks ago. As always I love seeing the kids running free, (though I do find it hard to keep up!). We were just in a hotel garden and I found a lovely tree, some nice hedgerows and a bench. It gave us some wonderful backgrounds. The lighting was soft, with no harsh shadows and I was able to shoot these photographs.

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I love this shot of Freya, I used the hedgerow as a backdrop which gave us a solid dark colour behind. This helped the glitter to really pop. Freya also had fun, and by the end of the shoot was telling me poses to try! It’s always lovely when the children get that engaged with the shoot.

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Beautiful Jake, I look at this shot and I wonder what he is thinking. He has been through a lot in the last year, so I was more tentative when taking pictures of him, letting him come to me. I’ve photographed him since a baby and actually he was quite shy in his shoot then. Even as a tiny baby Freya seemed to love the camera. I have noticed that some children do seem to love the camera straight away and some don’t and in fact I think I would have been in the ‘some don’t’ category. (hence why I am behind the camera… probably!).

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I took this picture of Jake before we went outside, he was asking me about my reflector. Jake loves seeing how things work, so I was showing it to him and he was listening quite intently. I just took this very quickly, using the window as a catch light.

 

 

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Freya and Jake’s outdoor shoot

Finally I took some pictures of the Jake and Freya together. Freya is a lovely big sister and is very caring, you can see she is watching out for Jake all the time.

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Freya and Jake’s outdoor shoot

Baby Photography – the first year

Baby Photography, the first year.

I photograph newborn babies up to five weeks and then babies from four months. These shoots are best when babies can lie on their tummies and hold their head up unaided.  At 6 to 8 months, babies are learning to sit unaided and this is a great time for photo shoots. Babies are interacting with the world and are much more expressive. I love capturing all the stages in the first year, but this is normally my favourite. At a year, little ones are normally starting to take first steps, these shoots can be challenging as understandably they don’t want to stay still! Hence, why there are cake smashes and bubble shoots, as they hold the little ones attention (for a short while!) Capturing these milestones are important as they go by so quickly.

My niece is almost 3. There was a folio frame containing photographs of Maddie at 4 months, 6 months and a year in her living room. It was taken down recently and apparently my niece kept asking where baby Maddie had gone. It is now back in the living room. It’s not only important for parents as a reminder of these milestones, but its important for the little ones too.

 

advert 2017

New Year, new studio space

 

So, its 2017, a new year and its a new studio space for me. I was at Charmborough Farm for years, so it was tough decision to move. The move was necessary though, as I recently went onto the transplant list. If I get the call I will have to drop everything, so I needed to have a space I could rent as and when I needed it. I live in Frome, so its nice to be close to the studio space. I had my first shoot last Saturday and all went well, I’m very pleased to say! My new space is above epicocity gym, on the Marston trading estate. The owner Jo Beale has been very accommodating, which has made the transition much easier.

I have been photographing babies for 6 years, and many of my clients, very loyally have stayed with me. So, my business has changed in that I am now photographing more children. Outdoor photo shoots suit children perfectly. They are able to run around, be free and I think it is much more enjoyable for them. I also love being outdoors, so its great for me too. If only the british weather was a bit more reliable!

 

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New Studio space

 

My first shoot and I used greys, whites and blues, which I think are the colours that many people are using in their homes this year. I always love neutrals and whites, and greys look beautiful on camera. Little Marlowe was three weeks old, she was apparently a very sleepy newborn. But she decided to be wide awake for the shoot! We got both awake and sleepy shots though and it is always nice to get both.

Happy new year to all my clients and anyone reading this blog. Hopefully 2017 will be a great year for us all!

Family Photo Shoot

I have just photographed a family photo shoot for my brother, sister in law and their children… and their dog. Pet photography isn’t something I usually partake in, but it was my brother’s pet, so, I gave it a go.

The shoot went well, even if there was my two year old niece and a puppy running around my feet at the same time! We started with Madison and I wanted to capture her endless, boundless energy and her enchanting smile. There was no way she was going to stay still, so we embraced that and let her dance around. I adore the sequence of pictures we captured, and love them altogether.

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Next up was my niece Taila, she has not long started school, and although she loves it. It is a massive change in her little world. She is a little thinker which I think you can tell from her portrait.

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The next two were the girls altogether, I love these pictures but particularly the one with all four of them. I think it is a timeless image.img_1895cbw

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The poor dog was getting a little restless at this point so it was his turn! He actually did really well, I just had to make a noise and he looked up. He also wanted to run towards me, so I had to be quick!

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We did some more family shots, lying down, sitting up and standing. The picture below is my favourite from the family pictures, it just seems to capture them all so well.img_1952

Finally we have a picture of my brother and his beautiful wife. We are doing a big wall piece for their lounge, but it’s going to be hard to just choose one. I think we might have to find a wall piece which enables multiple pictures.

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Most importantly my littlest niece will be happy. Their last family photo shoot was three years ago and Madison keeps asking where she is in the pictures. Now as she points at everyone on the wall and says their name, she’ll be able to say her name too.

6 month old Baby Photo Shoot

This 6 month old baby photo shoot with Ava, was a joy to do. Ava’s big sister 3 year old Amy joined in too and we got lovely photos of the both of them. 6 months is such a lovely age, babies are very expressive and Ava was so smiley! She even woke up smiling. I must have done close to 500 baby shoots and you don’t see that very often. Ava was just starting to sit, although she was a bit wobbly. So Ava’s Mum used her hand to prop her up a few times. I was then able to photoshop Helen’s hand out of the picture. We did images on Ava’s back and tummy and also in a prop. Ava didn’t like staying on her back for long, so I had to be quick! I’ve been told babies can concentrate for a minute for every month, so at 6 months babies can concentrate for 6 minutes. There are lots of breaks and I’ve got quite proficient at reading baby cues. So I generally know when they’ve had enough. The shoot normally lasts an hour (with lots of breaks) and I can get quite a few different pictures in that time.

I normally find 3 year olds the most difficult to photograph. They are at an age where they are independent and it’s difficult to get them to be in a picture if they don’t want to do it. They have also found their freedom, so understandably don’t want to sit still. But Amy was great, such a lovely big sister and we were able to achieve quite a lot. This was a lovely 6 month old baby photo shoot, it is usually one of my favourites and this shoot was no exception!

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So smiley! and just adorable. 6 month old babies like grabbing their hands at this stage and I love being able to capture this.



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Both Ava and Amy’s first teddies are in this picture. I love it when parents bring items that are sentimental and we are able to incorporate them in the shoot.

 

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Etsy Shop Digital Backdrops

Here are the digital backdrops I’ve created over the last month. I’ve used a few for myself, for my own galleries, and I’m sure I will be using the red sledge Christmas backdrops very soon! (My Christmas Shoots start in September.) I’m updating and adding to my Etsy shop each week, and I’m really enjoying the process.

I started doing the digital backdrops after one of my newborn shoots. My clients desperately wanted a certain setup, which I said was of course no problem. It wasn’t a complicated set up. The first hour of the shoot was a breeze and the newborn slept like a dream. We did the beanbag pictures, which all went smoothly. The beanbag pictures are flow posing the baby on their back, side and tummy and then we did the parent and baby images. For what ever reason, it could have been wind! she woke up and didn’t want to do any more pictures. But I hadn’t done the setup the clients wanted! I knew we’d already got great images in the first half of the session and I didn’t want to upset or distress the baby in any way. So we called it a day. After the shoot I photographed the setup without the baby and then was able to composite an image (from one of the earlier beanbag shots) When the parents saw the setup they bought the picture and were very happy. My brain then started to whirl, if for whatever reason this happened again, I could just composite the baby from the beanbag into a prop shot. It’s been fun creating digital backdrops, and I have many more ideas!

 https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AuraDigitalBackdrops?ref=hdr_shop_menu

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Digital backdrop, Newborn dark wooden bowl
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Digital Backdrop, Red sledge, snowy background.
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Digital backdrop, red sledge with teddy

 

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Example of what the digital backdrop can look like… composited baby onto the red sledge.

 

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Example of what the digital backdrop can look like… composited baby on the sledge with the teddy behind

 

Newborn Photo Shoot with Azari

A wonderful newborn photo shoot, with the lovely Azari. I’ve been photographing this family for the past couple of years and they’re all great. The oldest Jai even helps me out, and a very good photography assistant he is too! Azari slept the entire shoot, so we were able to achieve quite a few poses. I love this image with the bonnet. It was one of the pictures chosen to go up on Mum’s wall, one of three 20″ x 16″‘s sized prints. I love them all, but when I look at this picture I find it very gentle and calming. Azari was premature by a few weeks, and we actually did the shoot very close to her due date.

Harriett chose all black and white prints and I must say I do love black and whites. They are just so timeless. The printer I use is a canon ipf8400 and it prints wonderful pictures. The inks are pigment inks too, which means they will last up to 75 years. So, wonderfully, maybe these prints will be passed down to Azari’s grandchildren.

We did pictures of Azari on her own and with her two siblings. (I always do the sibling images first) Aston is now the middle child, and at 18 months old found the shoot a bit confusing. We managed to get a beautiful shot of the three of them though, and I’m so pleased we did. Sibling shots can be the most challenging in a newborn photo shoot. This is because, not only are you trying to get a good picture with all that entails, i.e. thinking about the lighting, posing, details. But also safety has to be paramount. In this instance, my go to pose for siblings which is lying them down, didn’t work. So instead I was able to put Aston on the white wooden chair and Jai to his side, holding his sister. It is a beautiful picture, I’m very proud of it, and Mum loves it.

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Newborn baby Azari, she was still very flexible, and was very comfortable in this position.

Ballet Photo Shoot

I have just photographed a ballet photo shoot. Wonderfully, for me, it was with my beautiful goddaughter Rosie!

I did a photo shoot a few months ago with a three year old little girl. She was twirling around in her floaty dress and I got a series of photographs. I put them together in a panoramic print, a bit like the picture below and it looked lovely. I wanted to try it again! So, Rosie and I had fun trying out different movements. Rosie showed me what she had been taught in her ballet lessons, and we did a variety of different dance movements. But, I just loved this series of ballet steps, showing Rosie twirling from left to right. When I was a little girl I had a Swan Lake musical jewellery box, which I loved. I think this was probably the inspiration!

I posted this picture on my facebook page, and I had such a great response. So, I decided that I am going to offer this as one of my shoots. The client would pay for the shoot and print, and then after the shoot you get a printed picture in either a 12″ x 6″ or a 16″ x 8″. We could apply this to little girls in floaty dresses dancing, hula hooping or boys doing football skills or we could incorporate any number of hobbies. Or we could just do the ballet photo shoot, it is great fun.

 

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