Author

Ally

Beach bump

by Ally March 19, 2019

This week I’ve been feeling pretty excited … because spring is on its way! The days are longer, the rain has finally stopped and the temperatures are slowly creeping up!

And this means more photo sessions in the great outdoors!!!

Just like this beautiful beach maternity photoshoot from last summer … when it was warm, the sun was shining and we could walk barefoot in the sand.

At 8 months pregnant Charlotte absolutely rocked her beach maternity session! Doesn’t she look beautiful?

I’m photographing in the studio again today … but I’m very much looking forward to some beach photoshoots coming soon. And maybe some bluebell photoshoots … oh, and maybe some stunning rapeseed photoshoots too!

Which outdoor location would you choose for your family photographs?

March 19, 2019

My photo challenge

Drink up

by Ally March 15, 2019

In collaboration with the fabulous Jarrolds Gin

There are two things in life I know I am good at … photographing people and drinking gin!

But what about photographing gin?

Well, I can categorically say that photographing gin is a lot harder than photographing people. But as I was reminded, the purpose of the challenge wasn’t for me to find things easy, but to learn how to photograph things I have never photographed before.

I first Nichola and Jamie who make Jarrolds Gin at a networking event at the East Walls Hotel, organised by the lovely Helen and Abby at The Collective. Huge plug here to the East Walls Hotel … if anyone ever asks you to recommend somewhere to stay in Chichester – the East Walls Hotel is definitely the place! Extremely central, with beautifully decorated rooms and plenty of character.

Anyway, back to the gin! I knew Jarrolds Gin was local, but I hadn’t realised just how local. Nichola and Jamie live only a stone’s throw away from me, and they produce their gin in a purpose built distillery in their back garden. And it is absolutely fabulous! If you haven’t tried it yet, you absolutely must.

This is what Nichola and Jamie say about their gin:

Jarrold’s is a small batch copper pot distilled London Dry Gin made with care and attention in Chichester, West Sussex. Seven botanicals are harmoniously blended with a distinct note of Juniper, which is then combined with refreshing local water to a robust 48% ABV. Grains of Paradise open up your palate and let the bouquet of the Angelica and the ginger of the Calamus root come through. Persian Limes add a delightful hint of citrus (we remove the pips by hand so there’s no bitterness) and Coriander and Cardamom offer just the right amount of fragrance. Of course, there’s Juniper in there too and we put a little bit more in than most because we like it that way.

Now to the photographs … I had the bottle of gin, I had the glasses … I just had to make them look good! As I found out the secret of a good drink photograph is to have a light source behind the glass to help light up the liquid, and to avoid getting too many reflections off the glass. But that is easier said than done.

At first, I thought I’d be able to capture some good photos with natural light, but this turned out to be impossible! After trying various set ups, next to various windows in the house, I gave up and I grabbed my flash. I dialled down the flash to it’s lowest setting, and placed it to the left and slightly behind the drinks. Finally I was getting somewhere! A reflector on the other side evened up the lighting so my pictures finally looked a little bit more like the image I had in my head.

Ice! You can’t have gin without ice … but ice cubes melt quite easily. Luckily Amazon sell acrylic ice cubes and they’re available on Prime (I don’t know how I ever survived before Amazon Prime existed!). They are so realistic, I love them! I have no idea what I will ever use them for in the future, but they are awesome!

I also bought some glycerin because I’d read that spraying your glass with a mixture of water and glycerin can create that beautiful cold glass effect … I tried it! And I didn’t like it! Maybe my mix wasn’t quite right, or maybe I used the wrong type of spray bottle, but it looked awful, so I quickly washed off the glass and carried on without it.

Once I had a set up that worked, I was able to experiment a little bit. My wooden floor vinyl didn’t disappoint once again, and I love the wintery feel of the photographs. I also love how the pink grapefruit is lit up by the flash making its colour really pop.

Do you remember my blog about the orange? If not, you can read about it here. You may remember I bought a sheet of plexiglass to create a reflection. Well, that’s one item I wasn’t sure I would ever use again, but I was able to re-use it for this shot too. The reflection of the gin bottle and the glass is quite subtle, but I think it adds something extra to the mix.

And finally, I decided to do a light colour shot. I did bend the rules slightly for this image … One rule in photography, is not to mix natural light with flash! You either use one or the other! But I’m a bit of a rebel, and I had an idea! I placed my white background in front of my patio doors, therefore allowing the natural light to essentially backlight my shot. I still used my flash to light up the items I was photographing, and a reflector to create an even light.

One thing I feel strongly about is adding a human element to product photography. Things don’t exist by themselves … they are made by humans for humans, and I often feel it is important to reflect this. So, of course, I jumped in the shot, or rather my hand did, and added some more tonic to my gin.

So here we are … one more challenge completed! If you have ever wondered how to get these amazing photographs of drinks … well, here are my tips. If you’re a photographer and have done it before, please let me know what worked for you?

And finally, I’d like to thank Nichola and Jamie for this collaboration. It’s been great fun! And I hope you like the photos.

March 15, 2019

Headshots

Headshots – what to wear

by Ally March 12, 2019

Some of you may remember my blog last month, written in collaboration with Vicky Booker, about headshots – and what not to wear to your headshot session.

If you enjoyed last month’s blog, you’ll enjoy this one even more – because it’s all about what you should wear to your headshot session, and how to look your best in your photographs. After all, your headshot image is often the first impression you make, and as we all know, first impressions really do matter.

So here, we go back to our lovely models, Louise and Inci, but this time they have been styled by Vicky and they are wearing different clothes – ones that you would expect to wear for a personal branding photoshoot.

Here’s what Vicky says:

The most important thing is to wear something that represents YOU and your personal brand – in other words, what you and your business stand for. If your business is in holistic therapy working with children, for example, a sharp black tailored suit and white shirt is not likely to give out the best signals to potential clients. Similarly, if you want to pitch your business in the corporate world, a casual hoodie isn’t likely to cut it! Obvious extremes perhaps, but the key is to go for the best version of your true self.
In terms of the actual outfit, I always talk to my clients about “The Power of 3”. These are the three key style elements that when you nail all three at once, will mean you are looking and feeling your absolute best – essential for your photoshoot.

Power 1 – Colour! The colours we wear can make a massive difference to our physical look (and our emotions and psychology – but that’s a whole other blog!). When we wear colours that are in harmony with our natural colouring – our hair, eye colour and skin tone – it makes us look healthy. Our eyes shine bright, our skin looks more even and fresh, and any natural shadows or lines appear minimised. Who wouldn’t want that?

In last month’s blog Louise was wearing soft shades, but notice how the blue top in the next photograph really emphasises her beautiful blue eyes.

Power 2 – Fit! your outfit should fit your well – sounds simple, right? But in reality, finding clothes that fit really well can be tricky. Off the shelf pieces aren’t made to specifically fit your body lines, scales, proportions, leg length, etc. In a profile shot – things like neckline are important as this is what you’ll see most of. Take into account your face shape and shoulder line when choosing your top.

Also in last month’s blog post, we saw Inci wearing a strapless top. Once the photo had been cropped, and you could no longer see the top made her look like she was wearing nothing at all. Just wearing a different top makes all the difference.

Power 3 – Your Personality! If anything, this one could be the most important. This is what makes two friends with the same colouring, shape and size, try on the same outfit and one looks amazing and one it just doesn’t work for. This fascinates me! It’s great we can reflect our personality through what we wear – in fact our clothes are part of how we communicate with people. And with your photoshoot outfit, this is going to communicate with your potential clients, so make sure it’s “you”!

If you’d like to find out more, Vicky is currently running some style workshops in her studio. You can book your space here.

And now that you know what to wear and what not to wear … well, it’s time to book your headshot session. Give me a call by clicking on the button below, or just send me a quick email.

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March 12, 2019

My photo challenge

Blurry photograph or art?

by Ally March 8, 2019

When you ask and pay someone to take your photograph (be it a LinkedIn profile or a family photograph) you expect to receive images that are perfectly in focus and not blurry. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what most of my clients expect.

Being able to take photographs that aren’t blurry through movement or lack of focus is one of the first things you learn as a photographer.

So to unlearn it and deliberately go out to capture blurry photographs has been somewhat of a challenge – an exciting challenge at that! Photographs are still images, so to try and portray movement through a medium that isn’t naturally aimed at this was quite inspiring.

As soon as I knew this week’s theme would be movement, I knew that I wanted to photograph movement through dance. Don’t ask me why! I would love to say that this concept was born from my big love for dance or ballet … but apart from a year of ballet lessons (if you can call it that!) as a young child, and throwing some moves on sticky nightclub floors as a teenager, dance and I haven’t really got an awful lot in common.

And yet, something attracted me to this subject.

Ruth is a beautiful and extremely talented dance graduate who needed some photographs for her dancing portfolio, so she could apply for some jobs in the industry. So we quickly booked in a date for a photoshoot.

I made sure that Ruth left my studio with plenty of great, in focus, not blurry photographs for her portfolio. If you follow me on Instagram, you would have probably seen Ruth’s headshot I posted yesterday. It’s one of my favourites! (If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you totally should. Just click here!)

Throughout the session, we also made sure that we turned off the flash and took some beautiful blurry photographs to convey the expression of movement through dance. And I am over the moon with how they came out!

The light coming through the window was ideal, and Ruth’s red dress was perfect for this, with the sheer fabric creating some beautiful effects.

For those of you who like numbers, here are some setting figures for you. My usual camera settings when using flash are f6.3 at 1/125th of a second. To capture the movement, I knew I needed to slow down the exposure time quite considerably, so I set this to 1/20th of a second. I also turned off the flash, as there was plenty of natural light coming in for such a slow exposure time. I did however drop my aperture to f2.8.

And so here are the results!

So, in answer to the question is this just a blurry photograph or is it art? Well … I’ll leave it up to you to decide!

I’ve made up my mind already!

With huge thanks to Ruth, for being such an amazing dancer, and for being game to my crazy idea, and for repeating a dance move over and over and over again until we finally got it right in camera! You’re a star!

March 8, 2019

Family photography

Mother’s Day

by Ally March 5, 2019

I absolutely love fine art photography. There’s something really special about the beauty of a timeless portrait … and these two … Well, they absolutely rocked their photoshoot!

When Felicity and I were planning a photoshoot for Constance’s first birthday, we knew we wanted something different to a cake smash … so a fine art photo session just made sense.

I am totally in love with these images. Felicity simply looks stunning, and Constance looks so adorable in her pink tutu.

But today’s blog is less about the fine art, and more about who I am photographing.

As a family photographer, I often talk about the importance of family photographs – but who is in these photographs?

Most often than not, the children are. Which is unsurprising … Children grow up the fastest, change the fastest, they are our pride and joy and we want to be able to remember them as babies, as toddlers, in their first years of school, as teenagers, etc. We try to cling on to those memories as much as we can, because one day we know that our children will be all grown up, and all we will have left are our memories, and some photographs.

And I totally agree … photograph your children! As much as you can … hold on to those memories, as tight as you can!

But there is also a flip side. Imagine you only took photographs of your children, and you weren’t in any of them … What memories would your children have of you?

One day your children will be looking at those photographs, and remember you. They will remember their childhood, the happy times. You might look at the photographs together and maybe even show them to your grandchildren. They will be surprised at the colour of your hair, or the clothes you were wearing.

Constance is unlikely to remember this photoshoot, but she will definitely remember the photographs. She will grow up seeing them around the house. And then one day, when she is older she will look back at them with fondness … and hopefully, in turn she will have her photo taken with her own children.

I wrote this blog today because Mother’s Day is on the 31st of March and I am a firm believer in celebrating motherhood. This is not to say that fathers should not be included in photographs – in fact, I highly recommend it. And I have some Father’s Day blogs lined up for June.

So, to celebrate Mother’s Day … have your hair done, put on some make up, wear your nicest dress and come and have some beautiful timeless photographs of you and your children.

In the next few days I’ll be posting some days for Mother’s Day mini sessions, so keep an eye out and book yourself in, or if you can’t wait that long … give me a call.

Call me

March 5, 2019

My photo challenge Uncategorized

Orange and the dog

by Ally March 1, 2019

Week 9 of my photo Challenge simply said Orange.

Some of the themes I’ve had so far, I found quite hard in terms of deciding what to photograph. But with this one, I knew straight away!

I was going to photograph an orange on an orange background.

For this, all I needed was, the orange (obvs!) a large piece of orange card and some plexiglass. The latter is because I wanted the orange to have a reflection. This was my set up.

Pretty easy so far!

One of my biggest challenges as a photographer is to produce in camera (and sometimes with a little bit of help from Photoshop) the same image I have created in my head.

And I was pretty happy with how the photos turned out!

And then, just as I was about to put the camera down, Ralph decided to come over and find out what was going on? And then, this photo happened!

And it was even better than I could have possibly imagined! Or planned for …

The perfect shot of an orange and a dog!

Photographing people is what I’m really good at, but you ever need an orange photographed then it seems I’m your person too!

March 1, 2019

Headshots

Sue’s headshots

by Ally February 26, 2019

Have you ever wondered what happens during a headshot photoshoot?

Today’s blog is about a real headshot photo session with a real person. If you’ve been wondering what happens during a photoshoot, and what to expect, this is the blog for you!

Sue is a marketing professional – she is the director of SBL Media, a fantastic marked company based in Worthing.

Here’s some info about Sue and her company, in her own words:

We work with business owners across the UK to help them find reliable sources of new customers. In practice, that means we’re helping them to make sense of their marketing data and know what works and what needs improvement. We then deploy marketing tactics, such as web design or edits, pay per click advertising, lead generation, brochure design, book publishing and more to test how to make their marketing more effective. “

Sue knew that her profile picture needed some updating, and she was referred to me by another previous client. She got in touch and we booked a date and time for her headshot session. We also had a chat about what kind of job she does, the image she is trying to get across through her photographs, what clothes she should bring with her, etc.

As a director of a marketing company, Sue’s photos needed to look professional, but also fun, to illustrate both her creative and her friendly, fun side.

Most of my headshot clients take a little while to relax, get used to the studio environment and enjoy the photoshoot. This was definitely not the case with Sue whose photos were fantastic right from the start!

This is one of the first photos we took …

My aim is to get the more professional photographs done first – the kind of portrait on a light background you would find on a corporate website. They may not be your favourite, but inevitably they are the kind of photo you will be asked for at some time and you’ll be glad you have them.

Once the professional outfits and photos are done, it is time to have some fun, and take some less formal but still professional looking photographs – ones that reflect your business and your personality.

Sue had brought with her some smart casual outfits with her too, and we decided to take some natural light pictures as well as the studio ones.

If you were ever worried about having a headshot photo session, here are some more images of Sue to prove just how much fun they really are!

Here’s what Sue says about her photoshoot:

Ally immediately put met at ease. I’m a marketing professional, but that doesn’t make me confident in front of the camera, in fact I hate having my photograph taken. I never expected to laugh as much as I did – it was genuinely good fun and the results were spot on.

In just 90 minutes, we photographed 4/5 outfits, had a blast and a few days later I was able to send Sue 40 images for her to use on her LinkedIn profile, website, press releases and other social media platforms.

So if you too are thinking you need a new headshot, and are feeling inspired by this blog – give me a call!

Call me

February 26, 2019

My photo challenge

Skyline

by Ally February 22, 2019

And my opinion on the new Body Worlds exhibition in London

My theme this week’s photo challenge was Skyline, and I must admit I was feeling pretty uninspired bu it … so uninspired that I kept putting it off for ages!

As you know, I find it hard to get excited about photographs without people in them. I did eventually pull myself together and managed to get a photo of a Skyline, and what better place to do it than on a trip to London?

This week is half-term so Max and I headed off to London to see the Body Worlds exhibition at Picadilly Circus. It’s a fantastic exhibition! As you walk through, it’s easy to forget that the exhibits you are looking at were once real people, with real lives who simply chose to donate their bodies to science. They have been turned into real works of art!

After having looked in depth at all the parts of the human anatomy, tried CPR on a dummy and taken our blood pressure (Max was worried he was going to loose an arm!), it was time to head out to capture the London skyline.

As a portrait photographer I am very ill equipped for any type of landscape photography. Those keen landscape photographers out there will be appalled to hear that I don’t actually own any ND filters and that on this occasion I didn’t even take my tripod with me … it’s too heavy, too bulky and we had a lot of walking to do around London. So when it came to actually taking the photos, I had to improvise!

We were heading along the South Bank towards the City of London, when the sun appeared from behind the clouds and bathed the buildings in the most beautiful golden hour light!

Without a tripod and an ND filter, I dialled my aperture to f/22 and my ISO to 100 and started taking photographs with different shutter speeds. Even with these settings, I still wasn’t able to use a shutter speed long enough to blur the water, but that was ok. The light was so amazing, that I think my not-so-blurry water can be forgiven … Can’t it?

I cropped it out almost completely in this photo and made the sky a feature. I love the different typed of clouds in this photo.

We carried on walking and waited around until it got darker, so I could get some what I would call “classic” London skyline shots. My exposure is getting longer and the water is getting blurrier, but this kind of photo just doesn’t inspire me!

We soon got cold, and we got bored and we decided that we had taken enough photos of the London skyline so we went to YO-Sushi and get some dinner before our train back home.

Once home, I decided to play around with some of the photographs, and following last week’s blog about black and white photography, I wanted to see what the image would like in monochrome. I must say, I quite like it! What do you think?

I guess the aim of this challenge (which I set myself, so I only have myself to blame!) was to go out there and try different photographic techniques that I wouldn’t normally use. This week’s challenge definitely did this. It got me thinking about apertures (I don’t think I had ever used f/22 until now), about location, perspective, and way of trying to make your camera steady without a tripod!

As much as I felt uninspired by it, I have learned a lot from it, and I even kind of like the photos … Now I am off to buy some ND filters. Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly converted to landscape photography, but apparently I need one for Week 33!

February 22, 2019

Family photography

Evie

by Ally February 19, 2019

If you’ve looked at Watch Them Grow experience before, but decided against it because you have an older child you didn’t do it with, this blog is for you.

This is Evie.

She is three and comes along with her younger brother, Arlo to all of his photo sessions. She is chatty, cheeky and adorable. She is always first to sit in the chair, and helps me out with my test shot to make sure my lighting and my settings are correct.

When we first started the Watch Them Grow experience with Arlo, we decided that Evie would also wear the same outfit in all of the photographs. This means that when we put all the photos together at the end, they will all look the same.

Babies grow and change so much in the first year, and this is really obvious with Arlo from month to month, but I’m also really curious to see the change in Evie from the very first session when she was just getting used to being a big sister, to the last session, a year later.

Photographing a baby and a three year old together is not always easy … but it is always great fun. And we all know I love a challenge!

I start by photographing Evie on her own, and then once Arlo is ready and changed, we bring him in too. Sometimes they share the chair.

Other times, Evie stands behind it!

And sometimes, I can even capture them both looking at me at the same time!

When Evie gets bored, and starts having a conversation with my Alexa, we know it’s Arlo’s time to shine … Look at those cheeks! And the posing … a model in the making!

And then, of course, it’s time for a bit of dancing around the studio … to finish off the photo session in style!

What I really love about these sessions, is that bringing an older sibling along means not one session is the same as the other. There is always something new, something exciting, something fun to brighten up the day.

And I can’t wait to see, and share with you, what the final image will look like for these two.

Are you expecting a baby? Would you like to find out more about the Watch Them Grow experience? Head over to my contact page or simply give me a call for a chat.

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February 19, 2019

My photo challenge

Black and white

by Ally February 15, 2019

The secrets of black and white post-processing and the theme for this week’s photo challenge.

We are extremely lucky to live in an era where technology has made so many advances. I still remember the days where if you wanted to take some photos, you’d have to go to the shop, buy some film … and there you’d have to choose if you wanted black and white film, or colour. You’d also choose the ISO specifically for the type of photography you were planning to do. And then, once you’d taken the photographs, you’d have to take the film back to the shop, and wait a week before you’d get your prints back! Only to find out that you had over-exposed every image …

Ok, maybe not the last part! The point is, I consider myself extremely lucky to be a photographer in a world where I can take a photo and see it immediately on the back of camera. If it’s over-exposed, I can amend the settings, and try again! Until I get it right. My memory card can hold up to 600 images, so there’s no fear that I will ever run out of film! And I can adjust the ISO settings in camera in a fraction of a second.

And to top it all, when I look at my images in Lightroom afterwards, I can choose which ones I leave colour and which ones I turn to black and white!

But what makes me decide if a photo stays colour, or if it looks better in black and white?

Recently, I was extremely delighted to have received a Highly Commended award from the SWPP (The Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers) for … surprise surprise … a black and white image!

And here’s the colour version. Which do you prefer?

I think the colour version is beautiful, but the black and white suits it better! Despite the gorgeous blue dress …

A portrait with lots of shadows, in my opinion is better suited for a black and white conversion. Shadows create a beautiful contrast which is often enhanced when all other colours are removed.

I absolutely love this portrait of Jacques … it’s moody, it’s strong … maybe slightly mysterious. The colour version is great, but I don’t think it carries the same punch.

As I was looking through all my black and white photographs, I noticed that most of them look dark and moody, some more than others. I don’t think I have yet found a happy black and white image in my collection.

Here’s a picture of Fin from his recent model and actor portfolio shoot. There are less shadows on the face, but the contrast between the lighter skin colours and the dark background make for a beautiful black and white image … And of course, it is still moody. There will be more photos of Fin in a blog in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out!

Another reason to turn an image black and white is to hide various imperfections, often to do with white balance – when a photo looks too yellow or worse, too green! This is often caused by ambient light, and mostly happens in event photography when you have very little control over the lighting in a particular venue. Even though modern editing software can usually resolve this, sometimes it is just as easy to turn the photo black and white, and hey presto! You have a perfect photograph!

Finally, as you probably know, landscape photography is really not my thing. I find it hard to take good landscape photographs … but occasionally I try my hand at it! Practice makes better, right?

I have noticed however that I prefer my landscape photographs black and white. Here’s an example of a photograph I took from my hotel room in London a couple of months ago. It had been raining horribly, but the sun decided to come out for a bit. Here is the original photograph in colour … It’s ok!