Burbage Carnival 2010

This is the second year now that I have been a part of the Burbage Carnival committee. And since our new studio has been built we hold the bulk of the meetings here. Now that the better weather is here though, we are venturing out to the various village pubs for a change of scenery.

The carnival itself is well underway. With a record number of floats entered this is due to the one of the best carnivals yet (weather dependant of course). It hasn't rained in a while on carnival day so it is bound to one year. I just hope its not this year (and I am sure I will say this next year as well).

We recently held the Prince and Princess competition where we actually had 3 entries for the prince which is great considering it was the first year we included boys in the competition. Each winner in the competition won a portrait sitting and free portrait taken by myself, of course. For our program and the local press I put some images together in the style of our Clique party group shots.

Speaking of the program, it has just been received from the printers and it is looking great, if I do say so myself (I designed the cover and some of the ads on the inside). We'll be at the next Burbage Farmer's Market on Saturday June 5th selling them if anyone is interested. So if you are in the area please drop by and support this event.

The Burbage Carnival, although there in part just to have some fun in the village, is also about raising money for local charities. Each year a large number of charities share in the funds raised. The greater the support the more each charity can be given. And as with most things in life, every little bit helps. Which also reminds me, if anyone is interested in volunteering to help out with the carnival, please get in touch. We can use as much or as little help as you can offer. Even if you only want to help out on the day it would be much appreciated.

Hope to see you on the day, which is Sunday June 20th if you don't already know. The parade will be starting at 12 noon this year, instead of 1pm as in previous years to account for the bigger turnout. (Visit www.burbagecarnival.co.uk for more information)

Comments

Zoe returns, this time with baby!!!

This was a great opportunity for me to experiment in my new studio. Zoe let me do this with her baby bump a couple of months ago with great success so we took the time again, this time with her new baby. Some experiments were successful and some where not. But that comes with the territory. You can't find new and exciting ways to shoot without finding a few bad ways too. I'm just greatful that the only mess we needed to clean up in the end was a little wee. It could have been a whole lot worse.
As usual, Zoe photographs so well and I am again so pleased with the results. She is going to have some great images to show her daughter when she grows up. Zoe looks absolutely fantastic, and without any signs of having been pregnant just a few short weeks ago. Of course, apart from her bump she hardly showed any signs of even being pregnant. If only all women could be this lucky.

I had forgotten how easy it is to photograph newborns. They can't run or crawl away. Th…

Never Work With Children or Animals

Or so the saying goes. But I have to say that working with dogs has been so lovely. They have been almost entirely a dream to work with. I say almost entirely because we have had a few moments where a dog has needed to settle. And one moment where the dog had settled but one of my cats decided to have a look through the glass door which, as you can imagine, rather quickly unsettled the dog. Still, that didn't stop us from creating incredible work.

In fact it was during that shoot with the cat instance when I created two of my favourite pieces, shown below.

(It was while sitting on the couch here when he noticed the cat peering through the curtain)
I don't know if I've just been lucky or all dogs are just easy to work with. I photographed a french bull dog puppy and I thought that would be tough as he hadn't had time to be properly trained yet. But he did everything we wanted in no time at all. And this included the props we used here (below), which to me seemed somewha…

Family Portraits with Fine Art Flair

I have a love and hate relationship with family portraits. I love the finished piece and creating something that is truly special to the family. I love that in years to come something I made is going to be a cherished and valueable memento for this family. What I struggle with, is getting all members of the group to look their best at exactly the same moment in time. You would be surprised at how difficult this actually is, particularly when it comes to 6 children. But I always get there in the end, whether it is the luck of a moment or with the aid of Photoshop. I ensure that everyone in the portrait is looking their best, even the dog.

Seeing as this family is actually made up now of two families we also did portraits in their respective groups which I chose to do in different style to their main group. I love adding a bit of style for the overall main group and what you see above is something that is proving popular with my clients. I love adding props and giving a sort of Vanity F…

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I honestly love photographing dogs. They are a joy to work with and its almost impossible to produce a bad portrait of a dog which does of course make my life a little easier. I am someone who really needs to love the work I create. I can't help but love the portraits I've created of all the dogs I've photographed over the years. And this shoot was certainly no exception.

I found it a real pleasure using a lighter background this time too. I do often gravitate towards darker looks but seeing as this dog had a light coloured coat I thought I'd produce lighter images. This gave me the chance to use a canvas I painted a couple of years ago but never really used and I absolutely love it now. I don…

Do You Have a Little Pirate in Your Family?

If so, why not capture it in a beautiful portrait so you can cherish these memories forever?

I designed and built this set for a client. She came to me with a son and daughter and during the consultation we discussed the interests of the children, as I always do. Our ideas for portraits for her daughter were going to be easy. She loved the idea of modelling pretty dresses so her shoot was sorted. Her son on the other hand was more difficult. Where ever possible I try to incorporate something about the children into each portrait. That can mean books, sports, dance, musical instruments or anything a person has an interest in. In this case he hadn't yet developed any interests, other than pirates.

Now my client didn't want me to go to too much trouble. We agreed it wouldn't be easy to make anything pirate themed look as though it fit my style and level of quality. A shop bought costume wasn't going to cut it. But I just had to try. I love dark wood in my portraits and I …

Christina Lauder Portraits

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