Christina Lauder Portraits

I surprised myself with just how much I love doing this sort of portraiture when I spent the day at a local playgroup. It was such a joy to spend the day with a group of pre-school children. I felt no pressure to get an image in a confined space of time. I had not issues of trying to get the children to sit where I want or to smile when I want. I simply wandered about their environment watching them do their thing and then I photographed them. I was both relaxed and inspired. First I would like to point out that this style, many photographers refer to as ‘Lifestyle’, is becoming all the rage within photographic circles. People more and more are asking for natural portraits taken in familiar surroundings. So this is something I thought I would bring to my nurseries and playgroups, where it is even more important to see the children as they are throughout a day that is spent away from the family. My aim was to capture the children in a way that truly represents their character at this st...

I recently had the opportunity of photographing India in her gorgeous white bedroom. It was an ideal environment for my naturals range of images and India was an ideal subject as she is so naturally beautiful with a smile that can light up a room. Her bedroom is decorated entirely in white with the only colour coming from the few accessories and personal effects dotted around the room. The results were exactly what I had hoped for. I have been so pleased. I used nothing more than window light and a reflector to achieve the images you see here. I wanted to keep the ambience of the room without losing the atmosphere by using a flash. These have become some of my all time favorites and will probably always be a part of my portfolio. This is something I hope to do more of with my clients. It is relaxing and enjoyable for not only my subjects but myself as well. Perhaps more importantly though, it captures both the child and their environment which typically changes as often as the ch...

I finally did it, my first wedding. After years of saying I would never do a wedding I finally decided to have a go. I don't know what convinced me. Maybe it was the thought that if I did one I could say with authority that I don't do weddings. My husband had been on my back for ages trying to get me to give one a go. For me I would have to say that the most difficult aspect of wedding photography is the pressure and stress caused by the importance of the day. I worried about this since the day Dawn emailed me to say they had decided they wanted to book me. I hadn't expected to get this wedding given that I had no samples to show them. And I certainly didn't give them a hard sell as I still wasn't convinced that this was something I wanted to do. I kind of figured that if I got this wedding, with no samples and no experience then it was meant to be. Well I have samples now. In the weeks prior to the wedding I read and I read and I read. I read books, magazines and ...

A week in the life of a Photographers assistant, is not all about saying cheese! I’m Hester Sharpe, currently at JCC but took a week out of normal school life on work experience to be a photographer’s assistant and learn the bits behind the camera, photograph and the process to get to the end result. During my week of work experience in photography I have learnt that there is a lot more than just taking the pictures and printing them. The steps in between are the key to getting the perfect photo. For example the photos have to be cropped, tweaked, edited, colour corrected. That is just a taste I have had in the processing of the photos and there is a lot more than just those things. Those processes are the most time consuming part of the photograph and a tremendous amount of detail is put in to the picture but all the hours spent are paid off with the end result; a perfect picture. It isn’t just how the picture looks; presentation is a key to photography too. Selecting the best ...