Skip to main content

Portraits of a Boy


I photographed this young man recently and it was a pleasure.  He had such a great smile and charm which made my job so much easier.  I forget sometimes what it is like to photograph someone who can make my job feel effortless.  So often I have to coax out a smile or practically beg and plead for a look in my direction or to get them to stand or sit still. 


But Harvey was a dream.  Not only did he quite willingly do as I asked but he also helped come up with his own poses.  This one below was entirely of his own doing.  With a 1, 2, 3 he made it happen and I loved it. 



I met Harvey when he was having lunch at his mother's tea shoppe in Hinckley, Dolly's Tea Shoppe.  He was delightful and I knew he was someone I'd enjoy photographing.  So I made his mum an offer.  I would photograph her son in exchange for allowing me to have a couple of framed prints in her shoppe, one of which will be of her son. 


I am quite pleased with the way these turned out and I have just the frames in mind to suit the look of her shoppe.  Now I just need to choose which of these portraits to frame. I like them all. It might be best if I just ask his Mum what she thinks. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fine Art Portraits of a Beautiful Young Girl

So this is really becoming my thing lately. I am having so much fun working with children individually where I can direct and interact in ways that bring the best out of my subject. This has certainly become a process now of creating rather than taking photographs. And its what I have always wanted to be, a portrait artist rather than a photographer. I cannot put into words fully just how rewarding this is. For each of these shoots (as with nearly all of my shoots) we begin with a consultation where we discuss what we would like to achieve in the shoot. Here we will consider the type of clothing and any possible props. We will look at both the clients clothes and my ever growing collection so we can pick what will work best. In all circumstances we are heavily guided by what the child in the portraits wants to wear as I see this as vitally important. If he or she is uncomfortable its going to show and the portraits won't work. But most are happy to play dressups and wear a com

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

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 Vani

Introducing Claude - Another Fantastic French Bulldog

I know this breed is becoming very popular, I believe even set to take over the top spot for most popular breed from the Golden Labrador, but I never expected to get quite so many in my studio. Can't say I'm complaining though. They have such a wonderful character and I love to capture those adorable squished up faces. This client came in not just for personal portraits though. Instead she is developing a line of homemade all natural dog treats called Claude's Little Doggie Bag  and these portraits are to be used in her labels. Which is partly the reason why these images differ quite drastically from my usual style. This client had a very specific idea for what she wanted on her labels. But again, this is perfect for me because I just love variety. I don't really want to be creating the same work over and over again. This gave me the opportunity to revisit a style I've not used in some time. This little guy was just 14 weeks old so as  you can imag

I am Still Me: A Story about a Transgender Boy

  Meet Leo. Leo is 15 and currently going through an epic transformation that has momentarily turned the lives of himself and those around him upside down. A mum who once had the daughter she always longed for is now coping with the realisation that she will be living the rest of her life with a son instead. When your child is born you have certain expectations of the typical life they will lead but most of us know and accept that it won't necessarily end up the way we imagine. Not every person wants to marry, have kids or be involved with the opposite sex. Most of us have come to accept this and can adjust to whatever comes our way relatively easily. But few of us have expected to have to deal with a change in sex. Its not that we've hoped it won't happen, but just that it never occurred to us that it might. This is a new adjustment that we as a society are being presented with today, just like so many others that have come before. When I first heard that Phoebe