Christina Lauder Portraits

Since the session the other week went so well Albert's Mummy decided she wanted to have a go bringing in her first dog so they could have a portrait taken together. I believe we were lulled into a false sense of security with Albert's professional ability when on his own. Things didn't go quite as smoothly as we had hoped. I always knew this could be the case but still I had high hopes. However I chose to just relax and enjoy the session rather than panic that things weren't going to plan which in the end meant I got something I could be pleased with. (To see Albert's first session click here) I believe as long as everyone is realistic and not expecting perfection some great portraits are still there to be had. They are animals at the end of the day with no understanding of our wishes. And when one is a puppy who's not had the benefit of long term training we had to take what we were given. The session ended for me expecting to get very little. I had...

Fine art portraits, what exactly is that you might wonder? I've certainly wondered it myself, particularly when I see this term being bandied about from a variety of photographers, some of whom doing nothing out of the ordinary. Well the dictionary defines Fine Art as the following: noun plural noun:  fine arts 1 . creative art, especially visual art whose products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content. 2 . an activity requiring great skill or accomplishment. The Fine Art Portrait is trending highly at the moment. This is something that stands out from average photography and gets noticed. In a world where everyone is a photographer its important for me to do something that people will feel is worth paying for. Phones and consumer level camera equipment being rather incredible these days means most people can capture wonderful snaps of their lives and the people in them. So for me hiring...

They say never work with animals or children and although there have been times when I can totally understand this, this was not one of those times. In fact it was the exact opposite. If I could do a shoot like this every day I happily would. This little guy was so sweet and more co-operative than I would ever have imagined a 16 week old puppy could be. I felt like I was working with a professional as he somehow knew exactly what to do, as demonstrated here by his little paw resting gently on the pram as he looked at the camera. With any shoot I meticulously plan the various settings I wish to complete in a session, generally knowing full well its unlikely we'll get through them all. Well in this case I got through most of them in the first 15 minutes. I always hope I will complete them all as usually I have visions in my head of how amazing they will all look and I never like to be disappointed. Well little Albert did not disappoint in the slightest. When I met up with Alber...

As I've often said, I just love it when families return to update their family portraits. It is always lovely to catch up with the goings on of their lives, meet the new members and see how the older ones have grown. In this case the family of 3 have now become 4, adding a new baby girl to the mix. And what makes this family a little different is that each time they've chosen to come for portraits their babies have been at the sitting stage, which I quite like for a nice change. Here we can focus on expressions but luckily still have a somewhat immobile child. This little beauty was on the verge of crawling but still too slow to get away from me, my camera and the lights. She was full of smiles and so easy to photograph, not unlike her big sister at the same age. In fact, her big sister was possibly one of the happiest babies I've ever photographed and I even called her so in my blog post about her session a couple of years ago. This little one wasn't really any...