Christina Lauder Portraits

My name is Ella Carter and I am from  Hastings High School. I spent the week doing my work experience with Christina Lauder portraits. I chose to do my work experience with Christina because I have a great interest in photography and I wanted to know more about the career. I've done my work experience with my friend Libby Noden who also has an interest in photography. On the first day we mostly watched Christina edit photos on the computer using Photoshop and Lightroom. By watching Christina develop some images and talk us through what she was doing made me realise the hard work and effort which has to be put in to get the perfect image. Also, it has taught me new skills which I can use in my own work and in the future. The next day, Libby and I helped set up and photograph the french bulldog puppy. Personally, this was my favourite day because we had the experience of watching Christina do her work and watch how she takes and develops her photos. Also the different props and ...

My name is Libby Noden and I am from Hastings High School. I chose to do my work experience with Christina because I am highly interested in photography and modelling. Doing work experience at Christina Lauder Portraits has made me realise that the working world is totally different to what i though it was like. I've done my work experience with my friend Ella who is also interested in photography. One of the photos I have took and edited. Photography is all about how a photo is formed from the camera to computer. Photoshop is also a big part of being a photographer. Luckily, part of my experience was learning how to use Photoshop and this will have a big impact on me as i am taking photography for GCSE. On the first day, we watched Christina edit and prepare for a viewing. We also used Pinterest to come up with ideas for our own shoot. On the second day, we helped Christina with a photo shoot with a small French Bulldog which was very fun and different. After that, we cont...

My name is Sophie Clarke and I am from Redmoor Academy. I spent the week doing work experience with my friend Isabelle at Christina Lauder Portraits. I chose to do my work experience with Christina as I have a very keen interest in photography and I wanted to know more about being a photographer as a career. From spending the week with Christina, I have now learnt that being a photographer isn’t just about taking photos; there is so much more behind it. Isabelle and I testing the lighting and set up for prom On the first day, we mainly watched Christina develop some of her images  on the computer using software such as Photoshop, Lightroom and Colour Efex. This has now taught me new skills because before I didn't really have any knowledge about these, so I will now be able to use what I have learnt in my own work. The next day, in preparation for a trial prom shoot, Isabelle and I helped set up and put the props in place. Whilst Christina was photographing the client, s...

I'm Isabelle Stratford from Redmoor Academy and I've been doing my work experience here at Christina Lauder Photography with my friend Sophie. I'm very interested in photography and currently taking it at GCSE and working here throughout the week has helped me learn several different things about the profession.  Sophie and I testing out the set up and lighting for prom Our first day consisted of mainly watching Christina edit some photos and her explain different elements of what she does which then prepared us for the rest of the week when we began doing our own things. She also showed us many of her favourite final edited images that she keeps as samples and told us where she'd got her inspiration from to shoot in the style that she loves. To help her Sophie and I also completed some small tasks that needed doing like filing and clearing up. On Tuesday a client came in for a trial shoot in preparation for a prom so we helped set up for that but then watche...

These past 2 weeks I had the pleasure of having 3 students spend their week's work experience with me. This is something I regularly considered not offering due to the extra work that is involved on my part. What I do in this business can't easily be taught or passed on to 15 year old students so I end up spending a lot of my time teaching them and very little time actually working. But I find it very hard to turn down a student who rings me up to ask if they can do their work experience with me. And this year, rather than taking on 1 I took on 3. The first week worked well in that I had jobs they could do, like packaging up class photos and delivering them to the local school. And we had the Colour Fun Mile run in Hinckley on the Wednesday evening. So I tasked them with photographing the event and seeing if they could get their photos in the paper, which THEY DID!! I was so thrilled and pleased for them. And they didn't just get 1 photo in but they actually managed nearl...

After my build up of excitement, my week of work experience has really opened my eyes to a whole new level of helpful and interesting skills on how to create and capture a picture perfect photograph. I came to Christina knowing a few things about photography but not a lot and not in great depth at all. Since I have been working alongside Christina I have learnt a range of different things. This included activities such as learning how to process photographs using Photoshop, which actually has been one of the skills I have always wanted to learn about. I have also learnt how to apply the right sort of filters and so there set to the suitable lighting and opacity which is how strong the filter is. One of the activities I enjoyed the most was when I was lucky enough to take some of my own photos of a close friend of mine using Christina's equipment. I had a lot of fun trying different levels and re-arranging the lighting and so on. I am very proud of some the images I creat...

Hi, my name is Cerys and I spent the week with Christina on work experience. I am a student at John Cleveland College and we had the opportunity to work with someone to gain experience for the ‘real world’.   I chose Christina, as photography really interests me and I intend developing my skills. Throughout the week I have learnt many new techniques and skills, such as, studio lighting, using natural light, how my camera works, Photoshop and more. This interested me and I was always intrigued to learn more. To begin the week, Ellie and I captured portraits of each other. These weren’t of very high quality, as we didn’t have much skill in this field. Fortunately, Christina educated us and taught us how to position different lights, reflectors and backgrounds. This opened our eyes to new ideas and we became more confident. Once we felt we had sufficient amount of photos, Ellie and I imported them all onto the computer where we chose our favourite photographs. We were lucky eno...

Hi, my name is Ellie, from John Cleveland College, and I have spent a week with Christina for my work experience as I am keen to continue with photography in the future and to develop my skills further.  Initially, Christina introduced lighting, including the use of natural light and reflectors, to Cerys and I  and how to effectively use it to produce a successful portrait. Cerys and I spent time perfecting our portraits of each other by experimenting with different positioning, for example facing towards and away from the light. In addition, Christina educated me on the different settings and how to use my camera, including adjusting the aperture to decrease or increase the depth of field and also the ISO and when it is best to use a high or low ISO, which was extremely useful as I can now produce much better quality photographs- it has opened me up to a new world of photography I didn't know existed. I felt this helped me hugely to improve my current skills and I will a...