Christina Lauder Portraits

The Leicester Mercury last night featured this article on the subject. Coach crew dare to bare A crew of coach drivers and backroom staff are stripping off for charity. The men and women are hoping to raise up to £9,000 through sales of a saucy calendar. Burbage photographer Christina Lauder has taken a series of pictures of staff stripped off but with strategically placed items covering their modesty. Money raised from sales will be shared between the air ambulance and the Hathern Dog Rescue charity. Julie Johnson. of Hugglescote firm Roberts Coaches, said: "We are hoping to raise in excess of £5,000. If, however, we can sell 2,000 calendars we could possibly reach £9,000." Miss Johnson, who has posed for one of the pictures, said: "I have managed to get some of our coach drivers to get into the spirit of the cause and I have been overwhelmed by the support, so much so that we are having to have a second day shooting photos." Transport manager Geof...

Well another year has come and gone.  Yet again we managed to get by with spectacular weather which certainly ensured that we had the maximum turnout on the day.  In fact I can't remember when it last rained on carnival day.  It will have to happen one year but so far we've had luck on our side.  And with great weather comes great photos.  I love nothing more than beautiful blue skies with wispy white clouds.  It makes all the colours stand out and look wonderful and really makes my job a whole lot easier.  I'm not looking forward to the day that I have nothing but bland, grey and overcast skies to work with.    I really think the carnival comittee, of which I am a member, have done a fantastic job this year if I do say so myself.  We are growing from strength to strength each year and it looks like this year we will even be growing in numbers.  With a few more set to join us for the 2011 carnival I reckon...

I am so loving working with adults.  It makes such a change being able to direct and have proper conversations with my subject.  They say never work with animals or children and there is a reason for that.  It is bloody hard work.  I don't always realise myself how much work it takes until I photograph adults and it is so much easier.  This shoot only took about 20 minutes to complete and we had plenty of time for a drink and chat before hand.  Just the sort of way I like to spend my work day.  All in all a very enjoyable session and a large part of why my job doesn't always feel like a job.  Especially when I get the chance to meet such nice people as Nick and Claire.  Not at any point did our meetings with each other feel like work.  To be perfectly honest I just felt like we were having friends around.  Seeing as I only just met them for our consultation I think thats a pretty good client relationship we've developed.  T...

Well I did it.  I finally got up the nerve to try photographing a man other than my husband.  In the end the anticipation of this shoot was much worse than the actual shoot.  In the end I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to do more of this sort of work. Leading up to this shoot I was rather nervous.  I wasn't sure I could do it.  I mean photographing my husband naked was easy.  But to photograph someone without their clothes who you've only met once is a whole other ball game.  As it turns out I hardly even considered the situation.  I just concentrated on getting the shots I wanted.  I always start my shoots fully clothed.  Its much easier to get into the shoot without worrying about where to look or where not to look.  It gave us a chance to get to know each other too and become more comfortable with the situation.  Before long though, we were ready to bare all.  It turns out there really wasn't much...

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 toge...

Some time ago I somehow developed a desire to be a speaker at the SWPP convention in London. Having been a software trainer/consultant in a previous life there were parts of that life I'd been missing. And speaking in front of a group of people about something I am passionate about is one of them. In 2010 I was fortunate enough to have been given a place as a speaker at the convention. I spent several months thinking I was mad. In fact right up until I walked into the room on the morning of my talk I felt that way. But then the room began to fill. I realised there are many people much earlier on in their photography career than myself and I do have something worth sharing with these people. When the talk was over I was left on a high that stayed with me for weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed doing my talk and now feel it is something I want to do more of. So the date has been set and the details are as follows: Date: Wednesday June 9th, 2010 Location: Our new studio at 81 Hinckl...

This is an area of photography I've been wanting to do for years.  While we worked out of our home it just wasn't feasible.  Since we built the studio, however, it has become a very promising aspiration of mine.  And this week I managed to get the nerve to have a go with two willing and very helpful and beautiful women.  Actually I think it took a bit of nerve from us all as neither of these women are models, nor had they done this sort of thing before.  I couldn't be happier with the results.   In some ways it was much easier than I had anticipated and in others it was much more difficult.  Dealing with semi-nudity wasn't uncomfortable at all but thinking up poses and understanding how to position the lights took a little more work.  Its certainly not as simple as 'just look at someone elses photo and duplicate it'.  Not to mention that I want to be original.  Originality isn't easy when the number of ...