Friday, February 25, 2011

New Born Baby Presley's Photo Shoot

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Its always really special to be the first to photograph a newborn baby.  Baby Presley here was just 14 days old when we took these pictures and her mum and dad were absolute stars throughout the whole shoot with a constant hand in rocking her between pictures, feeding burping etc.

As is often the case young Presley was a little camera shy and it was over an hour before we got the first image.  This is not unusual and is why i tell people booking me to photograph their newborn baby to allow between three and four hours.  

Its the case in this area that everyone (and i mean everyone) loves their football and especially the New Orleans Saints, so we had a little fun dressing her up in Saints colours and giving her a football helmet to hold.

If you watch the video below you can see some more image.  You can also download the video from i-tunes by clicking this link, you can then add it to your i-phone or video i-pod and watch it when you want to.

I love these shoots but PLEASE if you are wanting me to photograph a new born be aware, these types of photographs can only be taken in the very first days of babys life (the first two weeks).  Don't miss a once in a lifetime opportunity through poor organisation, drop me an e-mail if you need any more info.




Sunday, February 06, 2011

Maegan & Franks Wedding, la Maison Creole, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Sometimes I forget how lucky I am and how much I love to take photographs and as a result I've had some pretty incredible opportunities.  I'm lucky enough to have travelled the world and photographed in some incredible locations.





Last weekend was one of those incredible wedding days.  Frank and Meagan had chosen to marry at the fantastic wedding venue "La Maison Creole" in New Orleans and I was honoured to be asked to capture their day.

New Orleans is famous for many things but probably top of the list are its infamous Mardi Gras parties.  

Maegan and Frank's whole wedding theme was "Mardi Gras" based and incorporated the three mardi gras colours of gold purple and green which realy helped set of the photographs.

I also encountered a new tradition i'd never seen at a wedding before.  It was based around the cake (check out Frank and Maegans incredible cake in the slide show above).   The base of the cake has strings attached and the single ladies each take one.  On the command they all pull and at the end of each string is a small pendant that signifies various things, I love discovering new ideas and traditions and this wedding was packed full of them.

There are so many happy highlights from the day but one of the most touching parts was when Maegans grandfather sang to her and her new husband, a very touching and heartfelt moment in time, not a dry eye in the house.


You can watch a short selection of their images in the slideshow above.  You can also download this slide show via i-tunes by clicking this link.  You can then add it to your i-phone / i-pod and have it with you wherever you go.


Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Business talk at Central High School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

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OK confession time.  I haven't added anything to the blog for about a month and that's really bad.  However in my defence I had a lot of work to get finished before I flew out to Louisiana to photograph Maegan and Franks wedding in New Orleans last Saturday (pics to follow soon).  I've been busy since I landed a couple of weeks ago and have another six weeks work intermingled with fun before I have to return to the UK, It's times like this I realise I truly do have the best job in the world. But I fully intend on adding more stuff on here over the next few weeks.

Today I did something totally new.   I had the honour of being asked to talk about my business and the way I work to various high school classes at the Central High School near Baton Rouge.  This was a real treat and an honour for me.  It's not unusual for me to be asked to talk to groups before but previously these have been businessman or other photographers so to talk to students at the start of the professional lives was a real treat and I hope they took away some ideas they can use in a positive way in their own chosen professions..

Not all (in fact very few) of the students had much of an interest in photography as a career choice so I aimed the majority of my talk to be general business ideas and centred the whole talks about two things.  Being remarkable and the advantages it can bring and finally the ways of achieving excellence in the eyes of clients.

I always find when I teach I learn a few things myself,  today they included, the English accent in America is a great advantage, the TV show Glee isn't a totally accurate view of real life in an American high school and teenagers throughout the world are pretty much the same, with the same worries, concerns and thoughts.


All in all a fascinating day and I must say a huge thank you to Miss Phenald and all her classes  today for listening to my talk, and their interesting and often searching in-depth questions.