Preparing for a new arrival

Every few months I take a trip back home to Guernsey, where I grew up. It's always a great opportunity to catch up with friends and family and for a few days swap the London smog for the fresh Channel Island sea air. This time round, I was lucky enough to catch up and photograph Clare who is just weeks away from welcoming baby number three.  She's relaxed, excited and even managing to squeeze in the odd trip to the gym! 

Clare and her family live in a beautiful townhouse, opposite a park and just on the outskirts of St Peter Port.  The kitchen really is the heart of this home,  proudly displaying photographs, drawings and paintings of and by children Amelie and Arthur and  I wanted to capture Clare in the heart of this room.

I remember feeling quite nervous at this stage in my pregnancy but Clare is just blooming and excited to find out if it will be a boy or girl joining the family and taking it from four to five. Not long now!

Taking a look back - Making The Guardian Eyewitness centre page feature

London Fashion Week. The very mention of this biannual event makes some photographers shudder. It's long days, hard work and a lot of rushing around between the shows which are always crowded. I guess I am a little different as I have always loved it. From the hectic, last minute stresses and tensions backstage, to the moment the lights go up and the music starts to blast and the picture-taking begins - it's one of my favourite events to photograph. 

Four years ago I managed to swing a backstage pass for one of the shows taking place in a light, white walled old dairy building in the heart of London. The designer, Nathan Jenden, had recently left the helm of Diane Von Furstenberg and was branching out on his own. She was there on the front row supporting him.

As I stepped backstage before the show, one of the first sights I saw was a model, with a pose almost like a flamingo, while a team buzzed around her trimming her fluffy pink skirt. What surprised me was how, at this very last minute, not long before the show, the designs themselves were still being altered. I crouched down to take the shot. I really just wanted to capture the detail of the skirt being trimmed and a sea of busy hands swarming around.

To my great delight, this picture was the centre page spread in the Guardian Eyewitness feature the following day. Having a picture feature on those pages was something I had always hoped might one day happen, so it remains a huge career highlight.

Guardian Eyewitness centre spread. 

Whether it is a model taking to the catwalk or going behind the scenes backstage - fashion week has all the ingredients to whip together an interesting photo story. It's been great to raid my photo archive and look back at all the pictures I took from the show with fresh eyes.  I can see the ideas I tried, what worked well and what did not. Four years on, I see some images in a different light and some old shots have become new favourites.

Notebooks to write home about

I'm ever so slightly addicted to notebooks. Good old-fashioned paper notebooks. It probably started with Summer holidays to France and the most incredible selection of notebooks and diaries available in French hypermarkets. The paper would often be made up of little squares which I thought was quirky and strange. I loved having my own unique notebook to christen with my fountain pen on the first day back at school for Autumn term.

A few years ago I discovered Smythson notebooks (pictured below). The delicate soft leather handbag size book complete with a fun slogan on the cover. My first was titled 'Places of Interest' and the wafer thin blue pages were divided into categories such as restaurants, museums and hotels. I bought it as a gift to myself and watched it being perfectly wrapped in light tissue paper before nestling in to its blue box. A bright pink Smythson notebook titled 'Wedding Planner' took me from the days straight after my engagement (when I was already listing potential wedding venues), through to the thank you card list for wedding gifts. The ten months of planning for our big day was all jotted down in this special book. More recently there has been a new addition to my collection, a soft cream notebook with gold lettering titled 'Baby notes'.  It was given to me as a birthday gift a few months into my pregnancy and has rarely left my bedside table and is crammed full of what our little girl is doing week by week.  

Etsy is my go-to for fun and lovingly crafted notebooks, whether it is slogans or interesting designs that catch my eye. In this age of smartphones, putting pen to paper may be a thing of the past for some, but for me it still feels like something special and I think notebooks make a perfect gift.

Cooking Secrets by Arminho at Etsy 

Fox notebook in pink by SketchInc at Etsy

Purple notebook by Moleskine

Playing dress-up and pumpkin cooking

We are fully getting into the Halloween spirit in our household, with our almost 8 month-old daughter having already attended her very first Halloween party a week ago! A quick dash to Sainsbury's and I picked up this season's hot Halloween accessories - a spider headband and cobweb tights! We set up a mini studio space in our attic bedroom and did a little photo shoot. What I had not anticipated was each time the spider headband was placed on her head, it was immediately removed and inspected suspiciously,  making it a race against time to get each shot!

I also set myself a challenge this year - to buy a pumpkin and cook with it. Pumpkin carving is not my thing.  I have never bought a pumpkin and therefore never carved one. So this could get messy...

I picked my baby's nap time to do my baking in the hope that she would stay dozing for at least an hour while I braved my pumpkin cooking mission. I don't think I was fully prepared for how tough pumpkins are to cut into. It felt like a full bicep workout as I chiselled away at the firm core. Another thing I was not prepared for - SO many seeds tangled inside a web of orange stringy flesh. Apparently the seeds are good roasted, so after cleaning them with cold water,  I placed them on foil in a baking tray and sprinkled them with olive oil and coarse salt.  FoodNetwork.com  offers a choice of different ways to jazz up your pumpkin seeds and I opted for the Indian spices suggestion adding Garam Masala halfway through the 50 minutes oven time. I then added a handful of sultanas once removed from the oven and voila! - a great, healthy snack without wasting the pumpkin seeds!

Pumpkin seeds with Indian spices

My next stop - a website called Wholefood Simply. After developing gestational diabetes while pregnant, I have taken a big look at my diet and hugely reduced my intake of refined sugar. This website has incredible recipes which cater for my dietary needs. The photography is just beautiful too. I chose the Pumpkin and Almond bread to try baking. The warm comforting aromas of cinnamon, vanilla and Chinese five spice quickly filled the house and instantly made it feel like a slippers on, cosy up by the fire, lazy Sunday afternoon. This bread takes about an hour to bake and is delicious with extra thick double cream. 

With my pumpkin well and truly carved to pieces and at my husband's request, I made one more Halloween foodie treat - dark chocolate Rice Krispie cakes. In a bid to reduce the sugar content, I used very dark chocolate, over 85% cocoa, instead of milk chocolate and Rice Malt Syrup was used in place of golden syrup. All you need is:

90g Rice Krispies

60g butter

100g dark chocolate

3 tablespoons of rice malt syrup.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate, add the syrup, mix with the cereal, place in paper cases and leave to cool.

These Rice Krispie cakes are sticky and melt in the mouth and perfect with a cup of tea - bliss! Happy Halloween!

Finding creative inspiration at home

I recently wrote a blog post about how I have been learning online during my baby's nap time. Now we have a loose routine (of sorts) and she sleeps for a couple of hours in the early afternoon, it means a few times a week I get to work on photography ideas, my blog and my website - I generally get to put my creative hat on!

As a new mum to a seven month old baby, I may not have endless hours in the day to visit museums, go to film screenings or devour whole books in a day but there are other things that I do to keep my mind active and find inspiration for my work. I read tons of magazines, mainly fashion and I love the ideas and concepts behind fashion shoots. I quite often rip out pages and keep them for future reference. It could be how a prop is used, or how two colours work together, or maybe the camera angle. They are all ideas that influence me and my work. I also watch lots of films - including loads of documentaries. I recently watched a film called Time Zero, all about the last days of Polaroid film. It inspired me to dust off the two Polaroid cameras I have and order some film from The Impossible Project to test out for a future blog post idea.

People sometimes ask me what is the best way to get into photography and learn about taking pictures. I still believe the answer is practice, practice, practice. I'm constantly setting myself little projects and challenges in order to keep my photography fresh. Sometimes I pick a theme and go off and take shots based around that idea, or I may experiment with food photography or play around with my macro lens. For me it's all about learning and improving.

Another way to help get the creative juices flowing is through online courses. The last one I completed was How to Build a Successful Creative Blog by April Bowles-Olin and it was a huge eye-opener. It has not only given me a whole new way of thinking about my blog but it also encouraged me to totally revamp my website.

April is back on November 10th with another class called Create Digital Products That Sell While You Sleep. As I discovered with the blogging course, April is great at serving up new, exciting ideas and working them into your business. I'd love to hear more from her about selling photography online, advice on creating downloadable e-books, blogger case studies, as well as successful marketing strategies for selling digital products. Most of all, I know April will make the class fun! Here's more:

Are you ready to make your creative work more lucrative, stable, and sustainable in the long-term? Join April Bowles-Olin for an introduction to digital products and how they can enhance your creative business. This course will show you how to produce and position viable products for generating multiple revenue streams and passive income. RSVP right here to watch it live and get access to the workbook for FREE. This post is part of the Create Digital Products blog tour.

A taste of Autumn

As we turn the corner into October, it abruptly feels like Autumn has arrived. Not only is it frostier and crisper in the air,  but the Autumn leaves, a mesh of warm, vibrant colours are already scattered on the ground. The mix of colours and textures makes for a great photo backdrop, so I took the opportunity to head to the local park for the first Autumn photos of the year with our daughter in her sunny yellow fisherman's jacket from Gap (I want one myself!). She's mesmerised by the crunching sounds of the leaves, clinging on to any she can get hold of, not keen to let go.

The sudden cooler temperature has also meant freshening up her baby wardrobe with Winter pieces. I particularly love this cute Love motif jumper from baby Zara (below) which is super soft and fleecy. The checked dress with Peter Pan collar, from Fred & Florence at Tesco, will be perfect with cream tights and ideal for Christmas time.

As the seasons change, I've also noticed our garden offering up new and interesting colours and shapes. I discovered a Japanese Quince bush with its first servings of fruit for the year. I know next to nothing about Quince and what I might be able to make with it,  but look forward to researching and finding some interesting recipes to try.

Now & Then - Re-creating my baby photos

In March this year I had a baby girl and as proud parents, my husband and I have been watching her grow and develop week by week. I try to remember to jot down how she is changing and what she is experiencing for the first time, from her first taste of solid food to running her tiny fingers through the leaves of trees. My parents kept a similar record of my time first moments but in the form of a baby book. I recently dug it out and paid much more attention to it than I had previously, as now the penny has dropped and I realise how even a new noise is a major milestone!

Tucked inside a pouch in my baby book, along with my hospital bracelet and a Cookie Monster first birthday invitation, was this photo (below) from 1980. Written on the back was my age at the time (6 months). It got me thinking that it would be fun to try to recreate the same picture with my daughter as she has just turned the same age.

The first challenge was finding the outfit. Thirty odd years have passed since then, so it was a case of trawling through eBay and Etsy. Eventually I found a similar broderie anglaise bonnet and a turquoise Disney t-shirt which I turned around and added the trimming, bought from a local sewing shop. It is funny looking at the results above as I find myself thinking she looks more like her dad than I realised and less like me as a baby!

Having dipped my toe into this project, it is something I'd like to try more. My plan is to raid my parents’ photo drawer when I next go home to see if I can find more photographic contenders. It's certainly a fun challenge and a great little mother/daughter bonding exercise.

Here's the second set-up using another picture I found of me at six months, recreated with my daughter. We happened to have just bought her an extremely cute towelling robe from Jojo Maman Bebe (complete with bunny ears)!

Back to the front page - How I got that picture published

It is 8am on a Sunday morning back in 2008. I find myself on a deserted Regent Street in central London, the weekend before Christmas. I'm feeling the icy cold chill of a December morning and wishing I was back in my cosy bed warming my hands with a cup of hot tea. But I am here and my morning has  just got a whole lot worse as the photocall I was due to attend is actually on another day and there has been a mix up at the office. 

As I am considering what kind of breakfast I want (priorities), I find myself walking past Hamleys. Under the twinkling white Christmas lights, a grand window display showing Father Christmas soaring through the air with his reindeer is visible through the glass. It’s impressive and I take a couple of shots, wondering if this could work as a standalone picture for The Press Association, the news agency I am working for at the time. It’s a nice shot, but nice won’t cut it. It needs something else. I then notice a young girl approach and peer in, her face pressed up against the glass. She is wearing a bright red coat with pristine white tights and patent red shoes. I take two shots; they might just work for the image I am after. I approach her parents and ask for the permission to use the image in exchange for sending them copies via email. 

After filing the two pictures and making a quick call to the office, I head off for my longed-for breakfast. The next day, I open the pages of The Daily Telegraph - there it is and it looks great! I then see The Financial Times and it’s on the front page. The FRONT PAGE. I am ecstatic. It’s even discussed on BBC Breakfast when the presenter is talking through the day’s front pages. 

The Financial Times, Monday December 22, 2008.

As promised, I sent the images to the little girl’s mother. An email appeared in my inbox a few days later and she told me just how thrilled she was to see her daughter on the front page of a national newspaper. Out of the blue, a beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived at the office shortly after, thanking me for the picture. I was touched to know the picture was liked not only by me. It was a chance shot but it remains one of my favourite pictures to this day.

Getting creative (while the baby sleeps)

Rewind to a year ago and I was helping to organise a photo-shoot for a new TV show. It was a two day shoot involving a busy, celebrity photographer and in between shot set-ups and while the talent was summoned from make-up, I'd get chatting to his two female assistants.

One of the women mentioned a website called Creative Live - www.creativelive.com. She recommended it for online photography courses. In the past I've paid up to £300 a time for a one day photography course in London so I jotted the website name down on a scrap of paper and loaded it up when I got home. My first scroll through the site revealed I can learn new skills for much less than that and I can even be doing it in my PJs in bed if I want to! As a new mum, it also means I can complete the courses in small bursts at a time - when the baby is asleep or in the evening.

I'm now on my fourth course and since I first logged on, there's now a huge range of different programmes to choose from - not just photography. So far I have completed several on baby and child photography, food photography and blogging with the inspiring April Bowles-Olin. 

If you have the patience and time and don't mind the US time difference, new courses are streamed live and for free, otherwise you pay per course and get the videos to keep - great for going back and referencing. It's great that courses like this are so accessible and I can honestly say it's made me so excited to learn new skills. Next on my list? Cake decorating or maybe even a dabble with Floral bouquets!