It was such a joy to capture this wellbeing in nature event for The Suffolk Wildlife Trust. It was one of those perfect January days when the ground is crisp and the winter light is glorious, the perfect day for a walk in the woods.

The Women of the Wood project brings women together to connect in nature. Expertly guided by Joanne of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, the group met at the beautiful Arger Fen woodland nature reserve near Bures in Suffolk. As they walked Joanne encouraged them to slow down and absorb their environment. The women paused to gather and examine items from the woodland floor, taking time to really study and notice the details. They stroked the soft moss, studied the bark on the trees and admired the delicate veins of the dry winter leaves.

There was plenty of time to talk but also to be quiet and just listen. A gorgeous guided meditation amongst the trees gave everyone time to focus on their breath and take in the woodland sounds. It was magical and such a privilege to observe and quietly capture this moment.

There was also no shortage of laughter and conversation with plenty of tea and biscuits. The women used natural materials to create rustic feeders to take home. There is something very special about creating with your hands in a group, it makes space for gentle human connections, it’s so lovely to feel part of a community in this way.

It was such a pleasure to photograph this event, I am always very happy to be working outdoors, even in the depths of winter. This is just a small handful of the images I captured and I can’t wait to see them go off and work hard for The Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

If you would like to find out more about the Trust and the events they create then please go and visit their website for information – The Suffolk Wildlife Trust

Find Out More About Event Photography

If you would like to speak to me about photographing an event or indeed anything else then please do get in touch, I would love to hear from you.

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Emma was one the knitters to take the re-training route.  A former language graduate working in the world of wine and marketing, she went back to education to study her passion and is now a pretty darned fabulous registered nutritionist and health coach.

It took years of juggling parenting, work and study and I think that gives you an insight into her determination of spirit and the passion she has for her subject.

When she asked me to take her branding photographs I was both thrilled and nervous, as a cherished friend I wanted to be sure she would love her images.  It was the first time I had photographed a non-maker in this way.  I was used to photographing makers and artists as went through their day.  The documentary approach is so well suited to this relaxed day in the life style approach to branding photography and worried it might not flow in the same way.

What I learned is that it’s not so much what people do, but rather the passion with which they do it.  Photographing a nutritionist was just like photographing an artist.  Emma is absolutely passionate about her craft.  She lives and breathes her subject, begin talking to her about gut health and see her eyes light up.

Emma says “It now brings me great pleasure to help other women suffering from long-standing digestive issues. Together we work to understand what is causing their problems and help them rediscover the joy of eating.”

I’ve been lucky enough to work with Emma twice now, initially as a part of a personal branding session and more recently we worked together to create the photography for her e-book A Celebration Of Colour.  The book contains recipes packed to the brim with colour and taste, a feast for all the senses and my absolute pleasure to photograph the beautiful dishes.

To find out more about Emma please visit her website – www.emmajamieson.co.uk

Find out more about my personal branding photography for makers, creatives and people who are passionate about what they do – BRANDS

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I wish there were more photographs of me. Once upon a time I would have followed that with “said no one ever”, but I was wrong.

As a family photographer, I am absolutely passionate about printing photographs, be it a physical photo book, a luxurious album or simply a shoe box full of well thumbed prints is one of the most important legacies you can leave behind.  We take more photographs that at any other point in history and yet I fear we spend less time gathered around a table enjoying them together.  The danger of photographs that live on memory sticks or in the cloud is that they gather virtual dust as the years go on.

Which brings me to this album.  I took some time to put together an album of our family photographs taken during Lockdown.  It took some time to wade through my archives, unable to go out and photograph clients, my family bore the brunt of daily documenting.  As I look at some of the images I can actually hear the complaining voices from the moment.  However, once the beautiful linen covered, heirloom album arrived (I treated myself to the exact same album I offer to my family photography clients), the disagreeable comments stopped and of course everyone of us has loved to leaf through the pages, it’s funny how quickly our memories of the day to day can fade and there is something magical about the power of photography to transport us back to a moment in time, particularly documentary photography and its celebration of the ordinary everyday moments.

I love this book, it contains so many photographs of my family at that time – there is the day my daughter cut my husband’s hair, there’s the early spring heatwave days, the black tie suppers, the “Come Dine With Me’ moments and the precious moments of permitted nature walks.

But where am I?  Out of the hundreds of photographs I waded through, I can count on one hand the ones I feature in and it turns out that makes me rather sad.  I wish that I was documented more.  Of course I know I was there and I guess they remember me taking the photographs, but that memory will fade, it would be so much better if they could see the evidence.

Frankly, it gets even worse, I’ve taken thousands of photographs of my family over the years. Photographs of the tiny, everyday moments, years of documenting, of preserving memories. Photographs of chocolate smeared faces and muddy knees. Of trampoline mornings and campfire evenings. Of board game laughter and ritz cracker challenges. Pictures of everyday life in all its precious wonder and when we look back through these together, as we have done so many times over they years, I cannot help but wish I featured at least as often as the cat does.

I know I’m not alone, I think in most family situations it is the mothers who take the most photographs, who document the everyday moments, knowing instinctively that one day it will matter, one day someone will need to look back and remember how their home looked at that time, or the way they ate peas with a spoon, they will want to recall sitting on the old squashy sofa for bedtime stories or building dens beneath the kitchen table.  They will want to look back on these moments and remember how they were loved.

So my plea is to the mothers.  Get in the frame, hand the camera to someone else, don’t worry about your hair or your messy clothes, just focus on being alive and loved in the moment.

If you would like me to come and photograph your wonderful, everyday ordinary, then it would be my pleasure and I will make sure you feature more than the cat!  I photograph families in Suffolk, Essex, Colchester and Suffolk.  I often travel further afield to London and beyond, get in touch to find out more.

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Vivienne’s work is breath-taking and fascinating, she focuses on the natural world, observing and celebrating the shifting seasons whilst also highlighting endangered and extinct flowers and food plants.

I learned about Japanese micro-seasons, how did I not know about this before!  72 micro-seasons, changing every five days throughout the year.  Such a joyful and grounding practice and I have thought of it every day since, encouraging me to slow down and notice, it is the very best kind of gratitude practice perhaps.

I photographed Vivienne with her work, capturing environmental portraits and images of the artworks hanging in the beautiful gallery and of course I loved every second.  I still cannot believe I get to do this job, it is such an honour and I feel so invested in every one of my clients.  Being photographed is an intensely personal experience and my clients have to open their hearts to me and trust me.  It is such a privilege and I will never take it for granted.  I hope that I have done justice to Vivienne’s thoughtful, passionate soul. This was the day before the opening, can you imagine how that must feel to an artist?  That combined energy of excitement and nerves.  The culmination of the work that has absorbed and consumed you, suddenly gathered together ready to be released into the world.  It was my huge privilege to make these photographs.

North Street Gallery is a very special venue, established in 1999 by Penelope Hughes-Stanton in the former studio of her father, the painter and wood-engraver Blair Hughes-Stanton.  A beautiful Georgian building with a sense of time and feeling of great peace, I can’t imagine a better setting for Vivienne’s work, the atmosphere of the gallery lends itself perfectly to Vivienne’s work and there is a gentle flow throughout the space, allowing plenty of time to pause and absorb the delicate brush stokes and fragile subject matter.  I found Vivienne’s work incredibly moving and the gallery setting gives a real feeling of what it might be like to live with her work, the joy of watching the light interact with the art throughout the day, highlighting the soul of each piece.

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This film is so very dear to my heart.  It marks a beginning, the start of my photography and film business and the turning of a page, the first sentence of a new chapter.

In fact, in many ways it is picking up a journey that really started way back in the day!  Somewhere in a Camden darkroom in 1993, my very first proper job straight out of University.  Checking dupes for specks of dust, learning what made a good photograph, when to dodge and burn and checking, checking, checking for dust.  It’s funny how sometimes we come full circle.

And so, making this film last year was the moment when I dared to let a tiny seed of an idea begin to grow.  The moment I allowed my dream the freedom to spread her wings and lift me up.

It’s only been a year, but I’ve actually come such a long way in that year.  In fact if I made this film today I would probably film a little differently, I’ve learned so much, my technique has improved and I have a fancy new favourite lens to boot.  In terms of editing I finally stopped resisting Premiere Pro and I keep pushing myself to learn something new with every film I make however, this film still remains very precious to me and makes me smile every time I watch.

It marks the beginning of discovering exactly what I wanted this new business to look like.  The sort of stories I wanted to tell, the people I wanted to work with.  Amanda embodies all of that, wonderful creatives full to bursting with heart and soul and stories to share.    Over the last year I have been overwhelmed by the amazing people who have welcomed me into their studios and trusted me to help them tell their story through my lens.

Amanda is a ceramicist and story teller.  She is friendly, welcoming and fizzes with creative energy.  I could not have wished for a better start to my journey and I am so happy that I got to make this film and share a little of her story with the world.  If for some crazy reason you have not yet come across her work then go seek her out right now – Amanda Banham Ceramics

Find out more about the photography and films I offer for makers and creatives here – Personal Branding For Creatives

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As someone who already grew a business out of doing something I loved, I am very aware of the danger of making that thing you love seem to too much like work and waking up one day to find you lost the creative and personal connection with that very thing.

So with no real intent to do so, I find myself embarking on a photographic Project 365.  It’s not the first time.  I’ve begun a good few of these over the years.  Back in those early days of sharing images on blogs and Flickr, the Project 365 was such a popular shared experience.  For me, it was the start of a regular photography habit and I learned and grew so much along the way.  Perhaps even more importantly, it was the point when I realised that there is always – and I mean truly always – something worth recording every day.

And sometimes that moment won’t be staring you in the face.

Sometimes you have to purposely look for it.

But it will be there.  If you seek it, you will find it.  Even on the darkest (metaphorical or actual) of days.

The practice of picking up my camera every day with this small purpose is very much like a gratitude journal of sorts.  In the same way that many people record three small, happy moments or things to be grateful for, the Project 365 can provide a similar sort of therapy.

The images themselves do not have to be perfect or beautiful, it’s that act of pausing to press a button that matters perhaps.  A memory recorded, a moment observed.  The act of stopping to catch breath and frame a thought.

I’m not going to post these images daily on Instagram but I will try to gather them here on my blog every week.  I won’t beat myself up if I miss a day, maybe I’ll just look for an extra moment on another day.

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I’m not one for dark corners and shady spots.  I’ve never had a conservatory but if I did you wouldn’t find any blinds in there.

Every morning I rush to pull the bedroom curtains wide.  I’m the person who is forever opening doors and windows, on a summer’s day you will find me lying flat in the open, my face upturned to the sun, soaking up all that light.

My mother suffered from some sort of, mostly undiagnosed, mental illness for most of her life.  Belfast in the 1970s was probably not the most enlightened of places when it came to mental health and there were plenty of periods of functioning normal.  Other times there were quirks.  We called them Personality Quirks. As time went on those quirks became more dominant.  Quirky days became weeks, became months and perhaps later, years.

We learned to live with her quirks.  To some extent they became normal. Indeed we all seeked to normalise them, because of course that seemed easier than thinking about what they might actually be if not ‘quirks’.  Her strange behaviour was excused. Bemused.  Other reasons sought.  Blame laid elsewhere.

Weather Watching

One of those quirks was an extreme fear of thunder.  On an especially quirky day she might scour the weather reports for any possible indication of impending thunder.  Searching for signs of high pressure, low pressure, humidity, or even just a little rain.  Any of those things might mean storms ahead.  We lived in Northern Ireland.  If you studied the weather hard enough there was almost always the chance of a thunderstorm somewhere on the Emerald Isle.  Hells bells, sometimes in 1970s and 80s those skies above Belfast just groaned and grumbled with the sheer weight of all that lay below them and frankly, if my mother was in a mood to watch for thunder, there were more than likely storms ahead whether the weather delivered or not.

Should the forecast show the merest chance of thunder our curtains would be immediately drawn tightly shut.  The beautiful bay windows hidden behind the thick, dark fabric.  The once airy rooms plunged into a clammy darkness.  Appliances were unplugged, no television or radio to distract.  No metal to be used.  We would sit in the quiet space.  Oppressed by the weather, or rather the possibility of the weather.

Some days the curtains were hardly ever fully opened. Sometimes those days became weeks.  During especially ‘quirky’ periods we lived life mostly prepared for the possibility of thunder.

As we ticked off time in the shadowy room I would search for glimpses of light. I remember how sometimes a shaft of sunlight pushed tantalisingly through a crack in the fabric.  I remember how the dust would sparkle and glitter upon that narrow beam of light.  As though it were magic.  A mystical, magical dancing path of light.  Light leading upwards and outwards.

Seeking Light

And so.  From the moment I left home I’ve been seeking the light.  Never for one moment taking it for granted.  I will record it with my camera, I will pause to let it wash over my soul.  I will throw those curtains wide wherever I go.  In fact sometimes I don’t even bother with curtains at all.  Keen not to shut out one single grain of magical light.

And right now.  Right now the light is so good.  Even on a gloomy day the sky is wide.  The light plays somewhere.  It hits the wall just there or sparkles on the sink over here.  It fills the space, it fills my soul.  I breath it in and I’m so very thankful.

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