Carly, Ian, I loved getting to know you both better, thank you for letting me into your home and using it as a back drop for your images and for the guided tour of your local area. See you in 5 days time!

I need people who are happy to assist and who also want and can do some second shooting too.

If you are interested please fill out this FORM and I look forward to hearing from you!

I kind of love January and also can’t wait for it to be over at the same time. A new year always brings with it hope, fresh starts, new goals and challenges and I wrote myself a long list of hopes and dreams for 2012. It’s pretty much the only month I have a chunk of time to myself, to think, plan and get myself ready for the year ahead. I used this workbook, unraveling the year ahead kindly put together by the very inspiring Susannah Conway to help organise my thoughts and let myself dream a little.

I wanted to approach this year a little differently, I love listening to Ted Talks (a site dedicated to sharing ‘riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world’) here you’ll find talks by JK Rowling, Steve Jobs etc. but one that has stuck in my mind is by Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 Days Matt spent a year setting himself 30 day challenges rather than at the beginning of the year tackling 12 big goals simultaneously, he concentrated on one at a time for 30 days. You can do anything for 30 days! As he proved and it inspired me to do something I have wanted to attempt for years but I’ve never had the courage or a period of 30 days to do it but this January I made time! I took up the 30 Day Challenge and did 30 Bikram Yoga classes in 30 days, my 30th class was on the 1st of Feb. No one is more surprised than me, I’ve never done more than 2 classes in a row but at the end of 30/30 I feel amazing, leaner, stronger and fitter. It’s true you can do anything for 30 days! (I have to thank Emily & Jenna who did their own 30 day fitness challenge and having the daily Twitter support, really, really helped!)

This is also a good time for me to spring clean (or should I say ‘winter’ clean?!) portfolios, galleries and the website – all have been revamped. I ordered lots of new prints – I still believe in a printed portfolio -  online galleries or ipad portfolios are wonderful but it’s just not the same as looking at a large printed image. I designed and ordered new sample albums (images to come next week) and the website has 8 new galleries (some more online changes to come soon). Everything feels fresh and new and hopefully shows potential couples what a great experience they will have should they choose me to photograph their day.

I had some time to spend watching super couple Zach & Jody do their thing on CreativeLive (an excellent resource for aspiring photographers and its FREE, if you can time things right) I got so much out of it and I love hearing successful people talk through their business and approach, lots of tips noted. So thank you Zach & Jody.

So on to the month ahead! February brings a new fitness challenge (again teaming up with Emily and Jenna for support and encouragement!) I have two personal (non wedding) photoshoots planned, which I’m both very nervous and excited about.  My first ever Workshop is happening this Saturday – teaching photography for beginners (wish me luck!), followed by a couple of Beloved shoots and a lovely wedding to round off the month. I have loved having some time to catch my breath, reflect, gather my thoughts and allow myself 30 days of exercise (impossible for me to do with weddings and shoots!) and I’m so ready for the month ahead!

I hope you had a good January, that any goals you had, have started well and you are looking forward to the month ahead!

The wonderful Jo Fleming provided all the dresses except for the original 70s lace one with incorporated train (Steph’s mum lent us that – thank you!), Katy was on make-up and Cassandra on hair. And our gorgeous models were Lisa and Annabel

We had the most amazing day, great weather, fabulous team of people and it was just so much fun, after the garden shoot, the models, Steph & I headed to the nearest rape seed oil field and had a blast. This shoot was featured at the time on RocknRoll Bride and Kat used so many images that I felt blogging it myself at the time would be overkill and I intended to post it later in the year. With wedding season being what it was (hectic) I never did but I love these images and I loved being part of this collaboration and I just wanted to thank everyone again who was involved. Thank you!

Steph and I (with the help of Andrea) have our creative hats on again for another shoot happening in March – watch this space

Flowers: Fairy Nuff Flowers

Dresses Jo Fleming Design & Original Vintage (Steph’s Mum)

Betty The Ice Cream Van: Vintage Scoops

Make Up: Make up by Katy

Hair: Cassandra Rizzuto

Models: Lisa & Annabel

We had an absolute blast, I laughed til my stomach ached and between takes I bounced my heart out on Dennis Hopper – the perfect day really. My favourites…

thank you Amma, I loved this shoot xxx

In two hours I took 36 frames. At a wedding in that time that could easily be 500 images. I absolutely loved it, slowing down, framing the shot, working out the exposure with my light meter and finally that extraordinarily, satisfactory click of the button before winding on the film! It was just bliss. I think Elaine had, had enough after the 2 hours and had to head off but my sister met me and I finished off the final film with some portraits of her. The films complete I packed them up and shipped them off to Richard. If you are going to do something, you may as well do it right and when I received my scans and then the prints themselves I was pleasantly surprised. Ok, a lot were out of focus, but those that were sharp were pin sharp and the colours? Oh they are so dreamy, even the paper they are printed on is delicious.

This is just the beginning of a very long love affair, I just know it! Here are my favourites.

The ceremony took place in the grand Smeaton Room with it’s chandeliers and dark wood before guests headed to The Great Hall for the wedding breakfast, speeches and dancing. What I love about Sophie and James is they share a very deep and quiet love what I mean by that is they seem to communicate without words, little glances, little smiles, a quick kiss on the cheek, linking fingers, another look, another smile. It’s very beautiful to watch and I hope I captured it in the images below. It was a truly lovely day, here are my favourites.