Book a Portrait Session & help Cancer Research

On 28th June I will be taking part in Race for Life at Ardingly in Sussex. I was motivated to take part in this amazing event due to the fact that my wonderful father died from Cancer on 9th January 2006. He was only 65 years old. He was a truly amazing person and made a huge impact on my life.

Cancer is a disease that can strike anyone at any stage of their life and it is a truly horrible disease. All sponsorship raised from Race for Life will go to Cancer Research which is a really worthwhile charity. As a business we will be supporting Cancer Research in various initiatives during the following year. During May & June we will be donating £10 from the session fee for any portrait session to my sponsorship for Race for Life. A portrait session costs £80 and from that you will receive an 8" x 12" print, ideal for framing. Below are some images of my Dad (and Mum) and you can see how much he loved life:)

Please scroll down to see some more details on this offer.




If you have been thinking about having a portrait session, whether it is to mark a particular time in your family's life, or just for fun, now is the time to book that session. Not only will you have some amazing images but you will also be helping to raise money for a worthwhile charity.

To book a session call Louise on 07595 044252. Below are some images from some previous sessions:

Garden Party

On Saturday, we covered a garden party for the owner of a local hotel. Given that it was a Bank Holiday weekend, you could be excused for thinking that umbrellas were required... well in this case it was merely to keep the sun off. The weather was great, the food looked superb and the entertainment laid on for the guests ranged from Jugglers to a string quartet. The setting was idyllic although parked out front were reminders of a much noisier pastime including a Ferrari 430 currently racing in the British GT Championship.

EGBA Monthly networking lunch

The East Grinstead Business Association have recently begun to organise a monthly business networking lunch. This is an ideal opportunity for local business representatives to get together in an informal setting and network. Although organised by the EGBA, non-members were welcome and there was representation from several BNI chapters, including Meridian and Crawley. The setting for this event was Nizam, one of East Grinstead's leading Indian restaurants, with Salim and his team providing an excellent spread. With almost 100 attendees, this monthly lunch on the last Wednesday of the month at Nizam is set to become a regular event.

Model Shoot [Blogged by Iain]

We had a great shoot with a couple of volunteer models yesterday. This was an opportunity to practice without pressure. We were able to play around with different camera and lens settings. These were all shot in the back garden and the woods immediately behind the house. Louise normally handles most of the environmental portraiture, so this gave me a chance to pratice my posing and directing, giving Louise the chance to be my assistant. I would like to thank the girls for their patience and willingness to try anything we threw at them.

Photo Shoots for Fun

Last week we went out and took photographs just for fun. This type of session is something we try and do at least once a month but we don't always seem to manage to find the time. We decided that March was going to be a development month and have lined up some models of different ages to help us out.

It was a really sunny, but very windy, day and there was a lot of hair flying over faces. It also started to get really cold. We still had lots of fun and I have arranged to shoot with the two girls again at the end of the month in Brighton. Thanks very much for helping me out.

Felbridge Hotel Masked Ball, East Grinstead

We were the official photographers at a Masked Ball at the Felbridge Hotel & Spa on Saturday 28th February. This was a great event and very well attended. We took some "posed" photos in the reception area where everyone was having cocktails. Iain was shooting with the 5D MKII tethered and it worked really well. We had an event printer with us and were able to print on site. These are some of the images from the posed shots.

After the photographs had been taken evenone moved into the room where dinner was being served. During this period we processed the images in Lightroom and were therefore ready to start taking orders once dinner was finished.

This was also an opportunity to try out the 5D MKII and see what it is capable of. This is a shot that was taken by Iain at ISO 6400 f2.8 without flash. It is far from being perfect but I think it conveys the atmosphere of the room very well. The shot taken after this one was taken with the 5D using flash and gives a totally different result.

After dinner I walked around the room and took some shots at the tables. We didn't sell these on the night but they will be available to view on our online gallery from Monday onwards.

There were two different groups providing music for the evening. The first was from ‘Asteria’, an Electric Quartet who have just returned from their European Tour with ‘Take That’ and they were following by the live sounds of ‘The Blue Groove’. I thought they were both excellent and I am sure they were appreciated by the guests who attended the event.

Throughout the evening we were taking orders for prints and we delivered them towards the end of the evening. We left the event at around 1.00 a.m. and the dancing was still going strong. I think that Nigel Humphriss who promoted the event did a fantastic job and we hope to be able to work with him again in the future.

Wedding evening [blogged by Iain]

Louise mentioned last week that we would be attending a wedding evening hosted by Spires Hairdressing in East Grinstead. We went along on Monday evening and had the opportunity to meet with a few prospective brides and other suppliers in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Karen, the owner of the Salon, was demonstrating various styles on some of the prospective brides, while the rest of us were located around the salon and adjoining office space to talk about the services we could offer. Of course, we couldn't resist the opportunity to take some shots while we were there and I have posted a couple of these below.















The next bit is for those interested in the technology... the rest of you can stop reading now.

All images were shot on the Canon 5D Mk II with 24-70mm f2.8L IS USM. The first three shots were lit by flash - 580EX II with a Gary Fong Litesphere. The remaining images were shot at ISO 3200 under existing halogen & fluorescent lights.

The Black and White conversions were done in Lightroom 2.2 using Mikey G's B&W presets, which emulate a number of different Black and White film styles. The exterior shot emulates Ilford Delta 100, the interior shot emulates Ilford SFX 200 and the head shots emulate Ilford FP4 125 and Ilford Delta 400 Pro respectively. These are great presets and definitely worth having a play around with if you use Lightroom.