Lost in the light

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Afternoon portraits - Learning to shoot portraits with the sony A7iii

Oct 16, 2018

Afternoon portraits - Learning to shoot portraits with the sony A7iii

Oct 16, 2018

Oct 16, 2018

Living a more sustainable life.

Oct 9, 2018

Living a more sustainable life.

Oct 9, 2018

Oct 9, 2018

How to photograph children in a natural way.

Sep 27, 2018

How to photograph children in a natural way.

Sep 27, 2018

Sep 27, 2018

We're going to Brighton to meet some farmers

Sep 20, 2018

We're going to Brighton to meet some farmers

Sep 20, 2018

Sep 20, 2018

How to create a cohesive colour palette for Instagram

Sep 18, 2018

How to create a cohesive colour palette for Instagram

Sep 18, 2018

Sep 18, 2018

Winter hashtag project

Sep 16, 2018

Winter hashtag project

Sep 16, 2018

Sep 16, 2018

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Happy Sunday insta friends! What have you been up to? We’ve seen so many beautiful autumnal scenes on our feed this weekend. Definitely one of my favourite seasons, those colours 🍁🍂 and light 💫
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Yesterday we did a little live Q&A for @me_and_orla upcoming #instaretreat where there were loads of questions about shooting in low light. This time of year there will be more opportunities to practice shooting in low light. In fact, when you really have to look for the light, even the tiniest sliver of light, it can produce the MOST incredible images if you learn how to shoot for the highlights. If you’ve not heard this term before it’s when you expose your image to show the most detail in the lightest part. Which in turn usually darkens down the rest of the image. Using a window and have your subject face towards it, even in this autumn light it will give you some really emotive images. They can also be a dream to edit, especially in black and white.
You can see an example of this on our last post 👉🏻
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Give it a go and let me know how you get on. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Did I mention about low light/back light at this time of year? That golden glow an hour before the sun goes down is just 👌🏻
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P.s last call for our online class is tonight at 12pm GMT. Just a few seats left now if you’d like to grab one. 🖐🏻

Some days it’s not the photos you meant to take but the ones that appear in front of you that show you peoples real insides. If you watch and wait long enough. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
While we were away in Brighton it was super important to us to visit our own Wedding photographer the very talented @joannabrownphotos . It had been three years. We drank fancy Brighton gin, ate dirty burgers, took the bus back home and put the world to rights. I read this beautiful boy his bedtime books and it was bloody wonderful to see them both. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Why is it that some people only really come into your life for real once in a blue moon, but you REALLY know them and love them regardless? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Have an amazing time in NYC Jo. You’re the best kind of human 😘

Good morning! It’s pretty early here but I’m up and thinking with a cup of tea so thought I’d come and chat to you! 👋🏻 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Here is Nora and her mum Alex. It was our second go at their shoot, frankly because it was blowing a Gale and no one likes their hair whipping in their faces for an hour right? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I just love how they’re hidden away in this shot. Layering and using something in the foreground adds an element of interest to a photograph that helps tell more of a story. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Because we often like to shoot at F2 or F1.4 that wonderful soft blur is our favourite. It gives a kind of painterly quality to a photograph and something imperfect that makes you look. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In a world full of so many many images to scroll through, What is it about a photograph that stops you in your tracks and makes you take a second look?
We will be closing the cart on Our ‘lost in the light’ photography course tomorrow so if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s the time to take another look 👆🏻and book your space with us.
We’d love to have you!

It's James, I know sometimes it's hard to tell who it is but most of the time it's Jo because she's amazing at writing and I'm not. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Anyway I wanted to write as we're a little bit broken at the moment but oh so grateful. Mainly because Margot has been sleeping on and off and sometimes sleeping in our bed. #badback
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We've been working all hours on the course that starts next week and we're so grateful for the people that have signed up, we can't wait to get stuck in. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the middle of all this our middle boy Logan has started to struggle with anxiety. He’s only 10 and has this year been diagnosed with a processing disorder and dysgraphia to name a few. The combination of which are really upsetting his emotional balance. To us this looks like an upset, anxious boy most days after school and reluctance in the mornings. He needs lots of care and attention and even more careful treading. We’re working with him on it and learning everyday.
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Lots of balancing going on round here at the moment, lots of thinking and writing. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It’s all good though, slowly slowly. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Gratitude is so useful right now.

Best bit of advice that I could give anyone for photography is learning light, it's such a simple thing but the power it has in an image, can really affect the viewer emotionally! How amazing is that? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Here’s one I made earlier. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Pearl. She’s ace.

Chick chick chick chick chicken
Lay a little egg for me
Chick chick chick..... ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Okay, I won’t bore you with the rest of the song. 🙄 just made me giggle that James suggested some song lyrics for a beautifully meaningful post tonight, but let’s face it.. they’re chickens, great chickens and right now.. our heads are permanently filled with either nursery rhymes, Disney or Mr Tumble 🤷🏼‍♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Why do they stick so much? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We have this thing in our house where if you’re the first one up (usually james) you have to pick a good song to play through @sonos to wake the rest of the house up! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This past week has been quite the eclectic mix up. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Lion king - circle of life (very loud)
I’ve had the time of my life - dirty dancing (this morning’s choice)
Back for good -take that (always a favourite!) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You know, all the classics! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Which sound would you prefer to be woken up to in the morning? I’m guessing none of those, you’re all far too cool! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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A lot of this weekend has been spent slowing things the heck down. After a few ‘spinny’ weeks I feel like we needed time to relax, time to review and recollect ourselves a little bit. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Who’s betting we get colds now we’ve had chance to calm things down? 🤧 Always the case! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
James has really spent a lot of time reflecting. Historically, at this time of year, we would start to look over the years work and almost always, his sensitive soul would feel as though we could’ve done better, or didn’t try hard enough? Why do we do that to ourselves so naturally? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This year has been full of changes for us, we hired a super star mentor (kayte from @simpleandseason ) and with her help, got our sh*t together and have started to move forwards more than ever before. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So this October, rather than fearing the usual feelings taking over, he’s enjoyed rediscovering his film Work from the past 4 years. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can see it here @meliamelia.film
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And do you know what, it’s so blooming good and I’m so very very proud of him, I think he may have even said he thought it was ‘quite good’ 🙀
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Kindness is harder to bring to yourself than others. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
But starting with kindness will ALWAYS lead to good things, stronger, more genuine things.
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Thanks to all of you who have shown us kindness this year, it means such a lot.

#whpkindness

Just as we sat down to start work today the power was cut off to our house. Felt a little bit like some kind of universal sign that maybe we should take some time out for ourselves (or that’s what we said to ease the guilt 🤫) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Spent four long hours listening to the driving rain outside and the cosy fire lit inside and slowly felt our muscles relaxing and our minds opening. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
James brought out a book which he’d kindly been given when he started out as a photographer and felt kind of worthwhile to look through it today.
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The book was one of Don MCcullins books ‘in England’ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
A great quote I read today from him was -
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‘I have more of a relationship with the subject than I do with my camera equipment. To me, camera equipment is like a tin of shoe polish and a brush - I use that as a tool, but my basic camera is my emotion and my eyes. It's not anything to do with the wonderful cameras I use’ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
He knows his stuff that Don. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If you love portraiture with grit and which shows real life and times, I’d definitely look him up. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Not such a bad surprise day off after All! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀