Well, the day before I went on my course which you will have read about, my wife and I were privileged to be invited to photograph the Christening of Leon & Preston. They were Christened at the beautiful little Church of St Andrew in North Swindon by Rev Haslam. It was such a lovely service and the reception afterwards at the maternal Grandparent's house was also great. It was the first time I have ever seen a Hog Roast anywhere!
On with the some of my favourite photos from the day:

















As usual more photos in the Portfolio.

We really enjoyed the time we spent with the family and the warm reception by all. The CDs are now with the parents and I am now awaiting delivery of the book which should be very beautiful considering the people and relationships that make it up.

Until next time...

Sorry people! I know I have been pretty dodgy at updating but things have been getting pretty nutty around here.
Firstly... my wife is back!!! Yay! She arrived back on 14th February which she has yet to burn into her memory as being Valentine’s Day which made all my surprises all the better. If it wasn’t for the fact she arrived back here nicely flued up we would have been off to a masked dinner that evening which would have looked great on digital, but alas it was not to be! Having seen the photo’s of my friends who did go, I don’t think it was going to be all that good, but hey, it would have been nice.
Secondly, as you see we are now functioning as a company. I am ordering our business cards and today bought a receipt book. I have also ordered another light stand, brolly and batteries for flash. We might have a job coming up within the next week or so which is quite exciting for me in artistic terms - it will be beautiful if it comes through!
Unfortunately, the third part of my news is pretty sad: My Dad’s Dad, known to one and all as Papa is extremely sick. Any of you who are that way inclined please keep him and the family in your prayers. We will be going to stay with my parents from Thursday morning to see him, so we will have to see what God has in plan for him.
Well... trying to end on a lighter note this is the single photo I took whilst waiting for our coach sipping hot chocolate in Terminal 5. I took this one, looked at the screen and decided I didn’t need to take anymore. It was actually fairly gloomy inside, so this is up at ISO 1600 on the D40x, hence the grain, but I love the texture of it.
Read More...

Secondly comes Isabela. Niece of my wife’s English teacher in Brazil, this little one came to us with a warning. We where told she is very shy and wouldn’t take very good photos. I guess they switched the model at the last minute because the girl we met was great from the start and kept us busy as wherever she went or stopped or looked, there was a beautiful shot of her. The only thing we needed to do was keep up with her and be ready for that shot as there was no going back!
I was really happy with the photos from this shoot of this little gem of a girl and hope all our warnings come like that!


Hidden in the palm fronds she started bouncing in a way that gave a huge amount of life to her hair:


She brought her pet with her who


My favourite of the day however was this one, isn’t she just the prettiest?


Again, more of her in our Portfolio, and these ones are definitely worth a look! Read More...

Well... its been busy since I have come back to the UK, mostly playing with the photos of Nathalia and Cleidson whose wedding we did on 28th December. It has taken quite some time to sort through and treat all the photos we took and I can honestly say I have learnt a lot. I know I said on my face book I would blog the wedding today, but before I do that, I have added the rest of my albums to the portfolio and need to talk about them a bit first, then I can post the wedding stuff (which I have just burnt to disc) and then I can clean up any other random photos I have, as well as a couple of behind the scenes photos so you can see how I am doing some of this stuff.
First up then is Milena who is niece of (one of) my best mans wife if that makes sense... A delightful little girl who on this particular morning was full of energy. My wife and I as well as her Mum, Aunt and Uncle to be where hiding under a tree while she was gadavanting around in the bright sunshine. Her bright clothes and even brighter smile (even with that cute gap...) worked well for my wife and I as we got some very nice shots:




As usual whilst I was playing with the wider angles (in this case the 18-55) my wife was playing with the longer one, such as the below photo:


More examples of this shoot in our portfolio Read More...

Whilst waiting for Lightroom to finish exporting my latest photo shoot before I start treating my selects I figure I have a little time for an update even though I know I won’t be able to get my computer to a net connection for a little while yet. I arrived here last Friday after what has to have been the most relaxing and stress free journey (well... after leaving London anyway) to Brazil I have ever had. I had a 6:30am flight to Amsterdam as I was flying with KLM, which meant I had to catch a coach at 1:30am from Swindon. Worse still, the bus dropped me at the main bus station and after I went down to catch the train to terminal 4, I found it wasn’t open until something like 5:30am. The buses and tube also don’t start until that time so I ended up paying £22 for a taxi for a journey that should have been free. Grrrr.
After that though, it was plain sailing. Schipol is quite nice, although I didn’t get to see too much of it whilst there unfortunately. On the way back I will have a lot more time for that kind of thing with a longer stop.
Once on the plane to São Paulo however, things just kept getting better. We where in a very nicely done 777, with a brand new interior, a personal entertainment system with pause and all of that so you can start and stop watching films as you please, plus they had several films I hadn’t seen before and actually wanted to see. The food was also great, but the best thing is that the plane can’t have been at more than about 20% capacity!!! So I got three seats by the window all to myself. In fact, as you can see below, until we got to altitude and the people from the rear compartment moved forward as they filled the plane up from the back, I have the entire row from window to window to myself!!!
Follow that with a ‘Leito’ coach which has lie flat seats from Sao Paulo to here and I arrived here nice and rested, although starving having hardly eaten since leaving the plane.

As they where loading our plane in Amsterdam:


Space, space, space.... I wonder if it will be like this on the way back?


Coming up through the clouds over Holland somewhere:


This was as we where following the coast down over Brazil, somewhere not too far north of Rio de Janeiro:


We have been very busy with photography so far here. My wife had a Bridal Shower just before I came out, this being for the wedding (and engagement session) we will be doing at the end of the month as well as a school presentation with the local council here in Brazil. We have also covered two events with a local church school here where my wife’s step-sister works as well as many of ours friends. One was a sort of sports day which took place under a scorching sun, and later that evening a Christmas show for the parents. Both where great fun, although turning all the lights off for the entire Christmas show made our lives very difficult. Thankfully the last bit was candle-lit and that came out great on the photos! Unfortunately, with the number of kids etc there, we won’t be able to post many photos, mostly only of people we are good friends with and can therefore easily get permissions sorted out. That will have to wait a little while...
On top of that, yesterday we had a Maternity Session with a good friend of my wife, Jesica (yes, she only has one ‘s’ in here name) which is what I am working through this morning. I am very happy with these photos, and expect she will be too!
Whilst my wife and I where going through some things a couple of days ago I did manage this cracking shot of her which I figure I have to show you!


Lastly for now, this is just outside Nona’s (Cátia maternal Grandmother where we are staying) front door here: Mangoes


And this bloke came flying into the house yesterday. He might not look like much, but he must have been at least 8” nose to tail! I ended up having to put a bucket over him to take him outside...


Well, that will do for now. I will post again shortly with the maternity session, plus we are going to have that modelling shoot I have been promising before too long as well. We will also be doing a music recital and a graduation, but we won’t be able to post much if anything of those.
Until next time... take care o/ Read More...