Our Story

The other day, I posted a photo on Facebook as a public reminder to me to write a blog that is way overdue. I get excited about putting pen to paper (I need to write it out the old fashioned way first!), and setting a blog post free from the confines of my head, where the ideas will have been swimming around for some time. In this case, a year. Like I said, long overdue!

Me and Suzi had been chatting about making a film about our portrait work. We wanted to talk about our shoots, show the interactions we have with families, and how we cherish our own childhood photos. The photos we like best are the ones that truly reflect us as kids, not those posed school photos sporting freshly cut fringes and itchy roll neck jumpers!

We worked with the very lovely Chris and Raphael from Rogue Robot. We felt very safe in their hands, knowing that they would film in a way that would reflect our style of photography. As I've said before on here, I'm much more comfortable behind the camera, so I struggled a little bit at first on the other side of it! Here's a bit of a grainy phone photo of us in our 'sound booth' recording the voice over!

We wanted the film to show one of our shoots, and we couldn't have picked a better late afternoon to take images with Rebecca, Simon, Harry & Jemima. We've documented their life together since Jemima was a baby.

I've put a link to our film at the end of this post, we hope you like it. We called the film 'The Storytellers' and the ridiculously talented Euan Atkinson composed a tune for us after watching the edit unfold. And here are some of our favourite images we took on the shoot. Magic late autumn light and the backdrop of Widdop reservoir.

We love those moments, those sparks.

A short film showing us at work on a shoot, what makes us tick as portrait photographers, and why we're so passionate about documenting life in pictures.

We're passionate about documenting your life together, and we'd love to tell your story.

A Foggy November Morning (by phone).

I don't know how many times I've said it over the last couple of weeks, but this autumn is absolutely stunning.  Light, colour, atmosphere, it's got it all. It's like the distinct autumns I remember from childhood. Early morning fog, the smell of damp moss in the air (I love that smell), the sun splinters through the trees, and the fog vanishing to reveal all those colours.

I went out for a walk this morning and headed into the fog.  In fact it never left the valley all day. I took these images on my phone (iPhone 5s), using the vscocam app. I'm writing this listening to Kate Bush, the fire is lit at home, and I'm craving stew for dinner!

A Day In The Life - a rare Saturday at home

Last weekend, we found ourselves with a rare day off.  We had a family shoot planned for the evening to look forward to, but first, we had the blank canvas of a Saturday day at home together.

One of our portrait packages is called 'A Day In The Life', and it does exactly what it says on the tin!  It's a shoot to document your everyday life together.  Sometimes it will be sat round the breakfast table, making your weekend pancakes, maybe reading your favourite books. Snuggled on the sofa together, talking and laughing. Then maybe taking a walk to the market, enjoying a hot chocolate in your favourite café. We like to document locations that give you your sense of place, whilst capturing your interactions as a family. Stories of the everyday, your stories.

We really want to put our heart and soul into our storytelling portrait sessions, we love them so much and we need to make space to enable them to grow and develop. It started out as a little voice - 'give me some attention!'. And then it started tugging, being a little more mischievous in its tactics.  There would be words that popped out as I was reading, or something would happen in a film we were watching. It would sometimes keep me awake. And after each shoot, the voice has been shouting just that little bit louder. We've been feeling so creative on these storytelling shoots, buzzing with ideas and inspired by families we've been working with. We want more time to develop our short film work with families too. So, we're going to be taking on just a few weddings each year to allow the portrait business to grow more. Is it a bit scary not taking on as many weddings? Heck yeah! But we know it's the right thing to do. It was good to talk about it all on our day off.

In the next two weeks we're going to be launching a competition to win 'A Day In The Life' shoot, and we're really excited about it!  There will be more news about it on our Facebook page.

With a day to ourselves on Saturday, we thought we'd document it in photos. So, this is us - as we are.  There is quite a bit of food and tea action -they're very important to us, as we've realised by the amount of beautiful tea and food related gifts we received for our wedding.

We had a little lie in.  It was comforting listening to the rumble of the cars on the cobbles outside, and the sound of our neighbours packing up to go on holiday. It almost felt as if we were 'playing hookie', and there was a strong temptation to go into work and edit some of our latest shoots.   Although we managed to resist this for once. 

This is our much loved cat, Delboy.  He is quite a particular little chap as all our friends know, but we love him dearly. This is his happy (and slightly grubby) face. He often has a little dirty mark on his cheek where he has been rubbing against car bumpers whilst out on his nightly prowls.

Suzi was on a mission to find a place for us to stay when we go on holiday in a few weeks.

The first cup of tea of the day. I have a habit of throwing tea towels over my shoulder for any kitchen operation and I hadn't realised I'd done it to make a cup of tea until we downloaded the photos. We all do things like this right?

Warm croissants, new jam, orange juice and tea.  Perfect.

Suzi still on a mission to find a holiday destination, a little more precariously!

We actually sat down and did a little bit of menu planning for the next week.

We've managed to grow some green things (and keep them alive) in our yard.

Our lovely neighbours had left us flowers on the doorstep before they headed off to sunnier climes on their holidays.

After a bit of food shopping, back for lunch and a little visit from Hannah to borrow studio keys.

Being at the bottom of the valley, we don't get sunlight streaming into the lounge, but I love this ray that appears in the afternoon. Our own little spotlight!

Food preps were underway for dinner.  

And then up the hill for a gorgeous shoot in beautiful golden light.

And then back down the hill again for dinner with friends and a very close game of Articulate!

We enjoy the simple pleasures. A day at home together, spending time with family and friends, a glass of wine, good chocolate, and a little bit of competitive spirit with a good board game! It was the perfect Saturday.

We've been hanging out quite a bit on Instagram lately, and we'd love you to come and join us!  Share your photos of your everyday life, and hashtag your images #storiesoftheeveryday.  Looking forward to seeing your photos, and please do share with anyone you'd think would like to join in. Here's our feed too. Have a lovely weekend everyone.