Big Black House Design Company

you're like me, walking into Maxine's workspace is like walking into a sweet shop, it's a feast for the eyes. The orange flames of the forge are glowing, the worn wooden handles of tools are stacked neatly in boxes, and the anvil centrepiece catches the afternoon sun. 

I was taking photos for a feature about Maxine and her work for the Christmas edition of WI Life. She's a blacksmith, based not too far away from Hebden Bridge, she predominately makes garden furniture and sculptures. Watching her work is meditative. The sounds of the forge as the steel rods hit the flames, and then the metallic smell fills the air as Maxine shapes it on the anvil.

If you'd like to see more of Maxine's work, you can look at her website here, she has a few shows coming up this year too and you can check the dates out on her site.

There's a short film here if you'd like to feel the forge and watch Maxine at work!

A Year In Pictures

Me and Suzi love this time of year. We've spent time with family and friends over the festivities, we've allowed ourselves time to curl up on the sofa to begin to read the pile of books we've been gathering over the last few months. And now, we go into planning mode for the year ahead, both for the business, and what adventures we'd like to share together over the next twelve months.

Firstly, we'd like to say a great big  T H A N K  Y O U  for all your support, the follows, the bookings, we are so grateful and we've loved spending time with you all. 2017 was the first year of not doing weddings, and we felt like we were heading a little into the unknown, but it was the right time for us to do this to nurture our family photography, and let our training and commercial work grow and develop. So, here's our year in pictures - thank you so much for sharing it with us. Here's to a wonderful 2018!

The start of 2017  was all about logs on the fire, planning the year ahead, and crisp morning walks. We had some cute shoots too.

In FEBRUARY, we headed up to Scotland to see if we could track down a starling murmuration, something we'd both wanted to see for such a long time. The sky didn't disappont.

We made a short film about those beautiful birds too...

The first signs of SPRING started to slowly reveal themselves.

My Scottish trip plans came to fruition in MARCH, and I left the Hebden Bridge cobbles for the wilds of the Highlands. I travelled around the tip of the top of the country on the North Coast 500 route.

And then back into the flow of things for some fun SPRING family sessions.

In JUNE, we headed over to Dublin for 10 days. We were delighted to be commissioned by Tesco Ireland to create the stills for their new 'Family Makes Things Better' campaign. The ferry trip over was pretty blustery as you can see below. This little film looks like we were working with Guinness - who knows, maybe one day! 

In the SUMMER, my Mum and Dad started packing as they were about to move house. I found lots of treasures from my teenage years, and decided to record each room in a series of self portraits. It hit me harder than I thought it would. You can read more about it here in a blog about my childhood home and the memories I have there.

After Mum and Dad had just moved out of my childhood home, I became really drawn to doing more family shoots in the family home. I started to see echoes of my own childhood in these photos too,  and I really think this is what I'd been searching for. 

Through Hanna (below), we both found a new love for wild swimming, and had a few late afternoon strolls to Gaddings Dam for a dip.

OCTOBER came, we ran our first photography retreat and loved it! We'd been running 1-2-1 training courses for a number of years, so the retreats were a natural progression. We have more dates in for this year. To kick off the programme, we're starting with Capturing Childhood in March. You can check out our retreat page here for more info or to book....

The days started to draw in, and with the change in seasons, along came the low light and those beautiful tones.

This is one of my cherished personal moments from a family party when the oldest member of my family, my great aunt Eileen, met the youngest member, baby Daniel.

And as we slowed down for the festivities, we started to think about what we'd like to bring into 2018...

We'd love to spend more time with loved ones, and more time in the trees. We'd love to spend time with you, capturing your big beautiful hearts in our photos. We'd love to capture those precious moments, big and small, and create a little snapshot of all our lives today for our families in the future. We want to keep looking for the light and to soak up the sun. 2017 was the year we felt we could really hear our voices, felt truly comfortable in our style, so thanks to everyone who continues on this journey with us, and for all your support. It really does mean the world to us. We'll leave you with a picture one of our friends' daughters drew for us this year. As usual, in most of our photos, there's Suzi on the left, and me, a little bit smaller on the right. Here's to you, and here's to a marvellous 2018. 

Sarah & Suzi xx

Raffy & The Christmas Tree

On my favourite morning walk, through the woods by the river, stands a small spruce tree overshadowed by the larger beech trees that surround it. But at this time of year, the tree is decorated with colourful baubles, chocolate coins and glittering tinsel. It always brings a smile to my face, especially on a crisp winter's morning when the low light catches the sparkling decorations. I've often wondered who the secret tree decorator is.

A few weeks ago, for Raffy's shoot, we went on that walk, and stopped at the spruce for a few decorating tree shots. It was a quiet Sunday morning, there just a few dog walkers around. As I was taking photos, I sensed somebody behind us watching. I turned round to be greeted with a big beaming smile. Jean introduced herself as the secret tree decorator, she radiated warmth. She stood for a few moments and  watched Raffy carefully placing the baubles over the needles. And then off she walked further into the woods. We stopped and drank hot chocolate as the sun rose further into the sky. If you ever come across the little spruce, maybe there'll be a chocolate coin there waiting for you!