No Place Like Home

I've been thinking a lot about home lately. As some of you know, my parents moved out of the house I grew up in a few weeks ago, and it was hard to say goodbye. When me and my sister were helping clear out the cupboards and drawers, we came across new bundles of old photos. Those saturated Kodak moments, the glossy paper with dates scribbled on the back, our younger selves staring up at us.

In my family photography, I've always been about the great outdoors, letting kids be the young explorers they are, with this glorious landscape and the changing seasons as a backdrop. And this won't change, but lately I'm being really drawn to doing more shoots in a family's home too. I've been wanting to try something new, try different ways of approaching a shoot, and take photos a little differently. So I challenged myself a few weekends ago when I spent a morning with Cat, Toby, Rowan and Holly. I freelensed this whole session. I've talked about this technique a bit, it's where I've detached the lens from the camera body, but I hold it closely to it, and make subtle changes to the angle it is at. It felt good to do this.

There's something about the light in the photos that takes me back. I see echoes of myself in these photos too, and I really think this is what I've been searching for. These are the colours of my childhood. It felt like I'd come home, it feels right to shoot like this. Home, Heart & Soul.

Tesco Ireland

At the end of May, an exciting email pinged into my inbox, subject - Tesco Ireland. Creative agency Rothco asked us if we'd be interested in working with them on a new print campaign for the supermarket. The emphasis was on those real moments in everyday family life. The love, the connections, the food, even the mundane. The campaign, called Family Makes Us Better, would focus on real families in Ireland and look at what 'family' means to different people. I was excited, as they really liked the way we captured the beauty in the everyday in our family shoots. The mud under fingernails, the cake crumbs around little mouths, tangled hair from the wind.

After we heard we'd be shooting the campaign, things moved quickly! All of a sudden we were on board the Jonathan Swift ferry, blue sea, blue sky, and leaving Holyhead behind. We settled ourselves in Dublin for a few days before the shoot began. We'd both been before, but hadn't fully appreciated what a beautiful city it is.

And then we started our 5 day road-trip around Ireland, meeting lovely families along the way, making new friends, great conversations, and the food, the food!! On our travels, we also experienced the full range of Irish weather.

Here are just a small selection of the photos we took, these are the ones that have been released so far.

The agency sent over a few shots of the photos in situ on billboards, buses and in store. It brought it all to life when we saw these for the first time.

It was so good to just be ourselves, and shoot in the style we do. We were curious how the agency had found out about us in the first place, and a couple of weeks ago, I found out how. A lovely photographer called Claire from Unscripted Photography had been approached. She couldn't do the dates, and from following my Instagram account, she recommended us. The power of social media in full force right there. We are so grateful to Claire, and hopefully we are going to meet her in person in the not too distant future to giver her a great big hug!

If you'd like to see the wonderful advert that is running in conjunction with the print campaign, you can see it here....

A couple of our friends have spotted the posters on recent trips to Ireland and sent photos to us. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we'll be going back over to see the campaign with our own eyes. Always nice to have an excuse to travel to Ireland!

Shooting From The Hip

I've just been having a clean up on my computer. Some people like spring cleans, I find it easier to wait until autumn for this kind of behaviour. In one of the folders, I found this selection of photos I took on our friend Leena's course a couple of years ago. When I was first starting out as a photographer over ten years ago, I was really drawn to street photography, and I enjoyed the freedom that shooting from the hip gave me. I hang the camera on my shoulder and as you might have deduced, keep the camera at hip level, and press the shutter when I see something that catches my eye. Because I'm not looking through the viewfinder, the focus can be a bit hit and miss, but there lies the fun for me. Doing the course recently, reminded me how much I'd enjoyed this in the past. Here are a few from a cold market day around Hebden Bridge.