This Family Life - Rowan

It's In The Look.

When  Rowan's Mum was booking this shoot, we had the most lovely email from her. In it she wrote; 'It's just occurring to me how much I want to capture the magic and wonder in Rowan's eyes, and the way she looks at us.'' Rowan is one of life's adventurers, and between the exploring, frog tickling and flower picking she did on her shoot, there were those beautiful moments where she was just looking with wide smiley eyes at her Mum and Dad. Here's Rowan's shoot...

After our shoot together, Rowan's Mum left such kind words on our Facebook page. We always feel a bit funny about sharing this stuff, but these words just summed up why we do what we do; 'Sarah beautifully captured a time in our lives we will treasure. From our first enquiry to collecting our photographic prints, Sarah and Suzi have been a joy to work with. They both have a natural gift to put children at ease. Our daughter adores them. We couldn’t have been happier with the images and really appreciated the time Suzi took to advise us on our products. Until the next time, for I have a sneaking suspicion there will be many more, thank you both'.

As we are waiting for our own little one to arrive, we are slowing down on our family shoots and starting again in September. As we head into the first wave of autumn, if you'd like to book a shoot for your leaf kickers and light catchers, please do let us know.

Ernest Journal

At the beginning of 2017, as one of my new year's intentions, I said to myself that I wanted to write more. A few more blogs, maybe documenting the change in the seasons in photos and words, and just enjoy it again as I used to when I was younger. I used to love writing song lyrics and tried my hand at a few nature poems when I was in primary school. Mum still has a poem I wrote about a curlew. It's a little faded now as I think it was pinned to the cork board in the old kitchen for a while. Somewhere along the way, I lost all confidence in expressing myself in this way. But when I went on my Scottish road trip last year, I took time out each day to reflect on how I was feeling and what I'd seen. Suzi had bought me a beautiful journal with crisp magnolia pages. I packed a fountain pen too. I don't want to come over all fancy, but I find scribbling in biro sends my handwriting into a spin. Being left-handed, writing with a fountain pen comes with its own challenges, but that's outweighed by my love of the smell of the fresh ink, and the sound of the nib gliding over the paper. After a day on the road, and after I'd eaten dinner and checked into my Air BnB, it became a nightly ritual. I'd always unpack my journal first, and place it on the bedside table. Reading lamp on, I'd relive the past day as those fresh memories were committed to the paper.

When I came back, I wrote a series of blogs about the trip. I was glad to have my journal as a reference point. Last summer, Ernest Journal, a magazine dedicated to slow adventures and craftsmanship (and one of mine & Suzi's favourites), asked me to write a piece about my North Coast 500 travels with accompanying photos. In autumn, I relived the trip again as I wrote an abridged version of my days travelling around the very northern tip of Scotland. This edition of Ernest Journal is out now if you did want to follow my trip. If you're in Hebden Bridge, they're available at both Heart Gallery and Snug. I'm in good company as there are other articles about photographic duo the Kearton brothers, bread making in space, and mapping Antarctic women.

We're going to have some of my Scottish prints on sale from the trip (amongst others) at Hebden Bridge Open Studios. 50% of what we make will be donated to MIND.

The North Coast 500 trip was an absolutely amazing experience for me.  I witnessed the most beautiful landscapes and nature and it gave me the confidence I needed to get back on track with my mental health. If you're interested in doing the route and would like to know more, I'm always up for a chat about it over a cup of tea.

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!