Ethel & Mabel

Ethel and her sister Mabel, have such a sense of old world charm and style. I started documenting their life, (well actually at the time it was just Ethel), back in early 2015. I’d heard Ethel liked a cup of tea, and I wanted to record a Saturday morning with her at her house. If you’ve been following my new project on Instagram, I guess she was my first Tea For Two! And then, a year later, Mabel came into the world. Spending a morning with them was the first step into filmmaking for me, and the film I made still has such a special place in my heart. Roll on three years, and I went back up to document their morning together recently. I hope they’ll cherish these photos of them in their childhood home as much as I’ve loved documenting their life there. My style and edit choices might have changed a bit, but the sentiment remains the same. Here’s Ethel and Mabel, a story in mornings, so far.

It starts with Ethel. When I first arrived at her house, she took me by the hand, sat me down, and started to recount stories about her summer holiday. Her morning unfolded - reading books, dunking buttery biscuits into steaming cups of tea, all to the soundtrack of Saturday morning tunes on the record player.  

And then, along came Mabel….

And our latest shoot together…

This is what we love about our portrait shoots, documenting these moments in life that may feel insignificant at the time, but looking back, are so poignant.  Beauty in the small things, beauty in the everyday.

If you’d like us to document your family life, we’ve just added some new packages. If you’d like to take a look, just click on the photo link below. We’d love to tell your story.

Stories Of The Everyday - Frames

For us, in our photographs, we’re always tying to create a feeling of depth. We’re taking images in 2D of a 3D scene, and using various compositional elements in photos can really help to recreate this. So we thought it would be great to experiment with one of these elements for our next Stories Of The Everyday monthly theme.

You have the frame of your actual image, but we wanted to explore FRAMES within that frame. We’re thinking trees, windows, mirrors, shooting through objects, using people in the foreground, doorways, curtains. Once you start seeing frames around you, both indoors and out, it can really help bring your images to life. We wanted to share a few examples that you might like to try. We hope it gives you a bit of inspiration to go out there and try your own frame shots. We’d love to see your photos this month using the hashtag #storiesoftheeveryday_frames

Thanks to our friend Dean for braving the cold so I could take the following shots, using the frame of the car windscreen.

And switched focus between the two for a different feel.

I used the frame of the doorway into Olive’s room to take a before and after shot…

You will often see this technique below on TV or in films. When 2 people are having a conversation, the camera position is often over the shoulder of one of the characters. When the conversation shifts, the shot changes to over the shoulder of the other character. It’s a great technique to lead your eye in, frame, and create depth. I framed over Suzi’s shoulder with the washing clothes horse blurred out in the background left.

Framing can be coupled with other compositional elements, for example, leading lines…

And I love how you can subtly frame a subject by shooting through something. More often than not for me, this is leaves. I have the leaves pretty much touching the lens, get right in there!

There’s nothing subtle about this frame, those silver birch trees made the perfect window.

If you’ve just got your phone, try it there too. I held my phone right up to this wooden post to shoot through to the view on the opposite side of the valley.

We went for a little walk around our village looking for different frames. We knew there were some strong stone frames at the church, but I found this frame of light too.

Once you start seeing frames, it can really lift your photography. You’ve probably already been using them, but maybe this post will whet your appetite for trying a few more! We hope you find it useful, we’d love to hear your thoughts, and of course, see your photos! The hashtag to use on Instagram is #storiesoftheeveryday_frames. We’ll do a round up of all our shots at the end of the month.

Stories of the Everyday - Winter Light

And in the blink of an eye, here we are wishing January a fond farewell and welcoming in a new month. We hope it’s been a good start to the year for you. After talking about having monthly themes to our Stories Of The Everyday Instagram hashtag for a while, it felt good to launch it this month. We’ve loved watching this community grow, our Friday round ups showing all our weeks in photos, and the interactions between everyone.

We’ve always thought having a theme can really help focus your mind when you’re taking photos, so it doesn’t feel as overwhelming when you’re out and about with your camera. As we are in the depths of winter, with the sun low in the sky, and with it being one of our favourite subjects to talk about, we thought our first theme should be Winter Light. Thanks to everyone for joining in. We’ve had cosy home days, snowy adventures, big skies, winter beach walks and the first signs of spring. Here are a selection of shots. As we launched this on Instagram, we have credited the photos and linked to Instagram accounts. Would you like to join in in February? Our theme is Frames. Think framing your subject by windows, doors, trees, mirrors, people. It’s a great compositional tool to make your photos stand out. We’ll be posting about it on Instagram over the next couple of days. And please share with anybody you know who’d like to join in.

But for now, let’s celebrate all that is winter light, and embrace its golden glow.

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