That new term feeling

It's April, and the wedding season is upon us and from twitter goings on it looks like I'm not the only one shooting my first wedding of 2012 this weekend. In fact I've got a whole new-term feel, I'm full of inspiration of things to do and where I want to drive this little business and part of what I want to do this year is to blog more, not just to talk about the shoots but also the business end of it as I see it; things I've learnt, post-processing and workflow, inspirational stuff - business things really which might not be entirely interesting to all of my lovely couples, or potential couples so to that end I'll be adding a little something to the top of the page so you can hop straight to weddings and engagements. Partly, what feels so real this time round is that I've just invested in new equipment - I'm so excited I could scream about it but instead of doing that I took it for a little spin round the house and garden, just to check all the buttons were in the same places as the old ones (and they are) so here are some random bits and bobs. Apologies in advance for the number of cat pics. Pippin Poppy

  To the left are my artificial roses from Atelier Abigail Ahern, they actually look amazing real, in fact all of her faux flowers are fantastic. To the right is a painted Mexican diablo from a little store in the East Village in NY. Incidentally, all of the above were edited using VSCO film, a new aquisition. I'd never really had much love for editing within Lightroom - basic RAW adjustments, exporting and converting to neatly sized blogable jpgs were all well and good but I'd really honed the look I do within Photoshop and was happier to trade off long hours in front of my Mac for images that looked the way I wanted rather than like they looked after full editing in Lightroom - always with highlights blown, colours skewed and things just generally looking, frankly, a bit dodgy.

When VSCO film came out it seemed everyone was waxing lyrical about it but I've held off until now to buy it. I'm pretty impressed by it as a Lightroom product but I don't see that I would ever stop using Photoshop completely because of it - there's still not quite fine grained enough control for my liking and the cool grey tones need something warmer, which I'm not sure that you can achieve using this product alone. Pinks look a bit odd too - it renders them too magenta somehow.

It is, however, a massive leap forward to be able to achieve Photoshop quality as quickly as you can using VSCO film - a full review to come once I've used it a little more.

The week in pictures: A family affair

So, my Mum and my Stepfather have just downsized and moved to the coast, and in honour of her 60th birthday, plus the chance to christen the new place a birthday party/housewarming was thrown. There were so many people there - people I've never even met and so many kids. It was a great afternoon, and it was fab to see my brothers too. We all live in different cities now so it's a rare chance that we all get to meet up.

After the food had finished and drinks had been drunk we went down to the beach, strolled through the dunes and hoped to catch some of the fantastic golden hour light.

In other news, it's now less than a week until my first wedding. I'm nervous and excited all at the same time. I've got so much to do and prepare before the day itself but I can't wait. I just hope I do my lovely clients (hello Ann-Marie and Johnny) justice, they've already sent me a copy of their amazing save the date cards and I can't wait to see what the day itself holds.

The fortnight in pictures

Maintaining the regular pics from the week post has proved a bit tricky - there's only so many times you can document your weekend pub going exploits and the rest of my working week has been so busy that it's mostly been desk, train, sofa, beer, bed.

Still I'm mostly dead excited about going to Amsterdam this coming weekend with the husband and a couple of my besties, including the lovely Kathy so there should be lots of visual accompaniments to my trip up on the blog around the middle of next week.

This weekend Joss's closest friend, Wayne, came to visit so we went for 'craft' beer at the rather wonderful Mason & Taylor on Bethnal Green Road, followed by lunch and then sent him on his way, but not before I encouraged him to pose moodily with a cigarette.

In other news it's truly beginning to feel like spring, not only is it starting to be sublimely warm during the day, but the cherry blossom is out too. Although it's not tulip season in the Netherlands yet I'm still hoping to see plenty of blooms.

Finally, I think the most exciting thing is the arrival of my business cards from Moo, and my first wedding enquiry from an advert I put on Gumtree. I'm feeling really pleased with the way things are coming together and have high hopes for the future.

the week in pictures

Here's the weekly round up of what's being going off in my world this week. It's been a bit of a mad one at the day job, and so the posts are the weekends, the bookends either side. Fortunately I have two days off next week, and a shoot planned with the lovely Tilly and Lee.

Sunday started off with a stroll down the Southbank, I was supposed to meet with some other photographers from the Photography Parlour for a shootswap but couldn't find anyone when I arrived at 11.20, so strolled up and down the Southbank looking for a large group of people with DSLRs. That proved unsuccessful so I decided to go and watch some of the Chinese New Year celebrations; the thought being that it causes so much hoo-hah at work I might as well get something out of it.

It was a typical heaving London crowd, and you pretty much couldn't see anything except the reams of colourful lanterns strung above the streets of Chinatown.

I gave my new 35mm lens it's first true outing, as you can see from the top pic it doesn't have the best bokeh in the world.

Staring the day off right - a cheeky Belgian beer at lunch time

Walks along the Regents Canal; it's a gritty vein of post industrial London, and a major artery between East and West. Full of cyclists, dog walkers, hipsters, tramps, long boat dwellers and everything in between.

Joss will never pose for photographs, this is the best I can manage with him.

Browsing in the antiques arcade at Camden Passage

Seeing this today, fingers crossed.

Looking in the window of Ottolenghis and salivating. No cakes for me yesterday though.

Bread on Broadway Market, I'm lucky to live so close.

Could it be that spring has sprung? Gorgeous daffodils outside my favourite florist (they did my wedding flowers) Rebel Rebel.