Baby Photography with a Difference. By Cheshire children's photographer Jane Burkinshaw

This gorgeous boy is Oscar. In the top circular image he is around five months and has discovered the delights of "tummy time". In the shot at the bottom he's around 3 weeks old and is having a cuddle after his bath. These are beautiful shots by which his parents can remember those precious early days.

I first met Oscar's mum and dad when I went to show them how to use their camera to get some great shots themselves. Take a look at my photography courses if this is something that interests you. We hit it off immediately and they booked me to come back and photograph Oscar a week or so later.

I always go to a shoot prepared to do some staged, very cute images with props and hats etc but I often end up also taking lots of pictures that are less formal. This is usually when baby is being settled and cuddled or fed. Many parents prefer these natural, bonding images and this was very much the case at Oscar's session.

I took these pictures when I first got there, when Oscar was wide awake.

Although you can't really tell from these pictures he was being a bit grizzly and unsettled, but really needed a sleep (which is when I usually take the staged photographs). His mum suggested he had a bath (despite it not being bath-time!) and it proved to be a genius suggestion. We got some truly gorgeous photographs of Oscar relaxing in his bath with mum and dad taking it in turns to wash and play with him.

Oscar's parents and family absolutely adore these images as they capture such a special time. Once he was warm and dry, mum asked if we could do some "naked" shots of the three of them. No one was actually naked, except Oscar of course! We did some clever rolling down of dressing gowns and shy dad was coaxed into taking off his shirt! The resulting photos were well worth it and they've ordered the black and white picture of the three of them as a large print on wood (details can be found here). 

With Oscar fast asleep after his relaxing bath I also got the more formal naked baby shots.

But this isn't the end of the story! His parents were so thrilled with how the first shoot went, that they decided to book a Baby's First Year package with me. I went back last month to photograph Oscar again. I did some classic "portrait" type shots - the ones you'd want to frame - but I also did lots of natural pictures of him, including him eating his lunch of swede and carrot (he wasn't very impressed with that course!).

Mum and dad are building up an amazing collection of images for their Baby's First Year album. Time is flying by and it won't be long until I'm next photographing their beautiful baby boy again.

If you are interested in booking a baby photography shoot or one of my other packages, just get in touch. Packages can be tailored to your individual requirements.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too! Like Picture It Big on Facebook to see more of my photography.

A practical photography class in sunny Chester (by Cheshire Photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

f/2.8, 1/125, ISO 125

For one of my "pupils" it was time to put into practise what she'd learned during our previous two sessions and where better than in the beautiful city of Chester on a glorious Spring day. After a quick coffee and chat about how Ann had been getting on since we last met, we headed up into The Rows to do a re-cap on one of the most important camera functions for low light photography - ISO.

f/3.2, 1/40, ISO 500

If you want to capture the ambience of scenes like this you need to turn your flash off and increase your ISO. As the lights were a bit orange I converted it to black and white in Photoshop. It has also removed any colour distractions.

At this point Ann went straight to the top of the class as she asked how she could have more control over the exposure than the Av (Aperture) setting was giving her. She knew the principles of Manual Exposure but had never dared try it out. After a few goes she was flying and didn't move out of Manual Mode all day!

Chester's wattle and daub, black and white facades made for great shooting material and we talked about selecting the right buildings to photograph, where the light was best, and about cropping out unwanted distractions (lots of "To Let" hoardings).

f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 200

I applied an infrared effect to this shot to enhance the sky and clouds.

One of the day's biggest challenges was the sunny weather! You become very aware of the harsh quality of bright sunlight and the consequent deep shadows, especially in close ups. You also have to think about how bright the sky is and whether it will appear as blue with fluffy white clouds in your shot or as a bland bright white band.

f/8, 1/500, ISO 160

Looking left along the river the scene was idyllic, with people enjoying the warm sunshine and the sky is blue with cloud detail.

f/8, 1/400, ISO 160

Looking right along the riverbank it was a different story, with bright sunshine bleaching out details in the sky and on the water. So I opted to crop out the sky and go for an almost silhouetted look. This took a few attempts in Manual Mode, taking a few different exposures until I was happy.

As we made our way back into the city via the walls, we came upon a crowd of people pointing mobile phones and cameras at something happening in the street down below. An episode of Foyle's War was being filmed and we joined in the frenzy to capture some of the action. It was a tricky street scene with deep shadows and bright sunshine. Great fun to watch even though Michael Kitchen was nowhere in sight.

Last lesson of the day was looking at how a higher f/number (smaller aperture) gives focus throughout the scene (broad depth of field) and from under the famous clock tower we took a shot of the busy shopping street below. With such bright conditions shutter speed wasn't an issue, despite the small aperture.

f/9, 1/80, ISO 100

Ann felt that everything had clicked into place today with using the combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO to give her much more control over the images she takes. Once someone reaches this point I think their photography really starts to fly and they can concentrate on the creative side more.

These images were all taken by me but I know that Ann has some great pictures too and I've asked her to share them with me. She was over the moon with what she'd taken today and I was over the moon with her reaction!

If you'd like to take great photographs all the time, rather than occasionally just by accident (we've all done it!!), then get in touch to book a course or a one to one session via the website.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too! Like Picture It Big on Facebook to see more tips like this.

Using white card to fill in shadows in your product / still life photographs. By Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw

Taken by one of my photography students

Natural light photography is wonderful: it has a beautiful, soft quality about it and it's "free", as you don't have to invest in a studio and lighting equipment. This shot was set up on my dining table near a large window and using a couple of pieces of board with a grey wood grain printed on them. I had these made specifically for the purpose but you could use pieces of wood, card, slate etc that you might find around the house.

Dark shadows on the left side of the vegetable.

When we did the first shot we realised there was a lot of shadow on the left side of the vegetable - the side furthest away from the window. This might not be a problem for certain shots, as shadow can add mood and interest. For the purposes of what we were doing we wanted to reduce the intensity of the shadow. This is easily done by using a piece of white card to bounce the light from the window back onto the subject. You can easily see the change as you move the white card around. You need to ask someone to hold it for you or prop it up against something.

Sometimes you may need 2 or more pieces of card to fill in shadows, as was the case with this flower shoot.

The final edited shot

A few tips to finish off with:

• Make sure your shutter speed is at least 1/60th of a second to avoid camera shake.
• If it's too slow, increase your ISO or use a tripod.
• If bright sunlight falls on your table top set up, move it away from the window until you're in even shade.
• If you want a really soft blurry background set your f/number as low as it can go.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too! Like Picture It Big on Facebook to see more tips like this.

5 things you must do if you're asked to photograph a wedding at the last minute

Chris and Maria 

1.     Say "yes" and rearrange anything else you have on, I promise you it will be worth it. On Saturday I got a call at 12.30pm to see if I could stand in for a no-show photographer at a big wedding. After a moment's hesitation (we were just about to go out for the afternoon for my daughter's 13th birthday), I agreed to do it and asked "where" and "when?". "In Chester in half an hour!" 

      

      I think the bride and I set off for the church at the same time, the bride in a chauffeur driven vintage car and me in a husband-driven Subaru. The bride looking radiant in a stunning dress and veil, with beautifully styled hair and flawless make up; me with barely dry, un- straightened hair, no make up (!) and a top I had regretted buying but was clean and not creased. Not my usual wedding photographer "uniform".

2.     Be prepared! Every time you finish a job, put your batteries on charge and format your memory cards, just in case you ever need to be an emergency wedding photographer! This is now a new rule of mine as it would have saved me a lot of stress on Saturday! 

      Whilst I panicked over the state of batteries and cards in the car, my three companions made helpful comments to keep me calm; Sam: "you'll look like Mad Eye Moody running into the church late..." This is a character from Harry Potter, but you don't need to know that to get the idea! Nic: "you should always keep your batteries charged and cards formatted just in case…"

3.     Keep calm and do what you're good at. I've done enough weddings and events now to know what I'm doing, despite not having time to do any preparation, never mind not having even met the bride and groom. They were quite easy to spot, in front of the alter, quite spruced up, talking to a guy wearing white robes. As I started shooting, I was picking up information on the hoof: 

• this was a wedding attended by a lot of people from Spain (the priest kept dropping in the odd Spanish word);
• it was a Catholic wedding (we were still there after 20 minutes);
• it was a very big wedding (both sides of the church were packed);
• this was going to be a lively gig (lots of laughter and spontaneous dancing and singing after the service, especially Y Viva Espagna!). This meant it was a delight to photograph, with so much Latin emotion and expressiveness, unlike us reserved Brits.

"A lively gig" with lots of spontaneous dancing

4.     Don't be afraid to ask for help. At the first opportunity I had a quick word with the videographers (Tom & Tom from Silk Wedding Films) and sorted a lift to the hotel and got a quick view of the schedule for the day. TomTom were great all day, making sure I knew when things were happening, especially when we would get fed! 

      When we arrived at the hotel everything was happening so fast, the light was fading and I hadn't had chance to suss out how to pose the bride and groom in the car. So I asked the chauffeur for his advice. He was more than happy to help as he wanted his car to look great in the pictures.

Great pose in the car

5.     Put the bride and groom's needs first above everything else. It must have been awful for them to have the stress of the photographer not showing up, but I just assured them that they would still have amazing pictures by which to remember their wedding. I tried to find out if anyone had been taking pictures prior to the church service, as I knew that the happy couple would want a complete record of their big day in the album. I've now got a great selection of photos of the bride getting ready before the ceremony and I'm going to pick the best ones and give them a professional makeover so that they can be included.

Chris and Maria with Mark, the hotel General Manager - the man who made the call at 12.30pm

I really enjoyed being an emergency wedding photographer and would do it again in a flash. I didn't have any time to get nervous and it was really rewarding to be told umpteen times that I was a super hero and had "saved the day". I always knew those Wonder Woman pants would come in useful one day! I really can't wait to show the final photographs to Chris and Maria, as they were an amazing couple, so laid back, lots of fun and totally in love, of course.

By Jane Burkinshaw, Emergency Wedding Photographer

How to create a Facebook banner using Picasa (by Cheshire Photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Would you like to know how to create a banner like this one for the top of your Facebook page, without using Photoshop and without having to spend money on templates? You can create it easily in Picasa, free software from Google, that helps you to organise, edit and share your photos. Once you've downloaded it and told it which files you keep your pictures in, then you're good to go. It's very easy to use and always preserves your original image, regardless of the editing you perform.

To create a Facebook banner like this, select the photos that you would like to appear in the collage and click on "create collage". I've written a blog on how to create collages so if you're not sure how to do it then take a look at it first. 

You need to make your collage the right size so that it displays correctly on Facebook, so when you are creating it and are selecting the dimensions you need to scroll to the end of the size options and create a custom size. If you enter 30 X 11 as the dimensions and then name it as. Facebook banner, it will always be there for you to use.

Click on the image to see a larger version

You can shuffle the images around in your collage until it looks like you want it to. Just bear in mind that much of the bottom lefthand image will be concealed by your profile picture once you upload the banner to Facebook.

This is how it should look on Facebook once you've uploaded it

Once you've clicked on "Create Collage" and it's finished you will need to re-size it as it will probably be a bit big for Facebook. You need to use the "Export" option at the bottom of the Picasa screen. If you're not sure how to do this I've also written a blog on this(!) so take a look. Re-sizing images in Picasa. I'd re-size this banner to around 1000 pixels.

I love creating different banners for Facebook and keeping it fresh and topical. This one is to celebrate my son's 11th birthday this week.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Shoot to live or live to shoot? (By Cheshire Photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

As a professional photographer of course I have to shoot to live i.e. take photos and get paid for them in order to earn a living. I do this by taking portraits of people, occasionally animals, and of businesses, products and events. However, there is another way to earn a living with a camera that I haven't explored yet: shooting for stock, that is taking photographs and submitting them to image libraries, where, hopefully, they will be purchased by people. Stock photography is big business, with photographic images needed for newspapers, magazines, websites, brochures, greetings cards, calendars, point of sale material etc etc. and it can be seen as "easy" money; you post your pictures and wait for the cash to come rolling in.

I've sold one image from a stock library and that was more by accident than design. Before going professional I posted a few of my best images onto a library that was a bit like Flickr and promptly forgot all about them. Several years later a cheque for £75 dropped through the letter box; someone had bought an image of some masks that I'd taken in Venice. I was really chuffed and started to look into how to get images accepted onto the more well known galleries like Getty and Shutterstock. I quickly concluded that I hadn't got enough images of the type required and that I still needed to focus on building my portraiture and commercial business.

Cut to the the present day where I now have an extensive library of photographs of all sorts of subjects and every now and again someone tells me I should be selling via image libraries. I was browsing the internet a few weeks ago when a course on how to get into stock photography caught my eye. I realised it was being run by someone who sold a lot of flower and garden photographs and decided to sign up.

The course was yesterday and it was great, really informative and I came away with all the knowledge I need to start submitting to image libraries. But something's been bugging me since and I've been mulling it over and over. The course leader is a successful stock photographer, selling tens if not hundreds of images per month, some at less than 20 pence per image, others for £400. This is no mean accomplishment and it has taken her about four years to get to that stage. But what struck me was how cynical she was about the industry and how "un-passionate" she was about her trade. Photography for her was now only a means to earn money and she didn't shoot the things she enjoyed photographing, just the ones that she knew would sell. "If it won't sell, I don't shoot it."

Now that is just good commercial discipline and I get that. When I'm photographing a newborn I avoid unflattering poses and ugly angles as I know the parents won't like the image and it won't end up as a framed print, so why waste my valuable time. What I couldn't get my head around was that this photographer would shoot stuff that was mediocre, uninspiring and in her own words "not a great photograph" purely because she knew it would sell. She laughed about us not reacting to her images with "oo's" and "aa's" and didn't seem to mind that we weren't blown away by her work. I spoke to her at lunchtime and she said she couldn't remember the last time she'd picked her camera up for pleasure and just taken it out with her.

I couldn't do that, I love what I do and every picture I take has to be the best I can do or it doesn't make it into my galleries, in front of a client, or in the future, into an image library. I know who will make the most money from stock photography and it won't be me, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my  passion and enjoyment for the sake of earning more money. I've been trying to think of a comparison with other industries and I guess it could be a bit like a talented chef giving up working   in a top restaurant serving fine cuisine and instead setting up a fast food restaurant  because it would earn him more money.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!