When you love what you do... make sure your photographs say it too!

When you run your own business you pour your heart and soul into it and then throw in a large amount of blood, sweat and tears. It's impossible to separate yourself from the job, you are one entity. Its life blood is your personality, passion and commitment.

This is why I firmly believe that the photographs of you that promote your business and tell people about you should capture this. A static head shot against a white backdrop is going to be hard pressed to do this. I much prefer an editorial style that gives you much more freedom to be yourself and communicate via a single image your absolute passion for what you do.

When Jenny Bent from Parsley Pie Kids Art & Craft Club asked me to do a photo shoot of her to celebrate 15 years in business, we both had a very clear idea of what we wanted to achieve and I was so pleased and excited that Jenny was willing to inject her personality and love for teaching art into the images.

What followed was a lively, energetic, hilarious and messy photo shoot in Jenny's studio. She is a strong and striking character (I think you get that from the images!) and was a joy to photograph, willing to try anything and with lots of inventive ideas of her own.

We shot lots of different poses with a number of props so that Jenny has a good choice of images for her social media going forward.

To book a photo shoot that tells your clients how much you love your business get in touch!

Pub food photography to make your mouth water - at the George & Dragon in Holmes Chapel

We are so lucky to have so many great pubs in Cheshire - we really are spoilt for choice. But how do we decide which one to go to? If you're like us you take a quick look at some websites and go with one that catches your eye. And the way that smart thinking pubs do that is by having pictures that make it look like a lovely place to spend an hour or two, relaxing, chatting over a few drinks and some delicious food.

It's obvious really isn't that the photographs should be very attractive, projecting an ambience and standard that draws customers through their doors. Images of food should make your mouth water and encourage you to click on to the booking and "how to find us" pages.

This is exactly what I wanted to deliver for the George and Dragon in Holmes Chapel, a large and popular pub situated right in the heart of the village. I'd been there a few times and really like the fact that it has a cosy, intimate atmosphere in the bar, where you can enjoy a bar snack.  Part of the bar is dog friendly and there are some doggy regulars who enjoy a bit of a fuss as you walk by! There is a large conservatory for a slightly more formal dining experience. There's also a large outdoor terrace for warmer weather.

I spent the day with the staff at the pub, photographing their entire new Autumn / Winter menu. We had planned the day well together to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. The food was photographed in different locations inside and outside of the pub, depending on the mood we wished to convey.

The team at the George and Dragon are very friendly and we had a really enjoyable and successful day. Managers Chris and Martin were on hand all day and ensured I had everything I needed and got chance to sample the dishes from time to time. I worked very closely with the chef, Billy, as it was, after all, he who had prepared, cooked and skilfully plated every dish.

At the end of a busy afternoon Chris' grandson came in for his tea and modelled beautifully for a shot to promote the George and Dragon as a family friendly pub.

I'm looking forward to going back to the George and Dragon to do some more photography in a few weeks time. I'm also going to teach some of the staff how to take photographs of the food for social media. Now that's what I call switched on! 

Tribes and Business Angels

Starting up and running your own business is a tremendously exciting and scary thing to do. Many of us are somewhere along the journey of doing just that and we have all got stories to tell, anecdotes to share and lessons we’ve learned. This blog is about the importance of having the right people around you to support you along the way, as it can be a very lonely and disheartening path, with lots of high and low points. You need a strong support network around you to ensure that you celebrate the good times, manage the bad times, move forward and make your business a success and your dreams come true.

I had the good fortune to meet a very inspirational woman called Catherine Connor who runs a very successful business training professional photographers (Aspire Photography Training). She has a way with words that resonates and lifts you up. One of her key talks is about the importance of making sure you have the right people around you to make you and your business flourish. I’m going to borrow two key labels from her and adapt them to my own experience and views.

TRIBE

The first term she uses is TRIBE – loosely a family or group that someone belongs to. She uses it mainly to describe your target customer. I'm going to steal another very good analogy from Naomi Gilmour now; she tells us, that even though there are plenty of fish in the sea, we don’t necessarily want to hook all of them and also they might not like the bait we are offering. So it’s important to focus all your efforts on the type of customers you WANT to do business with and who will want to do business with you. This immediately rules out a lot of people. If you get this formula right, you “gel” and go on to have a great business relationship. Many of my clients go on to become friends  because our interests, passions and values are so well matched. These people become part of my tribe.

However, my tribe is made up of more than just my ideal clients. My tribe is a group of people that I belong to who share some common values with me and somehow we give each other something. It might be support, love, advice, they lift us up when we need it and rein us in at other times, or are just simply there when we want them to be. They are in my tribe because they care about me and me about them.  We respect each other even though we may be very different.

Your immediate tribe is your family and your closest friends. Then you add people to your tribe because you want to know them, have their friendship, spend time with them, see them as a mentor,  meet them a networking group and realize that you can help each other, or just that you “get on”.

You will see some members of your tribe every day and others you will speak to on the phone once a year. But they are no less important members of your tribe. I love the role that social media has played in growing my tribe. I have people in my tribe now that I’ve never met in person but have built a relationship with over time on Facebook. I know they are part of my tribe because I can tell from their comments and posts that they “get” me, like me and want me to be happy and successful. I had a wobble on social media in August when someone who definitely wasn’t in my tribe made a very hurtful comment. But my tribe rallied round me, picked me back up, and were incredibly supportive during a difficult time. Many of the lovely comments came from people I’ve not yet met, but really hope too.

You need to know who your tribe are and make sure you value them too and look after them. Don’t take them for granted. Spend a little time working out who your tribe are. And when you don't get on with someone, you clash, you rub each other up the wrong way, don’t dwell on it, just accept that you belong to different tribes and that’s fine. I wish I could get my daughter to look at it like this and she’d save herself some heartache. But I think you need to get the ripe old age of 50 before you’ve had enough life experiences to do this.

BUSINESS ANGELS

The other term I picked up from this inspirational woman was Business Angels. These are very important people to you, specifically to your business. They are probably members of your tribe already but they also perform another important role: they are the people that whole-heartedly support your business. They believe in you so much that they readily tell other people about you and recommend you without hesitation.  I’m not talking about people who belong to the same networking and who might mention you, I’m talking about your biggest fans. And we all have them if we think about it. They might be existing clients, your best friend, your partner. Although more often than not, the closest members of your tribe are NOT your business angels. My dad, my brothers, for instance, aren’t. They respect what I do, but they would never rave about me. But my niece does and regularly sends clients my way. Her genuine enthusiasm for what I do convinces people that they need my services.

You need to identify who your business angels are and really take care of them. Reward them in whatever manner is appropriate – with my niece I take gorgeous photos of her baby girl whenever I see her and I support her business venture even though I’m probably not a true business angel to her. Some people don’t want to be rewarded but rather to know that you appreciate them. But know who they are and make sure they are the first to know about new offers, products etc. I have a closed Facebook Group for students and I regularly give them useful information and links for free. A good number of them are my business angels and get me new business. If you neglect them they might eventually fade away.

I decided to talk about this at my favourite networking group, because many of of the group are part of my tribe and have supported me, “got” me, played a positive role in getting me through highs and lows with my business and my personal life. A number of you are definitely my business angels and you’ll know who you are – Sue France sprouted her wings a long time ago and even though I know I’m not the only photographer she supports, I know she believes in me and helps me whenever she can. As I do her.

So take some time to think about your tribe and your business angels and nuture and take care of them.

Commercial photography shoots ARE fun!!! by Cheshire Photographer Jane Burkinshaw

Let's face it, most adults hate having their photos taken, especially as we get "older" and clients that come to me to have a commercial head shot or portrait done are usually dreading it. And I know where they are coming from, as I don't enjoy having my picture taken. Is that really me? Is that what I look like? I don't get how I can look so different from the woman I see in the mirror.

Of course I only see myself from one angle in the mirror and my face is in repose (or in my "mirror face" according to my husband!). At other times we are photographed from all angles and in mid sentence, mid frown, mid unflattering looking down - our faces and bodies frozen for  a split second in the most unforgiving light.

I needed some new shots of me recently and decided to invite some of my photography students to have a go. They loved it as an opportunity to learn and, surprise, surprise I really enjoyed it and was very pleased with the results. The secret was lots of laughs and jokes to make me relax and them knowing which poses and light and angles would work. There were some pretty dreadful shots of me where the light and my pose were wrong but we deleted them quickly and moved on.

Shots taken by my photography students

I use the same strategy of fun and laughs when I photograph clients - children or adults - and I love it when people tell me they are surprised that it was so much fun! Last weekend I met a lovely couple, Russ and Teresa, who wanted images for their businesses. Russ needed a very corporate shot and was dreading it! Teresa runs a successful garden design company and wanted pictures that reflected what she does. Fresh from the hairdressers she was also quite nervous before we began.

I always have a coffee and a chat with my clients before we begin and right from the outset I'm working to make them relax. Once the shoot starts I gauge how far I can go with being a bit cheeky, teasing and getting family members or colleagues to help make people laugh. On this occasion I had a great little assistant in 10 year old Ashley and then Russ and Teresa took it in turns. The sight of Russ wielding two enormous umbrellas and a pair of stepladders was enough to guarantee smiles.

Lots of laughs behind the scenes

Teresa's final images

I offer commercial photography services on an hourly, half day or full day basis. I can shoot in a purpose built natural light studio or on location. If you would like to have a chat about your photography requirements please get in touch.

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!

One planet...

We often hear it said that the world is becoming smaller, as travel, trade and communications across the globe get ever easier and faster. However, for the children attending the UK and Kenyan primary schools I have recently had the great pleasure of visiting and photographing, life and circumstances could not be more different.

UK primary school June 2015

A school day for a Kenyan child will mean leaving the house early, often without breakfast, and a long walk to school through streets that are dirt tracks with open sewers. Many children carry a smaller sibling on their back (and will continue to care for their younger brother or sister at school, wiping noses and sharing meagre amounts of food at lunchtime).

Walking through the slums of Nakuru

The children must wear uniform to attend school and it is patently obvious that these are handed on from child to child, until they fall apart. I was very surprised to see that the uniforms are usually very clean (at least at the start of the day) and it was nothing short of miraculous that Kenyan women seem to get their whites whiter than Vanish!

Uniforms don't have to fit or be intact, just as long as they are worn

Education is highly valued in the slums and most parents ensure that their children go to primary school, to give their children a chance to better themselves and have future outside of slum life. The children themselves love being at school, as it's often the best part of their day, with a focus on play, songs and lessons.

"The best thing we can give these children is love" 

Katherine, head teacher at Ungarna School.

Basic teaching facilities

Many teachers are unqualified volunteers who do the best they can with, well, very little. There are no interactive white boards and libraries of The Oxford Reading Tree here. Paper and pencils are a very valuable commodity; exercise books are battered and falling apart and many children put their stub of a pencil in their shoe to keep it safe when they are not using it. Surprisingly, homework is issued each evening and parents will ask questions if it's not given. The teacher writes out the homework in every child's exercise book - there are often 40 or more children in a class. this was one of the tasks I helped with and a callus I haven't had since college developed again on my finger.

Scarce resources

Playtime is universally a fun time for young children and this is where the UK and Kenyan schools were at their most similar (if you overlook the gazillion health and safety hazards in the playground in Kenya and accept that we are wrapped in cotton wool and fear of litigation in the UK).

Fun at playtime

The schools do their best to give the children food and drink whilst they are in school. Despite very crude facilities - cold water and open fires - they provide a basic kind of porridge in the morning and a simple meal of stew and rice or maize at lunchtime. This, sadly, wasn't always the case and we did see small children crying because they were hungry at one of the schools.

This was actually the best of the three school kitchens I saw

In the UK primary school's dining room I watched sadly as children said "no thank you" one after the other to the offer of vegetables and it was hard to see the waste at the end of the meal. The Kenyan children ate every last morsel of what they were offered.

I think the funny face is for my benefit and not about the food!

I can't finish without mentioning toilets... We fussy Mzungu (westerners) held our bladders at all costs to avoid having to use the facilities that the kids have no choice but to use. From halfway across the playground there's a stench of urine and as you get nearer it gets worse. The little children do their best to toilet themselves but could be seen squatting in the earth outside the actual sheds and then struggling to pull up underwear, leggings and pyjamas (it's Winter so they wear a lot of layers!). In pre-school in the UK helpers take little ones to the loo one by one and help them. I walked into one classroom to find the Kenyan head teacher demonstrating to a class how they needed to squat and take aim! I had no choice one day but to use the "staff" hole in the ground and actually it wasn't all that bad and better for your calf muscles!

I've never seen a UK head teacher do this lesson!

Despite the hardship the children suffer, they genuinely love life and are grateful for the very little they have. They are loving, affectionate, funny, cheeky, energetic, competitive, clever, caring and immensely lovable.

There's no short, medium or long term answer to this huge problem of poverty in third world countries, but I take my hat off to the many charities and individuals that are doing their best to make some kind of a difference. I am extremely proud and grateful to have worked alongside such people in Kenya and, cliche ridden though it is, I really believe I've come back a better person. I am determined to return and will be doing my best to raise awareness for the schools and for African Adventures and Derby County Community Trust. Thank you to all the amazing people involved in making #RamsInKenya 2015 happen.

A very special thank you to my personal supporters - Nic, Abii and Sam and our friends and family. Thank you to Stovefitters Warehouse and to all the families who bought one of my fundraising photo shoots.

Chelsea Buns and a spot of food photography

I love Chelsea buns - that lovely sweet, stretchy bread, caramelised brown sugar, delicate cinnamon and fruity sprinkles of raisins! Still warm from the oven and perfect with a cup of coffee, or a glass of cold milk if you are my 12 year old son!

I surprised the family with these, as I am rarely seen in the kitchen baking from scratch. My husband, Nic, is a great cook and finds it relaxing, so we have a long established habit of letting him rule the roost in terms of food shopping and cooking. I can cook the old student staples of spag bol, cottage pie, chilli con carne, lasagne and toad in the hole, but my confidence runs out beyond that. I recently went on a Taste of Spain cookery course and discovered that I can cook (find out what delights I made in a separate post about this). This newly discovered confidence and interest, along with a massive love of food photography, has given me a new zest for home baking.

I won't pretend to be perfect or experienced, far from it, but I thought it might broaden the appeal of these foodie posts, if they extend beyond nice photographs of food and share the recipes  I use too.

So, here goes, my first proper foodie recipe post.

Ingredients:

For the enriched white dough:
500g strong white plain flour
1 tsp fast acting dried yeast
100g mixed dried fruit
2 tbsp milk powder
2 tbsp white sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 medium eggs
200ml water

For sprinkling on the rolled out dough:

3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp golden syrup

We have a bread machine and have worked out that the 45 minute pizza dough setting creates an amazing and versatile bread dough. So Nic chucked in all the ingredients (except the currants, which should have gone in at this stage) and left it to do its thing. It was sat in there for a good hour or so after the programme finished and had already risen quite bit when I got it out (1).

I knocked the dough about a bit and then rolled it out into an oblong approx 20x50cm (2). In hindsight I should have rolled it a bit thinner and bigger, as my buns were quite chunky!

I then sprinkled the sugar and currants on (better late than never to include them!) and drizzled with the honey and golden syrup (3 & 4). I rolled the dough into a long sausage and sliced into 5cm mini sausages with a very sharp knife (5).

I placed the individual sections into an ovenproof dish that would give them plenty of space to expand (6) and then left them to rise for about another hour (7). I baked them in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they were golden brown and firm on the top.

At this stage you could brush them with a little glaze of sugar dissolved in water or alternatively apricot jam for a slightly stickier option!

Once they'd cooled for a short while I transferred them to a wire tray (8) and a little while later separated them into individual buns by pulling them apart and then dusted them with icing sugar. Et voila!

They were a real hit, especially with Sam, who was quite cross with me this morning when I told him he couldn't have one for breakfast as they'd all gone! Will definitely be making these again soon.

I offer commercial photography services, including food, on an hourly, half day or full day basis. I can shoot in a purpose built natural light studio or on location. If you would like to have a chat about your photography requirements please get in touch.

Kids portraits are helping me get to Kenya!

The children I've photographed so far to fundraise for Kenya.

Towards the end of May 2015 I am going to Kenya with other volunteers to work in three schools in one of the poorest regions of Nakuru, near the Great Rift Valley. The trip has been organised by Derby County Community Trust and African Adventures, both of whom have been sending volunteers to the region for several years.

I am with a group of 45 volunteers, including my sister-in-law Debbie and her sister, Caroline. As a latecomer to the party I had to raise £1400 very quickly to fund the trip. I decided to offer some mini portrait shoots at a specially discounted price and give 80% of the total made to the charity. I'm really pleased to say that there was such a great take up on the mini shoots that I reached my target in just 4 weeks, with some generous donations from my brothers too.

It's been a real joy to photograph so many children in such a short space of time and it made a really nice change to photograph indoors, using my new natural daylight studio.

Special thanks have to go to my niece, Lucy, who was the first to take me up on the offer and then shamelessly promoted it to her friends! These are Lucy's lovely kids - my great niece Bella and nephew Joe (I'm feeling very old now!).

Bella and Joe

I'm going to post about my adventures in Kenya, obviously with lots of photographs, so I hope you'll follow the blog.

I am a natural light photographer, specialising in children's and family portraits and commercial photography. I have a purpose built natural light studio in the heart of rural Cheshire and I also work on location. Take a look at my portfolios and if you'd like to have an informal chat about booking a shoot please get in touch.