It’s not often that you discover a quite stunning large formal garden literally on your doorstep, but that's just what happened in April this year when we were contacted by the owner of the house who had some guests who had requested a family shoot. It’s so close we could almost see it if it weren’t for a small hill in the way, and yet it’s so tucked away that there’s no way you’d know it existed if you didn’t go down the tiny secluded road to the entrance. Also, the name - The Quackery -is fab!
As you can see, the perfectly maintained gardens are expansive, featuring streams, ponds, an island and many cute bridges. I’m just glad I don’t have to mow the grass!
Somerset Photography - a family shoot at The Quackery
Family Shoot with Bianca, Rob and Amelia
Back In July, on the hottest day of this year, we had the most wonderful time photographing Bianca and Rob’s wedding day at Upton Barn and Gardens in Devon. Three months later Woz and I met up with them for a catch up and family shoot at Wellington Monument. The sun shone down for us on a beautiful autumnal day…tree climbing, leaves throwing….there were smiles all round especially from Ella their beautiful Labradoodle! She really knows how to pose!
Maternity Shoot with Nikita & Terry
Before becoming a professional photographer I used to work in a very busy maternity ward where I was surrounded by bumps, new mums and babies…I guess this could be someone’s idea of hell but I absolutely loved it. Having met so many new mums and mums to be over the years, and of course being a mum myself, when Nikita approached and asked us if we would like do a maternity shoot with her we obviously jumped at the chance. Pregnancy is such a special time, it goes so quickly and before you know it you’re holding your bundle of joy and the months of being pregnant seem to be a distant memory.
We arranged to meet Nikita and Terry on a glorious sunny Sunday afternoon in a local woodland, which gave us the perfect opportunity to frame Nikita in the foliage, and the nearby orchard gave some lovely leading lines and vanishing perspectives to pose the couple. Originally Nikita had said she would quite like to pose in water, but the river turned out to be down quite a steep bank and was covered in duck weed! Nobody was that keen to abseil down so we decided it probably was for the best to give this a miss THIS TIME (in case it accelerated the appearance of their baby)!
As Woz has already shown in our previous blog, we took along the Intrepid large format camera and the new Instant Back, which helped get everyone in the mood for photos - it’s fun to set up this type of camera in public, and we got quite a few walkers stopping by to see what was going on.
These two were incredible sports despite Nikita being about to pop and obviously refusing to abseil into the river! Nikita bought along her mum’s beautiful red velvet cloak which was worn by her mum at her wedding - it was such a special and fun day spent with these two lovely peeps.
Their gorgeous baby boy was born only a week or so later so thank goodness we managed to get the shoot done in time! Massive congratulations guys!
For Gotton Farm
I first got news that Gotton Farm was to be sold in the summer of 2018. I was devastated and extremely worried for the future of my family
Gotton has been with us for a hundred years and my cousin Ted is the last of the three generations to live and work there. I've grown up with him and spent many a summer day on the farm and the long nights by the fire. The fear of change was overwhelming for us all.
It was later that I learned that there was a way to keep the farm in the family, but to do this meant selling the entire herd and changing the structure of the farm buildings.
I decided I wanted to capture the life of the farm and the enormous changes it was undergoing I later discovered that the history of the farm has never been recorded so this will be the only document of Gotton as a working farm.
The final months of the herd were witness to mv uncle Mike suffering from significant illness, a trusted farm hand suddenly losing his life, deaths in the herd and failed TB tests. All the while, Ted and his father remained upbeat, showing smiles that hid the tension and anxiety they were facing every day.
The following is my initial set from an ongoing project. The photos are a mixture of digital and medium format film, which was taken on my Bronica.
The Escott Family
Over the weekend we had brilliant fun with the Escott family who wanted some pictures to send to relatives during the strange times we are having at the moment. We had to arrange this a bit in advance as getting diaries and weather all matching was a bit of a nightmare. Finally, we had a day with some sun and we thought the trees would be lovely at this time of year, so we all met up near a local monument at Burton Pynsent to have a family shoot.
The location is perfect as the monument provides a bit of interest and texture for group photos while the woods below is gorgeous at all times of year, but particularly now with the explosion of autumnal colours in full effect.
It was a lovely time as they were all so happy and full of smiles - although getting them all to look at us at the same time was, as usual, quite challenging!
We are still taking bookings for socially distanced family photo shoots before Christmas so don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Press the button below to take you straight to our contact page!
Intrepid Camera family shoot
We had a family shoot towards the end of October and as we were preparing to finish we asked if they would be happy to pose long enough for us to try out our Intrepid large format camera. They were very keen! When the camera emerged from the car they were all extremely curious and wanted to get under the dark cloth and have a look at the screen to see what we saw.
The image you get on the back, as you’re focussing the camera, is upside down and reversed, which makes framing the image quite interesting!
When you add that you can’t just ‘click a button’ and get a picture, the whole thing becomes much more of an event than using a digital camera.
Here’s the rough process, to give you an idea of the time it all takes:
Arrange everyone in the frame. There’s no zoom and everything is cumbersome and on a tripod, so this involves moving people and camera around a lot…which you’ll see we didn’t quite get right!
Get under the dark cloth and focus the image.
Get a meter reading (we cheated and used one of our Fuji cameras)
Set the Aperture and shutter speed.
Realise people have moved, so refocus the image.
Notice a cloud has covered the sun, so take another meter reading and change the settings!
Manually cock the shutter - this is priming a spring that will open and close the shutter for a set time when you eventually get to press it!
Close the shutter - you have to do this manually and if you forget you will expose the film when you remove the dark slide at step 10 and get no picture.
Insert the film holder (you can’t do this before as it goes in front of the focussing screen and blocks your view).
Remove the dark slide.
Get everyone to smile…while noticing the cloud has moved so the light has changed!
Press the shutter button.
Replace the dark slide.
Remove the film holder.
This process happens for each shot, and takes a while! Weirdly though, it’s such a performance that the family posed really well and it’s about the only time we got them all to hold still and smile at the same time!
Of course, we had no idea if we’d managed to actually capture anything on our 4 shots, so off we went to process the film.
Result!
Of the four shots, we got one dud, which we think was because the shutter was cocked but not closed, and two that are a bit too contrasty because the light changed before we took the picture.
Overall though, we’re happy with the results on this first trial. Next time, we’ll definitely spend more time posing and hopefully less time in the process of taking the image!
Jethro
Jep is a very talented actor based in London and I have been great friends with him for over thirty years. We grew up next door to each other in the same Somerset village where our parents still live and from time to time we manage to meet up. Taking his photograph has always been a complete joy especially as he has, dare I say it, an amazing characteristic and handsome face but also it’s a great opportunity to have a long overdue catch up! Having always had a deep interest in the theatre and live performance (and yes, can you believe it, I have a qualification in performing arts!) I thoroughly enjoy hearing about what Jethro is up to in the world of theatre, tv and film. In 2012, I went to the Globe in London to witness Jethro star alongside Stephen Fry, Mark Rylance & Roger Lloyd Pack in Shakespeare’s Twelfth night, little did I know that one of my favourite photographers, Mary McCartney, was photographing them back stage! These head shots were taken just before we went into lockdown in Jethro’s parents garden, little did we know then what a strange six months would be ahead of us…
