Natfly in Autumn

We did it again. Natalie & I went out to shoot one thing and then this happened..

I felt compelled to do some composite work after being inspired by one of Brooke Shaden's workshops that I've seen numerous times on Creative Live (if you've not heard of Creative Live before I URGE you to check it out!). Composite work isn't new to me, but it can be time consuming. In my college days I would spend hours on just one image and found it really therapeutic. Watching a few photographs turn into art over the course of the edit for me was magical but it's not something I can justify using the time for anymore.. why. is. that? This image combines only around 6 or 7 images and was a fairly straight forward edit. We shot it on a total whim whilst setting up a different shot all together and I love the result.

Here's a lil'shot of me that Nat took from the same session. Autumn is so pretty.

Image ©Natalie Miller

Photos at Goodwood

Miss Miller and I ventured out to the woods at Goodwood. This particular trip was supposed to be Nat's day.. I wasn't supposed to be shooting, I was supposed to be helping but then we found this creepy area of part built shelters and then this happened.  

Seriously, I love it when we do this. Every photo-outing together is different, but usually goes a little something like this:

• Have one goal in mind. 
• Plan entire trip around said goal.
• embark on journey.
• Shoot something entirely different. 

I have so much love for this girl, she keeps me motivated and inspired. We bounce ideas off of each other and although a lot of my ideas are completely ridiculous, she gets it and manages to somehow keep a straight face whilst we attempt said ridiculous shoot, whether or not it works out. 

She's the number one reason I still find the time for photography (and by this I mean, actually get out and shoot something for fun and not work-related). It's not that I don't want to, I love taking photos and I truly miss the 'old days' where I would shoot self portraits weekly, or set up a photoshoot just for the sake of creating beautiful pictures, but finding the time around everything else can be hard - I seriously need to schedule some time in to do this more often!

Autumn Adventures

Fru & I went into the woods for a wander.

♥

DEAREST JACKDAW PRINT SALE

It's SALE TIME at Dearest Jackdaw! Not only do I have various items in the sale of my etsy shop already but I now have tonnes of prints with a whopping 50% OFF! I am selling all of my remaining stock from my print shop "What the Jackdaw Saw". I've gone through each and every print and grouped them into sets of images that compliment each other and look just as good together as they do apart. Just click here and use the shop section menu on the left hand side to navigate your way to the sale. Absolutely perfect for gift giving, stocking fillers, adding a little bit of colour to your home, office or studio. Come and take a peek!

. . DEAREST JACKDAW PRINT SALE . .

Francesca

On Sunday 22nd July I drove from my little home in West Sussex across the border and through the stunning landscapes of Surrey to photograph my lovely friend Francesca in some of my dresses. We hadn't seen each other for well over three years, it was so lovely to see her after all that time!

We spent our afternoon wandering the local area. For the first set of images we strayed from the path into the woods, tunnelling through a forest of fern taller than us until we came to a clearing with a tiny stream and dappled light glittering from the treetops onto our feet - it was like we'd stumbled onto the set of a fairytale film! Francesca wore my newest Ragdoll dress with bare feet and looked like a little elven princess, she looked amazing. A-MAZ-ING!

Emerging from the woods having momentarily lost our trail we headed back up the track and followed the sandy paths leading across the colourful heathland. Surrey is so different to Sussex, there are towering pine forests and valleys filled with heather and bumblebees. The colours were incredible, an ocean of purple as far as the eye could see. Francesca lay amongst the flowers and did her thing - she's a natural.

 

For the last set of images we drove a small way eventually ending up at a small lake surrounded by fallen pine cones. The sun was slightly too high for the light I usually crave so Francesca paddled out into some shade and we shot the atlas dress in all it's glory.

All I can say is what a glorious day. Amazing weather, beautiful surroundings, a perfect opportunity to pick my camera up, lovely girlie giggles and a long over-due catch up. 

♥

FEATURE - Kitty Gallannaugh

When I first set eyes on Kitty Gallannaugh's beautiful photographs, I became instantly hooked and have followed her work ever since. At just 21 she has already achieved so much and is forever working hard on projects and following her dreams. Her photographs and stories exude an ethereal dream-like quality you can so easily get lost in and her kind-hearted personality shines through each and every piece of work as though part of her soul.
I have watched Kitty's work flourish into instantly recognisable works of art and will always turn to her portfolio when I'm feeling uninspired. She puts so much of her time towards helping others and interacting with her followers - her 'army of dreamers', and I'm truly grateful to her for sharing her vision so openly. Read on to find out more about Kitty and to see some of her amazing photographs!

Photography Lull

Over the past year I've been going through what I can only describe as a photography-lull. It seemed everything that could possibly get in the way of me being creative would get in the way - First of all my favourite lense died. Then my favourite camera started flashing the dreaded "ERROR 99" at me (that's it's way of saying - something's wrong, but I don't know what. I still don't know what over a year on even though I've tried everything). I have been stuck with my back-up camera ever since. Don't get me wrong, it's a great little camera - a Canon 450D, but there are little things that annoy me about it. Mainly cosmetic things, but reasons to be annoyed all the same. It's too light. It's too small. The electronic "PSCHHHHH" shutter noise annoys me.. to name but a few. Then our PC died. Then we spent hundreds of pounds on a new one and I treated myself to the newest version of Photoshop to get me back into the swing of things. All was well for approximately one month until my hard drive died, we moved home twice, studio once and my back up camera went in his bag and didn't come out again, and all my lovely old film cameras went to the back of the attic never to be seen again. The combination of all the above issues made me feel so.. I don't know.. 'meh', about it. Getting the camera out became more of a chore than an adventure and medium for creativity. The only time I took any photos was shooting stock for my etsy shop or embarking on a sadly very rare photoshoot with friends (which I ALWAYS have a blast at!).. 

HOWEVER - Something's happened. I don't know what it is, but I'm slowly falling back in love with my camera and rediscovering my love for photography. Finally! Perhaps it's the first signs of spring? I don't know. I don't even care right now! I'm just looking forward to getting out there with the camera again and shooting and what better way to get things going than a quick afternoon shoot over the weekend?

Back in this blog post I mentioned that Miss Miller and I would be returning to the chapel ruins to shoot. It was a bit of a last minute thing in regards to ideas, but Nat already had something in mind so we went back down at the weekend with Lizzie. I ended up with some beautiful portraits and I'm playing with a new editing style which is less contrasty than my previous work, with soft subtle colour changes and this shoot suited the new style perfectly. We put ivy and paper flowers in Lizzie's hair and Nat played artistic director photographer lady and mover-of-big-branches. The ground was a bit sludgy from rainfall earlier in the day - it must've been a miracle we missed it, it rained before and after the shoot, but remained nice and dry in the middle - perfect!

Birthday, Sale and Free Prints ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEE! Well, not ME, me.. but to Dearest Jackdaw for she is ONE YEAR YOUNG TODAY! I even made a cake or 12. (The rest were long gone before I could snap this piccy!)

So, what has the year taught me? That I love my job? Yes indeed I do. And I cannot WAIT to see what the next year has in store - there are already so many things I want to do I'm finding it tricky to keep up with myself!

Antlers

Caroline and I went for a wander in the woods at Brandyhole Copse on Thursday to shoot some headshots. We found a huge clearing where some trees had recently been felled and stacked in groups and the sun was setting behind the trees with a gorgeous orange glow. After we'd photographed what we needed, we thought we'd shoot a few arty things before she headed home. We didn't particularly have a plan, but the sun was setting quick and the light was amazing so we just went with the flow with what was available at the time. Here's one of the shots we managed to get before having to take a trip to A+E for a non-twig related incident! (Don't panic, all is well!). Doesn't she look pretty :)

 ♥

Hello January!

Hallo! Not getting off to the best of starts for 2012 on the blogging front now am I? So I thought I'd do a little update on what I've been up to this month with some photos - Enjoy!

Music, maestro:

Gabrielle Aplin - Home

Welcome, 2012!

2011 is well and truly over and I feel I've achieved so much in the past 12 months. My main achievement has been the little beginnings of Dearest Jackdaw as a business and watching it grow month by month. I'm really excited about what 2012 has to offer for both myself and Dearest Jackdaw, I'm just itching to get on and do so many things!

I'm definitely not one for new years resolutions, as I mentioned in my last post I always seem to fail them. But I do want to achieve some little things this year which shouldn't be too difficult - here they are:

• Explore the United Kingdom
• Keep a journal
• Take more photos
• Shoot at LEAST 3 personal photo stories
• Discover amazing music and art
• Blog more
• Organise my studio

Here's to 2012 ♥ Below is a photo of mine from each month of 2011. Enjoy!

January 2011
Freezing cold product photo shoot in the woods with the beautiful Rachael Holmes. 

Beautiful Faces

So much is happening right now it's hard to keep up! Midge and I are moving out of our beautiful flat in 2 weeks time and I'm moving in to a brand new studio which is bigger and better than the last, I just can't wait to get back to normal and really knuckle down with my work!

Because of the move I've barely had any time to be creative apart from the odd *AAH I'm supposed to be packing so I'm just going to sit here and make a bracelet quickly before it gets packed away..!* so was seriously excited about a photo shoot that had been in my diary for weeks. So, on Saturday afternoon myself and some good friends Natalie Miller, Oli Norfolk and Caroline Haines got together to shoot these beautiful photos! It was the creative fix I needed amongst the stresses of moving! What do you think?

More of mine here and you can find Nat's images here.

I have some exciting posts lined up for after we've settled in at our new place, including a yummy recipe my friend has given me permission to post. It's amazing, I promise! Until then though I may be rather quiet whilst we get everything sorted ♥

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 23 today!

AND - my books arrived yesterday afternoon, I'm so happy with them. The quality is fantastic, take a peek!

Perfect ♥

What have I been up to?

Well well well, I have been a busy little bee. This is just a flying visit so sorry if it seems a little rushed!
Soo, what have I been up to? Well! As well as putting together a rather large order for a client, I've created a little book full of my prints titled a rather obvious but fitting "What the Jackdaw Saw", I've also been featured in a gorgeous collaborative book curated by the 'Female Photographers of Etsy' (fPOE) team, called "Still - the art of living". Both books should arrive over the weekend so as soon as they get here I'll be updating with images. In the meantime, here's a little snippet from What the Jackdaw Saw - I ADORE the cover design!

Camping with the New Forest Ponies and my Agfa.

Last weekend we took a well deserved break away to the New forest on the South coast of England, camping! It was a tough decision but due to lack of space in the car I had to limit myself to  just one camera. I had a rummage around in my camera cupboard and pulled out a 1962 Agfa Silette-L that belonged to my late Grandfather. I'd never used it before so thought I'd give myself a challenge, plus the fridge door has been full up with expired film for over 3 years now so it was about time I actually used some of it! I only noticed once we'd got there that the light meter on top of the camera didn't actually work so there was a lot of guess work going on. However, settings-wise and without the use of said light meter I'm happy to say that all photos were at least exposed correctly! 

The combination of me getting confused over feet and metres on the distance dial along with my need to walk and shoot at the same time didn't exactly add to the aesthetics  in many of the photos as the shutter speed only goes up to 1/125th of a second, so most are out of focus. Anyway, here are some results from my first roll of film.

Running through fields.

This Saturday my baby sister and I spent the whole afternoon running through fields and through woodland taking hundreds of photographs. Here are just a few of the images we came away with. It's so lovely to shoot portraits again, it's been so long!

Yes, she's wearing the BEAUTIFUL leaf dress that a friend made me last year. 

♥

TUTORIAL - Decorated Memo Pegs

Got lots of note pages with important scribbles on? Drawings? Photos waiting to go into albums? Recipes waiting to go into books? Ribbons? Samples? Phone numbers? Need somewhere to keep them safe until they have a home? 

Yes? 

Then this super-simple tutorial is for you! 

For day 6 of 30 days of creativity I 'borrowed' some wooden pegs from the peg bag and gave them a little spruce up.

A photo of a photo of a photo.

The first day of my '30 days of creativity' was a tricky one. After working in the morning I had to run to the train station with a little hold-all filled with all my essentials and hopped on a train to Wareham, Dorset for a mini-break with my family. This meant that I had to pack light and I deliberately chose not to pack anything specifically to 'do', but gave myself the task of improvising for day one, two and three of the project to keep me thinking on my feet.

Fine, I thought - without giving a second thought as to just how much 'stuff' we were going to be doing in Dorset (I'd even been down there the weekend before so should have already known I'd need a plan what with all the 'stuff' we were busy filling the days with then, too)! The only chance we all had time to sit down was when we got back to the house in the evening to have dinner, and then passed out on the sofa for a bit until we were all so tired we had to go to bed!

I tried to do some drawing to begin with. I was sketching a cheeky looking pony with it's tongue poking out, using reference from a photograph I'd taken earlier in the day via my camera's LCD screen. Not ideal, I know but it was the best I could do!

Easter weekend - Sunshine, family and a beautiful tribute

I've been a little quiet on the blogging front recently. Things got a bit crazy here and we disappeared for a week to house-sit in the countryside but we're settled back in at home now after an incredibly hectic but beautiful Easter weekend! 

On Friday morning we went to the seaside. We were there well before 9AM to avoid the awful traffic that builds up during such lovely weather, the beach was almost empty apart from a few dog walkers! Even the group of loud less-than-lovely people with sand-throwing, swearing children and a ghetto-blaster (on full blast) who pitched up just feet in front of us (when the entire beach was available) weren't enough to spoil my day!

Saturday afternoon was spent with my wonderful Grandmother who made the most delicious veggie soup for lunch and syrup sponge pudding! She then presented me with an enormous plate of her famous Chocolate Crunch. Now, I don't expect anyone outside of the Knight family to have tried this delicacy, but I can assure you it is absolutely amazing. I'd love to post some pictures, but it's all gone! I suppose I could post a recipe, but I'm sworn to secrecy - I've only just got my hands on it myself.. maybe someday.. maybe.

Sunday morning was an early one. The entire day was to be dedicated to my beautiful Grandmother Pamela Richardson, who sadly passed away in 2005 after a long battle with cancer. Midge and I started the day walking up to the top of Kingley Vale, at 7AM. This is seriously early for me - especially for a Sunday! We took croissants and sat in the sunshine for a while until the rest of the family made it up the top of the hill. My siblings flew kites and we relaxed for a while until it was time for lunch at a local pub. We then walked home through the fields and spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sunshine. Here are some little snaps I took that day, the misty ones are early morning as you can probably tell!