Portraiture Scuffins Photography

May 24 2013

Engagement | Laura & Rhod

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I had a lovely engagement session with Laura & Rhod just a few weeks ago in Cheltenham, who are getting married in June at Hyde Barn, a gorgeous venue in the Cotswolds.

We were so lucky with the weather, an evening oasis of warm golden light, in an otherwise typically British grey, rainy week. Making the most of the beautiful but rare sunshine, we had a lot of fun chatting about their plans for the wedding day and enjoying the lovely walk around Pittville Park. Of course we weren’t the only ones making the most of the warm summer evening, we did have a a couple of tricky moments dodging cyclists and what felt like hundreds of joggers!

I love doing engagement sessions, there is absolutely no pressure, so we have all the time in the world to relax, have some fun and explore the area and create some great images.

Click here to find out more about fun, relaxed and creative portraiture sessions in Gloucestershire and to book a session.

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Oct 04 2011

Autumn Trees Portrait Shoot

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After a fun, beautiful morning exploring Westonbirt Arboretum, I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot with Helen amongst the autumnal trees. A couple of beautiful maples in particular caught my eye; they were lit up by the afternoon sun, and the leaves were casting a lovely golden glow.

So, in just 20mins and using just one lens, (the Nikkor 50mm f1.4) I took a couple of nice portraits of Helen in the forest. I’m pretty happy with the photos, and the short spontaneous shoot was a blast. Both of us had a lot of fun messing about with leaves or (attempting) to climb the trees! And Helen did a great job as a model, despite having been up since 5am!

I absolutely love taking photos of people, it’s so nice to be able to interact with your subject and discuss ideas with them. The whole process for photographing a person is so much more rewarding and inspiring than say, just a static object or landscape. Portrait photography is something I really want todo more.

I’d love to hear what you think about these photos, please leave a comment below or on my Facebook page. And if you’d like to see more of the photos taken at the beautiful Westonbirt Arboretum, please check out my Flickr page.

Finally, if you are local to the Gloucestershire area, you can also contact me to arrange a portrait photo shoot and discuss some ideas.…

Aug 30 2011

Family Portrait

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Today I took some outdoor group shots of family, as a kind of gift for Helen’s Grandparents, who are back over from Greece for a few weeks to visit. I think it had been a long time since the family had a full portrait together.

It started off pretty nerve wrecking with cloudy skies, a hint of rain and lots of people squinting. But once I got into it a bit, I enjoyed it a lot, which I knew would. l really really enjoy taking photos of people. You actually get to see the effect of you photos on a person, and their reactions right there in front of you. Making people smile with your images can’t help but make you smile too.

I took all variations of couples, individual families, all the grandkids etc as well as the big group photo above. It was a whole lot of fun, but certainly a learning experience. I wasn’t prepared for how quickly the fundamentals of photography leave your brain when you are under a bit of pressure! I know what I’ll change next time to make things go a whole lot smoother.

Find somewhere with consistent lighting. Having to wait for clouds to move into position was a real pain. It also made getting consistent exposure difficult.

Get some sandbags for my light stands so they don’t fall over in the wind!

The background should just melt away behind the subject, so they take centre stage. I was so stupid I forgot to look out for this, so some of the couples shots have got awful messy backgrounds. I think it was just nerves that made me forget this time. But I know for next time to look out for this before even taking a shot.

Oh, and next time I should concentrate on making sure I smile in the photo too!

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Jul 04 2011

Helen In The Forest

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I had a fun little shoot today with Helen in the beautiful Forest Of Dean, which is a few miles away from my home. There wasn’t really a lot of planning involved, it was just a spontaneous idea and we went with it. Helen did really well considering she has never done anything like this before. Im pretty happy with the results, but just looking back at the images a few hours later; I can already identify what I can improve on. Things like posing, and hand/finger positioning etc are ones to look out for next time.

Today’s shoot was a lot of fun though. I started off using the Nikkor 50mm f1.4 and gold reflector, but as the clouds came in, I started with the speedlights and moved to the Nikkor 105mm f2.8 VR.

Expect to see a few more shoots like this over the next few weeks as I practice doing more portraits!

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