The story is now a live stage show and Judith has another book recently published, called “My Henry” …

Here are a couple of the shots from the session. Check out the Autumn issues of Baby Surrey, Baby London and Baby Hampshire for an interview with Judith.

Less than two hours later, I met him at the station and after a quick coffee we rattled of some shots and he was back on the train into London some 90 minutes later. A little bit of a whirlwind, and really not how I normally like to do things!

One thing he mentioned to me was the fact that he was a writer, and had recently written a play, which was then adapted for screen … some story about a King with a speech impediment … yeah … starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter.

No lie, his words to me were, “I have no idea if it will do well though …”

Yes, my lovely readers, my subject that day was no less than the astoundingly talented screen writer David Seidler, winner of the 2011 BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for The King’s Speech.

At the time I thought it would be great to go see the movie at some point, but obviously had no idea just how amazing it would be. I finally got around to it yesterday afternoon (the perk of working for yourself!) and was just utterly blown away by it’s tremendous power, beauty and eloquence.

Below are a few of the images I took for David (one of which you can see on his profile on the Internet Movie DataBase – www.imdb.com ).

A thoroughly lovely gentleman, and a pleasure to work with.

Rachel has just launched a new website, has been writing songs for years and has been singing forever. And she’s rather fantastic.

I have seen her perform live many times (and almost became her official stalker, so taken was I with the music!) and we soon became good friends & running partners – oh, and I also wrote a song for her to sing – currently unreleased though!

So, a few weeks back we got together for a shoot to produce some images for her new website and promotional materials. The first session was down in Brighton, Rachel’s home town. The brief was pretty open, but the requirement was to produce a number of different looks which could be used for promotional purposes.

We had a second mini-session in her parents’ very cold garden, as the light faded fast, one November afternoon – this was for something a little more “rock chick stereotype”.

I am listening to a few of her tracks as I write this post and I feel so proud & honoured to have been a part of this future star’s career launch. I just hope she keeps me as her photographer when she goes global !

To the images then … I’m not too proud to admit that this first one was a complete fluke. I had half-set the pose, the composition was right and I was just checking the off-camera flash, to the left of the frame. At this moment Rachel just looked down to sort her hair and in that split second I took a test shot. This was my (and her) favourite shot from the day !

This next one was a must – I wanted to incorporate something from Brighton, and what could be more iconic that the famous pier sign – I was inspired to take this image by a recent Vogue shoot. Also, whilst “Moody Rachel” works really well, I also wanted to make sure that “Happy Rachel” was part of the portfolio – she has a great smile so Sam & I shouting random rude things did the trick! (No, we couldn’t possibly divulge the details.)

The final image i’d like to show is from the garden shoot – completely different styling & pure rock chick. I grabbed one of her monitor speakers from the garage, popped it on the grass and asked her to ‘deconstruct’ a little – gone were the nerves, gone was the uncertainty of the first hour from our first shoot. This is the beautiful, confident, sexy Rachel Golding – Singer, Songwriter, Performer .. and she’s gonna be big.

Rachel’s website is : www.rachelgolding.co.uk
For her version of our shoots, go see her blog : http://rachelgolding.co.uk/blog/
To listen to some of her music : http://rachelgolding.co.uk/the-music/ (Check out “Ain’t Me”)
And PLEASE go buy Like What you See on iTunes – it’s only 79p !

But what do you do when your subject is adamant that she wants images against a white background because she herself is convinced that it’s best like this for social media purposes ?? Well, you do it her way …. first … and then, you do it the proper way, and show her the results … and wait for the reaction.

In this case, the reaction was, “Put that white background away and delete all those photos. We’ll do it your way!”

Now, I’m not telling this story to sound smug, but to explain that sometimes you need to actually see something ‘in the flesh’ so to speak, to realise that there is an alternative to what you thought. As a photographer, I get these little creative visions sometimes, and it’s the relationship I have with my subjects that allows me to gain a good enough level of trust so I can try something different for them – and produce pleasing results.

So, my new brief with Karen was no longer a white background, but a darker, warmer & uncluttered background which would make her face stand out well in small images which will be used for social media – email, facebook, twitter etc She also needed shots with her facing a certain direction, hence the “to the left” & “to the right” pair of images too.

We were somewhat challenged by the cold & dark clouds which threatened rain at any moment, but managed to get a lovely set of images that really allowed Karen’s personality to shine through. This is most important when it comes to these types of images – one cannot simply snap away and take a nice picture; it needs to be engaging!

Here, then, is the new Karen !

We had the most amazing headshot session, mainly in Gunnersbury Park. I used to go to school just around the corner from here, so it was a trip down memory lane for me. It was a very sunny day, and I usually like to be able to have far more control over my headshot lighting. However, I was up for the challenge. Elizabeth’s brief was for some natural shots in a place where she feels she’d be at her best – namely out in the open. Elizabeth runs a very successful life coaching company called Amovita and so the images needed to portray happiness and positivity.

She was so easy to photograph and made my job positively simple. I think we managed the brief, so here are my faves from the session:

So, on Sunday, eight of us (two models, three stylists, two assistants and I) trundled along to a photography studio in Surrey for the shoot.

This was the first time for me shooting in a studio on commission, and so I was pretty nervous at the thought.

Studio photography is a whole different monster to my usual style of naturally lit wedding and family photography, and whilst I’d had a little play earlier in the week, nothing could have prepared me for Sunday’s shoot.

The great thing about Fashion Photography is that you can pretty much do what you want and nobody can tell you that it’s wrong – it’s all about your own interpretation, and if people like it I guess that’s great!

Anyhow, on to the shoot. The girls from Capella had spent some time thinking up some hairstyles and outfits for our lovely models, and so the rest was down to me. I’d spent some time of my own thinking about how I wanted to approach the day and just went with it, to see what happened.

My faves from the shoot are here:

It’s always good to stretch the boundaries and experiment with new things. It’s what keeps life interesting, and what keeps you moving and evolving – very important to keep the boredom at bay! I wanted to try something a little different, with lighting and posing, so we just had a good old play.

Here are the best of today’s session.

Like many girls I meet, Kerrie was very nervous about having her photograph taken – certain photo frames around the house depict her quite literally hiding her face behind someone else in the shot! There’s nowhere to hide when you are the only person in front of the camera though, so after feeding her some of my home-made banana bread we got to work …

No idea why on earth she hides though, looking as lovely as this:

27 years ago, I remember standing in front of the TV with my little tape recorder and recording various songs from Top Of The Pops .. things like “What’s the Matter You, Hey!” and the Gumbay Dance Band with “Seven Tears are Flowing to the River ...” and all that jazz … hey, come on, it WAS 27 years ago!

Well, one band had a hit in 1982 which was called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight“. To save you struggling for the name, it was Tight Fit! I am not too proud to admit that i LOVED that song when it came out – Africa & Lions were a real attraction to me as a young kid.

Imagine my complete and utter “gobsmackedness” when, through the power of the Internet, one of the original Tight Fit members found my website during her search for a photographer. It seems that they are have a little get together again and doing a number of gigs around the country over the next few months. Denise told me that they needed a photographer who would give them something that was a cross between lifestyle & commercial and could I help!

Needless to say, I jumped at the chance and we arranged the shoot for last Monday – unfortunately, it happened to be the worst day of weather for about a week and absolutely tipped it down all day long – it was relentless. So, our options were limited and we ended up having to do the whole shoot in an underground car park, of all places.

So, without further ado, here is what we came up with. I was stood in the pouring rain, with an umbrella over me, whilst the girls and boys did their funky stuff in the cover of the car park.

You have to admit, almost 30 years on, they all look fantastic!!!

Denise, Steve & Julie – the original line-up:

All in all, it was a tough shoot, in terms of location and weather, but i think we managed nicely! We were all happy with the end result and that’s what counts!