Family Portraits

I am always overjoyed when asked to do a family portrait session, whether it be indoors studio type work, or outdoors and informal shots.  I always feel privileged that the family are trusting me to capture this point in their lives, and to create a visual reminder that will last a lifetime.  Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of meeting several families for such portrait sessions, all have been up for anything, and some have had ideas of what they would like to achieve and others have just gone with the flow and allowed themselves to be guided by me.

Children are always up for fun and tend to be a lot less inhibited than the older family members, but I hope that I put people at ease so they all relax, this produces the best images.

We are very lucky in Milton Keynes that we have some stunning parklands and old stately homes that can be used as backdrops for outdoor portraits when the British Weather allows!

Some of the images I have captured are shown below, some I cannot show yet as they are Christmas Presents for family and I don't want to ruin the surprise :)

 Mother and Daughter

Peek-a-boo

 

 such a cheeky grin :)

a lovely family

 a lot of laughs

covering granddad in needles

 

 

among the leaves

happy girl

perspective among the trees

say bye bye

 fun with leaves

the whole family including their beloved VW Camper Van

Just the Kids

time for lunch

all say Cheese

had enough of smiling now :)

ahh there we go again

 happy chap

dreams of driving

 

This next pair missed out on having any formal Prom Photos done as there was no photographer at their venue, so their parents booked them to have a photo shoot in their prom outfits :)

 

 In the Meadow

relaxing

 taking a rest

trying not to smile :)

 

 

Hope you have all enjoyed viewing some of the images, for more examples of my Portrait images, Wedding Photography and Landscapes amongst other things, visit my website Eternity Images

 

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and lets hope 2014 is a happy, healthy and prosperous one for us all.

Kind regards Mark

Otters and Red Fox ! What a day to be out with the camera .

It's been a while since i have put fingers to the keyboard , but i needed to share these images that i was lucky to capture last Friday .
I went with a good friend of mine on one of his wildlife workshops . This was at the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey . The centre is open to the public at weekends and bank holidays . However , if you have a few people going , you are able to have the place to yourself , with a guide to take you around . The guide will also encourage the various animals to pose for the camera . So much so , that the Female Red Fox came very close to me . I made a squeek noise with my mouth and she came over and stuck her tongue in my ear !!! That sure made my day .

We were lucky enough to photograph the following on the day . Red Squirrel's , Red Fox , both male and female , Otters , Red Deer (which sadly got spooked by someone in the group , and wouldn't come back to pose for the cameras) , Field Mouse, Polecats, Stoats , Badgers , a gorgeous Female Hedgehog and a very well camouflaged Scottish Wild Cat . The wild cat really didn't want to play for the camera's , so she was left alone to hide amongst the undergrowth .

Our group consisted of nine photographers . With cameras ranging from Lumix , Canon EOS 1D's and various Nikons . This was interesting to see how the various cameras coped with situations . The Canon's certainly have better servo auto focus and cope better with a subject coming at speed towards the camera . Where , Nikon show less noise when the ISO has been cranked right up . I was shooting at 3200 ISO on a few of the images .

The weather was fairly kind to us . It was overcast for most of the day , which made for lovely light . There was a short sharp rain shower . But as i was laying on the ground when it rained , i decided to stay there , get wet and carry on taking great photos of the Fox's .

The facilities at the centre are fantastic . A lovely log fire to keep the main room warm , good tea and coffee to warm us up when coming in from the cold . Plus the sandwiches were freshly made and very tasty !! You can also use the projector screen in the main room if you want to do a bit of classroom work before you take any photos . The staff were fantastic . Nothing was any trouble for them . So as i said a great day out , highly recommended , even if you just go at weekends or bank holiday. You will still stand a good chance of getting some cracking photos .

As i had a wedding and another evening event on the Saturday , i have not had time to process all the images . So there are some Fox and Otter photos to wet your taste buds . I will try and get some of the other images done in the next week or so and post them up .

You will find more of my wildlife and landscape images on my face book page here . Or if you would like to have a look at my wedding , portrait and event work you can look here .

Hope you enjoy the photos . Please pop back over the coming days , as i will be posting more images as i get round to working on them .

Some work from the last few weeks

Well , Christmas is well and truely behind us , but i wanted to tell you about a couple of small photographic related gifts that i received .

As i am often out with my camera during the cold days of winter , i always find using big clumsy gloves a pain , as i can't use any of the controls on the camera or lenses . I find that i am forever taking off gloves and putting them back on again , which is a real pain .
My mum asked me what she could get me for Christmas and , a pair of gloves for use with a camera was on my wish list . Come 25th December , i opened my parcel from mum and i was delighted to find a pair of Lowepro photo gloves . These are quite thin with rubber bobbles on the palms and fingers . They also allow the thumb and forefinger on each hand to slip out of the glove at the tip , with velcro on the fingers of the glove to keep the material out of the way . They are made of Lycra , with DuPont , for whicking sweat away from your skin .
I have been using them almost daily since i got them and have found them to be brilliant !!!! For a thin glove , they are really warm and allow you to still get to all the controls on the camera body and lenses .
The strange thing is i haven't been able to find them for sale in the UK . Mine came from Hong Kong , via Ebay. So if you don't mind waiting a little longer for them to arrive , i would highly reccomend investing in a pair . Mine came from Here .

The second gift was from a friend . They know that i like to be out taking images of wildlife and my two dogs in all weathers . So this gift of a waterproof mat to lay on was well received !! You can find the details of this here . Again , this has been put to good use during the recent snow that we have had . I am 6' 2" and i can lay on this and not get wet or cold from the ground . It rolls up and has a couple of clips to attatch to your camera bag , or even your belt .

Here are a couple of images taken using the mat and gloves , during the cold wintery weather that Britain has had .

Hope you enjoyed my blog and photos as well . If you want to see more of my work , or more of what i offer . Please visit my website , here .

Regards Mark.