Cousins & Cats!

I went to spend the morning with my cousin and her twin daughters this morning, to take some photos while I was there. I thought I'd try and take some bridesmaid themed ones, to try and build up a wedding-themed portfolio until I actually do a wedding. One of the girls finds it difficult to smile in a relaxed way, and her smile looks a bit like a grimace - so it was difficult trying to get a nice one of them together.
I took some photos of 2 of their 3 cats as well (the other cat was hiding behind the net curtain and I didn't want to disturb him!)
We then went to the park, and I took a few photos there as well :)

Danni & Jenna

Star

Tufty

At the park

The Giving Machine

I just thought I'd write a little post about the Giving Machine, to try and promote it :)

Basically, the Giving Machine is a website that donates a percentage of what you buy online to charities of your choosing. There are loads and loads of retailers signed up to the Giving Machine, and as long as you buy from the retailers' websites after following the link from the Giving Machine to their site, a percentage of what you pay will go to charity.

For example, if I were to buy something from Amazon, I could follow the link from the Giving Machine's website to the Amazon website, then do the normal procedure to pay, then whatever percentage Amazon have agreed to pay to charity, will get donated. I have already chosen my charity to donate to, my local branch of the Riding for the Disabled Association, and so the donation will go there, at no extra cost to me.

There are loads of companies on there, including Ebay, New Look, Miss Selfridge, iTunes, the Apple Store, and loads more - even some travel & holiday companies. I think it's definitely worth checking out to support your charity :)

http://www.thegivingmachine.co.uk

Sunset at Sea

This evening I went to Blackwater Sailing Club in the hope of taking some shots of the sunset - unfortunately, the sun was hiding behind clouds, but I got some moody sky photos instead :) Here's one I've edited:

I've also been doing some wedding photo editing at work experience lately, which I haven't been doing previously as I've been doing the studio photo edits. The wedding photo editing is much more fun in that I get to think up lots of different compositions and combine photos in different ways so it looks how it could be presented for an album. I'd like to do more of them - but I'd prefer to be doing it with my own photos!

I also recently bought a dress for a photo shoot I'm planning on doing at the beach - I was going to put the photo from their website up to show it, but they don't have it in stock anymore :( but I'll put photos up after I've done the shoot! It's from New Look, a navy drop hem, strapless dress and I've fallen in love with it - I bought it for the shoot but it just about fits me (it's a size 10 and I'm more of a size 12) so I'm hoping I can make use of it at some point myself! It's also pretty long on me - it just reaches the floor without trailing when I'm in 5 inch heels, but I am very short, so hopefully it will be fine for my model :)

EDIT: I found a picture of the dress, so I thought I'd just tag it on the end here:

Photo shoots

So it's nearly the end of summer (if you can call that a summer... I don't think you can to be honest!) and... I haven't done anywhere near as much as I'd have liked to. I have been very busy, yes, but there are still lots of things I haven't had time for in amongst everything else I'm doing.

I've been working at Tesco, but that's only 7 and 1/2 hours a week, and I barely do any overtime anymore. So I can't really blame not getting things done on that. I did go through a month or two of doing lots and lots of overtime, so I can understand not getting things done then, but the last couple of months, none really.
I've been doing work experience at Ph2o photography studio. I've been doing this 2-3 days a week, and although it looks good on paper that I'm doing experience at a photography studio, I'm not actually taking any photos, and so not expanding my portfolio in terms of taking the photos, only editing and preparing for clients.

And somehow, I've just been busy the other days of the week, at a family BBQ or at the Olympics or my birthday, visiting my brother or my boyfriend's family, things like that. So although I've managed to take photos at events and such, I haven't been able to do fashion-related photography, which I'd like to keep going with so I'm set for going back to uni at the end of September.

I'd aimed to do so many shoots this summer, I'd written a list of models and make-up artists I'd like to work with over summer, and concepts I'd like to try, and somehow, none have happened! I did a couple of lingerie/beauty shoots right at the beginning of summer, which I posted on here, but since then, I haven't organised a thing.

I'm trying to get back into it now, I've contacted a couple of models asking if they'd like to shoot, and I'll just have to make time. I really don't want to waste the time I've got now, when I'll have a lot less when I get back to uni.

Since I don't like posting without an image, I just thought I'd tag this photo on the end - I took this photo of the droplets on my window, but it looked very dull and grey, so I thought I'd liven it up with some rainbow colours :)  - It also shows what summer has been like here!

Birthday & London Olympics 2012

Yesterday was my 19th birthday, which passed pretty uneventfully - I didn't really do anything, just went out for a meal and to the cinema with my boyfriend. I much preferred that than going out clubbing - I find it's something you really have to be in the mood for, and I'm not in that mood particularly often. I couldn't have gone out even if I wanted to - it was a Tuesday, which means town would be deserted, but more importantly, I had to be up early this morning to go to the Olympics!

The Olympics was pretty cool - we (my parents, boyfriend and I) went to see the athletics this morning. We had really good seats, 8 rows from the front, so we could see loads! We got to see Mo Farah who's become pretty well supported since winning his gold medal a few days ago for Team GB. There were also a few other Team GB athletes we got to see. We saw some running (5000m, 800m, 100m), pole vaults, hammer, shot put and long jump.. so it was quite a range of events.

Team GB are currently on 22 golds, with a grand total of 48 medals. We're 3rd on the medals table, behind China and USA - which I think is pretty good considering the number of people in GB compared to the number of people in China or the US. Go us!

In the stadium

#16 - what an unfortunate surname!!

Mo Farah

I don't know who this guy is representing! But he came near my camera haha :)

Japanese athlete

Tired already? Still have to do the long jump yet!

Blimp!

Mascot!

Pretty flowers :)

Lots of pretty flowers

Engagement photos

So I took these photos a long time ago, but I needed to edit them and make sure the couple were okay with me putting them online, but now I can put them up :) The photos are for Elizabeth and Dean's engagement. We went to a local park and wandered round the gardens, finding different backdrops etc for the photos. I hope they like them!