[Love] TWIA Comments

I know in the next month or so the 2014 Wedding Industry Awards will be coming up. So here we have the 2013 Comments we received from our couples. The good thing about this....they're all anonymous. So whilst I know which of my amazing couples did vote for me - I do not actually know who said what.

Here is the amazing feedback I received.

[Personal] Temple Spa

Today I thought I would write kind of a personal blog post. I am not a girly girl in the slightest, being a tom-boy growing up, always generally in jeans and football tops, I never really bothered with make-up and all the other stuff. I was happy to keep my head down - and just get on with things. It was only when I got to college really that things started to change - and now I'm in dresses almost as much as I’m in jeans - but I still wouldn’t class myself as a girly girl.

Now most of you whom know me, know I’m a workaholic, but only a little bit, but it takes me a lot to switch off and be able to calm down, chill out and relax. All those who are self employed will definitely know how hard it is to switch off from work!

Last night my friend Amy, had invited me to her Temple Spa party, now I knew temple spa was about “pampering stuff” and I didn’t really know much else. I had this idea that the products that would be there, would be things that I wouldn’t really use, I’d not feel or see any benefit, and I’d just stick to my non-existing skin-care routine.

Now, when I think of the word [insert business] with party on the end. I think of things such as Ann Summers Parties, Bodyshop parties, pampered chef etc to name a few. This was a totally and utterly different experience.

Nikki, our temple spa consultant, told us all about the products, we got to try them, and apply them ourselves - meaning that we knew how they worked, and how a very little went a long-long way!

By the end of the night, and knowing how amazing my skin felt - I was converted, and purchased my favourite bits from the night - which I am waiting a delivery of and I cannot wait. (Not only that they get delivered direct to you instead of to the hostess) and I will do a couple of photographs for my journey from non-skin routine me - to my skin feels awesome me.

I will be hosting my own Temple Spa class on Monday 18th Feb 2013 if anyone would wish to come please just drop me a message or email to adele@bluelightsphotography.co.uk as spaces are limited.

If you are looking for something different to do for a girls night - or a hen night - then why not contact Nikki for your own temple spa class at http://www.templespa.com/nicolaswindle

And last but not least….I actually relaxed last night!

[Newborn] Harry

On 03.01.13 I got the chance to meet Laura & Martin's new little boy Harry. Born on 21st December 2012,  we scheduled their newborn shoot in as soon as we could after the festivities.

Harry's big brother Jack came along for the shoot too - then Harry was 13 days old - and just look at the cute scrumminess of them both!

I asked Laura & Martin if they would mind answering a few questions about their shoot - in the hope to help other mummies and daddies who are looking at having a Newborn Shoot with Blue Lights Photography.

What kind of look were you going for in your photographs?
We wanted some pictures of our newborn, with his big brother.

How was your experience during your session?
Fantastic. I would definitely recommend to friends.

What's one piece of advice you'd give to other parents having a session including their other children?
Consider taking along a toy or two to occupy your older children whilst your newborn has their individual shots.

Any tips on what to bring?
A few spare nappies and feeds to help settle them.

What were you most anxious, nervous or fearful about prior to your session, and what was the outcome?
I was a little nervous about our newborn not settling well for pictures. Adele was absolutely fantastic working with our children and knew how to reassure them and guide them into the poses. Our newborn settled straight away and didn't mind what so ever.

If you are looking to book a newborn photoshoot - then please remember you are best to book in before your little one arrives, to guarantee a space in the diary! x

To book please call Adele on 01226 872 491 or email adele@bluelightsphotography.co.uk

[Studio] Olly

This is from a studio session before Christmas. Here we have Olly! I'm photographing his Mummy's Wedding in May! :)

Dont forget I'm moving away from the white background photography! 

[Tutorial] Making a PDF in photoshop

Now, I work a lot of the time in Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Bridge. I do not like Lightroom but its just personal preference. This is how I make my PDF's. 

Now for those of  you who don't use Photoshop Bridge, it is similar to lightroom apparently, however its also not like it at all. This is where you can do your PDFs, and comes with Photoshop, and you don't have to pay extra for it! You can find your folder that your images are in, whether desktop, external drive, or any other drive - just by finding them like you would in "my computer"

In the folder I have the origoinal template, and then my template PSD files also. I do not save as JPEG at this point, as I will keep going back and making certain tweaks before I make my PDF.

Then I run a batch action in photoshop to flatten the files, and create JPEGs of all my templates into a seperate folder....

And here is where the PDF creation begins...

I've currently been working in the Essentials workspace, but now I'm going to change over to the Output...this is how to make the PDF. 

I select my files, I click Output, and it comes up with this screen. Perfect.

On the Right hand side of the screen, it has all the details which are relevent to making a PDF. Paper size, etc. (This is also good for making contact sheets too!)

This is the default in my Photoshop, so we are down as A4 paper size, at 300ppi, 2*2 cells, as this isnt actually what we want we can change it. We can change from A4 to A5 or A6 to make it smaller, and even change the ppi from 300 down to 72, however I find that 150 is generally a good size to use.

So this is the changes that I made, That I made the differences to the size of it, the ppi etc. And I also made sure that it was 1 per page. In this i made it 96ppi, but would have been better quality at 150ppi.

Save it how you want to, and where you want to save it....and voila. Your PDF brochure is complete.

Hope you found it helpful - comments are welcome!