….. and then there’s Teri.

I met Teri for the very first time at a Miss West Lothian photo opportunity being staged at the, then, relatively new Debenhams store in Livingston. She couldn’t have been more than 15 years old at that time but, with strong features, fathomless eyes and a natural, olive–oil skin which she inherited from her Italian forebears, she was already a strikingly good looking girl. Add to that heady mix a slightly shy but respectful temperament, and an obvious attentiveness to the job in hand (modelling & catwalking a series of new ranges from Debenhams affiliated designer) and the promise was clearly present.

Fast forward a year, and that slight girl has blossomed; her face has matured from ‘cute’ to ‘handsome’ and her figure has realised the classic lines of a healthy, well proportioned young woman.

We seemed to happen upon each other at yet another Miss West Lothian event: the competition final held in December last year, though on this occasion Teri wasn’t competing, but was there to support the aspirations of a friend. She told me that she’d only just heard that Nicola and I had launched our First Step Models project, and she wanted to join us.

So, skipping forward a month, Teri and her chaperone came along to the studio where Nicola did her usual – transformational – make-up, before we did the shoot.
A few examples from the shoot are appended to this post, but they do little to illustrate just how comfortable Teri now was in front of the lens. On our first meeting, last year, I was presented with a giggly, unsure and somewhat uncoordinated girl who obviously wanted to model, but wasn’t really au fait with what the camera was looking for. On this occasion I was presented with a young woman who – though she struggled a little at first – soon found her confidence and was willing to push the envelope a little.

For me, a mark of how well (or not) a shoot turns out, can be measured by the parents remarks and, on this occasion, Teri’s Mum PM’d me to thank me for having given her daughter a good experience of modelling and, as a bonus, a few good snaps to publish on her Facebook page.

I just hope that First Step Models will provide Teri and the other young girls we have in our group with a little lift into the world of modelling. If you’re a photographer and you’d like to shoot with Teri, or if you think this pretty young lady she has the ‘look’ you think could best showcase your products, the please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Teri:

Debenhams Debs

It was my great pleasure, recently, to work with some of the gorgeous girls currently vieing for a place in the final of the Miss West Lothian competition.

The girls gathered at Debenhams in Livingston to show some of the stores designer brands - and they did so very eloquently with two runway shows in front of a sizeable audience of interested shoppers.

The Miss West Lothian Competition is now enjoying it's 15th year and this years hugely anticipated finals will be held at 'The Club' in Broxburn on Wednesday 2nd December and I'm looking forward to adding some more pictures of West Lothians finest looking girls to my growing collection.

The walking girls:

Fasten your belts for the Miss West Lothian competition

The Miss West Lothian competition is swinging into top gear now as the competition’s Guru, Eddie Anderson gets ready to wield the axe and cut the number of entrants going through to the final in December to just 30 of the current 50 remaining girls.
It looks, to me, like an impossible task though: the ‘gorgeous-ity’ factor among this years entrants is just soooo high that I, personally, would have sleepless nights trying to whittle down the number of girls who will continue that journey to the final by a swingeing 2/5ths.

I was fortunate to be named the official photographer for the competition and, as such, have come to know a few of the girls; most especially those who took up Eddie’s offer of appearing in the runway shows he has organised on their behalf this year. I also had the great pleasure of producing portrait shots of the entrants, and these are currently hanging in Debenham’s Store in the Almondvale Centre. So, although I have to say that I’m going to be really sorry to see the current group down-sized to just 30 contestants, I’m extremely confident that those girls whose pictures are posted back on the Miss West Lothian gallery on Monday morning will offer a fantastic representation of many beautiful girls we have here in West Lothian.
One of that number will go on to be crowned Miss West Lothian on 2nd December at ‘The Club', Broxburn, but I’m really glad it’s not me who has to pick one from such a fantastic array of girls; it’ll be a bit like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Good luck to them all.

Pictures from the recent Miss West Lothian Workshop

The Wedding Box - Uncovered

The lid was well and truly lifted on “The Wedding Box” at their Wedding Fayre held at Centrex Conference Centre on Sunday 6th September when an estimated 260 people turned out to peruse the marvellous array of products and services being offered by some 20 independent providers in the main market area.

Visitors to this exclusive, ‘invitation only’ event were also treated to a unique, first viewing of an eye-catching collection of Haute Couture bridal gowns now being provided by Ritz n’ Glitz’ – the MidCalder based outlet of top wedding accessory designer, Allyson Murray. These exquisite creations were beautifully ‘cat-walked’ in the Centrex arena by some of West Lothian’s most dazzling models, many of whom are poised to participate in this years Miss West Lothian Competition.

Reigning Miss West Lothian and ‘Britains Next Top Model’ finalist, Ashley Brown, also made a glamorous return to the catwalk to showcase some of Allyson’s elegant bridal gowns, along with a collection of luxurious, limited edition lingerie provided by top Scottish fashion boutique, Boudiche.

The highlight of the day took place at 4pm when Ashley drew the winner of the days top prize: a medley of requisite, wedding day services being provided by members of the ‘Wedding Box’ collection of companies with a combined value of £3,000.

That prize was presented by Ashley to Bathgate based ‘Bride-to-be’ Emma Robertson who is preparing to walk down the Isle of St. Michaels Church, Linlithgow in June , 2011. The ever-present stresses of organising her ‘special day’ might now be made a little easier – and a good deal less financially burdening – following the collection of her prize.

Allyson Murray who, with the help of all the other wedding day service providers, including myself, pulled the day together said: “While I felt that, overall, the day was a great success, we are aware that we have a few areas where we need to improve. But we are convinced that the associate companies who comprise the ‘Wedding Box’ are now ready to establish themselves as one of the top Wedding Fayre hosts in West Lothian, providing not only a comprehensive and diverse choice of quality products and services but, as a group of experienced wedding service providers, we can also offer a wealth of help and advice which every soon-to-be-bride will be glad to take advantage of.

“The fact that we had attracted the participation of major retailers such as Debenhams and Boudiche helped make the September Fayre an overall success, and we’re now looking forward to pressing ahead with a regular programme of events based on this winning formula.”

Photographs from the event featuring curent Miss West Lothian & Britains Next Top Model finalist, Ashley Brown; up and coming West Lothian Model, Amanda Tinning and other girls who starred on the day:

... of Mary and Motorcycles

Local girl, Mary, graced the studio a couple of days back and it was a real pleasure to work with her. Mary brought good looks and a terrific atmosphere to proceedings with her great sense of humour, bright smile and contagious laugh. The session lasted just over three hours but felt more like thirty minutes.

A mum of two, Mary is also a VERY keen motorcyclist who espouses the virtues of Suzuki motorcycles with as much loyal conviction as I do with Canon camera’s. Each to his own I suppose but, at my age, I prefer the equipment I use to be very fast, while I stay firmly rooted to the spot!

Mary:

A Circuitous Process

It seems that all I’ve been doing over the last week is processing Raw files and my heads rattling with the shrapnel of reordered bits n’ bytes.

I shot my wedding last Saturday at Howgate Church. It was a lovely service, held in a comfortable and cosy old church set just off the main street. Unfortunately, while the day stayed dry it was also pretty cold, and there wasn’t much in the way of grounds in any case, so most of the traditional family & group shots were taken inside where the poor autumnal light forced me to compensate with flash. Fortunately, my daughter-in-law and occasional MUA, Joanne was there with me. I’d armed her with my 400d set on full auto and she got some excellent candid pics with it. I’d always recommend a second shooter at a wedding; the very fact that Jo has a different style from me, along with the fact that she has a woman’s eye for wedding detail, means that the final crop of files we got offered good coverage of the day.

By the time we’d worked through the hurriedly compiled tick-list of family members, the Bride wasn’t up for going back outside for long – poor thing was shivering in her wedding frock. We got a few shots outside before returning indoors again for a Bride & Groom set.

When the guests filed off to the reception hall for the wedding breakfast, Jo left for home and I took a break to check my efilm and battery levels. Both the 400D & 5D seem to run on and on forever with a double cell pack in their respective grips, but shooting in Raw does require a few changes of efilm.

I stayed for the cutting of the cake and then left for home where I down-loaded the cards and burned the files to DVD. Then I had to put the wedding out of mind and get on with processing the final few files from the Debenhams shoot.

I finally delivered these to the store on Tuesday and took receipt of my fee. I’d printed 10 pictures and enclosed a dvd with 70 high res. files. I’d also posted a copy of the DVD to the P.R. company.

The rest of last week was then spent processing the wedding portfolio. I eventually got 110 images posted to a private flickr folder and invited the bride and groom to view them. I said I’d leave them up there until they had made their choice. Flickr allows you to monitor the sets, and this one has been viewed 135 times since Thursday.

Tomorrow I’m having coffee with my mate – Fashion Guru, Tom Thomson. He’s just opened a new site dedicated to his fashion work and I imagine that’ll draw a lot of attention. You can view it here, and there’s also a click-through on my links list.

Coffee with Tom is at 2pm, and then I have a family coming through from Edinburgh for a portrait session at 5pm.

I’m still not overly busy but now, in my fourth month of operation, I am beginning to get a little more custom and I’m still positive about the future. However, I don’t think we’ve felt the full impact of the financial crises yet, and I think that is going to hit spending on luxury items like restaurants, holidays and photography first and foremost. So, if I can manage to get through the next year without going under, then I think I’ll do just fine.

Debenhams Pictures:

Debenhams

It's Saturday already! Where does the time go.

I had a pretty relaxed week of things until the Debenhams opening. Since then, I've been processing file after file and now have a crop of 78 useable pics which I'm busy converting from Canon Raw (.cr2) to .TIFF and, finally, to .JPG; it's a mind numbing task at any time, but made a little more difficult by the store lighting; the scattering of low wattage, fluorescent and LV tungsten around the store meant that the colour temperature kept changing - and I'm loathe to use Auto White Balance in those circumstances. I began by shooting with a fluorescent setting, but it worked out a little purple, so I changed to Flash (which I was using in any case for fill - and tweaked the files in processing from Raw.

Before going on though, I should mention that I had the real pleasure of meeting sisters Shona and Sarah-Jane at the Nasmyth Studio on Wednesday evening; two astonishingly beautiful girls, there to do a shoot with West Lothian's top fashion Tog, Tom Thomson. The girls were happy for me to hang around during the shoot, and I came in handy as tea-maker. Tom also employed me in my usual role as 'Tripod'. It was a nice, relaxed shoot (as ever with Tom) and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the results.

So, to Thursday at Debenhams. I got there early enough to take a few test shots - the manequins apparently having no objection to me using them as subjects (they're great models, but very poor at following direction!) As I said, the lighting was all over the place, but I did eventually settle for 'flash' as a WB setting and, generally, it worked pretty well.

I was on site from 7.45am till 1.30pm and the time seemed to fly. In the early stages, I was directed by Debenhams own PR people to capture pictures of the staff (I stopped two escalators and line all 110 of them up there) and the management. I then got some formal pictures of the management team, and some candid shots of the various entertainers who were there to provide entertainment.

This amazingly well appointed and richly furnished store was officially opened by Miss West Lothian, Jane Gray. Following the official cutting of the ribbon, I had the opportunity to walk around the fashion / perfumery sections of the store to take some pictures of Jane with the staff.

While there, I also met a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while including West Lothian's most famous journalist and PR man, Eddie Anderson who, as well as running the Miss West Lothian competition from its inception, is also working with West Lothian Council in keeping the community informed of all things worth knowing through the WLC Website.

I still don't have lowres pics to post, but should have some by the end of the weekend.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Carol Gall, a lovely girl who was a colleague of mine at Livingston FC. She's set up her own Bridal Couture business and we're going to arrange to meet for a catch-up chat once she returns from holiday at the end of next week.

Today I have to prepare for a wedding I've had in the diary for a few months now; a young couple from Howgate who are to be married in the local church. Right now the weather looks awful, but it has stopped raining, and the forecast isn't too bad. Fingers and toes are crossed.

Time goes bye

It's almost a week since I last blogged, and I can just sense the increased levels of tense excitement building as my wordless hours wear on.

Well, ne'er mind. Here now!

Last Friday night was spent with a good friend at his caravan which is currently sited at Coldingham. Getting there was torturous: blustery winds whipped heavy rain into a crescendo which jostled the car all the way from Edinburgh to the Borders.

We got the gear in and then settled down to enjoy a glass of wine (or two); chatting until we retired to our respective beds.

Despite the gloomy conditions of the previous evening, the weather decided to follow the weather forecasters scripts for a change; the sky was deep, deep blue, dobbed only by the very occasional fluffy wee cloud which wandered over the otherwise clear vista.


We did a circuitous walk of just about 3 miles, but that took us almost four hours, with both of us stopping on the beach at Coldingham and at the harbour in St. Abbs. Picture opportunities materialised with every few paces, so a lot of time was spent setting up the tripod and getting the right capture.


I've been to Eyemouth before, and I really have to keep the promise I made then to get around that area of the coast. The problem is that the scenery around there can be so breathtaking that you can't help but spend hours in the same location.

Having harvested all we could of the tiny little strip of coast that we could cover in the time we'd given ourselves we returned to West Lothian. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Laurel & Hardy movies with my Grandson Duncan - he's only just discovered the warm comic magic of 'The Boys' - while my Granddaughter Jodie chummed Grandma on a shopping expedition.

I had breakfast with the kids on Sunday morning, but had to leave early to meet my fellow photographer Tom Thomson at the Studio for a pre-arranged bridal shoot on behalf of 'Glitterati', a bridal gown design and hire company run by Moira and Bill Withers.


This wasn't my shoot, but Tom had offered me the opportunity to join him and indulge my thirst for more portfolio shots. In exchange, I hosted the group and waived the studio fee for the shoot - which lasted from 10am till 6pm.


I had a great time shooting the gorgeous Charlie, the beautiful Joyce and the youthful (and very professional) Zoe in a selection of startlingly wondrous gowns. But this was one of those very rare occasions when the camera's myopic, 2-dimensional eye just fails to do justice to the exquisite scene presented to it. The girls were transformed into goddesses of classic Greek magnitude when enveloped in these astounding examples of bridal couture; their own natural loveliness enhanced by the shape, colour and finest details of these 'art-piece' gowns.


I took so many pictures, but I haven't had time even to appraise them yet, much less process the raw files, but I will post a selection as soon as I do.


Today, I have to process some of the pictures I took during a commission for the McAdam family and, tomorrow, I'm going to the opening of the new Debenhams store; they have commissioned me to document the staffs' first day, so I have agreed to be there at 7.30am and get some formal staff pictures before going on to collect some more candid shots of both the opening, and the first few hours of the day.