Portraits
Portrait work for an Independent Celebrant Martin John Nicholls. New website coming soon. http://www.lifetimes.co.uk
Martin is a really nice guy and i would certainly recommend him should you need his services.
Greeting cards.
My new greeting cards are now available at ; Mena Lydia bespoke jewellery and gallery (7 Jesu Street, Ottery-St-Mary, Devon, EX11 1EU) now! Lots of other cool stuff there too so go check it out and obviously buy a card while you are there Will take more professional pics of the cards soon but couldn’t wait to show you all
My Pics on Website!
Massively excited about the new website for http://www.bumbleandbee.co.uk/ using some of my pics!
Award winning Honey and Lavender Scones
I thoroughly recommend a visit to Bumble and Bee in the Manor gardens for an award winning cream tea!
Shelly Court Holiday Flat
Can be found on http://www.exmouthholidays.co.uk soon
Chris & Sarah
A friends recent wedding.
I’m back!
Well it has been a while since i added a new pic so here we go, a new holiday home photo or two for you all. hope you like it. 🙂
Luxury 3 bedroom, 6 person summer rental home only 4 minutes from the sea. Sea view from end of driveway with fields only 2 minutes away. A real taste of the West country. — in Exmouth.
New work!
Some of my work on a new website for a Block Management company. if you want to have a look; http://www.etcbm.com
Silly Season
I haven’t posted for a while as we are in what we affectionately call ‘silly season’ at work! Busy busy. But here is a new holiday home quick shoot so you can see i am still taking photographs!
Houses
My most recent job has been to take photos of houses run by a block management company so that they can be used on their new website. It is quite interesting because at the moment i have no idea what the final website, and how the images will be used, or what it will all look like together. So as soon as i know i will share it with you. It was very good fun and i have learnt alot from being directed by the team as to what they needed me to do, so i am really looking forward to seeing the finished product! Until then here are some ‘before’ images so you can see what the photos i took looked like.
Lemon Meringue
I have never made lemon meringue before. i don’t like pastry on desserts like this very much so i haven’t thought about making it before. That is until i visited my mum and she cooked it without the pastry and it was so yummy that she inspired me to try it myself! Of course you can add the pastry if you like but if like me you aren’t a fan i certainly recommend it this way!
grated zest and juice 2 large lemons
3 level tablespoons cornflour
2 oz (50 g) golden caster sugar
For the meringue:
6 oz (175 g) golden caster sugar
Heat the oven to 190°C or 170 if fan assisted oven.
Honey ingredients
I took an ingredient shot when i made my honey and raspberry snack attack. It didn’t really work together as a picture but i like it on its own.
Cherries!
Cherries are one of my favourite fruits.
Snack Attack
This afternoons munch attack consisted of raspberries, yoghurt, honey and grated chocolate. Yum! So yum in fact that i took a photo.
Todays Dinner
Today i wanted to practice with a dish that had to be photographed quickly so i chose pasta. I set everything up as well as i could before i started cooking this dish- i think it worked quite well, i even got it sorted before the cheese melted completely!
Just incase you fancy a go yourself:
Recipe (based on a recipe from the Chiappa sisters)
I pack of sliced pancetta
3 Leeks (unless big fat ones and then two should be fine) sliced lengthways.
Large knob of butter
1 tbsp Brown Sugar
Gorgonzola (i normally use the whole pack as i am greedy!)
Pasta (spaghetti is fine but tagliatelle or a ribbon pasta would pick up the sauce better)
herb of your choice to garnish if you wish (i just love herbs so am prone to dumping a whole load on. My partner on the other hand would be happy if there were none so it is entirely up to you!)
Put a pan of water on to boil ready for your pasta. If you have dry pasta put it on as soon as water is boiling if its fresh pasta it will only take a minute or so, so you can cook it when the other ingredients are almost ready.
Dry fry the pancetta. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the butter to the pan you cooked the pancetta in, add the brown sugar, stir until dissolved and fry the leeks in the sugar and butter. Its probably about time to put the pasta on to boil if you are using fresh pasta.When the leeks are almost done add most of the gorgonzola and a little pasta water to create a sauce. Season to taste . Crumble up most of the pancetta into the sauce then add the cooked pasta and coat thoroughly. Plate up the dish sprinkling over the remaining gorgonzola and pancetta.
Yum.
Back to it!
It has been so long since i have been able to take a photo, i am so happy to be back to it. I now have my little studio back to practice my food photography.
I wanted to practice my ‘ingredient’ shots and having been researching i decided to go about it in a new way. I also really like joining the ingredient shots to the cooked food to give an idea of the before and after.
so here you are, my newest work, i hope you are as pleased as me. Sausage Stew for supper!
If you fancy making this Sausage Stew for yourself, here is the recipe:
1 tbsp Olive Oil
12 Sausages (i also add a little sliced chorizo as it works really well)
1 large onion- roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic -crushed through a garlic press or chopped finely
I sachet or tin of mixed pulses such as haricot beans, kidney beans etc
I large leek- 1cm slices
I large Carrot- diced
Small glass white wine
400g tinned chopped tomatoes or passata
300g Chopped fresh tomatoes or Cherry tomatoes
300 ml Chicken stock
sprig rosemary
handful of chopped flat leaf parsley to garnish.
Fry the sausages in the olive oil to brown off (turn regularly to make sure they are browned on each side) and then remove from the pan and put to one side. If adding chorizo you can fry this off now for a minute or two each side depending on thickness of slices, remove from pan and put to one side. Next fry off the garlic and onion until soft and but not starting to brown. Add the glass of wine to deglaze the pan on a medium to high heat (keep it bubbling) until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the leek, carrots, sausages, chorizo, pulses, chopped tinned tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, chicken stock and rosemary to the onions and wine mix and simmer until all the veg is cooked and the sauce has become thicker. Season to your taste. Then plate up and garnish with the chopped parsley. It is nice served with freshly baked bread.
The nice thing about this recipe is it is easy to make it gluten free if you just check the sausages and stock cubes are of the gluten free variety. It is one of those type of dishes you can just chuck in whatever vegetables you happen to have in the fridge aswell.
Enjoy. (more…)
New Holiday House
As you can see i am quite enjoying taking pics for work I am definitely getting into it. This house is another one that isn’t quite ready yet so these are preliminary pics for holidaymakers to realise it is out there. 🙂
One more!
Another new cottage going on the books! 🙂
Tucked away cottage
This little cottage hidden away in Lympstone is not quite ready to be photographed yet but it needs to go up for advertising, so we spent some time trying to get it looking right and i will go back when its finished to re-do some shots. but i think this is pretty good for now, you should have seen it before we got our hands on it! trust me when i say my boss has worked miracles! I can’t wait to see it finished! 😉
Holiday Cottages
I haven’t posted anything for a while as work has unfortunately got in the way. so i figure the best way to deal with that is to practice my photography at work! So i went and photographed one of the new cottages we have taken on. There are a couple more to follow aswell so stay tuned! This is Primley.
A good start to 2013
Well what a great start to 2013, one of my photos has been used in Exeter Life Magazine (no 4) to show another of Mena Lydia Jewellery Designs (http://www.mena-lydiajewellery.co.uk) on their gift page! May the year continue with lots more of my photography being used to show off my work and hopefully get my little business up and running. How exciting! 🙂
Devon Life
I am very excited today as my photos are in an article about Mena Lydia Jewellery in Decembers Devon Life magazine! Out now! 🙂
Things to buy
Well there’s no denying it, Christmas is creeping up on us. if you are looking for something special why not commission Mena Lydia Jewelry to make something for a loved one? http://www.mena-lydiajewellery.co.uk
or for something different you could even get a portrait done by me http://allfoto.wix.com/allfoto
Rosehips
Well the weather has turned and we are definitely going from Autumn to Winter this week. So cold!
Today is the day!
A lovely sunny winters morning for me to start decorating my bedroom, it is all prepared for the first coats of paint now. I have been looking forward to this day for weeks! it is a silly thing to be happy about but ever since i was a child I have craved change and would regularly dismantle my room and rearrange everything. Luckily my boyfriend is the same so he is now coming up with design ideas! One thing we can be sure of is it won’t be pink! 🙂
Cheese Scones
My lovely mum gave me a recipe to make cheese scones that is so delicious i decided to share it. Often i look at recipes for these and think they don’t have enough cheese in them or ingredients they don’t need so i asked my mum for her tried and tested recipe, the one she used to make for us when we were little, that i have extremely fond memories of! I am sure she won’t mind me sharing as i have a great belief that we would all be better cooks if we all shared our tried and tested recipes a little more often.
Recipe:
8 oz self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 oz butter
4 oz cheese (i use strong cheddar)
1/4 pint milk
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (optional)
Sift together flour, salt and mustard (if using). Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Finely grate the cheese and add 3 1/2 oz to the flour mixture, bind together with the milk to form a soft dough. Roll out on a floured table to 1/2 inch thickness and cut into 15 rounds with a 1 1/2 inch cutter (often i just roll out to a flattened circle shape and cut into wedges as i like them in triangles!) Place on a greased baking sheet, brush with milk and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Bake in a hot oven for 12 minutes or until golden, cool and serve with butter.
A note from my mum is that she used to add one egg but now doesn’t as it just seems to make them rise very slightly so she doesn’t think it is needed. With the mustard she says it does bring out the flavour of the cheese but if you don’t have it in your cupboard then not to worry as they are still yummy without it. Also you can make these just as well with wholemeal flour but mum recommends adding a teaspoon of baking powder if you want to make them this way.
If you do make them have fun, and let me know how you get on, they are so easy to make and so yummy warm with butter on!
Pulses
I decided today that it has been too long since i grew some sprouting pulses. So here is the start, and if they sprout well i will hopefully take some more photos of them before i munch happily away! And maybe even put a recipe on here depending on what i make them into, and by that i mean if they last long enough before i just eat them as they are!
Interiors at Schooners
From yesterdays interior shoot at a lovely holiday home.
Temporary website
I have built a temporary website while i wait for my professional one to be finished. If you would like a look and give me advice on what you think works well together or what you would change then feel free to comment. I built it just to give myself an idea of what i wanted to show in my work and how it could be put together and editing order etc so take a look at http://allfoto.wix.com/allfoto and let me know what you think.
Black and White Portraits
Just a couple more! Less posed for and during filming of their new series. it will be very interesting seeing what the series is like once it is aired having seen how it was done. I have never seen anything being filmed for tv so it was interesting seeing how each ‘take’ was done at several difficult angles and what lighting was used. Clever stuff.
Tom and Henry Herbert
Here are a couple more shots from my time with Henry and Tom Herbert-the Fabulous Baker Brothers. This is Tom:
and this is both Tom and Henry with their fantastic little vintage van.
Fabulous Baker Brothers
As some of you will know, the TV chefs-The Fabulous Baker Brothers came to Exmouth to film part of their new series recently, and they let me do an impromptu shoot while they were waiting for filming to start. They were very relaxed, friendly and great to photograph, so here is one of the shots of Henry.
Flowers
Just love the colours of these flowers. I have never seen them before and was quite fascinated.
Raindrops
I went out yesterday to a place called Beaulieu and as always i started getting carried away taking pics. There is a lovely old stately home there, an abbey and a motor museum, so plenty to do. While we were in the lovely gardens of the stately house, there was a brief rain storm and after hiding from it for ten minutes we ventured out into the aftermath. when the day first started i didn’t really feel like taking pics but after the rain storm everything looked so lovely and fresh and splattered with left over raindrops and i love how rain drops sit on the leaves and flowers so i took a few snaps for fun and then as always i started getting carried away. Here is an example for you. It is one of the great things about photography, even when you don’t think you are in the mood, all you have to do is take one pic and your hooked again.
Bubble Blowing
A couple of images from a walk with my nieces. This is Britt. My sister wanted some pics of the kids and so we went on a walk. As nether of my nieces particularly likes being photographed i thought it would be more fun to give them something to do and attempt some photos as we went along, no pressure right! The bubbles came out to play and a few leaves got thrown, and all in all it went quite well. And i think we learned that even though none of us like being photographed we all like taking photographs! We even all agreed to do it again.
HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY NAOMI!
Its not often any of us manage to get a photo of my camera shy niece where she doesn’t cover her face or run away. So i am pleased to have captured this one a while ago on a walk in the woods. Happy 10th Birthday today Naomi! 🙂
Blogging!
I have added a few new names to my ‘Blogroll’ found at the bottom of this page. For those of you who don’t know what a Blogroll is, it is just a link to other users and makers of blogs. I have added Colin Stapp because it is not often that you find a stranger so supportive of other blogs and he has certainly been just that to me and he has his own amazing blog that i feel you should all take the time to look at. Another is Lesley Carter who again is someone i have never met but who always makes me feel like its a good pic if i get a like from them and one more called Dad and Buried who i think is one of the funniest people to share their thought on blog ever! i suggest starting from their first entry to get the full story. So thank you to Colin and Lesley for your support and Dad and Buried for making me laugh out loud many a time and to everyone else scroll down to the bottom of my homepage and find the blogroll and click on the names and i hope you enjoy.
Redcurrants
I thought i would add another food image as i haven’t done one for a while, so here it is, my dinner!
New Portraits
This is Peter, better known as Brownie. He is a tattoo artist and owner of Glory Bound Tattoos in Exmouth. If you are ever in Exmouth i suggest taking a look at his fantastic work. He very kindly put aside some of his time so i could do a photo shoot which fingers crossed will go into a magazine that want to do a piece on him. well you never know right!
Hard at work!
Mena Lydia hard at work creating new and wonderful jewelry for me to photograph!
Baby James yawning
Another of baby James, just because i thought the yawn was cute. As before please respect the family and the photographer and do not copy or share this image.
White background!
I did all of the recent jewelry shoot for Mena Lydia Jewelry design on both black and white backgrounds. It is quite interesting going through the images to see which piece looks best on which backgrounds. This one is definitely the white i think.
Mena Lydia Jewelry shoot.
More Jewelry by Mena Lydia designs. Really enjoyed this assignment. I will be doing more for Mena very soon, so watch this space.
James
This is Baby James. Brand new to the world, his parents very kindly let me practise my photography on him because he is just so lovely. Please do not copy or share this image out of respect to them as these images are for their use only and my portfolio. Thank you to Jame’s family for giving me the chance to take these photos.
Sneak previews!
A sneak preview of some photography work i have been doing for Mena Lydia Jewelry Designs. I couldn’t resist putting up a pic of this one as i just love it. More of Mena’s designs can be seen at:
http://www.mena-lydiajewellery.co.uk
Allfoto 