Rae and Ada | Portrait Shoot Winners

Earlier in the summer I held a prize draw on facebook for someone to win a free portrait shoot. A rubber duck with Rae and Ada's name on was pulled out of a box, and so we set about making some pictures..

We started off at Green City Coffee, a new cafe in Kelham Island with the friendliest staff you could wish for. Pop in if you like retro furniture, sumptuous milkshakes, good teas and a friendly face. They will be stocking some of my cards soon too, just as soon as I finish making the stand. 

After that we pottered about Kelham Island going at the pace of an involved toddler. I quickly abandoned my best laid plans and remembered that when little people are involved it's way better to follow their lead. Ada was a huge amount of fun - curious about everything, knew her own mind, and wanted to climb on everything ... she reminded me of me as a kid (and me as an adult actually!). I loved seeing these two interact, Rae was so permission giving for Ada's various explorations.

It was lovely to step back from doing work for money and instead to offer this as pure gift. I've been doing this a bit more recently and it has noticably revitalised how I feel about my paid photography work. It is pleasing that the gift I gave of a free shoot could also return and be gift for me too. So, there will be another free prize draw coming up on facebook in the Autumn.

It was also a good opportunity to experiment with doing a shoot using just a 35mm fixed lens rather than my 24mm-70mm. I enjoyed the limitation of one focal length and how that made me inhabit my body more to get in the right spot for what I wanted to see, rather than just twist the zoom. It's good to experiment with these things and not get too stuck in old habits.

All images ©KateCooperPhotography2013

Rae and Ada | Portrait Shoot Winners Sneaky Peek

 A sneaky peek of Rae and Ada's free portrait shoot which they won in my summer prize draw.

I sat down with toddler Ada and asked if she had any ideas. She said she had one, "It hides the face partly. So you have the apparent face, the tomato, hiding the visible but hidden is the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present."

I said "hasn't that been done before?". 

She rolled her eyes and said "all art is derivative". 

So we made this.

All images ©KateCooperPhotography2013

Jack and Corinne | Sneaky Peek

A quick peek of Jack and Corinne from their wedding on Saturday in Chichester ... with Jack's surprise for Corinne of a VW camper van for transport.

 All images ©KateCooperPhotography2013

Katie and Dax | The Wedding

Last Sunday was the wedding of Katie (with dimples you could swim in) and Dax (with hair as light as the Milky Bar kids), out at the Peak Edge Hotel near Matlock.

They were a delight to spend the day with - full of cheeky charm and beaming faces - well - all smiles except for the bit walking down the aisle when Katie burst into tears almost straight away. She gets that from her mum! Everyone was in fine fettle and there was much jollification. A few notable details:

Kevin the Cow: Kevin was smuggled up the aisle hidden in Katie's garter, and later hung out in Dax's pocket, before sneaking into the bouquet and making off with a small bouquet of his own. I do love a bit of silliness - it normalises my own penchant for sticking googly eyes on things and anthropomorphising inanimate objects.

The details: Katie and Katie's mum worked so hard getting all the finishing touches together, and their hard work really paid off. The skeleton bay leaves on top of the cake were originally in Katie's mum's wedding bouquet, which Katie's gran snuck into a book to press without telling anyone. Sneaky. And lovely.

The couple time: to say these two both warned me that they hated having their photo taken and were really un-photogenic (er, really?!), I had such a lovely time squirrelling them off to do the couple shots. They were both so relaxed and happy, and looking lovely. Him Indoors has suit and shoe envy of Dax's outfit.

Congratulations you lovely folk.

  All images ©KateCooperPhotography2013