These images are the result of a quick test shoot with this beautiful young woman.

In fact we didnt do anyting to prepare for the shoot, this is just how she turned up to the studio. No photography makup, no ridiculously expensive modelling clothes, and yet she still looks fantastic right 'out of the box'.

I wish all my clients looked this good when they walk in the door!

I am looking forward to getting a real shoot done with her sometime soon!

If your children are like mine, they would rather have teeth pulled than go to a studio for a photo shoot.

Thats why we took these images at a local beach.

The weather on the day was too perfect. The sky was so blue that my wife thought that I had faked these shots in the studio.
In fact it was so windy that we could only use four of the eight balloons that we had taken with us. And even those were hopelessly tangled by the time we got to the edge of the sea.

I was really impressed by the height that she jumped to in the image. It looks almost like the balloons are pulling her upwards.

These types of photo shoots are great fun and the children dont even realise that they are having to work!

This was part of an overall lifestyle shoot that included the whole family. We all went along to a local beach and I took over 250 images on that half day alone.

The young girl was playing on her own near the old wooden breakers, so I kept an eye open looking for an opportunity to catch her off guard.

She stood near this post for a while and I waited until she looked up before firing the shutter. 

The image was converted to black and white and I increased the contrast in the sky to create this moody image.

I like the fact that she looks completly natural and doesn't have a 'forced' smile.

This image screamed out at me during the portrait session. This session wasn't in the studio, in fact it was in the home and the reflection was coming from a glass panel in the dining table.

I got the client to put on a dark polo necked top and used a black reflector behind her to create the dark moody image.

The front was lit with a large softbox to create the beautiful even soft light across her face.

As soon as I changed her pose to a lower angle the reflection appeared and I knew that I was onto a winner.

Results like this show that you don't have to be in the studio to get terrific images. This is one of the reasons that I love on location shoots.

We couldn't reduce the number of images below 45, so it took her mum quite a while to choose her favourites.

During post-processing I rate my images with 1 to 5 stars. This session was so productive that it resulted in twenty images rated with a full 5 stars.

This lifestyle shoot took place on a local beach.

This young boy was playing with one of his friends just out of shot. 

I took the image from the safety of the beach using a long lens and nicely caught the wave coming in behind him.

The exhilaration in his face is self explanatory and we are proud to have been able to capture this image.

It was printed poster size and beautifully framed on the lounge wall.

This image captured the two young friends waiting for the next wave to jump over.

This is a key point in her life, so a new portrait was created to capture this moment in time.

She has lost her two front teeth and so I got her to tell a fairy story from the book to one of her favorite dolls capturing her in a natural way and not with a forced cheesy grin.

She is even dressed as a cat complete with ears!

This image tells the story about a small era in her life - something that a sterile image on a white background cannot do. Pictures like this are always treasured long into the future.

Although the image may look natural (if you can call a toothless cat reading a book natural), but its been completely manufactured to create the scene.

There are actually three flash guns used to get the lighting that I wanted, to make the scene come to life.

This is one of my "true life portraits".

No longer just a boy, he is on the cusp of becoming a youth.

There was no point trying to capture him as a child, it just wouldn't look right.

So instead I created this moody image lit with very hard light from the left to bring out  the shape in his chest.

It also throws this wonderful shadow that almost becomes a caricature of his shape.

A real portraiture of his life at this stage...