Jane’s maternity shoot

On Sunday morning I had a maternity photo shoot with Jane who is expecting twins in just over a month’s time. We have been planning the shoot for just under a couple of months now and it came about after she saw some examples of my other maternity photos.

Earlier in the week I had sent Jane a set of posing ideas that I have put together and which would give her an idea of some of the setups that she might want to try. I feel that this is an important step to undertake with maternity (and also boudoir) photo shoots as it can give the client some ideas that they may not previously have thought of trying out.

After setting up my portable studio in their living room, we set went over the posing sheets I had sent her and discussed what she might like to try. We then started with the photo shoot itself. As Jane has a young daughter, I thought it would be good to get some shots of her with her mum and connecting with her soon to be new sisters. Ellie was a star in her own right and we got some great photos – one of which can be seen below.



We then built the series of shots up to include the whole family and brought in her husband to get them all together for a few photos. When working with children, I feel it is very important to get them involved but also to make sure that if they are taking part in the shoot that they take part at the earliest opportunity. They can soon lose interest and want to go back to playing with their toys or watching their favourite DVD! When that moment arrives, there is little point in making them carry on as children will just play up and you can’t easily get what you need. Letting kids do their own thing for a while will usually also mean that they may well come round to the suggestion of having a few more shots later in the session – it certainly worked in this case!

With Ellie off playing, I was able to spend some more time getting shots of Jane using a selection of the different backgrounds and voile drapes that I had brought with me. As the shoot progressed, Jane’s confidence grew and she was up for trying out more adventurous shots. I never push clients into trying things that they aren’t fully comfortable with – hence one of the reasons for sending over the posing ideas sheet before the shoot. That way, clients can get an idea of what they might want to try and what they might not. I very much see a photo shoot as a two way collaboration which needs both the photographer and client to connect in order to get the best from a session. With Jane’s increasing confidence she was happy to try some of the more challenging poses as she wanted to get as much a record of her pregnancy as possible – the twins are likely to be enough to keep her hands full for a while! The following are a few more photos taken during the session.

The last photo in this post (above) showing Jane lying down with her legs pointing in the air to the ceiling really shows off her neat bump and was a shot we obviously had to catch quickly for Jane’s comfort! Luckily the effort paid off and the result is great.

For me (and hopefully my clients!), the real essence of maternity photography is to capture the mum-to-be in her blossoming stage and her bump in the most flattering way when I take the photos. By directing Jane into different poses, with subtle placement of her hands to protect her modesty and careful lighting set ups we have ended up with a set of fantastic photos that I hope she will treasure for years to come and want to show her new girls when they are old enough.

If you are interested in having a maternity photo shoot of yourself, or perhaps you know someone who would be interested, then please make contact with me via the website John Wood Photography and I would be delighted to talk you through the various options and packages I offer - ranging from one off ‘bump’ shoots through to a 5 session ‘Bump to baby’ package which includes a maternity shoot and then 4 shoots during baby’s first year.

I generally find that maternity ‘bump’ shoots are best undertaken during the 34 – 37 week stage of your pregnancy but that doesn’t mean that shoots taken any earlier or later than this won’t capture you at your finest as every woman is different.

Busy times

Well it's been a hectic couple of months since my last post. I've been very busy with some exciting projects which have turned out very well. I've even managed to fit in a holiday to Cornwall which as well as being a relaxing time, also allowed me to capture some great shots that I plan to use over the next few months and year.

An event of note has been finished off today with the launch of new offices for a local pharmaceutical company which asked me to decorate their walls with several of my photos including a large 56x34 inch canvas of one of my London landscape scenes. I also supplied them with 3 other framed prints from my series of photos taken in London during the twilight time.

Seeing the finished canvas and framed prints on the wall was very satisfying for me and even more so to hear that the client is also delighted with the finished products.

I was kindly invited to the launch party and it was well attended event with several large companies and trade organisations from the Watford area all present. Our local MP - Claire Ward, was also there and she sounded impressed with the new offices, company expansion plans and of course the use of the work of local artists to brighten up the working environment!

Here are a couple of shots of my work in place in the new offices:






The photos are located on the main stairway to the offices in the building so any visitor will pass by them and see my bio which has also been included (you can just see it between the framed prints in the second photo above).

My revised search engine optimisation has obviously started to pay off as the company found me just by doing an internet search. The search engine optimisation I've talked about in earlier posts is an ongoing process but I feel it's making good headway so far.

Another event I've been busy with that is a first for me is the photographing of a large Muslim wedding. I photographed the first ceremony - the Nikah, back at the start of August and now there are two more ceremonies to cover before the wedding is finally considered complete. The final ceremony is expected to have a couple of thousand guests attending so it's going to be an interesting day but one I'm really already looking forward to!

One final upcoming shoot I've got coming up in a few weeks time is a maternity shoot for a friend who is expecting twins. I'm really looking forward to this shoot though it's going to be right at the limit of when maternity photography is considered at it's best - typically 34-37 weeks for a single pregnancy and a bit earlier for twins.

Check back soon for some sneak peeks of some new images I've taken over the last couple of months and have been working on.

Summer dreaming

Poppies06
Originally uploaded by John Wood Photography

Sitting here today looking out at the rain falling, my mind takes me back to when this photo was taken last month. Hopefully the sunshine will come back - and soon!

Time as ever seems to be running away with me and with over another month's gap since the last post I thought I would post this shot.

I've had a busy month but have managed to get in a couple of shoots ranging from this landscape to a boudoir portrait session. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!!

I was lucky with the skies on the day I did the poppy shots - they were a rich blue with lovely fluffy clouds dotted here and there. Couldn't really ask for more. There's a few more shots of the poppy field on my flickr stream so do take a look.

As mentioned above, my other shoot was a boudoir portrait shoot. This was my second boudoir shoot so I was a little apprehensive but keen to make sure everything went well and we captured the shots we were after. Looking back, I had no reason to worry as the collection of images we've ended up with are stunning. Joanne (my client), is thrilled with the shots she's seen so far and I've now got the task of assembling a book of her favourite images. You can see a selection of the images that Jo has approved for posting and a write up of the shoot from her experience over on my dedicated boudoir photography site: Beautiful Boudoir Photos
Thanks to Jo for a great photo session.

You can also see a slideshow of the images on my YouTube channel: John Wood Photography on YouTube - just select the show "Joanne's boudoir photoshoot"

Until next time.

Increasing web traffic to my site via SEO

I'm currently turning my attention to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for my website John Wood Photography . The site has been up and running for over a year and in that time has had quite a few updates to the content as things have progressed and new examples of my work have been produced.

I want to give the site a bit of an overhaul to focus more on the type of work I'm doing these days so a redesign (nothing too major) will hopefully be coming this way in the coming months. In the meantime I want to boost my presence in the search engine rankings. I'm currently in the no.1 spot on both Google and Yahoo when searching for 'John Wood Photography' which I'm really pleased about but I know that there's room for improvement. I want to get a boost up the rankings when people search for more general photography service terms.

Obviously the way to do this is to ensure that the site is being indexed correctly and most efficiently by the search engine crawlers. For that, SEO becomes critical - the combination of key words and descriptions is all important.

I'm making some inroads into this and reading up as much as I can. I've come across some really useful information and articles that I'm going to start to put into practice very soon. Hopefully it will start to pay off.

In the meantime, watch this space and when the site is revamped, you'll find out about it here.

Water drop photography

After reading another great post on the Strobist blog the other week, I decided to have a go at the water drop photography technique that was shown. Cue Friday evening and the first chance I'd had to have a go at this so I cleared a space on the kitchen table, got myself a glass dish to catch the drips, set up my camera on the tripod, readied the flashes with coloured gels, put up a piece of plain white card behind the dish to use as the reflector and then set about creating a frame from which to hang my water dropping bag.

This latter part of the set up was to prove the most challenging but luckily I had an old support frame that I'd built for another photography project that would do the job just perfectly. Once that was in place, I was able to suspend a small plastic bag from a piece of string on a clamp right over the centre of the dish.

I added a couple of litres of water to the dish so that the water would have something to drop into and create the effect I was after. Then I was pretty much ready to go.

Using my D300's in built Creative Lighting System, I was able to control the speedlight flashes from the camera and vary their power as I wanted quickly and easily.

I put a small pin prick in the bag and then let the drops fall. I had to focus carefully on the point where the water was hitting the surface and then once that was set, start firing off shots.

As the drops are coming down so fast, you need to take quite a lot of shots to get the ones you are after. Guess that's another one of the joys of digital where you can instantly see whether you've managed to capture what your are trying to achieve or whether you need to keep trying to get that elusive shot.

I tried several different angles, coloured gels and positions and managed to get quite a few good shots of different drip formations. In the post processing I was able to tweak those that I really liked and make selective crops so I could show them off to their best. The final shots have been put up in my Still Life gallery on my flickr pages.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

John Wood Photography website update

Well, it's not spring any more so I guess this could be called an early summer clean! I've updated the portraits gallery page on my main website with some newer examples of my work. I felt things needed a bit of a freshen up and I'm pleased with what I've changed.

It also gave me a chance to fix a couple of small things I'd been meaning to do for a while and correct a couple of links that were pointing at the wrong page.

Making these changes has also got me starting to think about the next redesign of the site as a whole. Plans are already being mapped out on paper for some revised layouts and categories to reflect where my photography is now focussing (no pun intended!). Hopefully I'll be able to get some of the changes I want to make implemented in the next couple of months.

One thing I have been really happy about is that my site - John Wood Photography is the no.1 site in both Google and Yahoo search engines when looking for me. Guess the early key wording and search engine optimisation that was done when the site was built is paying off. Still, there's always more to be done to improve things.

BIG format prints!

I just received my large format print (above) for a client and I'm absolutely delighted with it. Overall it measures 80x80cm and each picture is 20x20cm within that.

It was the first time I'd used this new supplier and from what I've seen, it certainly won't be the last! The quality of the print finish is superb and it certainly arrived well packed and protected.

I can't wait to see it finally mounted, framed and up on a wall in their home.

I had a few problems with setting up the multi aperture layouts but these have been well and truly solved now and I have created a series of different sized templates with different layout apertures which I can create some stunning wall art from.

I've been having a go with quite a few styles and layouts from different shoots and these test creations are available for viewing on my flickr stream. The large format prints certainly do create an immediate impact and show off the photos to their fullest. Combining several prints in one also shows the wide variety of moods and styles that can be captured during a photo shoot and is good for showing all the family together or for just following a theme.

I think the large format and multi-aperture prints should prove a popular product offering and give customers an innovative way to display their photos for all to see.