kim's blog

Bump

2010-01-04T17:37:00.000Z

Not much to say, but a lot to show...

Big smiles all round I think!

Facrifiz'd...

2009-12-09T11:46:00.004Z

Facrifiz'd: the art of fizzing whilst being sacrificed.

(Taken in St Laurence's Church, Ludlow)

Photographer Friends

2009-12-08T11:40:00.002Z

I am very lucky (or perhaps destined) to have a younger brother who is keen on photography. I know lots of people who like photography, i.e. they have a vague interest in seeing nice photos, but none who actually enjoy taking them very much. My best mate Eleanor is about the closest I've got, she enjoys fiddling with my cameras but really she likes modelling better... although I don't actually mind since she's gorgeous! (Left: one of the first photos I took of El with my SLR)

So, now that we're living back in the Shire, I'm discovering the fun of having someone nearby who enjoys photography like I do. Unfortunately Alex is at college at the mo, meaning he's pretty busy a lot of the time, but as he's doing photography as a subject he has a great excuse to spend hours taking photos!

I'm always a bit wary of people who do photography at college/uni. I've always thought that photography was something that can't really be taught - something you really need to learn for yourself. And that when people 'study' it, it gets them full of poncy arty-farty ideas that are actually very little to do with photography and much, much more to do with doing art with a camera. Now, I'm all for 'art with a camera', I think there are some amazing photographer-artists out there who deserve serious respect. But I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to photos, and feel that proper photography should be beautiful. Or ugly, raw, emotional. But not, for example, a photo of a disgusting mess of squiggles that is full to your eyes of MEANING.

I find with most modern art (and we are talking modern art, here, not gorgeous Renaissance or anything), it quite often doesn't really seem to mean anything until you read the description. Once you do, it's, "Ah!! I get it now! That's amazing!" Occasionally they're interesting pieces anyway, but only after reading the description does the art really touch you.

I tend to feel that with photography, if it needs explaining to be good, then basically, it isn't. ("Can you guess what it is yet?")

I think that's why I love photography so much. My style is beauty that needs no explanation. At least, that's what I'm aiming for! Renaissance artists need no explanation for their art. And nor does pure photography, in my eyes. For me, it should mean something to the onlooker with or without a caption.

Yes, I love photography that you can't figure out for ages, too. But that sort of thing, if done well, still seems to draw you in. Unlike the 'mass of squiggles', you can tell that there is meaning, and you grasp the emotion, even without understanding.

Where was I? I was saying that studying photography gets people full of poncy arty-farty ideas that are actually very little to do with photography, and much, much more to do with doing art with a camera - well, thankfully Alex - despite studying it, or perhaps because - agrees with me on that one! He says he feels like he's doing an art course. He doesn't mind too much, because he's also a really good artist (unlike me!), but he says that he can hand practically anything in and as long as he can come up with a really good meaning, he'll get a good mark. Obviously this to some extent is unavoidable - the student must explain to the examiner the reason or idea for the photo - but it's evidently way past the mark in reality.

Poor Alex, he feels disadvantaged because his best mate "has a £1000 camera so I've got no chance!" In reality he has a Nikon D90, which would put him at a disadvantage except that his best mate isn't actually hugely talented with a camera - yet. Considering that he's the same age as I was when I got my first SLR, I'm surprised he's not better really, although I don't know how long he's had it either.

In truth, of course, there's only so much you can learn at once when you're chucked a camera far superior to your ability. (This is no praise for the D90, I actually dislike that camera quite a lot...!) There were many things that I just didn't even look at when I got my first, my Canon EOS 20D. Even now, I occasionally pick up things that I didn't know you could do. The reason I didn't learn much at the outset was because, basically, I learnt as much as I needed to know at the time. I wanted (and this was the above-all main reason why I bought my first SLR, perhaps that's why I'm such a sucker for J*'s photos!) to be able to take photos with a tiny F-stop.

That was about it. I feel completely and utterly in love with the romantic and artsy (alright alright) feel that being able to shoot even at f5.7 gave me. Soon after (after discovering more about how to get the effect), I bought my gorgeous Sigma 105mm that lets me go to f2.8 on everything. Mmmmmm yum yum! Needless to say, I am still in love with a small f-stop. My next lens (for, sadly, I don't own it yet) will be a wider-angled lens that'll let me go down to 1 point something. 105mm is brill for portraits and fab for macro but I can't take anything vaguely wide-angle without standing miles away from my subject - of course. So that's my next purchase... (Right: an old photo experimenting with my f2.8)

So yes, that was about the only thing I cared to master. That and how to make my photos bright and attractive. So, I learned f-stops, shutter speeds (and the Av and Tv dials - I still prefer Av to anything else), ISO (though I usually forgot to use it!), something about white balance, and... that was about it! I will definitely have to grill the friend and see just how much he knows. Actually, I'd much rather grill Alex and see how much he's picked up without having an SLR but from having a photography-mad sister.

Today we're going to Ludlow to do some photos for a photography competition that his college is holding. Should be interesting to see what we can get. I'm also going to give Alex free reign over my 20D and see how he handles it! After all, he's finally decided to get a proper camera for Christmas - probably the EOS 1000D as it's not too pricey and decent for newbie hands as far as I can tell. And yes, of course I'm making him go with CANON - there's no argument!

Birthdays, Bonfires and everything in Between

2009-12-03T12:08:00.003Z

So... been absolutely terrible at even THINKING of things to blog about. It's weird, because I always have things that I want to talk about to someone... often it doesn't even matter who, which is the amusing part.

And then I thought, hang on, it's coz I'm blogging when I've nothing better to do - or when I suddenly remember I was going to try and blog more often. But what are the interesting things in life? People, events, everyday happenings. It's these that I miss out when I'm blogging. And I was thinking, I've not updated my blog in ages...what has happened since then? Well, a lot, of course. I might not be working at the mo, but I'm doing a lot of other stuff. And then there are the usual events that come and go regardless of whether we remember them.

So since October, what has happened? Let's think. (Gets diary out...)

Ah yes. On the 2nd October I had coffee with Valerie, our church music person. Talking about how the music worked, when the practices were, etc etc. As always happens in these cases, since then I have discovered that things don't work quite how she described them! Unfortunately. But hey, it's close enough. I've played in church several times since that meeting, and even lead worship there for the first time. Progress! And have been getting lots of positive comments which is definitely a good thing. Especially profound is when I feel as though nothing special has happened - say I was distracted by something, such as last Sunday when I was actually freezing from head to toe - and then someone will say (usually to someone else, not to me, which is best!) that they really felt like God was in that place, that it felt so worshipful and so on. I love that so much. It shows that I don't have to be in my best place of worship in order for the congregation to be in theirs. Incidentally it would appear that I have been put down as a worship leader officially, as I am now on the list and rotaed in as much as the other leaders... doh, more work!

Sometime around here I did a short session of light painting with my siblings. It was partly because my bro needed to do some for his college course, and partly because I'd never really done any before. Well, with hardly any props, and only some rubbish torches for light, we were pretty limited, but we had fun making some random shapes, and also painting around their little house. Sweet! (See right)

On Saturday 3rd Oct I went to the Craven Arms Men's Chorus concert, held in Church Stretton. The repertoire was all musical theatre, welsh hymns and some secular songs; it worked well. They weren't the best choir in the world but it was an enjoyable concert. I am slightly scared of the choirmaster though.

This is the choir my Dad's in, by the way. My Dad is like a scouser musical genius. In other words, he can only just read music, doesn't have the hugest music knowledge, but can play anything pretty much straight off on the piano, and often better than the original recording. It's classic. No offence to scousers either - anyone with a Liverpudlian accent is a legend in my books.

So anyway, my Dad being my Dad, he saw me at the concert and immediately was like, you've got to come meet the choirmaster! Um, ok. So I did. He was scary. But anyway, couple'a weeks later there I am at their rehearsal showing 'em what I can do. And now they want me soloing at their next concert... well it's all compliments I guess! Saying that, as long as I don't have to speak to the choirmaster too much, it's all good...

Onwards and upwards. (Love C. S. Lewis, by the way.) So yeah, the day after that I was singing at Wyson Chapel for the first time in a couple of years. Was really nice to be back there. The people are cute, and the acoustics are fab! I sang a modern worship song, can't even remember which one it was now but it went down well. Ben Cantelon, I remember that.

Bloomin' heck, this was a busy weekend - the next day I went to see Last Chance Harvey, put on by the Flicks in the Sticks people. We're not really in the sticks but hey, we don't have a cinema anymore so I'm not complaining! Plus the Sticks films cost something like £3 to get into. Genius compared to stupid cinema prices these days. So anyway, went to see that with my mum and a few siblings, was a nice film.

(Skips past some mundane things that happened)

The next thing of consequence was my Auntie's operation, on the 13th Oct. She's got cancer which really sucks. However she had a successful first operation and is doing very well. She'll be having another one early next year, and we all hope that that, along with chemo, will make her better. I love you, Auntie, get well soon!
(Left: a keyring I made for her)

More singing at church, lunch with my mum (quite rare but always nice!), then Sam over for the weekend. He's autistic, and he's getting so much more 'difficult'. I mark it like that because, really, he's only difficult if we want him to fit in with what we're doing. In reality he sits and watches Thomas the Tank Engine and builds the railway while doing so, and is perfectly happy the whole weekend. So really, no trouble at all. He might ask for some toast and water please, or whatever food takes his fancy, but that's about it. Sadly, it seems that now that he's not going to school any more, he's getting too fond of staying indoors all day every day, so much so that he doesn't even seem to want to go shopping for his favourite sweets, and nor does he want to come to church any more. The latter gets quite difficult when both Simon and I are helping in church and there's no-one to look after Sam! Of course, he's a little more difficult to put to bed as well, but thankfully he will still go to bed eventually, even if he doesn't sleep. *sigh* I don't doubt that this is just another phase - he's not always wanted to watch Thomas, for example - but we can but wait and see. I just have to make sure I do my very best to love him.

Into Novemeber, which brought my Mum's birthday on the 4th and Sascha's birthday on the 5th. I got Sascha a fairy snow globe which she seemed to really like, and my mum a gorgeous suncatcher thing.

Then it was Bonfire Night, which is one of the few 'great' events that Church Stretton holds. By this I mean that there are very few events to which most of the town goes to! The fire was made up of those crate things they use in shops, and thus was absolutely huge but sank like a ship once it got going. I say once... it took aaaaages for them to get it lit properly! Yes, it had been wet, but I've never seen them struggle like that before. It was all the more amusing since they lit it really late - by which time half the crowd had been there ages and were freezing there fingers off with cold and boredom. Finally they got it lit, and then we milled around watching it until the fireworks started. They were quite nice, and they had music again this time - huzzah! - but it wasn't loud enough so the effect was completely lost on anyone not standing right next to the speakers. I think the reason they cut the music last year was because of complaints of it being really loud. OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE! It's one night a year, just about the only successful Church Stretton event - and people go and complain! I know who it'll be... some old biddies who don't understand that not everyone younger than 70 is a complete lunatic, and that they could simply put some ear plugs in for the evening. Or heaven forbid, lose a teeny tiny bit of sleep for one night. Oh, for heavens sake, it's not even late. The noise finishes at around 7:30pm!

Anyway, I jolly well hope that whoever complained got evicted from Church Stretton. I don't care that you can hear the music a mile away. Stretton is only just over a mile wide!

Lol, rant over.

Ah yes, Rememberance Sunday next. One of my favourite times of the year... it is so humbling, such a honourable celebration of life lost. It makes you happy to be alive, thankful for the peace we have here. I do wish that those kids doing sports on a Sunday would stop for just a minute or two when the gun fires. Because we, standing at the memorial, hear them every single year. Shouting and screaming and running about, and they're half a mile away!

It was the same as always, and yet different as always. Remembrance Sunday/Day should never be dropped.

The 21st held the Christingle and the 'Turning on of the Christmas Lights' in our town. I was playing piano for the Christingle - and nearly didn't make it! Oh it's bad when you know everyone's relying on you and you have a bad stomach!! I made it with a few minutes to spare, and could just about play.. wobbly arms don't help. But it went well, and the church was packed. Then everyone made their way to the square, where there was a brass band playing, a guy dressed up as a snowman giving out lanterns, and lots of fake snow! When they turned the lights on and the snow was swirling around the old fashioned lampposts I was off dreaming of Narnia... Shockingly I didn't take any photos... must've been away with the fairies!

On the eve of the 27th I went with the youth group to see Delirious for the last time. I think their very last show was the day after ours. It was a good show, but the venue was RUBBISH. Unless you were sitting in the gallery or happened to be standing extremely close to the front (I've no idea what time those people arrived...) you couldn't see a thing. I say this because the gallery was so low that if you tried to jump up to see from the ground floor, the roof got in the way. So you had to be at the front, or jumping somewhere very near the front. I tell you what, the only good thing about the venue (which was the O2 Academy in Birmingham, by the way) were the toilets. There were tons of them. I didn't have to queue once!

But moving on swiftly, because in all honestly I would have held til I burst if it meant I could have actually SEEN something of the show. As it was, I edged round the sides with my friends, and managed to get a sort-of-view-of-Martin-Smith's-head. Not worth £20, I can tell you. But, y'know, it would have been ok, I would have put up with it, if the sound hadn't been rubbish as well! Honestly, I don't know what they were doing but it was like they had some students on the desk. It was okaaaay most of the time, but then often there was tons of feedback, at one point I couldn't hear Mr Smith singing at all (when he definitely was), and... all in all, I'd rather not go back there again. But I'm glad that I saw them for the last time. (Above: Me, Lucy and Hannah at Delirious - standing under some weird purple and blue lights.)

Although, I'm still a bit peeved that I missed their gig when I was in Brighton. I'm pretty sure that was in the Concord 2 venue. We had some of our lessons there! I would have been able to see the whole band even if I was standing right at the back, because even though it's quite a lame little venue, it's actually designed WELL.

Boy, am I ranting today! Maybe it's because it's sunny - for the first time in weeks - so I probably feel I can let go of some pent up anger? haha who knows.

Anyway, that's most of my diary up to now. Another sing song at Wyson Chapel Sunday evening, and playing piano for the prayer meeting last night, brings us right up to today. Oh yeah, not to miss the photoshoot for the Robinson Family Calendar! Man, it's hard to get the kids all together when it's LIGHT. *frown* They're doing a letter each this year, so that when put together it'll spell T-H-E-R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N-S. Genius, right? Only just... there happens to be eleven people in the family, so it's fairly simple, everyone gets a month to themselves and then we group for December! (Above: Alex doing a 'B')

And my thoughts for today... how on earth did I manage to give Cross Rhythms my parents' postcode? That's hilarious! I've never had to stop myself from writing it so many times as I have now - now that I'm living in the same town as them again and have the same first part - diggin' the SY6!

My WoW Life Story

2009-10-01T12:16:00.003+01:00

I've just posted this on my World of Warcraft guild forum, so thought I'd put it up here as well. For those who don't know... yes, I play WoW!

The History of Me and WoW

It was, surprise surprise, my hubby (Ghredos) who introduced me to WoW. Well, actually, he used to play it some mornings before work at noon, so sometimes when I went round to see him (this was before we were married) he'd be playing. I remember hating all the battle sounds and telling him to turn it down all the time coz we were talking and they were giving me a headache! So I knew about it from that, but didn't really know anything about how the game worked. After all, he played lots of other games as well.

As part of his wooing (i suppose!) he kept buying or finding me games that I might like to play. I was very into computers but not really into games, so it didn't really work! There were a few I liked though, including one which I've lost, it had amazing (-ly bad) graphics al-la pac man and you had to kill monsters and blow up all the rocks. Similar to Fracas if anyone has ever played that awesome game of awesomeness.

Anyway, back to WoW. So eventually I decided to try WoW, it looked reasonably cool and I liked the fact that it didn't have graphics that tried-to-look-real-but-completely-failed. Right so I loved the whole ALL-POWERFUL-WIZARD image and made a mage. A gnome mage called Nigglypops. Yes, please laugh. It was supposed to be silly coz she looked silly! However, I was sad to discover that with practically two hits my ALL-POWERFUL-WIZARD would be dead. MAN was I annoyed at that! So I got to about level 5 and couldnt be bothered any more. She kept dying and was just irritating. (tip for anyone trying to get a mate into wow - don't start them off with a mage!)

Shortly after that, we tried again. I made a human, cant even remember what class but think she was a pally, and my hubby made a new alt so we could level together. Thing was, he's a one-character-per-game kinda guy, so hardly played with me at all. By then I was getting a vague hang of the game and didn't like having to only play when the hubby was playing. So I made my own, new character: Lemele.

She was a Paladin after Ghredos's own heart, and I loved her very much. But sadly she was on a different server, which I didn't realise at the time. Soon enough I discovered that Ghredos couldnt help me in any way, and Lemele was very much alone! I joined my very first guild on Lemele, but they were all always talking about level 70 stuff that I couldn't join in with and never seemed to make any effort to do any lower level dungeons or anything. And nope I cant remember what it was called...

So anyway when Lemele was about 20 or 30 I made Ellodrian, this time on Darkspear. Ellodrian is a druid, and she became my main for a while. By then I was already getting quite adept at playing, and enjoyed being able to call on the mighty Ghredos for help! But i soon got bored of a druid, not liking the ranged spells (not powerful enough) and getting bored with the cat form (hardly any options there) and never using bear form coz i hated how it looked!!

Eventually, when Ellodrian was about 28 I decided to transfer Lemele across. Now, I'm not one for spending money in-game for privileges, but i missed playing her - coz, well, pallys rule.

So I transferred Lemele across to Darkspear, and she became my main again. Back as a pally, who could do fancy spells, fight melee without dying AND heal, she was perrrrfect for me and I was happy :D

Soon enough I was levelling pretty fast, and catching up with Ghredos (think he was around lvl 55). We spent our time doing dungeons together (he would boost me when I was lower level, and then as I levelled up we started doing ones much closer his level and loving the challenge), but never really levelled together - I think that's something we've always done on our own! Not sure when but at some point I got a random invitation to British Elites, a semi-pvp guild, because I had pvp turned on while i was in SW. Thinking I'd have a go at being in a guild again, I joined. I think that's where I 'met' Nightmares. Or should I say, Jasonaterr as his character was at the time.

It was a pretty cool guild, decent people and they enjoyed doing stuff together. I'd also made Ghredos join but he never did anything! I remember there being a guild meeting once or twice, and we did some stuff like raiding crossroads and things like that. Unfortunately suddenly people started dropping out, until the only people who chatted were me and Jason. Eventually I decided that it was fairly pointless being in a guild that didn't do anything and didn't even talk! I think it was around then that I saw an ad for the NuGen. I was in Zangarmarsh and i think it was one of riande's ads - or might have been cat. It looked quite cool, so I whispered Jase and told him i was leaving. He was shocked (he generally had a shocked demeanour whenever anyone left lol) but then got slightly happier when he heard it was the NuGen since he apparently had an alt in there or something. Anyway he decided to move with me, because, well everyone knows that he cant survive 10 seconds without a chat!!

So there were were in happy little NuGen, and it seemed quite nice! About a week after being in the guild I got a promo to veteran which I was chuffed with, and then not long after that I got made officer! There began by proper involvement with a guild which I loved. Of course I couldn't leave Ghredos out so I made him join the guild, and although he never really spoke he would spend a lot of time reading the guild chat!

Well, most of you know the rest of the story. I am no longer an officer but enjoy being a 'Leet Monkey' (whatever that means) and love all you guys n gals very much. We now have almost completely different members to when I first joined (whatever happened to people like Bbrett?! (the armoury says he ran off to join the 'of the Shattred Sun' guild, but i never knew that) ..we had such a lovely group of people though - ahh those great kara runs! ) so in a way I constantly feel like i've just joined a new guild, but it's all good! Loving the new people almost as much as the old ;) Also lovely to have people like Leiha back with us, and of course Ulreazj who is a living legend. (Did I ever tell you Ul, Ghredos used to get annoyed with you whenever you tried to be a mage tank? he thought you were a right idiot!)

And on that note, over and out.

The Sunday After

2009-09-20T16:25:00.003+01:00

Yeah, so I missed a Sunday. Whoops.

But for good reasons - I've actually been quite busy! It's nice. I don't know whether I'll actually be able to keep THIS blog up every Sunday now, since something has happened that I want to document regularly, and no doubt they will compete visciously with each other!

But yes, been nice and busy. Done some more photo editing for the bro (see previous post), but also I seem to be much more involved in things here already, which is really nice. I seem to now be the regular worship leader for the weekly prayer meeting, a role I am honoured to have, and am excited my the things that have been born out of prayer. I'm also now (I think) down on the rota for Sunday music, so am looking forward to seeing which people I'm put with and how often I'll be playing.

I'm also going on the rota for L8, a young-people-led evening service that happens every 2nd and 4th Sunday in the month. I'm actually playing bass for the next one, but in the future will hopefully be doing some actually leading (Rach, who's organising the music, seems nice and keen!) and presumably piano and vocals at some point as well.

We haven't got a house group organised yet (forgot to mention that to the vicar, oops) but hopefully we'll be joining one soon.

Had a very hectic couple of days, so I think I'm going to go have a bit of a chillax session.

Photoshoot - Tony Robinson

2009-09-07T15:20:00.003+01:00

I knew there was something else worthwhile that I could put up here... sometimes I really think my brain is fried!

Had a photoshoot with my bro, a dummer and percussionist, who wanted some pics for his MySpace and other things. Here's the first few, will possibly post some more later if I'm feeling adventurous.

Most of them are quite graphicked up to give the right look and feel for what he does.

Forgetfulness...

2009-09-07T15:07:00.001+01:00

Well, I nearly managed to post a blog yesterday, but forgot to finish it, and... well, it got lost.

Something happens to you when you feel like what you're writing isn't working. It's weird. That was my feeling last night. Then I ended up going to see TC and co., which was fun. So, poor blog got forgotten.

My dear friend DW is supposed to be coming today. I've unfortunately no idea WHEN she's coming, but I guess we shall see! Still no sign though...

Ah, I was full of wisdom last night. 'tas all vanished with the morning light.

Time for God & Life

2009-08-30T14:43:00.004+01:00

A concentrated effort to keep up a little of what I've been trying to keep up for ages - a diary/blog! So far this is my second post in recent weeks...lets hope I can keep it up a bit better. Think I might set a day... today is Sunday, and Sundays are usually free in the afternoon... well we'll see how that goes!

Some of you might not have come here via my website and may not know that this was created to be a photography blog... but I'm simply not doing enough photography to post every week! And that's my goal: to post at least once a week. And perhaps I'll manage to include a topical photo each time...!

At the moment photography is battling against my music, which I knew it always would. I'm too involved in music and the church to do full-time photography, and I love photography too much to give it up! So, many apologies to those who wanted to see me do full-time photography. Of course, my website is staying put, and I am still doing weddings, portraits, macro stuff and anything else in between, but on a much smaller scale now. Still, very little compares to putting a wedding album together - I just love that so much!! Perhaps I should design albums for other people... but no, then I'd end up doing no photography at all, and I definitely don't want that.

So, what's going on? We've just moved house - to Church Stretton, Shropshire (where SJ and I have spent most of our lives) and are loving being near our friends and both of our families. I'm particularly savouring the company of some special friends who are usually at uni and who will be leaving for that shortly.

So far I'm feeling a real pull towards the church. Some of you will know that I have always wanted to work in the church. It's always been my home, and it's still my home now. I could never leave it. But I'm the sort who loves being immenseley involved with churchy people and churchy things. By that I of course mean Sunday services, but I also mean house groups, prayer meetings, music practices, choir, etc. I've always been like this - I remember in school adoring getting involved with any stuff like this. It was all the best things about school (I suppose it boils down to community) that I love. I love community.

Well, currently I've only got one thing in the diary, the wednesday prayer meeting. I've not been before (forgot one week and then was away last week) and I've just been asked to play piano for this week's. This would be all fine and dandy except that I of course have no idea of the structure or anything! Actually, I don't think I've ever been to a proper prayer meeting, only meetings in which we pray... so it's all going to be new! But hey, I'm sure it'll be fine. Just need to find those darned keyboard cables which are still lost from moving house...

Talking about recovering cables, I finally found the ones for my external hard drive. Was great to discover some older documents, including some story plans for a home-made film that was basically a copy of LotR! Sooo funny reading it!

In other news, I was at Momentum last week. It's like Soul Survivor for big kids. And because of that, it had all the fab aspects of camping with friends, hanging out in cool cafes, shopping, etc, with the added aspect of topical and all around GOOD talks! We all got a lot out of it, and I especially gained from the love/marriage talks.

There were a few from our church going (Sean, Soph, Thea, Tom + Siobhan) and we all camped with friends from a church in Bayston Hill. It was really great to connect with other Chrisitans my sort of age, and we all had a load of fun. Miss them all now!

Well that's all for now. Take care lads and lasses. And if you're reading this, drop me a note. I love to hear from everyone =)

Kim

Long time no post...

2009-08-21T13:40:00.003+01:00

It's been such a long time since I posted on here. That's pretty bad, really. But I've decided, with a hint from Jasmine Star , to just write. Whatever happens, not just photo stuff (which was the original plan!).

Yes, things have moved on from just photography these days. Firstly, SJ and I bought a house. Our first! This meant a relocation (again), but hopefully it will be a pretty permanent one this time... hopefully.

We're now living in a small town in Shropshire, where a lot of our family and friends live. SJ has a job working with disabled young adults, which is all very new and exciting for him.

I'm not exactly lost, but feel like I'm being pulled in all directions a little. I've always wanted to do lots of music. I've wanted to do photography for years. And now I'm going to do childminding! Yes, an interesting mix. The plan at the mo is to start up this childminding business to fill the week, as it were. Then I'll be getting pretty involved in the church's music (whoopee!) which may or may not lead to better things, but WILL lead to a better involvement and love for the church. Then photography, well, the only photography I really LOVE is weddings and spontaneous shoots, but I don't feel like I could do that full time in this area. SO the simple-haven't-really-given-it-the-thought-it-deserves plan is to advertise as a wedding and natural portrait weekend photographer. After all, most weddings seem to be on Saturdays.... yeaaah anyway, this is the plan.

I just can't give photography up, and the music is sticking in church for now, and... yeah, I'm sort of chickening out by choosing to do childminding. Well, sort of. I know I will absolutely LOVE it, which helps. ;) But it still seems a little bit of a chicken move compared with my original ideas of photography business mixed with being a successful worship band...

I guess the thing is that I just don't love studio work enough. And I don't know how to do it without a studio. I mean, I DO, but heck, hard work or what! Perhaps I could do it, in the future, but not now. The thing is, I still feel too young. I make all this stuff up as I go, and everyone thinks it's all great and amazing but it really isn't! It's all a show!

But anyone who knows anything about music will know that that's all a show too, so perhaps it's just in my nature to seem much better than I am. Well, I say that, but then I surprise myself with what I do.

Maybe, just maybe, by pretending I'm better than I THINK I am actually brings out the best in me.

So, I'm going to just swing along and see what happens at the moment. I really want to have a reason to pick up my camera more than I do at the moment. Someone give me a tip?

I know what God says about all this: follow your heart, follow Me, DO NOT BE AFRAID. That was the message I felt in my heart sitting in a pew on Sunday. So I've got to remember that.

Do not be afraid. God is with you. You can do anything.

Katie & Paul - Wedding

2008-09-17T11:18:00.004+01:00

The sixth of September saw the wedding of Katie and Paul in Burgess hill with a reception at Meridian Hall in East Grinstead, which I shot alongside fellow-photographer Lee Shaughnessy. Unfortunately the weather was very poor for much of the day, though neither Katie or Paul seemed too fazed which was good. It was a lovely day and we took advantage of a few bouts of bright sunshine before the heavens repeatedly opened towards the evening!

Katie's dress was lovely, and she was proud not to have spent a fortune on it too...

She had a really simple veil which complemented her veil beautifully.

The air was full of excitement when the gorgeous flowers arrived. Here is one of the beautiful buttonholes.

The bouquets had a lovely and simple handle to hold, held gracefully with two pearl-headed pins.

Katie told us at the beginning that she was worried about looking awful in all the photos. I don't know what she was worrying about to be honest!

The little bridesmaid. She was ever so shy at first and then after about an hour of us being there, suddenly started jumping in front of the camera and posing all the time!

Katie's hair had been in curlers overnight and fell down her back beautifully.

The little bridesmaid again. This was before she put her adorable dress on.

The bouquet. As you can see there was a strong rose-red theme to their wedding.

Taking advantage of a break in the rain-clouds!

The pageboy. He was SO cheeky! He was also not at all camera-shy and apparently a budding photographer too.

The overcast clouds in the morning were perfect for the light.

They were really sweet together...

Playing with the balloons at the reception...

Of course, we did shoot in the rain! We had a big umbrella so took advantage of the situation!

I am still waiting for the rest of the photos from Lee (I shot with one of his cameras as well as mine) so I may post some other photos at a later date if you're lucky!

Photoshoot - Julie

2008-09-05T13:32:00.008+01:00

Wednesday saw what was possibly the shortest photoshoot I've ever done! Totalled at about 45 mins, so I still managed to get about 300 pics. It was also a good excuse to practice my low-light photography, since we were in Julie's house and she had some fab cream curtains which cast a lovely soft light over her - though of course that meant lots of slow shutter speeds! I used a bit of flash, but as per usual ended up getting my favourite shots with the available light.

Julie is a fab friend and a beautiful one too, and this definitely shows in these photos. When I photograph someone I find myself more and more captivated by the simple beauty that is the human form, and Julie was no exception. I've never really realised just how beautiful she is, and during the shoot when I kept looking at photos and smiling she kept thinking I was laughing at a silly pose or something - but how could I tell her how beautiful she is?

This is possibly the most 'Julie' look that I got! She's very good at that sort of pouting smile. We were close up for most of these because she wanted mostly headshots (she's a singer).

In front of the afore-mentioned curtains, with a little softglow in there as well ;)

She's short (like me) which is why she likes this pillow of hers! I also love her cheeky expression...

She has gorgeous eyes. I also like this photo coz it shows off some of her personality in the objects behind her...

Gotta love her freckles.

I think she looks very sweet in this shot.

Check out the fab light! This was actually a test shot with the flash (bouncing off the ceiling at some odd angle) but it shows off her fab scarf pretty well.

She hates the way she looks when she laughs. I love it.

A pensive one...

Hiding. Actually she did keep hiding every now and then when the embarrassment got too much! Bless.

The curtains were open here I think...

Love her rings!

A more sedate headshot. She thinks she needs her hair cut, but I still think it looks cool in this shot.

And last but not least, my favourite one of all...

Well, I've got a wedding tomorrow and more studio work next week so I shall be quite busy - but will try to keep this up to date!

Our Wedding - Some Favourites

2008-08-30T21:21:00.010+01:00

Here are some of my favourite photos from our wedding. SJ and I are hoping to have a photoshoot in out wedding gear since we didn't get many of just us alone, but for now look at these!

Please note that all photos in this post are © KEN LAM PHOTOGRAPHY
(although they are all post-edited by me!)

Getting ready. Slightly tearful after my mum gives me a necklace from my Nan who passed away not long ago. As you can see, my head bridesmaid was doing my hair. She did a great job!

Crying again, after walking down the aisle!

I really like this one for some reason. I guess I've always liked this really natural style of photography. It's my fault that Ken didn't have more chance to get some private photos of us, coz I totally forgot - although he never reminded me either!

Avoiding the puddles. Note the rain on the car... another reason we didn't get as many shots as I hoped. There was occasional sun but not much, so lots of dashing about, in and out!

SJ inside the church. Isn't he lovely?

This is me with my aunts (mother's side) and my cousin. I think everyone on my mum's side is so gorgeous! Not excluding my mum, though she doesn't realise it... (Hopefully her lovely outfit at the wedding helped her to though!)

SJ, me and my step son. He's autistic which is why he looks as though he's in his own little world! He's 9 soon.

Apparently I was quite happy on the day... ;)

Our wedding cake, made by a friend of the family. It was gorgeous! The top tier had a whole set of hand made icing flowers sprouting up from the middle and looked really lovely. S and K is us, of course!

Us with all the ushers, bridesmaids, the best man, the flower girls and the pageboy! The gals have got their stoles over their heads - and no, they didn't wear them like that!

This is actually SJ's church. We got married in my home church, but our reception was right next to this one - a good excuse to get some photos inside!

Our first dance. We didn't choose the song, but our singer sang 'Misty', which I love! That's why I'm smiling - coz I had a nice surprise.

A full gallery of all the photos is available, but please send a request if you would like to view it and don't already have the password.

New Photo Blog!

2008-08-30T10:27:00.010+01:00

As you can see, I now have a new photo blog. Here's where I'll be uploading photos from recent shoots so you can see what I'm up to. Of course, you can still find much of my work in the photo gallery, but this enables me to write about the photos a bit more! It's also the place where I'll upload previews for those that took part in the photos, their friends and their families, while they're waiting for the full set or an abum.

So here's the most recent few photos I've been doing... I thought I'd get my wedding things out and see what I could do with them, since my wedding photographer concentrated more on people photos.

What's in the bag? Ah, the suspense...

This is my bouquet. Do you think the flowers are real or fake? (Perhaps I've given the game away there...)

My gorgeous veil... When I saw this veil in the shop I couldn't help but have it - the crystals are in the shape of crosses! It was also a really lovely design of veil, the perfect length for my dress and everything.

Of course, we have to have a picture of the back of my dress. I love this so much. I have to admit it looks better on me though! Here it's just on a hanger.

This was a book that my mum gave me a couple of months before the wedding. It comes in a box and is full of lovely wedding images and old paintings, as well as poetry and quotations. Underneath is my veil and my underskirt!

A lovely painting here of a bride lifting her veil...

This is actually my wedding dress, with a purple filter. I think it looks like a really posh bridesmaids dress...

This is the inside of my dress. As you can see it was from Pronuptia - the same company my mum got hers from :)

My lovely shoes and my pearl necklace. The shoes are actually a little bit grubby but it's not too noticeable!

I'm not really a shoe lover but I love this photo and think it really makes them look really beautiful...

So that was yesterday. I was actually quite glad that I managed to get some good photos, since I had to use my 70-300mm which has to be a long distance away from the subject, meaning that it was a really difficult shoot! All my other lenses had somehow been left in the car which my husband had gone out in.

So anyway, a few more images for the wedding gallery. :)