Well hello sun, blue skies and little fluffy white clouds.  It took a while for you to come along but finally here you are and the birds are singing, the blossom is - blossoming... I think it's time for you all to book your spring portrait sessions!  We are looking at the end of April to May for apple blossom pics, sessions in the bluebell woods and what about some family photos with the rhododendrons in full bloom? I have quite a bit of space in the middle of the week, but if you need a weekend session, then I only have a couple left in April and May.  Contact me as soon as possible to get your preferred time!

It's the third edition this year from this blog circle of photographer friends from around the world.  This month we have chosen to go with portraits on kodak ektar - a film renowned for it's punchy contrasty colours.  I took this film along with me on a workshop I went on with the fabulous black and white film photographer CJ Nicolai when she visited the UK last month, not really thinking I would get to use it as February in the UK is rather dark and dismal and I have usually shot ektar on sunny days by the beach!  However, I'm glad I loaded it into my Rolleiflex and managed to get these shots of these lovely models.  The rest of the roll were of inanimate objects and the theme was portraits with ektar so I have to leave those out!

Please take a look at the fabulous Joyce Kang from Austin Texas for her Ektar shots here.

This month's 10 on 10 blog post falls on the UK's Mothering Sunday so as well as posting photos around the theme of "embracing grain", I would also like to wish mothers and grand mothers a happy mother's day!  Here is a selection of photographs from a variety of sessions (including a session from CJ Nicolai's UK workshop but more of that in another blog post) celebrating mothers , grand mothers, daughters and sons, grand daughters and grandsons.  The grain you can see below are mostly old fashioned film grain as I love to shoot with vintage film cameras although there is single digital image in the collection (can you spot which one?)  Winters in the UK tend to be grey and dull, hence the need for higher iso film, but grain can still be more prominent depending on film stock, film size and whether or not the image is underexposed.  I used a variety of film from "real black and white" kodak tmax3200 to kodak portra 800 and fuji 800z which were colour films which I converted to black and white.   Some of these are still underexposed even at those high isos leading me to think that sometimes grain can work, sometimes not...

Please take a look at Julia Tulley's work by clicking on this link, and then follow the very short blog circle around to see how other photographers have interpreted our theme of "embracing grain".   I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

It's the last friday of the month which means it's time for my film friday blog circle. It's fairly unusual to get snow in my part of the country down towards the south coast of England, but we did get a fair bit last month, so we took advantage of it and took a few portraits both on digital and film.  These are the film images, the colour ones were taken on a mamiya 645 camera with portra 400 and the black and white photos are from my rolleiflex tlr with kodak 400tx film stock.  Do please scroll down to the bottom and click on the link to go to the next blog to see more film photography from around the world.

Now please take a look at my friend Heidi's post here for more film photos from February.

Hello there!  For this month's 10 on 10 post, (10 photos on the 10th day of the month) this small circle of photographer friends decided to photograph a day in our lives.  It's been a particular challenge for me as the day I chose turned out to be extremely busy and I just had to go with the flow, photographing life as it happened without any staging or direction.   So please excuse the chaos, these photos are very much of a reportage feel but perhaps it may just resonate with other equally busy mums and families out there.

Breakfast

To the Vets

A bit of laundry whilst helping my Mum move house.

Unpacking boxes, Zen.

Homework

A treat for the end of the day, dinner out.

Wine o'clock!

Do take a look at the fabulous Linda Hooper's 10 on 10 blog post here to see what she has been up to for the day, and follow the links around our small circle.