Hadrians Wall

So I have got a little bit behind with this with the photo shoot at the weekend taking up some time. Its my Birthday tomorrow but my mum and dad are both working most of the day (they are both GPs) and I won't really see them at all during my birthday so we decided to have a nice day on the bank holiday to make up for it. We drove down to Hadrian's wall and had a picnic and a nice walk. It was a bit drizzly (and very windy) but it was still a nice fake birthday! Tomorrow two of my friends from university are travelling up for a visit and we are going to have an explore of the countryside so hopefully some nice photographs will occur!

Bridal Photoshoot: Part 2

Continuing on from yesterdays post, these are some more photographs from the styled Bridal shoot that I did on Saturday. I love the elegance and drama of the longer dress with the train that was photographed earlier but this dress worked so well because it really suits Esther's personality. Having known Esther for so long, nearly ten years, Ii could tell that this dress would really work for her, we even discussed that this would be what she might wear when it comes to her own wedding day. Its slightly more casual and fun while still being pretty. The pops of colour from the shoes and the flowers really bring out the brightness of her personality.

After taking some photographs in the woodland we also went down to Rumbling Kerns to take some more seaside photographs. It was really sunny but also really windy at the same time and we had so much trouble getting any nice pictures. I managed to get one or 2 but all the others weren't really successful which is a shame.

Bridal Photoshoot: Part 1

I did a photoshoot with my friend Esther yesterday, basically to have a bit of practice and flesh out my portfolio a little bit. I had her wear a couple of outfits with flower and shoe variations so just have some fun capturing different details.
I will be posting the photographs in 2 parts, just because otherwise it would be a ridiculously long post!
We went to a woodland area next to the Rock Hall Estate (which I posted photographs of a few days ago) and it was really beautiful. It was a very bright sunny day, which was sort of a shame as it meant the light coming through the branches was very bright and harsh, making troublesome shadows at times.
I actually bought the dress that Esther is wearing here, for a mind blowing £12! I actually couldn't believe it. It was on ebay for £12 and it was one of those listings where I almost assumed it wouldn't look anything like the image because it was too good to be true! Then when it arrived I was so happy because it was actually still really quite nice. The lace on the bodice is maybe slightly to cheap looking for it to be a real wedding dress, but the back of the dress is just gorgeous with the low back with buttons and the long flowing train. It was exactly what I wanted for this photo shoot so I was very happy. Onwards to the photographs!

30 Photo Challenge: Day 14

I did a photo shoot today with my friend Esther as a sort of styled bridal shoot.I have quite a few good photographs I think, but I am still in the editing process so here's a quick sneak peek for now.


 

30 day Photo Challenge: Day 13

I bought some flowers today that I will be using for the photoshoot with Esther at the weekend and I decided to just have a bit of a practice doing floral and detail shots.

30 Day photo challenge: Day 12

We went for a walk today at Rumbling Kerns, which is a lovely rocky beach near to Longhaughton. I wanted to try out my new 35 mm lens so I took that along with me and took a few shots while we were there.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 12

I have a photo shoot planned for Saturday with my best Friend Esther. Shes always very good at allowing me to dress her up and take her photo and has been my trusty model over the years. For the photo shoot I wanted a woodland location so I have been scouting around recently trying to find a place that had the right aesthetic as well as possibilities of a variety of images. Today I think I found my spot! Its a bit out of the way, near Rock Hall Estate, which is good because I didn't see a single other person while I was walking there so hopefully that means we would be relatively undisturbed. The woodland was beautiful with a little stream and the floor was littered with bluebells and various wildflowers. I can't wait until Saturday now!

And of course my trusty companion joined me on my exploration with a spring in his step!

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 11

Just a quick self portrait, not hugely happy with it but then I never am with photographs of myself. I like the effect of the photograph being taken in the windscreen mirror though, I think that looks quite interesting.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 10

A rainy walk on the beach, a playfull puppy with a new ball and a few crows. What more can you ask for on a Friday afternoon. I was at work today, I work at Barter Book in Alnwick part time, but after work we decided to pop to the beach for half an hour. Amarouk was full of energy despite a slightly restless/sleepless night due to teething, and looks handsome as ever. My mum came along for the walk, she wasn't too keen on being photographed but I am trying to convince her to let me take some portrait shots of her in the net few days which should be fun.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 9

We went for a walk near Alnmouth train station, it was quite late around 8 o clock I think so the light was fading. While technically not a perfect photo, with the light burnout and the lens flare occurring I still like this image of my brother. I quite like the slightly overexposed background and the dreamy effect of the lighting. There were a lot of flies around and Amarouk kept jumping at the sky trying to bite them, which I managed to capture in the second photograph, his little paws fully off the ground!

30 Day Photo Challange: Day 8

While in Edinburgh I met up with my friend Claire, who was in my year at University, and we had a lovely lunch at the Last Drop in the Grassmarket. Claire is currently working with her brother for their business Joy Collection ( find their website here) which creates beautiful wooden Iphone cases, Art Board and various other items which are then cut or etched with a laser cutter. I have bought a number of their items over the years and they are always beautifully made and really stand out from the everyday iPhone cases.

 

30 Day photo challenge: Day 7

I Walked through the meadows, the same way that I used to walk in to university nearly everyday for three years, and the blossom was in full bloom. It's one of my favourite times of year on the meadows.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 6

So for the past few days I have been in Edinburgh visiting a couple of different friends from university and also meeting up with a wedding photographer who is currently working in Edinburgh for a chat which was interesting. I was staying in my friends flat who lives with a sculpture/performance artist and a singer. They live in quite an unusual flat and have accumulated quite a collection of strange and unusual things, some of which including their own artwork. I took a few photographs of just some of the random stuff they have in their flat as well as their lovely Dog Luca who is a mixture of Husky, German Shepard and Collie.

30 Day Photo Challenge Day #4 and #5

I didn't have time to post yesterday because I went round to a friends house for dinner after work, but this is the photo I took yesterday and the photo I took today. Just a couple of nice flower images, on a wide aperture with a macro lens to create the nice depth of field and blurred background effect.

I am going up to Edinburgh tomorrow to visit some friend for a couple of days. I will be taking my camera and taking photographs but I probably wont be taking my laptop so the next few days will probably be uploaded in a bulk rather than individually each day.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day #3

I didn't have much time today so there really is only one photo this time. While walking in Denwick I spotted this horse against the landscape of Northumberland. I had to be quick as she gallopped away pretty soon after this (not too keen on the puppy) so I didnt have much time think before I shot, but I am happy enough with the result.

Pinterest

I have added a Pinterest section to the my Menu at the top of the screen, this means you can access (and follow if you like) my profile and see all my current pins. Visit Rachael Fraser's profile on Pinterest.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day #2

So clearly I am going to have trouble only taking one photo a day! I think rather than trying to limit myself to just one photo a day I will just say at least one, as really the whole point is just to get me to take more photos and be constantly practicing. I went on a walk at Sugarsands beach at Longhoughton this evening. It was slightly tricky as there seemed to be a lot of sheep milling around in the dunes which made Amarouk get very excited and he was pulling on his lead, making holding a camera at the same time a bit difficult. There was one black sheep amongst about 30 or so white sheep and I really wanted to get a photograph of the black sheep of the herd, but with the dog it was difficult to get close enough to get much of anything. I really like this photograph of Amarouk, I feel it captures his excitement and movement. I am actually surprised it turned out so nicely, with his eyes perfectly in focus, as it was taken while his lead was wrapped around my legs and he was desperately trying to tell me that there were sheep close by that were needing attention.

Charlotte Photoshoot

 I did a photo shoot with my cousin  last week to practice my portrait photography as well as play around with a few things I might face if I do wedding photography,such as veils. Charlotte is extremely photogenic (and beautiful) and a perfect model for this sort of thing and it was a lot of fun. The photograph that I actually like the best was actually sort of taken by accident and not planned at all.  She was wearing a long auburn wig for the photographs because I wanted a pre-raphaelite vintage feel to the images and because Charlotte had just had all her hair chopped off a few days before and she was feeling a bit self conscious about it. However, at the end of the day (about half 7 in the evening) we got back to the house and she took off the wig and even though her hair was all messy and pushed back from being up inside the wig I thought she looked amazing so I quickly took her out into the back garden and took a few quick shots and I think she looks incredible. The evening light is creating such soft flattering shadows on her face and, having used my trust 50mm lens at F/1.8, the background is nicely blurred out just showing the hints of the ivy behind her. I often find the best photographs are the ones that you haven't planned and weren't expecting.

Gibside Wedding Photography Workshop: Part Two

 These are the second set of photographs from the photography workshop at Gibside. The Chapel at Gibside was absolutely beautiful, It had a slightly unusual set up with a raised platform in the centre surrounded by railing (which you can see to the side of some of my photographs) and no seating. The lighting in the chapel was beautiful, it had just started raining outside as we went in, and the white cloud gave a lovely even light. This meant I could capture quite light images without having to significantly lower my ISO. I also mainly used my 50 mm prime lens which works extremley well in lower lighting conditions.

After the service we went outside to do the formal portraits with the bride and groom. Unfortunatley the front of the chapel was off limits to us because of construction work being done, which was a shame as the front is a beautiful Georgian structure. Instead we had to use the side of the building, but the final images still work quite well I think.

Gibside Wedding Photography Workshop: Part One

I recently took part in a wedding photography workshop at Gibside, near to Newcastle. We were in the Stable building, which was a lovely setting quite far into the grounds, with a cobbled courtyard and cafe.
 It was a 2 day workshop run by Going Digital and taught by wedding photographer Bev Charlton. (If your interested you can look at their website here, they do a range of different photography workshops).
On the first day of the workshop Bev did a presentation giving us a load of useful tips and information as well as some of her own advice from her years of a wedding photographer. We then went out and practiced a few techniques using the other pupils in the class.
On the second day there was a bride and groom model hired for the day and we used them to do a basic run through of the structure of a wedding; from the bride getting ready to the church to the formal portraits afterwards. Although we still had much more time than we would have been able to have had it been a real wedding situation, Bev tried to keep us on track and experience the timing constraints that you have to face when in a real wedding situation.
I took so many photographs! The models were both great, they were a couple in real life so were very happy and comfortable around each other making it so much easier to capture the real moments between them. I have managed to whittle down the images a bit, but I will still split them up into two or three posts to give me chance to edit them and put them together.

These are the initial shots taken within the room getting read, with closeups of the shoes and rings, the bride coming down the stairs and then the first portraits taken in the courtyard of the Stables.

Caves and Beaches

My brother came up for the weekend a couple of weeks ago and we went up to Cuthber'ts Cave for a  picnic and a bit of a walk. The weather was beautiful and it felt like summer had finally arrived (not so much anymore!)

The next day it was still so beautiful, although slightly chillier, so we went down to Dunstanburgh Beach, Amarouk certainly had a nice time!

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day #1

I have decided to try to do a 30 day photography Challenge. Originally I was going to do a 365 day challenge, but I decided that was quite a commitment and that it would be better to start off small and see how it goes with the 30 first! So today was my first day and, as I imagine will happen quite a lot on rainy days like this one, I took some shots of my husky puppy Amarouk. He is currently 5 months old and I have had him since January.He has the gentlest nature but can still be a bit of a scamp when he wants to be! Surprisingly for a puppy he is also a very easy model, offer him a grape or an apple and he is yours! Technically this is 3 photographs rather than one, but I liked all three of them too much to chose. The first 2 were taken while he was snoozing in my Kitchen this morning after his first walk (he has to have 3 a day to keep him happy); once he realized what I was doing and that there was a possibility of treats he sat up and gave me his full attention! I took these photos on my 50 mm prime lens, which is my absolute favourite lens at the minute it rarely leaves my camera, with a low aperture of f/2.4 to create that lovely shallow depth of field. Because of all the rain and white cloud outside, the light today is actually quite lovely, and I really like the soft lighting with the blues and oranges in my kitchen.

Laura and Chris - 2014

In the summer of 2014 two of my best friends from high school got married in a beautiful service at Rothbury. I wasn't the main photographer for this wedding, but I managed to get a few pictures that I was happy with. I made the photographs into a little album for my wedding gift to them and they were so happy with it! It took a little while for the professional photographs to come back to them, so they were glad to have some good quality images to show people while they waited. I was so happy to be a part of this wedding, especially having seen the relationship from the very beginning, when we were all just 15!

Rachel & Matt Wedding 2012

 A few years ago I was asked to do the photography for the wedding of my friends sister; the wedding was a small intimate affair and was lovely to be a part of.

Rachel was pregnant with her son Max at the time and looked stunning in her vintage inspired dress and hairstyle. The reception took place in Tynemouth and in the evening, after the afternoon tea, cakes and speeches, we had chance to go out to the beach and get some lovely shots of the bride and groom and the rest of the wedding party.

 Being asked to do the photographs for this wedding was what first started my interest in photography and thinking about trying wedding photography professionally. I feel like my photography has improved a lot since this first foray into wedding photography, and my lens collection has certainly grown (these were all taken with the standard kit lens), but I am still proud of these first photographs and feel like they still stand up well against my newer images.