Beautiful Nature

Sometimes I look at what we have become as humans, destroying life, land and our seas. It can be hard to see past it all, but then, in a single moment of utter beauty, I am reminded of what nature has created and still creates now.

With each season comes a different flower, we have just had daffodils, tulips and blossom and then, the beautiful peonies have started to unfurl their spectacular petals.

I bought a couple of reduced bunches from Marks & Spencer on Sunday and wasn't expecting much. But, when we got home with these unloved beauties and put them into some water, they exploded like sprinters, racing to see who could open the fastest.

One of them beat the others hands down and there were many oohs and aahhs, it was like a peacock shaking out its tail feathers, truly beautiful. So, I did what anyone who likes to take pictures would do and got my camera out.

Like a lot of photographers, I still have a lot to learn about how to take pictures, heck, I only took my camera off automatic last year. That aside, it is hard not to take a beautiful picture when the subject itself is so divine. Since I took these pictures, the flowers have changed colour and shape even more which only goes to show how wonderful nature truly is.

My Month of November

I have never needed my camera more, this month has been hard on the soul. With a funeral, illness, accidents and the events of Paris, which we visited earlier this year, there is nothing I have enjoyed more than photographing and styling to empty my head of its cloudy whirlwind of emotional mush.

The more photos I take, the more I love fall in love with my camera. Taking pictures of the children, places we visit and food acts as a journal, helping me to recall the wonderful memories we have made throughout the year. Days like this one, spent sauntering through the wonderful Elvaston Castle grounds, the children let their hair down and enjoyed the cool autumn day by running through the leaves and mud, collecting twigs along the way.

Autumn brings with it a mixture of emotions anyway, gone are the sandals, sun hats and summer dresses and here are wooly jumpers, tights and welly boots. I am definitely more of a summer person, as much as I love snuggling in the front of the telly, I would prefer to be out and about, preferably without having to don heavy coats and itchy hats that make my hair frizzy! Maybe it's time to invest in some nice jumpers so I can layer up more.

The cold weather isn't all bad though, being out and about means we can stand huddled together drinking hot chocolate,  quickly eating food without your gloves before your hands start to freeze. Getting home to a warm house and roast dinner and snuggling up on the sofa.

Being indoors means baking, making and creating and with so many deep autumn flavours to chose from and so many pretty colours and themes to be able to use, autumn definitely has its pros. My heart hasn't quite made it into the cold days yet but it will and then we can all wrap up and get cosy. 

Hopefully, once the Christmas tree is up and the house is looking festive things will feel better. We headed to our local garden centre on Saturday to welcome Santa, it was rather cold but afterwards we headed to the park with some warm sausage rolls and then on to the pub for a hot chocolate. We met up with my brother, his girlfriend and her daughter, which was nice. I am so up for more family and friend get-togethers, just need to find some more time at the weekends and finish off our house.

Hopefully the next few weeks won't go too quickly, I need time to plan presents, food and enjoy the festivities as they start to take place. Christmas always seems to slip by so quickly and before I know it we are into the New Year.

How do you plan your weeks running up to Christmas, I need a planner me thinks!

Learning Food Photography at The School of Artisan Food

This weekend, I was invited to attend an Introduction to Food Photography Course at the The School of Artisan Food on the Welbeck Estate in North Nottinghamshire. I love taking pictures of food so I jumped at the chance.

Food is something that I not only love to make, but also love to take pictures of, it doesn't move around and can look stunning if styled right. So, I went along, having not really used my camera on anything but automatic before, I didn't really understand the settings. No matter how much I tried before, nothing ever changed, so understanding more was something I was looking forward to.

First of all, the wonderful Joan Ransley sat and told us about her work and explained to us which settings to use on the camera, both on and off the tripod. It was really insightful and taught in a way which made sense. After some coffee we went down to the foyer to find the best light, with it's huge glass windows, this was the perfect place.

Learning about light and how important it was made sense to me, I have always found that natural light is great for pictures. Joan went through in great detail how she was using her camera to capture the image and how to place the wonderful produce we'd been given from the school. She had many wonderful props with her and I couldn't wait to use them later on.

After lunch, which was all homemade at the school, we were set free. In groups of two we chose our produce, again from the school, to go and take pictures with. My partner Elaine and I chose this wonderful plum tart, the lines and detail in the cake were perfect. We went outside to the abbatoir, the stone floor was perfect for pictures, as was the light. How important the light is is something I only became more aware of recently, the light that came through that door was simply perfect.

We chose a few simple pieces for our picture and the rusticness of the floor made us want to go with a completely rustic autumnal feel for our picture, leaves from outside just added to that effect and I think the overall picture is stunning.

There were so many wonderful cakes to photograph and although there wasn't time to do everything I did manage to snap a few of the others. The pecan pie was delightful with so many lines and shapes, with the addition of a borage flower for colour and some thyme for a bit of green I loved how this turned out.

Back inside, some of the amazing cheeses were already set up on a table so i'm afraid I can't take the credit for the styling on this one, but it looked wonderful and I couldn't help just wanting to snap these delicious cheeses that i'd had at lunch.

One of the other participants, Sherry, who runs a bread making and jam course in Lincoln had bought some of her apple and sage jelly in, again I hadn't set this up but I had to take a picture of the wonderful styling and beautiful colours! It was most definitely a picture not to be missed and the produce made all the difference to these pictures.

Without a shadow of a doubt, these are some of the best photos I have ever taken with my camera and I would say most of it was down to the beautiful quality food, props, setting and obviously the teacher. I loved food photography anyway, I love taking pictures and this has inspired me to take better pictures and to keep at my picture taking to make myself better.

I can't express enough how much courage this has given me to take my camera off the automatic setting and to actually learn to take pictures using props outside of my usual range. Thank you Joan for a wonderful day and sharing your knowledge.

You can find this course along with many others from, chocolate making to cheese making so do take a look and maybe you'll find something you love.

NB: I was offered a place on this course in return for my honest opinion on the day. All words and pictures are my own.