Friendshoot Part One

My journey into portrait photography started with some of my best friends. In late 2014 I started to focus on portraiture as a business and wanted to further develop my photography skills, I was in need of models, so Sophie volunteered to be my guinea pig!  We arranged a couple of sessions, first on location and then a full studio portrait shoot, with lights, backdrops etc. I learnt so much, but it turned out it wasn’t just about me developing my photography skills. 

Sophie and I had built a friendship that some might say was a little unorthodox, as she is my husbands ex sister-in-law, but  over the years we developed a great friendship. Sophie had always wanted to be a Mum, but unfortunately came up against many hurdles and in 2009 she underwent gastric surgery and literally became half the woman she had been before.

Following that huge achievement her and her husband Terry embarked on their IVF journey.  Not only did they experience the difficulties associated with IVF but many of the heartaches too,  yet despite how incredibly hard it was for them, they persevered. I still remember the day she told me she was pregnant with her son, it felt different from the other times, even Sophie seemed different and although the pregnancy was Rocky,  they were blessed with their beautiful son Orlando in February 2013. 

Even though Sophie had volunteered and everyone else could see how beautiful she was (no matter what size she was), Sophie lacked confidence in herself and her new body!  This lack of confidence meant she was nervous to start with, but the more time we spent playing around and producing some fab images, the more Sophie’s confidence grew! I directed her movements, we went through poses, changed outfits and most importantly made sure she was comfortable. Incredibly Sophie wore an amazing corset showing her arms, something she would have really struggled with before.  It was a great experience to see someone become so confident in front of me. 

Portrait photography can be just about taking a photo of the person in front of you, but for me it became apparent it was much more, helping my clients see how the world saw them and helping their confidence grow was now a big part of it.

Six years and many photoshoots later, this is one of my favourite set of images!  Click here to see more images from Sophie’s sesssion.