Sally Evans Photography Blog

Looking for something to do with the children over the summer holidays that is FREE? Fancy winning prizes worth £80? Then why not come along to Kenilworth and join in the Sunflower Trail? Running from this Saturday until Saturday 4th September, so lots of time to take part. Visit the shops, find the clues and solve the puzzle. Correct entries will be entered into a prize draw with a chance to win! Click on the poster below to find out more or simply pop into The Little Clothes Horse, Costa Coffee, Beading Crafty, Crazy Kiln, Kenilworth Books, Kenilworth Sweet Shop or visit www.sallyevansphoto.co.uk/blog or www.sunflowerpa.co.uk for more information! Good luck!

Please download your entry form from the following link sunflowertrailentryform (This is a PDF file for which you need Adobe Acrobat Reader http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/?promoid=DAFYK )

The clue for your entry form from Sally Evans Photography is…

Following the introductory meeting in June, members of the ‘Camera Buddies’ group headed out on our first Field Trip to look at Local Photography (the topic for June to get us started). These new photographic workshops have a different topic each month, chosen around the aims of the members of the group. It was a very bright & sunny morning so we set off with as little camera equipment as we could bear (one brave soul simply took the camera & one lens approach!) to explore around the outside of Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire. It was interesting seeing the same scene from the different perspectives of the people attending - we were more or less looking at the same things in front of us but, when we get together for our next workshop meeting all together on Wednesday 14th July, I am certain we will all have very different images to display. There were questions which we helped each other find the answers to and ideas on how to best use our cameras to produce the image which we wanted to - pooling ideas and trying to help with technical questions is the whole ethos behind the Camera Buddies group so I was pleased to see we were able to get straight into it. There is a repeat Field Trip for some of other group members tomorrow evening - different light, different people, different images - which I am really looking forward to. For now, here are a couple of photos which I took this morning, one of which I convereted to black and white. We will be looking more at black & white photography in a workshop in the near future. Please contact me on contact@sallyevansphoto.co.uk if you would like details of the Camera Buddies group - there’s no obligation to join and your first session is free. You will have the opportunity to join people in the workshop under the guidance of a professional photographer and there are many other workshops planned suitable for digital as well as film users.  Training in various aspecs of today’s photography business is being offered - further details to be announced shortly although please do contact me to be added to our mailing list so that you can be one of the first to receive details. Email contact@sallyevansphoto.co.uk and put ‘Photography Workshop’ in the title.

Today (20th April) and Saturday 24th April we are instore at The Little Clothes Horse Children’s Sore, Warwick Road, Kenilworth looking for the ‘Sunniest Smile’! Babies & Children aged 0-14 years are welcome to enter the photo competition and you will receive a FREE photo & vouchers for various Kenilworth stores. The winners of the various age categories will win lots of prizes & the overall winner will win a photo-shoot & photo products worth £150! Pop along to enter or telephone The Little Clothes Horse Children’s Store on 01926 856504 to book your photo session.

Yesterday I went to my first basketball match! It was to take some images for the Coventry Crusaders which will be used for press releases amongst other things. I had a fantastic time - very fast paced action and very close up as well which made for some exciting moments. Unfortunately the Leicester Warriors were a stronger team on the day but the Crusaders put up a great fight as the shots below show - this is just a selection of a few of my favourites. I am looking forward to working with the Coventry Crusaders in the future - they are a great team!

Thank you to St Nicholas’ School who made me so welcome today for their enrichment afternoon. I spent a incredibly busy couple of hours making pinhole camera obscura’s out of shoeboxes, greaseproof paper, tinfoil, black paper & miles of gaffer tape! The 60 children from the two Year 5 classes also made patterns with objects they found which they put onto sunprint paper - not that there was much sunshine today but the prints developed ok. It was great to hear the children’s comments as they looked at the images in their ‘cameras’ - things like ‘Mine is FANTASTIC! It works really well, but I can see everything upside down. Why?’ Well…. ok, I’ll spare you the explanation but this was the point of making the cameras. It’s simply amazing what you can achieve in photography & imaging just using the light which is available to us. And it’s a lesson to us all. Sometimes we are in danger of losing the plot slightly and it does us good once in a while to step back from our high-tech, digital, IT-driven world of photography and take it right back to basics. So thank you St Nicks, its a lesson that I will be taking away with me.

This week has so far been mostly about commercial clients who are looking for updated images for PR, Press & other marketing purposes. More will be revealed soon about Monday’s shoot but suffice to say I came away having had a wonderful time with a lovely group of babies & toddlers - including a newborn baby who was just so sweet. I digress!

So, yesterday I was asked once more to provide some images for PR for Carrick Travel - mostly images of shopfronts for their new brochure but whilst I was at their branch at Cheylesmore I was also asked to use the opportunity to take some photographs of their staff - these will probably be for their website in the short term.

Here’s a small sample of the images supplied:

Whilst it is always necessary to provide the ’standard’ shot, I also enjoy looking at the potential and taking some additional images which are a little bit different to show the subject (in this case the shop front) in an interesting and slightly more creative way. I find that the ’standard’ images are used to show location & on contact pages of website, and that the others are used to brighten up the rest of a website or marketing literature, giving a ‘fresh’ look which can give an instant boost to the overall finished product.

Good photographs of staff make a vast difference as to whether the person looking at the website or brochure will call in or contact your business. I work hard at creating a rapport with staff so that I can capture the image which best represents your business. ‘Professional - but also friendly & approachable’ is often the brief I am given for staff photos which, although a lot for one image to convey, can be achieved with the right approach.

If you are looking to present your business’ staff, products or premises in the way that does justice to them and presents them in the way that best shows your potential clients what you can offer, please get in touch. I offer a special ‘web-only’ Commercial Photography Service as well as making images available at very high quality suitable for print.

Last Saturday I was pleased to be invited to photograph the choosing of the Kenilworth Carnival Queen 2010. It was a very busy evening at the Priory Theatre with lots more entries than I anticipated! I was amazed at the activities which everyone was involved in with many worthy community projects & groups being mentioned. At the end of the evening the judges thanked everyone for taking part - it must have been a very difficult decision for them - and announced this year’s Kenilworth Carnival Queen & her Attendants.

Well done to everyone who took part - looking forward to seeing you all at the Kenilworth Carnival on 3rd July 2010!

Just a few genereal images from Saturday’s ‘Fun Day’. It was great to see people having fun and enjoying the other exhibitors. Kenny the Kenilworth Festival Bear was a bit hit as you can see! I will add some of my favourite images from the photo-sessions in the next couple of days.