A winter walk

We went for a walk on the Garth today. It was windy but the light was great. Steven even let me take about 4 photos of him!!!

Christmas at the McGiverns

Me and Steven spent Christmas at my parents with my brother Aidan. There's normally more of us, but my brother is travelling at the moment and my sister is volunteering in an orphanage in Thailand.



Its traditional for my family to have a huge fried breakfast on Christmas morning. Here I am cooking the eggs:



Aidan and my mum opening presents:




I got an Ipod - woooohoooooooo!!!



Here is what we listened to - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins:



And here is what we ate(!) - the McGiverns like their food :) I could almost be that strange guy who eats Christmas dinner everyday. I reckon I could do that for about a month.



Max getting a tummy-rub:



Steven got remote-controlled jousting knights. Here he is putting the batteries in. Its a serious business...



The knights in action:



Aidan after too much food (and wine by the looks of it..)



We went for a walk on boxing day:



Here's where I get my good looks from :)



Max running like the wind:



We won't be here for Christmas next year. We'll be in New Zealand! Hope everyone had a great holiday xx

Aoife at Christmas!

Aoife is Susan and Mark's daughter (Susan is my cousin). I last photographed her when she was about 8 months old (I think...!). Susan, Mark and Aoife are heading over to Ireland for Christmas and stopped in Cardiff on their way over. We hung out for the evening and I followed Aoife on her travels around my parent's house. She made friends with Max, played with some Christmas decorations, got on the exercise bike and spent some time on the phone. Huh, its a hard life being 2 years old...





Hello? Can I help you?



Sharon will recognise this!



I thought I would put these together in a little storyboard. So cute!!:





Aoife found santa so we decided to do some Christmassy shots with him:



Until she wanted to undress him. It seems nothing is sacred...





Aoife was determined for Max to obey her and come to her when she demanded. He had other ideas.


Okay, I did sit Aoife down in front of the tree with santa.. but I promise I didn't tell her to kiss him!! It seems Aoife has one eye on sweets, toys and having fun... and one cynical eye on the commercial Christmas card market - one savvy 2 year old.



She is so gorgeous I want to take her home too. I'll have to kidnap Aoife along with Natasha and James, put them in a cupboard and then bring them out for my Christmas parties! Hm, that sounded a bit sinister - I mean it in the nicest way of course... :)

Two Sisters, Kim and Sam

Kim and Sam wanted some portraits that they could give to parents and grandparents for Christmas. They have a big garden with a great view but it was soooo cold that we only managed a few outdoor shots before we had to run inside again! We mostly did studio style shots with different backdrops. Kim and Sam are good friends and very patient models!





Kim is the oldest:



And Sam is 2 years younger:





Once we had lots of grandparent-suitable images, we did some more styley ones too:









The family have 2 border collies (lush!) who were keen to be in the photos too, although I don't think they realised how tiring modelling can be:



Okay, I have to post all of the following images because we managed to get 2 smiling humans and 2 smiling (read 'alert') dogs at the same time, success!!









Thanks for putting up with the cold guys! Hello to the dogs, see you soon.x

Portraits of Chetna

Of course now that I'm a superstar photographer I get to photograph gorgeous model types like Chetna! These are Christmas portraits really as a special surprise gift for her Dad and other family types. Its finally stopped raining so we got some great outdoor winter sun shots too.

Wowee, isn't she gorgeous?



Look at those eyes!







We did loads of different poses, styles and backdrops, and Chetna was such a trooper - she could definitely be a professional model.



The winter sun was so strong but it makes for great back-lighting! This is at Penarth Pier by the way...










I think winter light is so dramatic, I might prefer it to summer light, especially in the morning when there's lots of mist. If you're commenting, let me know which shot you like the best, I'd love to know!

Has anyone else not bought any Christmas presents yet.....? whoops...