About Jenny Owens Photography
Hi, and welcome to my blog. I specialise in maternity, babies, children and family portraiture with a twist. I most enjoy lifestyle photography where I photograph you and your family relaxing and having fun in your own home or at one of the many beautiful public spaces in Hampshire. You will find some sneak peeks from my latest sessions on here. Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave a comment - I would love to know your thoughts!
I’m so excited to be posting these photos today as later on I will be visiting this lovely serene Mum, and photographing her gorgeous little newborn. I hope that the light stays nice for us and that Baby S will be feeling sleepy but for the moment, enjoy her maternity photos.
Happy 2012 everyone! I’m pleased to start the New year with a film post and one of my favourites from Christmas Eve. This one was shot on Kodak portra 800 and converted to black and white in post processing. I feel that 2012 will definitely bring more film shots for me, although I am a little saddened to hear about Kodak’s uncertain future – Kodak News . On the positive side, many report that its film division is actually doing rather well and there have also been reports from labs that more people are returning to film and asking for film developing and prints from negatives. Here’s hoping that Kodak can successfully restructure stay afloat in 2012, and I hope everyone else has a safe, healthy and prosperous new year!
I can’t believe where the time has gone! So many photos still to blog from 2011 but for now I will have to show you this. This is my version of a photo taken by the very talented Anne Wick. It wasn’t intended to be a direct copy but I was messing around with kodak portra 800 (trying different settings) and there were christmas lights and a girl in a pink dress… here’s to celebrating gorgeous Christmas lights bokeh, and out of focus pictures! Happy holidays everyone.
Friday has come around again, but it’s no ordinary friday, it’s black friday! My friends in the US are all enjoying deals and massive discounts on goods and services, and to an extent, we in the UK can also benefit from these also. I am particularly interested in various lightroom presets which have been produced to emulate film. The Clickinmoms Film Presets is a particularly good deal at present, and the newly released VSCO lightroom presets are still on the special introductory price.
Now I do still mostly shoot on digital so these could help enormously in my work-flow and in trying to keep a consistent look. However, I am still hesitant. The examples are obviously there to entice, and some do sort of look a little like film, but how much is that really down to the photographer’s skills in getting the right light/emotion/exposure/composition? Would they work on my photos with just one click? Also, I could probably, after much tweaking and experimenting, come up with my own presets which would work for the way I take photos. But then again, I guess that’s the whole point of buying presets, as long as the basic image is well composed and exposed, then presets save enormously on editing and experimenting time. Time which could then be spent behind a real film camera!
Anyway, I am still very much undecided. So here are a few film images whilst I ponder. These were taken at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens near Romsey, Hampshire last month. I took my film camera out at the end of a family session and managed to get a few photos of these lovely children on film. I promise to blog more of their session next week! I used fuji160ns and kodak portra 160 on these.
Here are a few from a session earlier in the summer. Mum and Dad were very much enthralled by their newborn baby girl who is such a relaxed and happy baby. Hope you all enjoyed those first weeks and months – they certainly fly by!
Hi again everyone! Well, I don’t know how I’m going to top the images of the previous post (photos not taken by me but by Vicky Slater of my own family) so I thought I’d go with the flow and post some more film shots taken by me this time! I am shooting more and more film, trying different stocks and various techniques, so I think I will start a new “Film Friday” feature where I can share more of these. They will probably be more personal, experimental and hopefully informational posts, but for today, I will start with a sweet sleeping baby whose Mum didn’t mind me taking the huge beast of a film camera out at the end of our session. She also said she liked black and white photos so I also took some on real black and white film. Colour images taken with fuji pro 400h, and black and white with Kodak Tri X 400. Baby C was facing the window and I think I had the reflector by his head at one point (thanks for being the reflector stand baby C’s Mum!)
Isn’t he sweet? I will be posting more from this session at a later date. You’ll have to see his gorgeous eyes when he was awake.
This post comes with 2 warnings: firstly this is a very personal post and I may get a bit emotional and sentimental; secondly, the following photos in this post were not taken by me, but by the inimitable Vicky Slater of Vicky Slater Photography. I hired her over a month ago to take my family photographs.
I imagine that other photographers understand when I say I do not like being photographed. In fact, you could say, I like hiding behind the camera. That’s why I chose to be the photographer, and not the model. It’s a fairly big deal for me to step out in front of the camera for a full session! So, when and why did this sudden, uncontrollable urge develop to be brave and bare my face to the camera? Well… here comes the sad part, earlier this year, I lost my Dad. He had been diagnosed with a terminal illness 18 months previously. In that time we spent as much time as we could in his company. I took many photos, of him and my Mum, of him and the children. I haven’t found one of me and him together in that time frame. I think that’s rather sad don’t you? Yes, I have all the memories still in my heart and mind, but it would’ve been nice to have just 1 photo of us together.
As photographers, whether an amateur or professional, we often forget to include ourselves when documenting our own family lives. I think it’s important when looking through those old family albums in years to come, that there are actually some photos of each member of the family in there. Yes, I can get my husband to take snap shots of me. I could even set up the self timer. But, I wanted for once, to relax and have someone else do the thinking; what’s in the scene, are there trees growing out of people’s heads, what settings should it be for aperture, speed, iso? Has the light changed? (And believe me, the light change a lot during our family session with Vicky!) I wanted some photos to prove that I was actually there in my family’s lives, those numerous weekend jaunts we have in the country when I would have to forcibly persuade “the boys” (my husband and son) that going out and about is fun (and yes they do enjoy themselves once they’re out of the house), and that no, Mummy doesn’t have a camera permanently plastered to her face. I wanted it to be a treat. A luxury. So what better chance did I have when Vicky announced that she was setting up shop. I had long followed her on Flickr and admired her work. She has published and exhibited her beautiful works of art, but now she is also taking on commercial family portraits. Hooray! I cannot tell you how excited I was at this prospect. If I’m going to hire someone to take my photos, I better like their style, and I adored hers. Result. I cannot tell you what a wonderful experience it was for me. Vicky had great rapport with the children, she even made my initially reluctant husband say he actually enjoyed the experience!
Then, the photographs themselves. Vicky has a very strong vision, I knew that from her photos. I came across her flickr stream through my search for film photographers and she now shoots both film and digital. Whatever medium she shoots in, it is clear to me that her vision comes through. So I knew that she would be able to capture aspects and facets of my children’s personalities in a way that I probably wouldn’t be able to. She would see them differently. They would probably act differently towards her. I told Vicky before we met that I thought her photographs had “soul”. I think these two photographs demonstrate that and show how these two siblings are so similar but display such different characteristics.
I have ordered many prints and have a large framed print coming shortly. I can’t tell you how delightful it is to have actual prints and framed photographs I can treasure and look at for years to come. I wish I could share more of her photos of us, but I’m not going to bother her at this time for more digital files as she is rather busy at present. She is getting ready for her exhibition as part of the Salisbury Art Trail. It opens this Wednesday. I urge those of you who are local to go and catch it if you can. She is amazing.
oh yes… here I am, look, with my family.
Photos taken at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Romsey.
Photographer: Vicky Slater
Hello again monday. Here’s another gorgeous Mum from a few weeks ago. We had a relaxed session with a few changes of clothing, although none with her very own brand of Girl Geek T-shirts “Geek Overflow”. We’ll have to remedy that next time won’t we Faye? I can’t wait to meet your new little one. I bet he has the same baby blues as his big brother.
We didn’t quite get baby B at his sleepy newborn stage and there simply was too much going on at his session for him to just go to sleep. He was very interested in Mummy and Daddy for any of that sleeping malarky! Here is Gorgeous baby B with Mummy and Daddy.
Here are a few maternity shots of a lovely friend of mine whom I met through a post qualifying training course. We took a few indoors with the studio background and outdoors also. I even managed to sneak in a film shot in there! These were taken a good few months ago now, and in fact we’ve already had a session with her scrummy little boy. I will post those at the end of the week. Sam is so laid back and relaxed, I think these photos show her happy anticipation of baby B.
