from our hearts..

 

This is what I have to put up with pretty much all the time.. photo bombing Joanna..

 I adore my girls..

R&R

The past two months have been non stop. Weddings every weekend.. travelling up and down the country.. editing.. meeting couples.  When we're in the midst of wedding season weeks tend to move very fast.. we shoot a wedding on Saturday and before you blink it's Friday again and we're back on the road.  This year we wanted some time off.. just little pockets of relaxation to keep us healthy and happy and what I'm discovering is that I'm actually more productive when I give myself smaller segments of time to do things in... who'd have thunk it!?! Now I schedule my edits.. timetable my workflow and give myself weekly and daily targets.  So now we're having normal lazy Sundays.. evenings watching films and last week I even managed to have four days in Cornwall with my girls.. in JUNE!?!?  I'm actually getting pretty good at this time off lark..

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to.. and as you can see Max is getting pretty good at this lazing around too..

Oh look.. more lazing about.. mainly in the garden..

I then headed down to Cornwall with my gorgeous From Our Hearts girls.. Anna Hardy, Debs Ivelja and Joanna Brown.  We all try to get together for a few days at least once a year and now that Debs has a flat overlooking Fistral Beach in Newquay we had no excuse to not get together.  The week was spent eating healthy food.. lying out on the grass watching the surfers.. drinking wine.. talking shop.. and getting in the surf (ok so I just had a body board but at least I got in!).  All four of us didn't pick up our 5D's all week and opted for polaroids, cheap point and shoot film cameras and our trusty iPhones instead... and the weather was incredible.. I came back totally refreshed and pretty freckly.. :)

I'm so lucky to have these three amazing ladies as friends and now we have a new From Our Hearts addition in the form of Hugo.. Debs' new hound.. he was spoilt rotten with kisses and cuddles and fits in perfectly..

I really didn't want to leave..

More film stuff to follow.. :)

crazy times..

You know when everyone else seems to be slowing down, going on holiday and shooting their last few weddings and you seem to be actually doing the opposite... yeah... that.

We have a week of five weddings.. I then head to France to catch up with the From Our Hearts ladies and then when I get back we are flying head first in to our Welcome Home Workshop road trip.. we have the most amazing group of people coming along and I am literally bursting with excitement to meet everyone.. but first there is, like... A MILLION THINGS TO DO!?!?!?

from our hearts...

Back in September the From Our Hearts' girls (Anna Hardy, Debs Ivelja, Joanna Brown and me)... headed down to Jo's beautiful cottage in West Sussex for a few days of R&R... armed with our cameras we had the most beautiful day in Arundel, finding the most amazing antique shop with one room fit to bursting with cameras... we walked along the beach, me and Jo went horseriding (no photos of that thankfully!).. and then spent the rest of the time sat in our pj's or sitting in the garden eating scrummy food and drinking wine. These girls mean the world to me.. we haven't know each other very long but we love each other dearly and seem to know each other pretty well by now.. they are a constant huge support and often make me laugh so much that I cry... they're a bloody talented bunch too and I'm so proud of each of them..



















We all went a bit mad in the camera shop and I bought myself a little Coronet 120 Cadet for a tenner and I've just got my first film back and I'm pretty chuffed with the results... :)

from our hearts...

It's been a bit of a crazy week but I am so excited! We have finally set up our 'From our hearts' blog and it has had such a lovely response already.... we couldn't be happier!
Just to explain a little bit... me and three other lovely ladies.. Joanna Brown, Debs Ivelja and Anna Hardy have come together through our love for photography and our ability to talk... a lot! We've got to know each other pretty well over the past year and we speak regularly offering support and advice to each other which has been invaluable to all of us through our journey of starting our little photography business'.
When photography became my job I stopped taking photos for myself so much...I was so busy that I didn't want to add to the workload.... but it's important, not only for your personal development but also to keep things fresh, to try things out and to keep being inspired. With this in mind we decided to organise a regular weekend away and do something together and with that 'From our hearts' was born. It was simply a chance for us to get together, ask questions, support each other and to keep taking pictures for ourselves... which is what we adore doing.
But while we were away we began talking about how lucky we were to have this support network who encourage and inspire you so we wanted to offer that same support to others like us... others who love taking pictures...
So our little blog was born. We will document our little weekends, share our experiments, push and inspire each other but we will also be setting projects where you will be free to join in, submit images, comment, talk, meet and learn in a positive and exciting community. We have so many ideas for the future and how it will develop... we are all just so excited!
We also keep telling each other how grateful we are to have found each other and we all really mean it from the bottom of our hearts.

If you are interested in joining in then you can follow us on facebook, on the blog, flickr and on Twitter... yey!

snap shot...

I had to post this image of my beautiful friend Joanna Brown...

from our hearts...

A little while ago, through Flickr I met Debs Ivelja and Joanna Brown. These two girls are gorgeous, funny, talented and in love with photography just as much as I am. We've got to know each other pretty well over the past few months and we speak regularly offering support and advice to each other and both of them have now second shot for me at weddings.

When photography became my job I stopped taking photos for myself so much...I was so busy that I didn't want to add to the workload.... but I think it's important, not only for your personal development but also to keep things fresh, to try things out and to keep being inspired. With this in mind we decided to organise a regular weekend away and do something together and with that 'From our hearts' was born. It's simply a chance for us to get together, ask questions, support each other and to keep taking pictures for ourselves... which is what we adore doing.

For our first trip we decided to go camping. It was a chance for us to relax, talk and try things without the pressure of it being paid work. It sounded great but when we arrived so did the rain. Literally ALL weekend it rained... did I mention that it rained?... I think it might have stopped twice but most of the time we were just soaked through... so in the end there was far more hot chocolate drinking than picture taking but we still had a ball and it was really lovely to just get away for a few days. We're currently in the process of setting up a blog where all three of us are free to post and we are planning to do our weekend trip every year and maybe upgrade the weekend each time. We're all really looking forward to the year we go to Hawaii.

Over the weekend I decided to do some experimenting on my 5D so this is my little video of our little weekend....(and it includes eggs which makes me very happy)...

From our hearts..... from Emma Case on Vimeo.