Month: April 2020

A lockdown perspective from Kelly Bond Photography

The studio is quiet. No clients are allowed to visit for their photo session with their tiny newborns, or extended family. My Nikon D800 sits on its shelf, while my MacBook sees more light of the day at the moment. Lockdown and social distancing have limited my physical interaction with people, but my business has not stopped. There is always something to do, and this pandemic doesn’t make me a sitting duck waiting for it to pass and to be ‘back to work’.

I am using this time to update many business aspects that have taken a back seat while I have been non stop with sessions. The actual photography part of my job is absolutely the best bit without a doubt, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the other parts, and I am really excited to be working on the other parts as I get closer to officially opening the Kelly Bond Photography dedicated studio!

I wanted to share with you all the bits and bobs I have been up to during a particularly busy week. A lot of the week was spent here:

A new desk area was created, and my beautiful iMac set up so I could spend dedicated time on admin based activities rather than the hop on and quickly update social media snippets that I usually resort to.

Here I completed a multiple exciting things over a week:

• updated my blog with some tips on how to take your own pregnancy photos (click here to have a read)
• re-edited some images from a twin session and shared on social media (take a look on facebook or instagram)
• completed approximately 16 hours of training over the week through an AMAZING online summit covering so many aspects for my business
• updated areas of my website with more recent work, with special focus on the available cake smash sets I offer (take a look around the website – any questions, feel free to get in touch)
• registered Kelly Bond Photography on Google business. (one of those things I just hadn’t got round to!) So if you have had a session with me previously, I would appreciate a few minutes of your time to leave me a review on Google. Just type Kelly Bond Photography into Google and click on review. Thanks!

I had some deliveries of items I ordered ready for when clients can come back – how gorgeous are these tones?!

I’m also thrilled to have come across a gorgeous local business for little softies for the babies and received this lovely order from Snuggly bundles.

 

Extra curricular activities

(but definitely no less significant)

• Entertained, fed and watered my 3 children (aged 9, 7 and 4), successfully keeping them alive Mon-Thurs without another pair of adult hands to help. Fairly proud of myself! Big shout out to single parents – you are heroes! My husband has now been furloughed so thankfully I do now have some extra help (hence finally writing this blog!)
• Wrote letters with my children to family members and posted them. This is something I really recommend to do with your children. In years to come, future generations will research the time when the world went into lockdown, and your real life experiences of it through letters to each other can be handed down over generations.
• Participated in the weekly street meet ups involving dancing twice a week, and a Friday fashion show with homemade outfits. You can see the extent of this fun on this blog – click here.
• Interviewed for Mix96, our local radio station, who wanted to feature a story about the positive effect lockdown has had on our street. You can find the article here.
• Lastly, I run a daily photography game for my Facebook followers which is an outlet for you to challenge your creativity with the guidance of a word of the day – all ages welcome, you just need to be able to take a photo. I would love you to join us. Just visit my page and join in however often you like – word of the day (mostly) announced at 10am each day (unless I get distracted by the juggling of homeschooling activities!)

Thank you for visiting my little corner of the internet sharing my ramblings of a busy week for me. I plan to have many more busy weeks as I put focus into this photography business that I love so much. It is such a dream job, to make such precious memories for special times in your life; I am very eager to open the studio doors to welcome clients and meet your new family members.

Stay safe and well.

More places to follow my work:

httpss://www.facebook.com/kellybondphotography

httpss://instagram.com/kellybondphotography

Lockdown won’t stop this photographer

Lockdown is a new experience for everyone, and something that I’m sure nobody expected to happen. But it did, and here we are.

Schools have closed, many businesses have had to close their doors temporarily, and we all need to stay home to reduce the strain on our amazing NHS. I love our NHS – I am so proud to live in a country that values this incredible asset. All those amazing key workers keeping us going – big shout out to them all!

We have to make the most of it. We are in this situation for a while longer yet. Stay with me – here comes the fun!

One of my wonderful neighbours (a key worker) sent notes round to each household inviting us to join a street WhatsApp group. Little did we know how much it would bring us together. Within a few days of back and forth messages and lots of friendly banter, I suggested something a little out there to get us out of our houses and meet, socially distanced of course.

I love any excuse to have a little boogie, so that’s what I suggested we do!

They were all keen and within days, we had set a plan. Another neighbour had an amp to ensure all the street could hear (and no doubt some of the surrounding streets), and we put song suggestions on the WhatsApp group.

Twice a week we have some songs to dance to, the other days we often meet out front anyway for a cuppa and just to socialise. We all come out as a street to sing Happy Birthday for all the lockdown birthdays! So far there have been 4, and there are at least 2 more over the next lockdown phase.

One Friday, a fashion show was suggested with recycled outfits. It is now a weekly occurrence with a theme to create homemade outfits to! Last week was mythical creatures, this coming Friday it is cartoon characters.

Nearly a full turnout of the whole street for last weeks Friday fashion show!

Our local radio station, Mix96, even did a story on it. It feels amazing to share it wider with the community and I hope many more streets get involved with it and start their own. It has helped us get to know our neighbours more than we ever did before this pandemic hit us, and I’m so grateful for the lovely street I live in.

If your street are dancing, or dressing up – please share photos!

My amazing neighbours go all in; a quarantine troll! I love the dedication!

Pregnancy cannot be compared to anything else. To feel that small life, moving and growing within, and know that it is completely dependent on you to continue its journey to birth, is something beyond incredible. 

The beauty of life is what I feel passionate about; it is a living miracle.

If you are due a baby during lockdown, I’m sure you never expected to spend your last few weeks of pregnancy like this. Maternity leave should be a time of enjoying those last few weeks with feet up, Netflix, a never ending supply of tea, and savouring the peace. However, when you are forced with that option, it somehow reduces the affect it should be having, and it’s probably taken reluctantly and begrudging; I know that I relish opportunities of quiet at home, but now I have to be home – those feelings aren’t quite the same.

I’m fortunate to live in a place surrounded by gorgeous countryside; Buckinghamshire. I encourage you to take your permitted daily exercise and go out on a walk, and you could capture some stunning photos of your bump to remember a time of peaceful quiet walks.

Pregnancy is such a special time. I value these moments in life, and this is what I want to preserve as a photographer. I want to photograph momentous events in life; pregnancy, birth, newborn babies. Your body is carrying a precious life. I urge you to take some photos to remember this time. I’m incredibly sad that I can’t do it in person for you, to be trusted to share this chapter of your life, but I can be here to guide you.

So these are some pregnancy photography tips I can share with you:

What camera to use

You don’t have to own a professional DSLR. This is about capturing beautiful moments for yourself, not about it being of professional quality. I use a Nikon D800 which I love, but feel free to use any camera – this could be your phone, a camera you use for holidays, or maybe you do have a DSLR that’s been waiting to be picked up.

Find somewhere with good light

You can use outside, but avoid the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest and not the best light. An hour or so before the sun sets is a gorgeous time. Use light to accent your shape.

Or inside, you can face a window or have a window light behind you for some beautiful silhouette shots.

Use any colour wall or pop up some material as a backdrop and face the light.  I have some backlight on this one too, but the main focus is the light on the front of bump.

If you have a timer on your camera you could stand with a window behind you and make some beautiful silhouette images. You can also do this of just Mum and bump as a side profile, but it is nice to have both parents in if possible.

What to wear

Wearing something tight fitting will help to accent your shape. You can choose to show bare skin of your bump and some matching simple underwear, or use material if you are feeling particularly creative. I photograph a lot of bare bump images in my Aylesbury photography studio, but I can appreciate you may feel more comfortable fully clothed as you try out photographing your bump with these tips. This is all about photos of your bump which is home to your baby during pregnancy. Do what you feel comfortable with.

Using props or involving siblings 

If you have baby booties, a little hat, fake flowers, you can add these into the image by holding them on top of or next to bump. You can see ways of using props from pregnancy sessions on my facebook page – click here. Using scan photos can be a beautiful way to see baby and document a growing bump. You can do this of just mum holding scan photos by bump, or with a timer and involve dad too.

Sibling shots are gorgeous. Have big brothers or sisters kiss bump, or read a story to bump with them, or just cover your bump with hands. All hands on deck!

Getting the best angle 

I’m just going to touch briefly on this. Try photographing slightly higher, or stand on a chair. Mum’s – you don’t have to look straight at the camera all the time, enjoy the time with bump, look down at bump, look away into the distance so you aren’t worrying about a camera. Forget about the camera and let yourself just spend quiet time with your baby bump.

The rule of thirds

How you compose the frame can really help when considering it with the rule of thirds. (you probably do this naturally already when taking any image!) You don’t have to place Mum central in every image. Think about 3 parts to the image, and try out placing Mum in 1/3 of the frame, and a blank area in 2/3’s, or fill 2/3’s of the frame with bump, leaving 1/3 empty. This is just to help you think about how much your subject fills the frame.

I hope this blog has been helpful to you to try your own pregnancy photos during your maternity at home. If I can help you with anything, please do message me, kelly@kellybond.com

I would love to be part of your journey of pregnancy and birth, even if that is an online experience. I am missing meeting and chatting with Mum’s about their soon to be arrivals, missing capturing that time of life. I love talking about pregnancy, birth and babies and will do so at every opportunity! So please, do message me to say hi.

I am offering an editing service to help you enhance your DIY maternity photos using my pregnancy photography tips and will be posting examples on a blog soon. I have some waiting in my inbox and they are on my to do list.

I would love to see your photos!
Stay safe everyone and have a fun time photographing.
Kelly xx

More places you can view my work:
www.facebook.com/kellybondphotography
www.instagram.com/kellybondphotography