Lovely Lana

Meet Lana. Believe it or not, she is not a model that I hired to try out my fabulous new blue background, but rather my even newer and ever so much more fabulous assistant. For the last year, I have been hoping to find someone who can help make sense of the chaos that I have created in trying to be both an inspired photographer and an inspirational mother. Both jobs are full time, and recently I have found that I have been doing each rewarding job in a less than rewarding fashion. The behind the scenes part of my photography business has been falling way behind, and the patience side of mummyhood is flagging too. I can see in my crystal ball that, with Lana, all will start to run like clock work once she is trained up. Her qualifications are actually few in terms of photography experience, except for the fact that she is passionate about beautiful images, excited to learn all sides of the business, and just plain old nice nice nice. Given that my desk barely fits our two chairs (poor Lana's is less than perfect at this point in time), and we will be on top of each other a lot, those attributes were enough for me!



Don't you love that the bouquet of sunflowers naturally fell into a heart when she was holding them? I am mad on hearts so this was an unexpectedly lovely discovery that (I am ashamed to admit) I only noticed when I was processing the photos!





Lana came to work yesterday looking quite radiant in a chic hot pink jacket and feminine floral shirt. But I insisted that she wear blue for our little photo session to bring out her startlingly blue eyes, so we waited until today and I am thrilled with the results.

Megan & Charles

Megan and Charles were my first wedding of the season and I was blessed with glorious weather, fantastic locations and of course, a lovely couple. Monique from Sweet Dreams Bermuda was the wedding day coordinator and she ensured everything ran like clockwork so that the newlyweds could simply enjoy their time together with family and friends.











The flowers were arranged by El Shaddai. When Megan said that she wanted cheerful and relatively simple, Sally and Shimika knew just what to do.



Megan's Matron of honour, Shannon, happened to be the reason Charles and Megan are together today, having introduced the couple at her own wedding to Charles' cousin Justin. Shannon and Justin named their little girl Megan so Megan and Charles says she has every intention of retaliating (I guess she was not impressed!) by naming their first born girl Shannon.



I loved that Megan also had bride's boys rather than bride's maids - very hip.





My favourite shot of the day.







Before visiting the Island after Charles moved here to be closer to the east coast, Megan had been to Bermuda once before with her family when she was about five. There is a photo of her nestled in a banyan tree and the couple wanted to recreate the image, but had trouble finding the right tree. They thought perhaps it was at the Botanical Gardens, but since the Annual Exhibition was going on the same day as the wedding, they decided it was a bit ambitious to fight the crowds. They thought that perhaps the tree could possibly be at the Crystal Caves so we tried there. Although we did not find the exact banyan, the backdrops were nonetheless stunning.







I loved the elegant combined into the Alice in Wonderland feel of the bride's dress. It suited her personality perfectly, right down to the fact that she had asked for a pocket to be sewn in! The dress was a joint effort by Megan's mother and Joanne, a friend of the family. Her mum cut the initial pattern based on a dress Megan had liked in a bridal store, then Joanne had sewn the dress together over Christmas along with some changes.



And here is what Megan had in that fabulous pocket - I thought this was hilarious - most brides just have a hand kerchief along with their bouquet, or perhaps a purse with their lipstick, but Megan needed to have everything on her person at all times!












Lorraine and Helen at Bersalon Elbow Beach did all the hair and makeup and were wonderful, including when Megan changed her mind at the last minute about how to wear her hair. I loved the natural tousled look, emphasized by the trip in the convertible, and the gerberas on the side added just the right splash of colour and asymmetry!










The cake was created by the Little Venice Group's pastry chef who was given a picture and he came up with this masterpiece. Megan doesn't usually like cake but thought it was quite the tasty treat.

Reinventing Ryall

Reintroducing Ryall - prepare to be wowed by this beautiful athlete's amazingness! If any of you saw my last blog post on Ryall's shoot at the beach which was cut short due to flat light, these images will rock your world. I think the grey day was a blessing in disguise, for instead of taking the typical body building photos originally planned, we spent the time brainstorming how we could take her promo images to a new and creative level. I was so thrilled that Ryall just believed in my vision and let me get carried away.



















Ryall is also a nutritionist and personal trainer, so she wanted some creative shots that would reflect that side of her business.















Ok - so we had to slip in one classic sporty shot, but it was so beautiful at The Reefs, and the sun was so bright, that we could't help ourselves!







Ryall had adored my shots of the models in the pool with the flowers and wanted a similar shot.





Don't forget to check out Ryall's website or click here to see images from her latest performance at the Europa Show Of Champions in Orlando. She finished in 9th place - not bad for her second professional competition ever - I'm excited to see what the future holds for this rising star.