blogging, Islington and boudoir

So this is a personal post and a bit of an update. From now on I’ve promised myself I will blog twice a week. And now I’m promising you!Big changes have been afoot here. I have moved in with my partner and we have bought a flat together. We have had many many building challenges. And I have felt incredibly wobbly about everything. At the moment the walls are a strangely depressing shade of salmon pinky grey, and there are boxes everywhere. I need to work and it’s hard to find time to unpack. Yesterday I got very tearful over all the different changes and the chaos. It was chaotic and today I have turned a corner. I have just torn open the first pictures – a Paul Klee print and a riotously colourful Roy Spencer watercolour of Fiesole, Italy it feels like I am making a little act of colour rebellion. A first step at pushing back the drabness.  Here we are in January, the traditional time for reevaluating and the dormant time for wedding photographers. I’m glad of the cool headspace to think about how to make my work more vivid, more alive, more dynamic. This year I want less stress and more creativity in my life. I’m introducing a line of glamorous portraiture / boudoir photography into my work aimed at making women see their own true beauty and I’m so excited about this.  I’ve been studying the work of the inspiring Sue Bryce to help me create this in my new studio. I have a strong, Christian, broadly Roman Catholic faith, which is not something I shout about much, but I believe that God is so beautiful and that God sees us as beautiful. I think it’s time I did more to express that.The studio is getting there. It is rendered and plastered and damp proofed but it is full of boxes and needs furniture. Then it needs painting, but that can’t happen until the plaster is dry in around 3 weeks time. I can’t decide whether to meet clients here and just apologise for the mess in the interim or meet people in a hotel until it is sorted. What do you think? It would be great to get some comments on this!When it’s done it’s going to be fabulous. It is going to be a natural light studio; the light is perfect for portraiture. Situated in the heart of Islington, it is on a Regency style garden square behind the Almeida. Walk down the glamorous boutique filled Cross Street and over Upper Street, through a magical little tunnel, you reach Milner Square, and that is where my studio is. It still needs a lick of paint and lashings of elegance, but it’s nearly ready. The square is fun – if you stand in the centre it is as though the houses are moving – I can just imagine the parties that Georgian aristocrats threw here. I want the photography created here to be fun too – very beautiful and elegant and also cutting edge modern. I can’t wait!wishing you a colourful, drab free day – enjoy the pretty snow flurriesxoFionaIslington in the snow