Written by: Kate Hopewell-Smith Come summertime you can’t open a newspaper or magazine without articles about getting your body ‘beach ready’. Many women are secretly terrified at the prospect of getting into swimwear publicly, because whilst very few people actually suffer from body dysmorphia (the belief that one's appearance is unusually defective) most women have body issues. The truth is that I deal with this reality on a regular basis because I shoot a lot of boudoir photography. Last week I put a few pictures on Facebook from a shoot that both I, and the lady To View More >>

Kate Hopewell-Smith believes that the more confident you are, the better photographer you'll become. But she worries about the lack of confidence in our industry, and wonders how many photographers are considering whether to carry on or not… From my experience meeting and communicating with lots of photographers there is a serious problem out there with lack of confidence, which for some can become quite debilitating. In fact I describe it as an “epidemic” –extremely prevalent, widespread. I read a lot of photography magazines but I can’t recall ever To View More >>

Written by: Clare Breheny When I worked in a corporate environment we would have literally hundreds of company-specific terms and acronyms that we used in meetings and emails to describe processes, systems, customers, products etc etc. When someone new joined the company we’d forget and spout out all these three letter acronyms, and we would see their face glaze over as if we were speaking a foreign language. For us, that was how things worked and what things were called. It was our day-to-day language and modus operandi. It would take a new person joining to remind us that To View More >>

Written by: Clare Breheny When someone asks me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m a boudoir photographer, the usual response is, ‘Oh, women getting pictures for their husbands,’ or ‘Oh, like a bride giving it as a gift on a wedding day’. Every time I shake my head, and explain that’s it’s WAY more than that… but how do you say modestly that the time you spend with them might actually change how they live their lives? Whilst working with a bride embarking on her wedding day is very rewarding, some of my favourite clients have come to To View More >>

The first time I truly understand the power behind a brand name… I'm pulled over in Customs to be searched (I've obviously forgotten to take my nail file out of my make-up bag again – It happens far too often!) I open my bag and they start their search. The security guy is rummaging around my bag and unpacking it, naming everything as it came out, "Make up bag… novel… album…" So I stop him right there. "How do you know it's an album?" (It's in a Queensberry box.) "Oh," he said, "we see these boxes coming through all the time, we just To View More >>

We admit it - we’re excited to see that our gorgeous new boudoir project has been outed on social media, and we’ve been overwhelmed with enquiries. We’re very grateful, thank you, it’s just happened a little faster than we’d planned, so this is to let you know where we're up to! We’ve finished product design and pricing, but are still working our way through the web site, price calculators and ordering system, which means we may not be able to answer all your questions right now. Still, here are some links you can check out now... 1.Most To View More >>

This sparkly, baby pink Q-box could not be more perfect for wee Harlyn’s photographs. Each photograph is bursting vibrancy and character. Katrina from Accent Photography in Auckland, New Zealand was behind the lens and what a beautiful job she has done! Katrina has chosen a 14x10 Q-box covered in Buckram Pretty Pink. Customize embossing is positioned at the bottom right in our ‘Futura’ style. I love the all the bright colours in this shoot (and not to mention all the candy!) You can choose either a 14x11 or 8x10 Matted Q box with four depths To View More >>

I believe that to succeed in this “industry" we need to fully engage our heads and our hearts, and Sonya's post demonstrates how truly engaged she is. It was about the albums she’s been keeping of her two daughters since they were born, and it reminded me of another album that Heather made years ago. So here am I, hand on heart too… Twenty-one years ago we hired a professional photographer. It was our daughter Adrienne’s birthday. Stephen was coming home from Australia with his fiancée Sonya to meet the family. Heather's Mum and Dad had long passed To View More >>

Written by: Koby & Terilyn Brown – Archetype Studio Our boudoir line is called J’adore, which means ‘to adore’ in French. Brides book a J’adore shoot to create an amazing, intimate gift to give their groom on the wedding day. Imagine the groom receiving this album on the wedding day… Can’t you see the grin spread across his face when he opens this very special book? I’m pretty sure most grooms agree that this really is an amazing gift. Koby says it’s so much more than the bride even realizes. But there is another reason that a bride books To View More >>

Tonight we went out for dinner to celebrate our daughter Alexandria being accepted into University, and Charlotte's recent awards - a lovely night with our beautiful girls. I was just dozing off to sleep, when I felt Alex get into bed beside me. "What's up Al?" "I'm just going to lie here with you for a bit, I can't sleep." "It's okay, you can stay." I put my hand on her forehead, and she was asleep within minutes. Just like when she was little :-) What she doesn't know is that when I said she could stay, I meant she could stay forever if she wanted. I know she won't. I know she's excited To View More >>