Portrait and Wedding Photographer - Susie Lawrence Photography

Flying the nest

susie — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:06:31 +0000

Having a set of portraits to mark the stage when your children are growing up and starting to make their own way in the world is really special. Ben is already in his second year at university and Georgie is in the midst of her A levels and will be going away to study very soon too. So their parents made the most of a visit from Ben at Easter to capture them all together. We ventured up to the Cow and Calf rocks on Ilkley Moor for some relaxed photography. It was very windy! But I think hair blowing around and the sense of fun we got by squelching around the boggy bits and climbing up rocks all add to the charm of the resulting shots. I hope Ben and Georgie’s mum and dad will love that they’ve got a lasting record of what Ben and Georgie are like as they become adults.

James and Melissa… again

susie — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:05:59 +0000

I know I’m posting a lot of images of James and Melissa’s portrait photographs. There is a reason I’ve done so much with them lately and all will be revealed shortly. While you’re waiting (on the edge of your seats in anticipation I’m sure) here’s the latest batch. Some were taken back at the gorgeous magic woods featured previously, although James cut his finger very dramatically with a penknife that day so couldn’t join in. Others were done really close to me in north Leeds in a lovely meadow area near to Meanwood Park. You can see James’s bandaged finger by then! I’ll be a bit sad when my project with these two is finished, it’s been such a lot of fun.

Yes that’s Digby in the next one. He came along to model too.

Wilfred aged one

susie — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:24:05 +0000

This is Wilfred and he’s one. He’s such a gorgeous little boy, full of smiles. His birthday portraits mark the end of a tough year for him and his parents as he was premature and faced a challenge or two in the early weeks but look at him now!

The magic woods {part two}

susie — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:19:25 +0000

After blogging the images on Friday in a hurry I realised I hadn’t included some of my favourites. So here a a few more, including the black house, some beehives and the caravan. I told you the place was magic.

In the magic woods

susie — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:46:01 +0000

My new friends James and Melissa and their mum Claire have a magical place they can go. The children’s grandfather has a piece of land that over the years he has turned into an amazing woodland area. He keeps bees there and peacocks. It has a carpet of wild flowers (snowdrops a few weeks ago when we took these. It will be daffodils now) . There is a black house with a thatched roof, a picturesque old caravan, dens, streams and little secret corners. I completely fell in love with the place. Then when the children’s grandfather emerged from the trees playing the bagpipes, I thought I had teleported into a film set! The family are have very strong Scottish ties as you can see from James’ favourite outfit too. I will be going back to this incredible place with the children soon so that we can take some more in the spring sunshine. Here’s a few from our first session there.

James is a really practical young man and was tasked with keeping the camp-fire burning.

He also fixed the roof on one of the huts.

Remember the cupcakes they made? This is where they ate them…

Growing up series

susie — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:46:29 +0000

Here they are again, the gorgeous duo of Rohan and Eassar. These series of portraits that record children as they grow up are among my favourites to photograph. This time we weren’t graced with sunshine but it didn’t matter as they have a fabulous garden and the train sets indoors kept the boys entertained.

A rocket made out of cardboard boxes. More fun that the most expensive toy money can buy…

The things we love to do – hobbies portraits

susie — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:01:40 +0000

Melissa and James are a very busy and talented pair! After the glorious cupcakes, I was treated to a full showcase of all the fantastic things they like to do. So we did pets, gymnastics, drawing and painting, making crafty stuff, writing songs (well maybe plagiarising a little), playing piano, riding a scooter, doing magic tricks… the list was endless. It’s so lovely to record children like this at different stages of their lives, portraying them doing what they love with the people and animals they love. The next set of images of Melissa and James will be outdoor portraits, featuring equally interesting and personal props.

Such great tricks the wheel fell off!…

Baking cupcakes portraits

susie — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:11:50 +0000

So it’s raining and an outdoor portrait session isn’t looking so appealing? No problem, what do you like to do at home? We can turn just about anything into a fun portrait session. Melissa and James love to bake so that’s what we did as the first part of their portraits. You’ll be seeing quite a bit of these two over the next few weeks as their session is in several parts, and I’m working with their very talented mum Claire on a really exciting project, about which I will tell all soon. In the meantime, who can resist some heavily-laden-with-sweets cupcakes?

Jess portraits for a purpose

susie — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:52:53 +0000

My beautiful friend Jess has recently decided to brave the world of online dating and asked me to do some portraits she could use on Guardian Soulmates. I think it’s a great idea to invest in some professional portraits for this as it can be a wonderful boost to your ego at the same time. An hour after we’d uploaded her new profile picture, Jess had eight new potential dates! I knew it was a good picture, but even I was seriously impressed by the instant demonstration of its power. Here’s Jess and if you’d like to go out with her (and I hope nobody would be so shallow as to judge on looks alone even though she is amazingly gorgeous) you’d better be very special indeed because she is. She doesn’t live in Leeds by the way, she lives in Dorset. Just in case.

Amsterdam

susie — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:04:06 +0000

It’s half term this week and looking for a last minute treat for the children, I saw an offer for a mini-cruise to Amsterdam with P&O from Hull. On a whim, I booked and just a couple of days later we were off to explore. It hadn’t really occurred to me that Europe has been in the grip of an extreme cold spell and that Holland was going to be part of this. So my plans for a a trip on the canals weren’t exactly what I had in mind. We did have a trip on the canals, but we had to walk on them. Apparently this freezing only happens about once every decade and indeed it’s ten years since last time so we were really lucky to experience it and it was quite magical. We had a brilliant time and I thoroughly recommend it.

Arriving at Rotterdam on Saturday morning after a good night’s sleep on board, we ventured on deck to have a look. The sun was shining but the cold hit us instantly. Good job we brought those hats.

A coach took us to the centre of Amsterdam. We dropped our bags at the hotel (Movenpick – also excellent) and set off to see what we could see. It wasn’t long before we encountered the party atmosphere on the ice.

At first we were a bit scared to step on it. After being told for years that frozen canals, rivers, lakes are dangerous and you mustn’t set foot on them, it went against our instincts to encourage the children on. Especially when there did appear to be some dodgy looking patches. But the Dutch didn’t seem remotely concerned so we started to enjoy ourselves. We didn’t take to the special long skates that everyone seemed to have for these once in a decade events, but we walked on the canals for a long way.

On the bottom left of this set of four you can see a moped with two people on it. Unbelievable.

I loved the lack of traffic though we did nearly get knocked over by a bike every two minutes.

Impromptu ice hockey…

Getting a bit chilly by this stage.

It may look like we were taking the children into the establishment on the right but we weren’t. Honest.

Shop windows. I don’t know what was being brewed in the bottom one!

We went to Anne Frank’s house. It was very moving and I was impressed with how sensitively it was done. You could easily walk past without noticing it, as it was kept exactly the same (apart from being called Anne Frank House obviously).

Jasper in the Lomography shop. I liked this shop a lot But didn’t buy anything as I’m still loving the X100 and it’s all I need for now. One day I will go back to film again for some fun again but not yet.

A trip to one of the bars set up on the canal for a warming drink.

Look, that’s me on the right! I was actually there too.

As the sun went down we came across this spectacle. We weren’t entirely sure what was going on as it was hard to see with such huge crowds. But it seemed that children were speed skating racing on the canal. There was a lot of excitement and a fair few crashes. People were gathered on roofs and in all the building alongside it to get a good view. The only way I could see was by holding up my camera and looking through the viewfinder.

The next morning the weather wasn’t so bright. This is the view from our hotel room.

We went to the Van Gogh museum.

It started to snow again.