New Home for Blog

We have moved the blog to a new home with our new name - please click HERE to be redirected to our new blog.

Dovecote Training

We are ready to announce the name change! From 1st January 2009 we will be known as Dovecote Training. We are currently talking with a number of bodies with a view to delivering an amazing range of courses.

More information in the next week.

We're on the move - and a possible name change too!

Watch this space over the next couple of weeks for announcements of our new home, our new name and our new training activities. It's going to be a very exciting year in 2009!

Exciting Developments

What happens when you bring together two women passionate about training, developing others, and sharing their whole passion for life?

Sometime between now and the start of 2009 Pauline and I are looking forward to announcing some exciting new developments .... bookmark the blog so you can check out the news!

National Conservation Centre

Exciting news for the new year is a series of workshops that Zoe will be running for the National Conservation Centre connected to their current exhibition called Recollections. This is an exhibition of the work of Phillip Jones Griffiths, one of the most influential photographers of the late 20th Century. Zoe's workshops will look at how we create tomorrow's recollections from today's photographs, using the exhibition as inspiration for people attending.

For more information and to book a place, contact The National Conservation Centre.

New Training

We are looking to implement new training at Mulberry Workshops, with students gaining work experience at Zoe Photography and other local businesses. Our NVQ Assessor and Verifier, Pauline, is currently working with partners getting all the background detail sorted out, and she will be providing us with more information shortly.

In the meantime, if you think you might be interested in training in any of the following, then bookmark this page as we will letting you know what to do in the coming weeks. Courses include:

Photography
Customer Service
Business Administration
Health and Safety
Retail Skills

Photography Work Experience

We have had Hannah working with us on work experience from Southport College this year, which was great fun. She has such a lovely personality and was a pleasure to work with, and she is so eager to learn about photography too.

Our next work experience student is Mary who is at Formby High School 6th Form. I'm really looking forward to having Mary working alongside me and learning from me - she's very entertaining. And hopefully we will capture some images of Mary at work assisting me on some shoots too. Mary will be working on one particular shoot so that she can learn from the stage where the client (a barber shop quartet) gives us the brief, through the creation of the story, to the point where we do the shoot and work on the images.

And then the next work experience student we have is Anna from Greenbank High School in Southport. Anna has already taken some amazing photographs which she brought along to her interview to show me. And she showed in the interview that she is eager to learn and develop an understanding of what happens in a photographic studio. So again, another chance to work with a great girl and help her think about her future career.

We are looking to take on another 2 work experience students next year, so get in touch if you think you have what it takes to spend 10 or so days with us and learn about photography.

Catch up!

Wow, it's been a busy time over the summer! Can't believe it's so long since we last got a post up on here.

So over the next few posts I'll put up some update information to help everyone catch up with the news.

Photography Training - New Dates for Your Diary!

It's been really busy over the last few weeks, so there's been no time to set dates for the next series of workshops. But you'll be pleased to know that we have now set the summer dates for 2008! The dates cover Photography Workshops for Mums, Photography Workshops for Dads, and Summer Schools for the Kids.

For the first time, I am offering Summer School places for one parent and up to 2 children aged 7+ on a three day workshop. An adult must accompany all children under the age of 18, and you can enjoy learning about photography together.

It's going to be a really exciting summer school for budding photographers, with practical work in places like the sand dunes, the Squirrel Walk or The Botanic Gardens. The dates for these are:

1. Summer School 1: 5th-7th August 2008
2. Summer School 2: 12th-14th August 2008

The Summer School costs £150 for one adult and 2 children, or £100 for one adult and 1 child, and includes lunches and workshop notes. Places are strictly limited, so avoid disappointment and book your place today.

As well as this, there is a Photography Workshop for Mums (and Grandma's too!) before the schools break up for summer, and this will be on Tuesday 1st July, 9.15am-3.00pm. These workshops always fill up fast because numbers are limited, so make sure you book early.

And let's not leave the Dad's and Grandads out - so there is a workshop especially for the men too! This workshop will be held on Sunday 29th June, 10.00am-3.45pm. This is the first time I have run a workshop for dads, but it comes at popular demand, so I am expecting the limited places to be taken up quickly - make sure you book your place now!

Both of these workshops cost just £50, including lunch and workshop notes.

On all of these workshops we will be looking at how to get the best photographs you can of your children over the summer holidays - how to use the light, how to keep the kids entertained whilst photographing them (with some secret tips on getting simple, yet effective photographs), styling tips, posing techniques, and getting the most out of your camera ... without getting too technical and geeky!

You will need a camera to do the workshop - obviously! And the best cameras to use are the entry level digital slr's, such as the Canon 350d, 400d or 450d, but you can also use point and shoot cameras for the course - you never know, you may be inspired to upgrade after you learn how to take great photographs! The main problem with using the point and shoot camera for photographing children is the delay from pressing the shutter to the photograph actually being taken, in which time you are highly likely to get a lot of movement!

All workshops are run by me, Zoe Richards - I have 20 years experience of running workshops, and I take childrens' photographs for a living, and recently I was awarded the North West Environmental Portrait Photographer of the Year, 2008, in recognition of my skill at taking lifestyle portraits.

For more information, please drop me an email with your address and I will send you some further details in the post.

And just to whet your appetite, here are some recent kids photographs that I have taken.

Easter Meet up for Past Participants of Photography Workshops

We had a special meet up for previous participants on the Photography Workshops for Mums in Hesketh Park in Southport today - it was bitterly cold for all us mums, but the kids didn't seem to notice, and for some of them it wasn't long before the layers were getting stripped off!  Here are just a few of the photographs of all the children, using lots of the things that everyone learnt on the workshops.  For example, the first photograph shows how you can get a great photograph of a child without them even looking at the camera.

Dates for April onwards are currently being planned, so visit back soon to find out the dates, and get booked on as soon as you can - we already have a waiting list of people looking to join the workshops over coming months, so if you are a mum or a gran, then get in touch to make sure you get a place.

Including Ourselves in the Picture and Images from Last Week's Session

At last week's session of the Photography Workshops for Mums we talked about the importance of including ourselves in the picture.  In this photograph of Tobias and Gaynor, you can see how we can be included just in part, and how that can be enough to spark many memories for our children.  Tobias is also demonstrating one of the techniques that you get to learn on the workshops for getting children to engage and interact with others, particularly when they are so young.

I just love this pair of images of Tobias - and it shows how you can get great photographs of kids without having them smiling at the camera all the time.

Photographing Children: Taking Great Easter Photographs

Easter gives us all a great chance to photograph the kids - looking for easter eggs at the easter egg hunt, eating the chocolate and getting it everywhere!  Plus you may well be taking the kids out for the day, so don't forget to take the camera too!  If you want your photographs to be featured in the blog, then send me your favourites by the end of March and we'll get a selection up here.

So how are you going to get some great photographs this Easter?  Let's think about the Egg Hunt - make sure you remember where you have hidden some of the eggs, and prepare yourself for the children finding them.  You'll get fantastic facial expressions with the first few eggs, so put these somewhere a bit more obvious and easy to find.  Position yourself near to where you know the eggs are, and get yourself down to your childs face height and be ready to take the photograph.  It might help to take a couple of sample photographs first, before the kids join you, so that you can check what settings you are going to use on your camera before the kids are there too.

Look for ways in which you can include the colour of Easter - photograph through objects so that you show the context of Easter, so you could place some eggs on a table with a space between them, get yourself low down to the table, and position the children the other side, focussing in on them but with the eggs at the edge of the photograph.  You can occupy the children with counting the number of eggs they found, or eating their finds.

Remember to photograph the little details of Easter too - the hand putting an egg into a basket, the remains of the egg wrappings, the daffodils in the garden where the eggs are hidden and so on.

Go on then, homework for the month is to enjoy Easter and enjoy photographing the children this Easter.  And remember to send me some of your photographs for everyone to see.