Wow, what a simply fantastic year 2014 has been!
It started in January with a conversation and a dream, a dream to turn Stonelock Photography from an idea into a reality.
Over the last 12 months we have had the privilege to photograph so many wonderful people and we have loved every second of it!
Our portfolio has grown, our camera kits has grown, we’ve networked, exhibited, talked and shouted about Stonelock Photography and the dream is now very real!
As we head into 2015 we couldn’t let such an amazing year pass without looking back on a few of our favourite shoots and photos…
So, what was our highlight of the year? Well, one of them has to be winning a ‘Wedding Photo of the Week’ award with Your Perfect Wedding Photographer!
Weddings… We love a good wedding and they were certainly in abundance in 2014. We photographed some gorgeous brides in some stunning locations from rural Surrey to standing in the middle of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. We had a blast at each and every one and cannot wait to get started on 2015’s celebrations!
How do we choose our favourite wedding photo from so many great ones? It’s impossible, so here are a selection…!
“We are so thrilled with the photo’s taken on our wedding day! Each one is unique and captures the day so perfectly. AJ and Ally’s incredible attention to detail ensured that even the tiniest details of our day were not missed. We feel that we have a collection of stunning photos that will always help us to relive every moment of our wedding day! We would recommend Stonelock photography to everyone, you would be hard pressed to find such a hard working, talented and lovely couple to capture your day!” Chris & Nic Duncan, October 2014
It wasn’t all about weddings! In March we had the pleasure of spending a day with Orpheus Trust shooting images for their website. Through performing arts Orpheus provides unique opportunities for young disabled adults to promote personal development and help students gain the skills to live independently in the community.
We photographed many wonderful people, from individuals to families, chief executives, an MP and pop-stars. Sometimes though it’s the unintentional photo shoot that can provide a fantastic set of images! (If we ever invite you round to dinner, make sure you do your hair and make-up as we may ask to shoot a few portraits between courses…!)
Capturing those natural moments can be joyous!
Early summer we got involved in a number of events in our local community photographing both the Crystal Palace Overground Festival and the South Norwood Community Festival.
One of the highlights of our year is photographing Greenbelt Arts Festival over the August bank holiday weekend; a weekend full of sunshine, rain, mud and fun it takes us away from our everyday work and challenges our creativity. Baring an unfortunate motorbike accident in 2013 we’ve photographed every Greenbelt Festival since 2006!
You can see our full review of Greenbelt 2014 here
During the summer we wrote a blog post on the Importance of a Professional Headshot that we shared with some of our business networks. It’s amazing at the end of the year how many people we now connect with on LinkedIn who are using images we shot as their profile photos!
“I cannot thank you enough for our new staff photos to be used on our website – they are fantastic and just what I wanted. You most definitely nailed the brief – we wanted genuine photos which expressed the personality of all at Frost Group, photos which could reflect the professional and sincere side of our industry and the staff in our firm. It was a pleasure working with you especially since you made everyone feel so relaxed and also had so much patience! I will most definitely recommend you!” Julie Frost, The Frost Group, August 2014
And despite not knowing our periodic table we were commissioned by the Science Council to photograph their members signing a diversity declaration and their staff team for their website.
One of our absolute highlights of 2014 was launching our pop-up photo studio at the We Mean Business Expo in Croydon.
Croydon is a thriving business community described by Mayor of London Boris Johnson as “the economic powerhouse of South London”. We Mean Business is South London’s biggest and best business expo with over 100 of the top local businesses exhibiting, and we were there!
What a simply fabulous opportunity to network and show off our photographic skills! We loved it so much that we’re going to be there again in 2015!
What an adventure 2014 has been! We cannot wait to see what excitement 2015 brings!
Happy New Year to all our clients and readers, we hope you all have a fabulous night celebrating and a wonderful year ahead! And remember, if you, a friend, relative or colleague need a photographer, we are taking bookings for 2015! Please do get in touch with us, we love to talk photography!
Ally & AJ xx