Kate and the Swan Opera

OK, so we had a Swan called Gary, a Dog called Piglet and Scrumpy that would bite you if you tried to drink it from a pint glass. Scrumpy was a dog too.

Today was a fantastic shoot. Simple as that. Kate was superb and gorgeous, Upper Court Manor was beautiful and the sun came out to play.

Autumn is easily my favourite time of the year to shoot portraits. The colours are warmer and the sun softer which makes my job so much easier.

I'd met Kate at the NEC Wedding Fair when I was helping Blenheim Photography as Jan's saucy assistant. Check out the photos on www.groovybooth.com if you don't believe the "saucy" part.

I knew instantly that Kate was going to be the perfect portrait subject. Beautiful, lively and game for just about anything on the shoot.

Kate provided a lot of herself and previous experience as a model which provided a great variety of poses, expressions and fun. In particular, there is one shot of Kate with a flower head in her mouth. That image can be found on Facebook in the David Gow Photography page.

Not only did we create a lot of great images, but we started, what I can only assume will evolve into, a soap opera for swans. We decided that the two Swans we saw were called Gary and Betty. Betty was a fanatic of Radio 4 and knitting while Gary was a local at the pub with his mates - Fat Bob, Steve-o, Gaz and Barry and nerdy hanger-on, Kevin.

This may all sound strange but they laughed when someone came up with the idea of a sitcom about the Nazis and called it "Allo Allo". Ironically, there was more laughter then than the show itself ever produced.

A great shoot today - one of those days when everything comes together. I'm looking forward to editing the images for Kate's Gallery.

If you are interested in having your own portrait shoot or know anyone who would like one then please feel free to contact me at ian@davidgow.co.uk.