We are looking at the starlight cause for children. We will be working with other organizations as well as doing our own annual fund raiser events to help raise find to help  less fortunate children.

Don’t forget to visit our website again soon for more updates which will be revealed soon!

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The websites for city-photography work on the basis that National photographer in partnership with GTWCMT who host and design the sites and handle the SEO and SEM as well as the updates to the websites.

There are other simple service providers that are in the industry for making money from the website sales, but City-photography is different.
City photography is run by photographers for photographers and the aim of the websites is to allow photographers to remove themselves from directories with the simple paragraph listing, and to show there work on a full website and work together with city photography on a local level.

One of the benefits of having a city photography website, is that  you no longer have to worry about your website if you are a photographer, its all taken care of for you. City photography request information and images to go on your local site and you supply the content, moments later the website is updated.
The fee for this unique and great service is around the same cost as a directory listing and there are a choice of website designs so you can make the most of your city photography website.

Clients benefit from Finding their photographers from City photography as City-photography from time to time check up on the photographers and also City photography doesn’t list weekend part time amateurs photographers to hold a website.
This is due to the ‘happy snappers’ which we have seen  in courts across the country and no only this but  to ensure that the users of the websites will experience a true professional service from there city photographer.

Links:

Joining city photography information

City Photography local site list

City Photography home page

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With all your camera kit at the ready on loaded you could be carrying around 4KG of photography kit in your hands and with this long ultra telephoto lens measuring in at just under 15 inches (lens with hood) you know how much of a handful these are going to be and how essential a tripod is.

The lens is handy for outdoor shoots, but not for indoor as it becomes far too slow for indoor use and produces slightly soft images. however I purchased this lens to replace a 55-200mm Nikkor DX lens that  was far too light on the camera and above 135mm the camera would always jump even on a tripod. This lens isn’t too bad and as soft as you may think as many people are slightly blind so it will come across as normal and I have had many clients say that they cant see where the images are  soft, so Maybe all the reports of the lens being soft of from us over critical photographers that want pin Sharpe images?

Another plus point with this lens is that its tight and not sloppy so you really do cause a vacuum when your are using it and there is a lock on it at certain points, though I never need to use it to stop lens creep.  and another handy point I should make is that the end lens is easy to remove with a few screws that are easy to access so cleaning this lens on this inside isn’t hard at all, though I find that little dirt is pulling into the lens..

If you’re a summer out door photographer then this is a good lens, it not for ramblers due to its weight and after carrying this around all day or for a good part of it you do know what you have been doing.

It isnt front heavy either so its not too bad in that respect, but with the handle (tripod mount)  it can make trying to hold it a little akward as it guides you hand too far back and therefore weakens your hold on the camera and lens. With that said, after a few hours, you will want a tripod and a sturdy one at that.

If you look at the money costs of the lens in comparison, the F2.8 lens are going to be around 5 times the price of this lens and  if you work out the value of this lens and its costs it does make it very good value.

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Quite often many of the clients require the “American Beauty photo” which seems to be broadly required and is a costly shoot with all the fresh roses having to be purchased for the shoot and for the single photo.

American Beauty and Boudoir Photography

While many ladies have some  ideas of the photographs that they would want during their Boudoir  photo shoot, the list is limited to around 3 different shots, and therefore may limit their opportunities to allows for something new and individual.
The photographers creative nature and style makes a difference in the actual photographs finish and for many they would  rather not copy the images as a like for like to achive the photo that is requested.

While keeping within the same theme, this photo uses chocolate buttons as a replace to the rose petals. As you may guess this is a little more of mess from the heat of the studio lighting making a show essential after the photo shoot.

You can find out more  about the bouoir photo shoots offered by National Photographer on our Boudoir Photography website: http://boudoir.nationalphotographer.co.uk/  Or for more updates and information why not visit our Boudoir Blog on wordpress: http://boudoirphotographyuk.wordpress.com/

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Boudoir  -|- Trash the Dress -|- Wedding Photography

City Photography  -|- Makeovers

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We have been looking at Boudoir photographers and its history and evolution over the past 90 years to follow in some ways the boudoir photography style and concepts behind Boudoir Photography have changed.

1920’s’ Boudoir’

In this time period there was not such thing as boudoir photography unless it was an invention of French bedroom photography, and it was known as glamour photography and in some cases erotic photography, which should be distinguished from porno graphical photography which would be sexually explicit in nature and not within the genre. And dating back to the 1800’s there was the pin-up cards.

Taking a wider look at photography; The camera in the early 1900’s was a big bulky thing and  required lots of chemicals and a range of tools to work and it wasn’t until the invention in 1913 that the 35mm camera came into existence. This small, portable device made nude photography in secluded parks and other semi-public places easier, and represented a great advance for amateur erotica. Photographers had the new ability to take impromptu photos without carrying around a case of  large clunky apparatus.

In the 1920s and 1930s Mandeltook numerous pictures in natural settings, and became known for his exceptional photographs of the female form and followed  the “new age outdoor movement”. These were  published through the Paris studio and if you recall that in that time period, its was ‘cool’ and exciting to be French and emulate the styles and fashion flare.
The age of the sliver screencame up with a cinematic milestone in terms of how they worked at marketing the stars of the films to sell the films and  Glamour grew as advertisers have long linked sensuality with there products. with the sexy photograph of the films stars  in an advertisement or to create interest  is intended to persuade consumers that if they buy the tickets they get to see this diva.

The standards and style of glamour photography have changed over time, which have changed with the reaction the changes in social acceptance of that type of photography. In the early 1920s,  photographers like Ruth Harriet Louise and George Hurrell photographed celebrities to glamorise their curves by utilising lighting techniques to develop dramatic effects in the photos.In December 1953 Playboymagazine was instrumental in changing the world of glamour photography as the first magazine which focused on nude models and was targeted at the mainstream consumer.  Playboy  published its  first edition of with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, and nude photos of  Marilyn Monroe inside. Monroe’s star status and charming personality helped to diminish the public outcry. However, until the 1950s, the use of glamour photography in advertising or men’s magazines was highly controversial or even illegal.

Playboy first edition Cover with Marilyn

1940’s Pin-up Girls

During World War II pin-up pictures of scantily clad movie stars were extremely popular among servicemen. Early glamour modeling was often associated with “French postcards”, small postcard sized images, that were sold by street vendors in France In the early 1900s.

The pin-up became popular and depicted scantily dressed women often in  playful poses seemingly surprised or startled by the viewer and were typically a Vargas style of photocard. with the popularity of  the pin-up many companies used the style as a platform for advertising the products while alluring men with the art work  on the cards.

Of course with the advertising companies not wanting to convey a sexual nature or lean towards the pornographic images which would have been unheard of at the time, the nature of the Pin-up was about the sensual side of the woman and was more directed towards a teasing nature to invite the them to play and still retain the decorum of the company and her ‘values’.

1960’s Boudoir

The 1960’s  saw the liberation and the invention of the mini skirt, the decade was the decade of love and sexuality.
urge to ‘find oneself’ the activism of the 1960’s and the quest for autonomy were characterised by the changes towards sexual attitudes at the time.

The modern consensus is that the sexual revolution in 1960’s  was a  typified by a dramatic shift in traditional values related to sex, and sexuality. Sex became more socially acceptable outside the strict boundaries of heterosexual marriage.

We also  saw a large jump in  photography as pornagraphical images became more public and the firm British reserve or stiff upper lip, gave way to a more relaxed lose approach as views changed. We saw to areas of  glamour with the  nudest and the models, as well as the sexual images and what was tolerated.  The two areas of what was Glamour and What was Pornographical  was a large debate that went on though the 1980’s  as beach post cards were regarded as pornographic and  caused a large outcry as children and holidays were associated with the seaside and these types of cards were on view in many of the beach towns and city shop fronts selling memorabilia  and a stick of rock.

What was considered “glamour” has changed with the times. In the 1940s, clothed “pin-up” pictures were “glamour.” Many movie stars were featured in pin-up poses showing them in swimsuits.  but in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, photographers such as Peter Gowland started to  produced glamour images with partial nudity.
Only in the early 1970’s did some leading men’s magazines begin to show pubic hair and later then genitalia.

1980’s Boudoir

In the 1970s and 1980’swe saw a large debate about the  nature of boudoir and glamour photography with a debate raging on for many years about what would be classed as pornographical images and what was called art.  The debate reached around the world with  the followers of Glamour using the art lovers  love for the classical  nude paintings as a stand on Pornographic images. At the time many of the museums were attacked by the protesters against the pornographic nature of the images and status of nude men had there ‘bits’ broken off and to meet with some of the public demand  many classical art works were removed from the shows.

After the debate the world took a different view of glamour photography and set certain levels of what was acceptable and could be termed glamour.
These were set out as:

After Playboybroke through, many other magazines followed and this was instrumental in opening the market for the introduction of glamour photography into modern society. Today, softcore nude photographs of models appear in publications such as Perfect 10, or tabloid newspapers such as Britain’s The Sun’s Page 3.

News papers  in the 1980’s and as far back as the late 1960’s stared  girls in glamour poses and was a feature found in the British tabloid newspapers like  The Sun,  and consisted of a topless or even nude photograph of a female glamour model.
 This sensationalised  the newspaper  and when the sun relaunched the flagging  newspaper in tabloid format on November 17, 1969, Rupert Murdoch began publishing clothed glamour photographs on its third page.
The first edition featured that month’s Penthouse Pet, Ulla Lindstrom, wearing a suggestively unbuttoned shirt.
Page Three photographs over the following year were often provocative, but did not feature nudity but did so in later years.

Gradually, Page Three girls would be featured  more overtly topless poses, with their nipples clearly visible. Although these photographs caused a great deal of controversy at the time, and lead to more debate into the what was glamour and what was art. The Glamour images are credited with the increase in sales that established The Sun as one of the most popular newspapers in the United Kingdom by the mid-1970’s.

The feature gained its name from the tradition of publishing the photograph on the newspaper’s third page. Women who model for the feature are known as Page Three girls. Although “Page Three” and “Page 3″ are registered trademarks of News International Ltd, the parent company of The Sun, similar features are found in competing British tabloids (such as The Daily Star) and in other newspapers around the world In an effort to compete with The Sun, the competing Daily Mirror and Daily Star tabloids instituted their own Page Three–like features under different names. 

Some critics consider it to be sexist, demeaning, and exploitative, while others regard it as softcore pornography that is inappropriate for publication in a national newspaper. In 1986, Clare Short, MP for Birmingham Ladywood, led an unsuccessful House of Commons campaign to have topless models banned from all newspapers., and typically the Page 3 girl  was issued in a Sunday News paper, but was later removed from the Sunday issues.

1990’s Boudoir

During the mid 1980’s  we saw the launch of the men’s magazines,  on of the most well known is the FHM Magazine that began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Himand later was to change its title to FHM in 1994, although the full For Him Magazine continues to be printed on the spine of each issue.
Founded by Chris Astridge, the magazine was a predominantly fashion-based publication distributed through high street men’s fashion outlets.
After the emergence of  Loaded magazine (regarded as the blueprint for the lad’s mag genre), For Him Magazine firmed up its editorial approach to compete with the expanding market and introduced a ’sports’ supplement FHM became one of the best-selling magazines in Britain during the mid to late 1990s, selling more than 700,000 copies per month.

Loaded was founded in 1994 by Mick Bunnage, Tim Southwell and James Brown. In its early days, the magazine’s readership was once memorably described as “50% Sun readers and 50% Guardian readers”. Brown has described the irreverent comic Viz as an inspiration for Loaded.
Loadedcaptured the lad culture of the 1990s ; its glorification of British male “rogues”  like Liam Gallagher, Oliver Reed, Paul Gascoigne was only outstripped by its fondness for titillating photo shoots with nubile C-, B-, and occasionally A-list celebrities. In the early covers these were  lased with  male icons for film and TV.

Loaded’s defined a ‘laddish’ culture that was ground-breaking and was to reverberate around the world. Both magazines were ” lads mags”which grew  in popularity for the  mixed content of fashion and pictures of girls which they contained, From a personal point of view they were a mix of sports gadgets and  the top-shelf mags that was the usual haunting ground of Playboy and, Mayfair, which typically contain photographs of attractive nude women, and sometimes sexual activities including oral sex, sexual intercourse.

The lads mags and the news papers brought forward the readers wivessection where the general public ‘girl next door’ types could submit their pictures and they would go to press. For many of the girls this was a launch pad to a career in Glamour modeling, fame and fortune. for FHM it was the High-street honeys and many of the magazines featured girls  from all walks of life.

The Lad’s mag’s  are reversing the trend, by emphasizing glamour while showing less nudity, in favor of implied  nudity or topless such as with the handbra technique, where a woman hides her nipples and areola by covering both breasts with her own hands. This rolled back the tradition of glamour photography and topless modeling with a more sensual style of photography which we now terms as glamour or boudoir photography.

The Photography within the Mens magazine  can cover a range of subjects, wheather this is an interview of a celebrity or a fashion article they do tend to learn on the side of suggestive photography to sell and brings us almost to the full circle on the use of pin-up cards to sell products.

While the pin-ups of the 1940s were typically stars of the silver screen todays  media driven and full colour world  has opened its doors to  almost everyone and  the chance of being famous or adored is widely used and accepted, reality TV is some what to blame with the life altering programs like  Model Behaviour and big brothers as well as pop idol and Britain’s next top model.
Other TV programmes have also brought to life the realisty and confidence boost of  womens bodies with programmes like how to look good naked, which has ushered forward the trend for women who are not size zero to get out there and strut their stuff and look good.
Boudoir Photographers  have found that there has been a growth within the boudoir and glamour industry following these programs and women have got in touch with their feminine side.  Many women are unaware of Boudoir Photography as it has been for most part of their lives glamour photography or lingerie modeling which has been seen in many catalogues and also we have seen the lingerie sellers such as agent provocateur use a more sexual and desirable photo to sell their products. (and stunning these photos are) Many women want to buy into that life style and look as good as the models and often real people and often go for the professional boudoir and glamour photographers to get just what they want.

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With a nice ornate  and lawned garden  the venues offers you  a good backdrop for your wedding with their years of exsperience in organising weddings, celebrations, civil partnerships, corporate and special events.

Find out more on our wedding photography website, Wedding Elegance

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Sigma EX DG 50mm F2.8 Macro Lens Review

One of the widely used lenes is the 50mm Prime Lens and this stunning 50mm Sigma Lens offer great Image quality and is one of the most used lens in my kit bag.

Perfect for  detailed shots, Portraits and even landscapes, it is one of those lenes that you will keep on your camera.

Click the image for the Full Screen view of this press page review of the Sigma 50mm F2.8 EX DG Macro lens.

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The wedding photography site has seen a rise in the visitors over the week that it has been online and the duration of their stay be extended as we have planned the website to have a 3-way navigation system which offer the wedding photography hunters.

The new website  uses a top navigation button system for the basic information that couples may want and then there is buzzwords that help clients find the information  such as their wedding venues or certain posts that may have wedding photography or wedding albums contained within the site.

The wedding photography websites search function also allows users to  ask questions which will guide them to the answer, and we will be working on this system to cover more content and questions that couples may want to ask the photographers here at national Photographer about their wedding and its photography.

Not only did we post up articles about wedding photography that we do, but we have also given background information into the photography, the styles and how we do some of the things that we do. 

The site has averaged 511.37 hits per day over the last 8 days and we will be looking at some subtle changes to the sites content as we believe that there may be too much textual content on the pages. As you know we have wrote many articles about promotion wedding photography and designing wedding photography websites, so why don’t we do it ourselves? well that’s just one of those things that happens.

With the wedding photography site monitoring we can also see what clients are liking within the content and how this effects their use of the website and the contact which is being made. by the clients.

CEO of National Photographer Rory Witham Said ” It is nice to be able to see everything in detail about our users as often you just don’t get the feedback.. I believe that the wedding photography website provides information to the client in a number of ways so that they can have as much or as little detail as they want when on the site.”

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We have been looking at making the site workable from day one as the old website was 4 years old and out of date and a little older fashioned.

The new website was planned  and announced about 7 months ago but work has been slow due to the other websites we have updated and work we have done. The new website is under development as we run through the  layout of the website and  also  give user rights and format that’s simple.

The NEW Training website has videos and more online resources for members and clients from the training website. It is a work in progress as we add the content to the website over the next few weeks, it will be a little slow going at this time.

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