Family studio portrait photographer in the lake district

New site, new blog...

2012-01-01T04:07:00.001-08:00

If you have just found your way here through a search, or if you have us bookmarked, you may notice there's not a lot going on right now. Well that's because we have moved.

Go to our new site here, the blog and site are all integrated now so you won't have to keep shifting around.

Best wishes
Steven and Josh

Web site facelift

2011-08-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

As part of the relaunch of our portrait business we have been working on our web site. We've got a new logo for Steven Taylor Portraits and we have some colours to work with. Laura Burns has been working with us to design our new look.

We did a great shoot with Evie (Beans) last week and we really liked a couple of her pictures so she is getting pride of place on the new site.

Have a look at the site here.

We're all grown up now.

2011-07-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to the Lakes in 1989 I went to work as the Photographer-in-Residence at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal. One of the first people I made friends with there was Lou George. He worked in the Box Office then and went on to become the Film programmer working with distribution companies and the BFI. Back then we were young and a little bit reckless. Yesterday Lou brought his beautiful daughters to meet us. Fabi is 8 and Betsy is 6. They chose their outfits, very fashionable young ladies they are and we made some stunning portraits of them. We are making these three to display here at our studio.

You are very welcome to come and look at our work and have a chat about having a portrait made without any obligation to book. We don't have a shop front though so we ask that you make an appointment. Please call us on 015394 454 83 and we can fix a date for a chat.

Breathing new life into an old project

2011-07-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

As a photographer of many years standing I am constantly torn. I began my career at the studio of Ray Vincent in Suffolk. Ray was, what we called in those days, a GP. That meant he took on all types of work. He did weddings (in a very formal style, very different to the way we do them now), he did commercial work for all sorts of businesses and industries and he did studio portraits of children babies and families. I learnt the craft in a number of separate disciplines.

Over the past 20 years I have had success as a photographer specialising in documentary wedding photography and studio portraiture. The two areas of photographic practice are almost at odds with one another. As a documentary wedding photographer my whole philosophy has been to work as an impartial observer, to watch events unfold and to record without interference. As a studio portrait photographer I am in total control of the image. I arrange the background and any props, I pose and light the subject and, usually the subject engages the camera. I think, when you look at work from my two areas of interest they appear to be by two different photographers. The two disciplines also often demand a different mindset, separate marketing effort and alternative equipment.

Between 1996 and 2007 I had a portrait studio in Kendal. I did documentary weddings from that studio but the fine art black and white portraiture I did was very popular. In those days I was still shooting on film and hand printing the portraits in the darkroom at the studio. When we came to our premises in Bowness we made space for a studio. Over the last two years we have been quietly making black and white studio portraits of babies, children, families, women and men in our Bowness studio. Now I make the portraits digitally but we still think that portraiture works better when it is black and white. We make the prints for our portraits on sumptuous fine art paper that is very similar, and has equal archival qualities, to the darkroom prints we made in Kendal.

Because we have been so busy with weddings we haven't really promoted our portraiture as we should have, in fact we stopped posting on this blog at the beginning of 2010, but that is about to change. So, this is the revival of our portrait blog. We have bought some more studio lighting and the picture of Josh below is my first experiment with the new gear. We are intending to re vamp the portrait site , we will launch a new Facebook page (more about that later) and we intend to advertise in the local press. Watch out for us at some events over the coming months.

Update for Will, Vick and Ed

2010-01-04T04:21:00.000-08:00

We hope you had a lovely Christmas and the photographs have been a real addition to the family home!

Update for Eve

2010-01-04T04:11:00.000-08:00

Update for Eve, we hope you are enjoying your pictures and had a wonderful Christmas!

Christopher and Pam

2010-01-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

Quick update for Christopher and Pam, we hope you enjoyed your photographs over christmas!

Amie

2009-12-04T03:34:00.000-08:00

Update for Amie Dodgson. Great model that we had sit for our new portfolio. Thanks Amie!

Huge Website Update

2009-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

We have had a portfolio overhaul! Come see http://www.steventaylorportraits.co.uk

Leigh

2009-11-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

Update for Leigh, another portfolio shoot. Leigh came up with some great poses and was lovely to work with. We loved the tattoo on your hand we think its worked really well!

Carla

2009-11-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

Update for Carla who came for a portfolio shoot for us. Carla was great fun to work with and we think we have some beautiful images. Thanks Carla!

Nikki

2009-11-27T04:53:00.000-08:00

An update for Nikki. Nikki came in for a portfolio shoot with us, Nikki was fantastic and knew how to get the most out of her session. We hope to work with her again! There was however a sofa involved in the shoot, which Steve and I had to carry (Steve's idea and I was less than impressed!), the end result was however fantastic!

Lilly

2009-11-27T04:43:00.001-08:00

An update for Lilly who came for the first of her three sittings (have a look at the website for this offer here) She developed a fondness of the big shiny silver reflector, we were delighted with the images and we are sure that Jody and Chris will love their prints just as much!

Becky, Paul, Tom and James

2009-11-26T02:50:00.000-08:00

Quick update for Becky, Paul, Tom and James. We had the viewing today and after choosing the images they wanted us to print and frame for them, there was some discussion over whether to include another of the images we showed them. Eventually it was decided that they would leave without the extra image.

After about an hour we received a phone call from Becky with secret instructions to print the image but "don't tell paul".

About 30 seconds later the phone rings and Steve jokes that will be paul.

Paul: "Hi Steve its Paul"

Paul wanted to order the same image with special instructions not to tell Becky.

Here is the image that caused it all:

And here are a few more:

Christmas solved...

2009-11-23T06:43:00.000-08:00

New update to our price section at http://www.steventaylorportraits.co.uk

Have a look to improve your Christmas gift ideas!

Portrait shoot for Willow, Reuben, Nick and Louise

2009-11-23T02:56:00.000-08:00

Hello folks, quick update for this week. We have been jammed with portrait shoots the last few days and have just had time to breathe! Can't be a bad thing!

This update is for Nick, Louise, Reuben and Willow. Steven photographed the wedding of Nick and Louise 8 years ago and they drove from Hebden Bridge to come for the shoot. It was great to see them again and we got some fantastic photographs!

New website up and running

2009-11-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

We have the new site online, the portfolios will be updated regularly over the next few weeks http://www.steventaylorportraits.co.uk

Portrait sessions to be blogged soon. Keep an eye out!

Welcome

2009-11-17T04:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the official Steven Taylor Photography Portraits blog. We will be uploading selected images from some of our portrait sessions on to this blog page. We will try and put at least one a week up, obviously we cant put them all up! Anyway the new studio is up and running in Bowness so if you are looking for a one of a kind family portrait come and see us in the lake district. You can email us through our wedding website (portrait website will be up soon!) here.