The next J K

13th August 2009 was a very special occasion as it was the launch night of my very good friend, Hazel Allan's, first book. The book is a children's novel called "Bree McCready and the half heart locket"

I am not a wordsmith like Hazel, so find it hard to articulate how happy and proud it made me to be there and to take photographs of this amazing night.

Hopefully this will be the first of many novels and Bree will be as big and famous as JK's Harry!

Go buy it now

All photos by Caroline Harvey

Reportage

These are the final images I chose for my reportage project at college. I decided to choose my friend Hazel for this project as she had a good story to tell. Check out her blog if you would like to know more.

These images are scans of black and white Ilford HP5 film 400 iso. My final printed images were also selenium toned.

All photographs by Caroline Harvey

Where did the time go?

Hazel and I looking stunning in 1985!

Over the last few days Hazel and I have spent quite a bit of time together, taking new head shots on Thursday and today, more pictures, but this time for my reportage project. We have been friends for as long as I can remember, and today whilst looking for something else, we came across pictures that had us both in hysterics. The photo above is from 1985 at the back door of Hazels' Mum and Dads house. Hazel was laughing at the clothes she was wearing and how people could have let her go out in her Dads shirt, and pearls! I was laughing at my clothes because I still wear jeans and tee-shirts. I must also apologise for the hole I must have caused in the ozone layer by the over use of hairspray to keep my highly fashionable 80's haircut in place.

 We can not believe where the time has gone, we were looking at the photos and trying to remember what it was like to be the people staring back at us. The funny thing is we don't actually feel much older than the young girls in the picture, we just look older when we look in the mirror. 

Below is a photo of me and an old boyfriend, who shall remain anonymous, at I think my 16th birthday party. I had forgotten all about this party as I don't have photos of this event. I used to love that pink and black shirt, I thought it was extremely trendy!

Oh so young.

I love looking back at old photographs they bring back so many happy memories. I think in this day of digital photography we have to remember to print out our images and not just store them inside our computers. There is something about flicking through a dusty old album that is so magical it is a must for everyone to do from time to time. 

Portraits

Climber Mike

As part of my college course we have to do a portraiture project. The last couple of weeks I have managed to persuade some very patient friends into the studio.

My first victim was the uber strong climber and very lovely Mike. We had a couple of hours and a lot to do, as I wanted to do digital and medium format photographs. It was my first outing with the Mamiya medium format camera and Mike was extremely patient while Joanne (assistant for the day) and I played around trying to get it to work. I was  trying to capture the chalk dust particles in the light and I think the results of the film and digital photographs were quite good. Thanks again to Mike for choking on chalk for two hours.

Glamorous Jo

Next victim was my good friend Jo. I have to do white and black background shots for the project, so thought Jo's pretty and petite physique would work well with the white and often harsh background. I find it quite a challenge to direct models, as it is something I have never had to do before and considering it was Jo's first time in the studio, I think we did alright!

Writer Hazel

Victim three, Hazel, this time in Almondell country park. My very good friend told me recently that after two years of hard work, she is getting her first book published in August. So never to miss an opportunity I suggested that we take some head shots, as the picture on her publishers website is quite an old one. We had an amazingly fun day out in Almondell, then moved to her favourite coffee shop in Colinton where we giggled our heads off trying to get some moody writer type shots. You can check out Hazels' blog in my good reads column.

All in all it has been quite a successful couple of weeks, but more practice is necessary. If anyone else fancies being a model for the day let me know.

All photographs by Caroline Harvey