Leave It To The Pros… Introducing Chloe Bridge

We’re all about giving you tips and pointers to improve your photography on I Heart Snapping, and we’ve loved all the great feedback to all our photography related posts and people wanting to be involved with I Heart My Edit. But we also want to showcase some real talents; so we will be introducing you to some lovely photographers and asking them to share their tips and let us all know how they go started and what they love about doing what they do.

For our first ever ‘Leave It To The Pros’ post we have Chloe Bridge. Some of you may know her from Chloe Witters where she blogs all about her life with her adorable little boy Arlo. If you haven’t already done so, then check it out. Expect lots of lovely photographs! Chloe’s photography on her blog have launched a whole new career for her, as she has recently ventured into the world of portrait photography by setting up her own business Chloe Bridge Photography. She very kindly agreed to take some time out of being a mummy and running her own photography business, to let us ask her some questions. So here she is…

First off, can you tell us a bit about you and how you started out in photography?

I am a family and lifestyle photographer based in London. I started my own photography business just a couple of months ago and I’m so pleased to be able to do what I love and, at the same time, call it a career.

I’ve always been interested in photography. I remember the excitement of getting my first film camera when I was 7. Just before my 18th birthday, I announced that I wanted to be a photographer, and so my uncle very generously gave me his old SLR as my birthday present. I learnt so much by playing around with that camera. It served me well throughout university, and I dabbled with a bit of event photography for the University newspaper.

After I gained my English degree, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in photography. I luckily landed a job at a family portrait studio and gained invaluable training and practise with posing, lighting, and working with children of all ages. After that job, I moved into the post production side of photography and worked for one of London’s leading retouching houses.

Portrait photography has always been my ‘thing’. I just love the challenge of nailing that perfect expression and capturing each person’s unique personality. I started a blog whilst on maternity leave, a place where I could share the hundreds of photos I was taking of my son. Off the back of the blog, I started getting requests from friends to photograph their families. More referrals came from friends of friends after seeing my images, and my photography business was born from there.

What is in your kit bag? What camera(s) do you use? What accessories wouldn’t you be without?

I use a Canon 40d. My favourite lenses for portraits are my 50mm 1.8 and 28mm 1.8. My not-so-secret weapons are a white noise machine for newborn shoots, and bubbles for toddlers and older babies.

What do you love most about photography?

Images play such a huge part in preserving memories. A cherished photo lasts longer than a lifetime and will be passed down through generations to come. I can’t think of a way to write this without sounding incredibly cheesy, but to play a part in creating those treasured family memories is pretty awesome.

Can you tell us how you like to edit your photographs? What software do you use? Are there any particular things that you like doing with photographs?

I use a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop when editing. Lightroom is my absolute favourite (if I could marry a software program…), but there are some things that can only be done in Photoshop. I like to edit my images in a clean, bright style, especially with babies and families – timeless classics that won’t date with age.

Which blogs do you think use fantastic photography?

Gregarious Peach - http://www.gregariouspeach.com/

Georgia is an Australian photographer and founder of the popular Facebook group ‘Documenting Delight’ – my go-to place to see some excellent photo-a-day child photography.  Georgia is brilliant at incorporating stories and conversations alongside her images, in doing so she captures some fantastic images of her two children.

Enjoying the Small Things - http://www.kellehampton.com/

Kelle lives in Florida with her two highly photogenic daughters. I found this hugely popular blog when I was pregnant with my son and I’ve been addicted ever since. My gosh does this lady have a picture perfect life (all down to her amazing photography!)

I read Inspire Me Baby and Let the Kids Dress Themselves for great tips and inspiration for family shoots.
http://inspiremebaby.com/
http://letthekids.com/

Share your three favourite photographs and why you love them. (We appreciate that it’s hard to choose only three!!!)

My favourites change every week, so this was a really tough one!

1. This is one of my favourite shots from the photoshoot that launched my photography business. As that shoot was such a landmark for me, I think it will always hold a place in my favourites.

2. This image of a yawning six day old newborn never fails to make me smile

3. Lastly, I couldn’t help including a shot of my own boy. I took this when he was 14 months old, and it perfectly sums him up at that age – headores his trains.

What tips can you give to our readers?

One comment I hear all the time is, “I’d love to learn more about my camera, but I haven’t got a clue how to use it in manual mode”.  If that sounds like you, then this is my advice:

Read up on shutter speeds, aperture and ISO (this link provides a simple explanation: http://lifehacker.com/5814173/basics-of-photography-your-cameras-manual-settings), and then set yourself a challenge to take a photo every day for a set period of time. A week, a month, or even a year – the longer the better!

Not only will you get to know your camera very quickly, you will learn to see your home from a photographer’s perspective (where to get the best light at which times of day, etc), and manual mode will fast become second nature. Most important of all, it will get you in the habit of picking up your camera on a regular basis, and you will have some amazing photographic memories to show for it. I started a year long photo-a-day project in January (you can check it out on my blog: http://www.chloewitters.wordpress.com), and it’s been the best challenge I’ve ever set myself!

Great tips and food for thought. Get your cameras out people, because you won’t learn how to use them if they are safely in their camera bag.

Thank-you to Chloe for being involved and sharing her tips and beautiful favourite photographs. You can follow Chloe on Twitter as @khloeee so stop by and say hi there or on her blog.