Newcastle Photographer and Content Creator, Mandy Charlton, Always on a quest for adventure, often seen on buses, trains and planes. On a quest to be happier and healthier. Lives in Newcastle with her 3 cats, Iris, Maggie and Arthur. Loves good vibes, musicals and cakes. Full time professional wedding photographer in the north east of england alongside content creator on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook

Friday, April 13, 2018

Does Anyone Have The Answer?


Rain, Rain and More Rain, mandy charlton, newcastle photographer, family portrait photography


This week has been such a tricky one, it's a weird old life that I lead, last year I think I noted that even though my personal life was dreadful my business one was going from strength to strength. Fast forward to this year and my business life is asking more questions than there are answers whilst my personal life is, well, bloody marvellous actually.

Do you think anyone truly has it all?  Business and personal in a fabulous synergy where everything is just about as perfect as it can be?  Is it stupid to dream that I might be one of those have it all types of women?

It's weird how the oddest things can affect business, I never dreamt that this year would hold rain in store on just about every single weekend since Christmas, difficult when your main source of income is outdoor portraiture.  Weddings I think are the constant I think in my business, they happen whether it's sunny or raining, dull or apocalyptically snowing, in my time it's truly done it all, I guess that's why I love them!

I didn't sleep last night, I worried all night trying to come up with ways to continue offering outdoor portraiture all year round and I still don't have the answer, well I sort of do but it's not the most realistic.  You see I guess, whilst I wouldn't want a studio, somewhere indoors that looks like outdoors is the answer, you know like the Sky Gardens in London or maybe an old ruined castle or manor house, all of those would create amazing backgrounds for portraits and all of them would be infinitely possible all year around.  There's no doubt that we have similar spaces all around the Northeast of England, I mean we have winter gardens, we have castles, we have botanic gardens with green houses but all of those are commercial ventures, you can't just turn up at  Belsay Hall and start shooting portraits without an angry English Heritage representative escorting you off the property because it's a £150 per photo shoot on a pre-arranged date/time.

There must be answer out there though and maybe you know what it is, maybe you have a suggestion?  I know I definitely don't want another studio, I did that for 2 years and I hated the fact that there were no trees, I didn't like that you had one small spot of perfect light where you had to try and contain small people who would love to be running around because running around is what they should be doing, it's natural and that's the thing I love most of all, space and trees and beautiful rich colours of the landscapes of the northeast of England.

Maybe there is no answer, maybe I'm going to have to get a team of umbrella holders called Bob, Bert and Bryan to come keep families and me, my camera gear and everything else dry, I do hope they'll help amuse the kids!  Seriously though a patch of Gunnera would be perfect in these circumstances.

So, answers on a postcard please, I need some help and you, my lovely readers may be wise to something I haven't thought of yet.
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