It's a bit of a bonkers world isn't it dear reader and I may have been accused of being a slightly eccentric member of this population we have called humanity but that's ok, nothing wrong with being different!!

I guess I'd always been intrigued by the differences in cameras and there's been vast improvements in the quality of the images the humble iPhone is capable of putting out.

I was so flattered at the number of people who offered to entrust their children to have a portrait session with an iPhone and in the end I couldn't thank Samantha of North East Family Fun enough for letting me borrow her children.

The first and most noticeable difference and you might be able to see it on this photo above is the lack of depth of field, the iPhone 6 camera boasts an f2.2 lens but in reality if you were shooting with the same aperture lens on a professional camera you would notice depth of field straight away and without question.

To demonstrate, this below photo was shot with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the 35mm f1.4 lens at around f1.8

For the most part though the average parent probably won't care about that, they just want a pocket camera to capture the moments of their childrens lives and I'm very much the same, I always have my phone with me and I'm always snapping Instagrams through my day.

I'm going to compile some tips and tricks for parents over the next few days so you can make the most of your pocket camera or phone and I think we may even get together for an hour in the park, if you would be interested in a quick course of how to get more from your camera do let me know and we can get that set up.

I'm going to cover this more in future blog posts but I do love the selfie stick, not for selfies though, I just love it for being able to take the camera on your phone places where it previously couldn't go and places where it's significantly more difficult to get your professional camera (without extra equipment).

again, these 2 portraits I love albeit without the kind of depth of field I love but I'd print them, I'd have them on my walls or in a photo book.

Now then, something else I need to mention is the burst mode on the iPhone 6 camera, to take 10 frames per second with no real buffer is quite astonishing and the results are pretty good, well they are sometimes, again it's not going to equal what you can do with a professional camera but I love the movement in this one, it's one of those moments of childhood and this little one really was jumping up and down very quickly.  If I'd just captured this of my child when we were just out playing I would be delighted.

Again, all of these shots were iPhone in burst mode and I would be a happy parent to have captured these precious moments of childhood and you know, that is what it's about, I think as a photographer and a mum that you should have a portrait session every year, take the kids to places they love and have natural photos but as a parent you should be capturing those moments every day, not portraits, not smiley looking at the camera photos but the actual moments of their lives just doing things.

and so onto my beloved Xpro 1 and yes you can see the difference and I certainly don't intend to throw away my professional cameras...

The Xpro1 is capable of 6 frames a second and honestly that's quite enough for me and the average 3 year old, I also love the colours that my camera gives me, it's a beautiful wonderful thing I don't appreciate enough.

For the most part as a parent though I'll be so happy to carry around an iPhone 6 in my pocket for any moments that come up and I'll print them and I'll put them in frames mixed in with professional photographs, they all make up the rich canvas of life after all.

One thing I would say is that I hate editing photos on an iPhone, it's the screen which makes everything look better on an iPhone and then you see the images on a calibrated Mac and it's just yeuch.  I edited all of these images using Lightroom and Photoshop and I don't intend to stop that any time soon though I would say that the VSCO Cam app for iPhone/iPad is pretty good and I've also heard great things about Snapseed although I wasn't a huge fan, they tend to be the apps recommended by professional photographers though.

So go out there today into the spring sunshine and capture the moments of your childrens lives, it doesn't matter what kind of camera you have, just capture those precious moments because I can tell you as the mum of a pre-teen and 2 stroppy teens, they pass within the blink of an eye.

Dan and Claires Pre-wedding photoshoot on Newcastle Quayside

On Thursday I went out for a lovely lunch with Dan and Claire who are getting married at the end of June at the Garden Station up near Hexham, it's a totally unique venue very much like Dan and Claire who are wonderful!

After lunch we went out onto the quayside to shoot their pre-wedding photo shoot and here are the results, all images were shot with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the 35mm f1.4 lens, it's the ultimate combination if you're a portrait photographer.

and I can honestly say that was the best pre-wedding shoot to open this years wedding season, lots more coming up on my blog over the next few months.

If you would like to book a couples shoot with me please email me or click through to my website or Facebook page.

Sunderland, City 5 of 69 in the UK Cityscapes Project (Postcards from the city)

So far I have photographed the cities of Newcastle, Liverpool, Carlisle and Durham and today was the turn of sunny Sunderland.

Sunderland is a fairly new city, it was granted city status in 1992 and has a population of over 275,000 people, it has it's own football team, a museum, the winter gardens which are in the city centre in Mowbray Park.  What it doesn't have is a cathedral or a castle but it was home to Terry Deary, author of the Horrible History books.

It was a gloomy day when I arrived in Sunderland, being from Newcastle I only had to hop onto the Metro, a snappy £4.50 got me a day return and a 25 minute journey brought me right into the city centre.

So onto my photographic journey....

clearly Sunderland is growing, evolving and transforming every day and when I was there today it did seem like it was partially still being built.

In all of the times I've visited Sunderland over the years I'd never really realised just how close it is to the sea, the city centre is actually within walking distance which must be lovely if you live in the city but want to escape to the seaside on sunny hot afternoons (we usually have at least 2 of them throughout the year in the UK)

some of the views were not quite so inspiring as others but it's all part of the rich landscape which makes up our great cities.

The Winter Gardens in Mowbray park are definitely worth a visit if you have kids plus the fact that it's positively tropical in there make it a great option for chilly british spring days when the weather isn't so great.

I don't know how many cities have parks pretty much right in the city centre, I'm sure I'm about to find that out though, I did find this lovely view in the park though with the bandstand looking so pretty underneath a cascading waterfall of cherry blossom

I climbed up a hill in Mowbray park called Building Hill which is a pretty weird name for a hill, sadly most of the views towards the city centre were shrouded by trees.  I'm actually as you can imagine doing a lot of climbing on this great adventure so it's quite handy that I'm using the Fuji X-Pro1, the lightest professional camera I've ever owned, I can't imagine doing this with all of my old kit which weighed an absolute ton.

So that was Sunderland, City 5 of 69 in the UK Cityscapes Project, City 6 is going to happen sometime next week and if you're a local business who would like to talk to me about exclusively sponsoring your city and have your business featured on the blog, social media and in the eventual book please get in touch by emailing mandy@mandycharltonphotography.com

If you would like to find out more about the UK Cityscapes project you can find out all you need to know on my Crowd funding page and please keep helping, I can't do this without you!

Durham City 3/69 in the UK Cityscapes Project

So we've covered Newcastle and we've covered Liverpool, the next city on my list was Durham

Durham is a petite beautiful old city in the North East of England, home to Durham Cathedral and Castle which sit on a hill above the city and immortalised by Roger Whittaker in his song Durham Town you'll never forget your visit to this beautiful city.

If you're travelling by train like me you'll step out of the train station to be greeted by this amazing cityscape

if you want even better views of the city all you need to do is go through the tunnel to the other side of the station and climb up the stairs to end up in Wharton Park where you'll see this

but that's not the only way to view Durham, I took a cruise on the Price Bishop Cruiser and an hours amble along the river at a leisurely pace commenced with interesting commentary by the captain full of facts and tidbits of information about all things Durham and these were a few of the views

There's also the view I found out of the window on the way up the stairs in the Prince Bishops shopping centre

Without a doubt, one of the things I've noticed about Durham is the amount of trees they have in the city, it's got to be one of the most tree lined citiesof the uk, so much so that they do obscure a few views but hey, it's better to be surrounded by trees than an urban jungle, incidentally if you look closely at this image you'll see Durham prison amazing how it's just nestled there at the back of the city!  I don't recommend you ask for bed and breakfast there though!

There is one other view which I didn't achieve, I was there with the girls and we made it to the Cathedral just after 5pm to find that it closes at 5.30pm, now you can climb the central tower of the cathedral but it's 325 steps up a spiral staircase and on the posters they warn that even the healthy may feel breathless, it didn't inspire me, mostly because I remember climbing 284 steps of the Scott Monument last year and my daughter telling me at the top that maybe I should have brought some water!

So that's Durham in all it's glory, next stop on this crazy UK Cityscape tour is Carlisle, I visited on a soggy day yesterday, photos coming soon.

If you would like to help me crowd fund my way around the 69 cities of the UK you can do so Here

if you would like to talk to me about corporate sponsorship, press releases or PR please email me here

or if you would like to buy any of the artwork you can either email or there's also a featured selection in my Etsy Store