This week has been odd and heavy and full, the death of The Queen was something, I think we all knew would happen but still, none of us was quite prepared for it.  Abigail and I had gone out into town to try some new cocktail bars and we were having a splendid time until the news alert popped up.  We quickly decided that it wasn't appropriate to stay out drinking alcohol and came home for a big mug of tea and to watch the news.

I watched those rolling news reports for way too long until I made a decision that if I didn't switch off it would impact my mental health and while I didn't record my pockets of joy on Facebook on Thursday night as a sign of respect, I resumed posting them on Friday, again, I think finding little pockets of joy is crucial even on the darkest of days.  In fact, I think it's even more important to find the little pockets of joy on the days which are darker.  In the darkness, we must find the light.

This next week or so will be strange, BBC has back-to-back news reports combined with tributes and programmes about The Queen, the new King Charles the Third, comedy is banned from the BBC and their radio shows are not allowed to play bouncy music.  Whilst I partially agree we should be utterly respectful, I also think we still need joyful moments.  I would suggest switching off the TV and listening to your own music which makes you happy.  If you at all, like me, have any kind of mental health issue, this is even more important.  Please also remember that people who have lost those they love could be emotionally triggered, this is a time to check on your friends.

As I write this today, I also remember that it is 9/11, the day the twin towers fell. The biggest terrorist attack the world has ever seen. I had just found out that I was pregnant with Abigail two days before and as I arrived at my Granny's after picking up Iain from school we turned on the TV to see the second tower being flown into, I wondered what kind of a world I was bringing my children into and I remember feeling shell shocked.

I have lived through very many major historical events and honestly, I'm quite ready to live in a quiet world where nothing happens, I don't however think I am going to get my wish anytime soon.  I'm lucky to be a wedding photographer because no matter how bad things get I can escape for a while and be surrounded by joy.  Yesterday's wedding at The Grand Hotel in Gosforth was a prime example of that.  All of the TVs in the hotel were showing news about the death of The Queen and during the speeches, one of the guests paid tribute to The Queen as well as toasting God Save The King.  It felt the right thing to do but overall the day was filled with fun and laughter, joy and love and I came home feeling happier than I had all week, thankful to be surrounded by such wonderful emotions, at least for a little time.

I'm lucky to have 2 joyful businesses, at Philomena's Boutique, I prepare boxes of joy for all occasions and with Mandy Charlton Photography I get to tell the story of so many couples and families.  Surrounding yourself with joy doesn't mean you aren't being respectful, it means you are choosing to protect your mental health.  Turning off the TV is okay, being angry about the disruption to your life is okay, and feeling sad but not knowing quite why it's all okay.  You are allowed to feel your feelings whatever your feelings are.

This next week will be difficult so it's okay to walk away, you can even pretend nothing is happening if that's what you have to do, don't let anyone make you feel guilt about the way you choose to live or exist or get through the heavy times.  You are human, you are unique and that means, no two of us deal with things in the same way.

The Importance of Telling Your Story

I have a single rule in general about photographs, if a photograph doesn't tell a story when it's isolated on its own then you should delete it.  Every image should tell a story because the importance of telling your story through every single thing you do is so important.  It doesn't matter how you took the photo, whether it was a camera costing thousands or your battered old mobile phone which lives in your pocket with your keys and some sweet wrappers.  A good photo should either immediately tell a story or it should ask you a question and make you wonder what's going on.

In business one of the hardest things you'll do is to search for your superhero customers, the people who'll come back over and over again, the ones who will shout from the rooftops, the ones who will be your superheroes and tell other people about you.  To find those very special people, you must tell your story.  People no longer buy products or services, they buy people and no one is going to buy someone they know nothing about.

People want to know the person behind the business, why did you begin, how have you been here for so long, what is the thing that makes you want to keep doing what you're doing?  All of these things form part of your story.

There's a trick on Instagram I worked out maybe 6 months ago, I started to really engage with people through images and videos, I started telling my story, I wanted people to really know who I was, where I'd come from and just how far I'd come.  Every day is like a new chapter.  The funny thing now though is I don't necessarily share the best, most, award-winning images.  I simply share the things I love and with that love, I tell my story.

So important is this message of telling your story that I've completely changed the face of my business.  Up until very recently I would go to weddings and tell the story of the couple but in portraiture, I would just take pretty pictures.  Nothing wrong with that you might say, but I couldn't understand why I could do it with weddings and not with families and the truth was, that it's about time.

So often people come to photo shoots with definite ideas about what they want so by the time you arrange them into their various groups, there's no time left to create story-telling images.  To tell someone's story though is to give depth.  It's actually a truly beautiful thing to have just a little more time but I can tell you, although there'll always be a place for the shorter sessions, when you spend an hour with people and you're wandering from place to place, it really helps you get to know them, get to know the personality of their family.

This weekend I have 2 weddings and 2 longer photo shoots and it is my single goal to create great storytelling images from each one.  They will all be completely unique and so it's important that their images are too.

At the heart of everything I do, I want to inspire people, I want to use the experiences I've had in life, good and bad, to help others, to be an advocate for mental health and I want to show people that although bad past life experiences have defined me I have managed to change the focus of them and get some good out of them.  It is 100% possible to have had a deeply traumatic childhood and still turn that around into something which helps others.  

There are a few areas of my life I have been far too quiet about, especially the past, recent and farther back, I feared the consequences of speaking out too many times but not any more, now that I'm publicly talking about it and drawing other people to me who've experienced the same kind of things I can see completely how together we can be a force for good, together we are telling our stories to help others understand theirs.

You know, it's a funny thing, life.  For me, the biggest paradigm shift was transforming my garden, it allowed me to share from beginning to end a story, I got to share my journey and inspire some people along the way and it also revealed to me that through learning about how living outdoors affected my general health and wellbeing that I could pass on this information to help others.  I also suddenly realised I was doing the thing I'd first learnt in photography, through sharing pictures of plants and how to build a pond, what I was actually doing was sharing the story of me, of progress and of transformation.

Start sharing your story today and you might just find out how powerful that is.

Gardening is life changing, here's why...

When I was young, I remember living in a house where the garden faced the wrong way, the sun shone on the front garden and the back was paving stones which I can't remember spending any great time doing anything on.  Then in my teenage years, we moved to a house with a back garden which faced the right way and I think this is where my love of flowers came from, begonias were fashionable and something which grew well in our back garden, it seems a shame I think that they have fallen out of fashion in recent years.

During my adult life I have fallen in and out of love with the garden, it became somewhere forboding in my last house but probably due to my ailing mental health, when you're trying to just get through each day, it does not leave much time for anything else.  This garden I have now though has been through so many changes, from moving in with a huge rowan tree which blocked out all of the light.  We had the smallest patch of grass you can imagine but I remember the children having a paddling pool one summer, something I'm reminded of when wearing those rose-tinted glasses which looked to the past. 

Being married to someone who gardened professionally I never questioned once any of the plants which came to live in my garden. From cuttings or kind donations and it's only now when I live on my own and I've transformed it myself, that I've come to realise, half of the plants in my garden are just too big for my garden.  There's one particular one, a Japanese anemone which gets on it amazing pink flowers in the summer but no matter how much I cut it back, it grows like a monstrous triffid, consuming all of the light and smothering anything in its path.

Let's not mention that Juniper which lived in the corner of my garden which I pulled out with such vigour that I fell over and concussed myself against the garden wall!  Gardening is an adventure! As Monty Don says, "Gardens are never finished, they are a journey, not a destination".  I love that sentiment and when I'd laid the path and put the slate down, I stood at the bottom of the garden and reminded myself that this was actually a beginning, not an ending.

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I do not do things by halves, I am either passionate about something or I just do not care for it at all.  This is my worst and best quality all in one, I get bored easily and move onto new things and I only have patience when it comes to photographing small people.

In my garden though, I have found so much of myself which was previously lost.  I have found a haven and I have found my soul.  Within weeks of getting outdoors my agoraphobic tendencies started to recede, my night sweats vanished and my skin looked better than it had in years.  I found myself calmer and more zen than I can ever remember. 

If gardening is good for the soul then the act of just sitting somewhere beautiful is good for your mental health.  I've had more people tell me I've inspired them to get outdoors, to change their gardens or to make their own little haven than I ever have had people tell me that I've inspired them with photography, I may have even been called "Planty Mandy" I don't mind that though, in fact, I quite like it!

I do not know what will happen in my future now, none of us do, we can plan for tomorrow but everything can change in an instant so you may as well enjoy the process, live for each precious moment and appreciate in hindsight that you were making the most special memories on what might seem were the most pedestrian, normal kinds of days.

Since the garden has become a retreat I've noticed that Looby and I are taking more time to sit out in the evenings, the fairy lights twinkle whilst the Chiminea has kept us warm and we've sat under blankets doing nothing special which was actually the most special thing we could have done.  If anything, the garden, the space I have come to call my haven, is the biggest and best thing I have ever done, it has given me time to stop and sit and ruminate, it has offered moments of pure joy and it has fulfilled my ambitions of doing something grand and following a process from beginning to end.

It might be a small urban garden, but to me, it means the whole world and for that, I'll be forever thankful.

A Tough Week

It's Monday, my day off and here I am, sitting at my desk for the first time in days after a hugely busy working week last week, I shot way over 30 sessions from Wednesday onwards so you'll forgive me for my blogging absence.

In addition to that I also shot all of my gift guide products last Thursday, they're far from written but powered with copious rounds of toast and cups of festive hot chocolates, there's nothing really that I can't achieve.

October was a rough month for me personally, it always is, it has been for years with the same things happening over and over and I credit myself with being a moron for letting them happen.  I think my lonely heart betrays my sensible head far too often.

I've also been completely ill despite taking every vitamin in the world to keep me well, I guess it would have been much worse if I didn't take them but I'm grateful to a lovely company called Flyte who produce clean energy drinks made with the caffeine from green coffee, they offered to send me a case and it's pretty much how I made it through the week if I'm honest, unlike most energy drinks they didn't make me feel fluffy or headachy, they weren't too sweet and they didn't taste like chemicals, I would certainly drink them again, especially the green mango which was just delicious.

The Pumpkin Day photo shoots in Jesmond Dene went incredibly well, it was a day filled with the cutest tiny babies and their siblings and it was so successful that I'm doing it all again but with giant wrapped presents, some of them may even be big enough to fit a family member or pet inside one or two of the boxes.

If you would like to book for the Christmas portrait day in Jesmond Dene on the 1st December you can see all of the details on that wee post above or just contact me through my Facebook Page

This week I'm hoping for a nicer, gentler, kinder week, I have 2 weddings to finish editing and about 30 portrait sessions and my calendar is really filling in a crazy kind of way so if you want a session before Christmas please don't hang around. 

I shall be back later in the week with my first gift guide of the season, filled with the yummiest photos of the best products around for you to give to your wonderful friends and family this Christmas day and if you need to contact me in between times, I'll be right next to the nearest hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane of course!

A Seaham Hall Wedding, Mandy Charlton, Newcastle Photographer

It's been about 600 years since I last shared what I actually do for work, but a Seaham Hall wedding with Jimmy Choo's and Vera Wang rings, everything at this wedding last week was just too beautiful not to share.  Last week I found out I'd won "Best Wedding Portrait Photographer UK" in the global wedding awards run by my favourites Lux International magazine and so today is the perfect day to share this.

I'd been to Seaham Hall for lunch but I'd never shot a wedding in their hallowed halls so it's another place I can check off my list, in my big list of venues from 12 years of being a photographer in Newcastle covering not only the Northeast but also lots of special weddings around the UK, I shoot weddings because I love weddings, they'll never make me rich and I believe that you should have really high quality wedding photography at your wedding, even if that means spending just a little more for a couple of hours than having a bland 8 hours of multiple samey photos of the back of people's heads.  I've always said that each photograph on it's own should tell a story and if it doesn't, it doesn't make the cut.  I believe in quality over quantity and I pick my weddings carefully, not really based on venues or budgets, I simply get a feel of a couple and go with that and in the last few years my instincts have never let me down.  I collaborate with laid back couples who are deeply in love, often they have their own stories to tell and they trust me to tell their story and when all is said in done, at the end of the wedding you are left with your dress and the images, you deserve to cherish the memories which will last forever.  I'm not about faddy filters and when I mentor I simply say, work on producing a beautiful colour image and a gorgeous black and white and it's all you need for with that you are creating timeless images.

Seaham Hall is the most divine location for a wedding, it's intimate, it's high end and it is timeless, I'd say it's a classic venue which isn't pretentious, the staff are helpful and courteous (thank you so much to the barman who filled my water bottle and added ice on the hottest day of the year).  I'd have no problem recommending it as a venue even if you're only having a small wedding, sure it's grand and can fit in a lot of guests but it's also got smaller rooms which really do suit an intimate gathering.

When Mike got in touch about his wedding I couldn't say no, I instantly got a feel for a couple who had such style and grace and he and his now wife Michelle definitely have a story to tell, plus Mike actually signed up for my newsletter a billion years ago and loyalty is a beautiful thing.  I met them a few weeks before their wedding along with their darling boy and I knew the wedding really would be a beautiful affair.  I have to admit here and now, it's one of my favourite I've shot in the last few years because they simply gave me carte blanche and permission to tell their story in my own way and so along with the help of Stacey that's exactly what we did and here now, are some highlights of the story of their wedding day.

I photograph weddings mostly in 2, 3 or 4 hour bookings but if you want me all day I'm yours, prices start from £450 for 2 hours, I have bookings in my calendar right up until May 2020 so do get in touch to secure your date, all you need is a £250 retainer and you'll even get a pre-wedding shoot worth £325 included if you book before the first of September 2018.

Send me an email and let's have a chat about your beautiful unique wedding.

The Worst Thing You Can Do At A Photo Shoot

Everyone knows that the worst thing about coming home after a holiday (apart from the washing) is the return to work and even for me, someone who loves what they do, the getting back into routine is always a little hard.

This morning after being back at work proper with 2 photo shoots which both contained lots of smiles and occasional melt-downs (pretty much the norm) I'm feeling absolutely exhausted and in need of a decent afternoon nap.

This weekend, I have 14 photo shoots spread over 2 days, it's probably my biggest portrait weekend of the year so far, let's just presume I'll be ordering takeaway and having the earliest nights possible and on Monday I fully expect to wake up exhausted.

My job isn't really physically tiring but let me tell you, entertaining 14 sets of small people and trying to avoid the inevitable tantrums by singing 12 rounds of Let It Go accompanied by back to back repeat performances of "I've got this feeling" and you end up with a brain which is much like Swiss cheese at the end of the working day.  I love what I do of course and at least I can say my ability to sing has come in useful, some days I feel like a walking children's jukebox I know so many Disney songs, singing generally is how I make it through the day though and I love it, there's just a chance that if you asked me my secret to success I would tell you that it's knowing many variations of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat'. I actually learn new verses all the time to, go me!!

Another talent I possess is having an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of Paw Patrol without ever having watched a whole episode, you could say that everything I know comes from photographing 3 year olds and certainly if you ever want to learn about Dinosaurs, just speak to a 5 year old boy, it's their specialist subject you know!

My favourite part of working with children over the last 10 years is that I genuinely don't know what's going to happen next, I've long discarded the idea of going into a family session with a plan because, well you know, the best laid plans...

If there's 1 thing I could tell parents before I photograph them all, it's probably, please don't have expectations, the best results come from just having fun and relaxing, once you start expecting certain things from your kids, well it's a hiding to nothing, it's also true that whilst you can photograph some kids in 30 minutes, some take a little longer and if it doesn't work the first time, well that's okay too, you'll never get great results if small people feel pressured or indeed if you are tense and worrying about what you want to get out of the session.

I've made a 10 year career of photographing families and not ever having a plan, the times when I did set myself unrealistic expectations were the times I came away disappointed but as the years have moved on I've just learnt to go and enjoy myself and have fun knowing that each session is going to be just a little bit different and you might get completely different results from 2 sessions even if they're on the same day just an hour apart.

I think as a parent, particularly if you haven't met me before you have the same worries as your children, who am I?  What am I going to make you do?  Am I some kind of crazy woman?  (well yes but only in the best kind of way).

My best advice is just to come along, to relax and to have fun knowing that I don't have a plan but I can guide you along the way because I'm good at what I do, because I've shot thousands of sessions over the last 10 years and because I believe each family and the love and relationships they have is so precious and special, it's also unique and that's why your photos might not look anything like your friends families photos, try not to worry though, I won't let you down, I've got this!

You can currently book a better than half priced session for just £35 instead of £75, just follow my link!