Well then.... it's been a while my lovely readers, I can't quite name everything that's been going on of late, suffice to say that I'm so busy that my head is in an actual spin, 3 weeks, 5 days and I'll be on the high seas just leaving Rome, there are worse jobs I have to say!!

So, the most exciting news happened, Fenwick announced that this years Christmas window will be unveiled at 5.30pm on Friday November 6th, that's one week people, one week, there'll be entertainment and music from 3.30 onwards and you can bet your life that Looby and I will be there, last year you may remember that they actually made it snow so I can't wait to find out what they do to top that.  I would say that I think that going by their Christmas gift department on the 2nd floor that this years theme is going to be Christmas in Newcastle and that's another reason to get excited, I love a local theme!

I also of course as you might know adore Fenwick, it's my favourite department store in the whole world so when I accepted an invitation from my fellow blogger Samantha to be her date at the Fenwick food hall party I could barely contain my excitement.

Walking in was like walking into wonderland, no sooner had we made it through the doors before a glass of something sparkling was thrust into our waiting hands and two steps more we were greeted by the most amazing platters of samples from all of the producers who are now occupying the new Fenwick food hall.  It reminds me a lot of Harrods, they've made food buying an experience, and a magical one at that.  I adore artisan local produce and Fenwick will be my go to place, it's not just about the retail magic though, for example you can visit the Champagne and Oyster Bar, you can eat amazing asian food at Kosai, or maybe you could have a glass of wine and a platter at Fuego or even (and I'm delighted about this particularly) a clean treat from the Naked Geordies.  It's almost too exciting to talk about (except it's not).

If you put together the amazing new food hall filled to the brim with small local artisan producers, the amazing gift floor experience on the second floor, the magical Christmas escalator, the brilliant beauty hall and of course the legendary Christmas windows then you have no need to shop anywhere else this Christmas (or ever in fact).

I photographed a kids session on an iPhone 6... with a selfie stick!

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.

Did someone mention winning a photo shoot worth £320?

So here's where we are - 

It's Easter very very soon and so our shooting schedule is 

Friday 3rd April - Saltwell Park

Saturday 4th April - Jesmond Dene

Monday 6th April - Tynemouth Longsands

On all 3 days we're available from 10-2 and some appointments are already filled so do check if the one you want is available.  To book any of the sessions you can either email, visit my website or facebook page

It's £25 for a photo shoot for 30 mins for an average sized family or if you need longer or a large family portrait it's £40 for 60 mins, both come with a complimentary print, web gallery for 30 days and 15% off for the first 7 days your gallery is live.

BUT....

If you book a photo shoot over the weekend 1 family are going to win their next photo shoot completely free, come back any time from 6 months to a year  for your next photo shoot and you'll not only get the cost of the 30 min session covered but also all of the images on a disk which is collectively worth £320.  

and that's not all, if you want to know about the free chocolate, well you'll just have to sign up to this weeks newsletter to find out because it's a subscriber only offer, now you wouldn't want to deprive your children of chocolate eggs at Easter would you?

Final news of the day, thanks so much to everyone who elected to enter their children for the iPhone photo shoot (you barking mad people you) I've now chosen the wonderful and lovely Samantha from North East Family Fun and I'm meeting up with her and her lovely children tonight in Heaton Park for our experiment, I cannot wait to share those photos with you, at this stage I don't think the iPhone is going to perform very well but we'll see!