Our Gift To You - Revisions To The Candlelighters Book Project.

These last two weeks have been amongst the most difficult we can remember - Jacob (Andys son and my stepson) has been sick. Very sick. It has been frightening as we have watched the Doctors, baffled by his condition, fight to find the correct treatment to hopefully make him better. On one occasion he had to be resuscitated. We are by no means out of the woods with him and it is frightening sometimes when we stop to think about that fragile thread which keeps him with us. In short we know exactly what it is like to live with a sick child.

We thought when we embarked on the Candlelighters book project that this was a wonderful way of raising money for a charity and cause about which we are passionate. It is - there is no doubt about - that and for our friend in Australia who runs this exact same scheme every year the project is a runaway success - each year he raises from this one project over $10,000 for "Make A Wish Foundation". He is applauded for it again and again in his locality and press. We are finding however - be it the British culture or what I'm not sure - that our efforts have been met with "suspicition" and our integrity has been questioned.

Why are we doing this? (because we are passionate about Candlelighters and what they do). Are we making money from the book itself? (No - it is highly unlikely that we will even break even - the book is costing us literally £000's to be produced and printed). Why are we not including any free pictures - surely they cost us nothing?! (Our time is valuable and our skill in producing pictures which go on to be family heirlooms is priceless. The cost to us in real terms of other "paying" customers which could have taken the place of the free shoot, our time editing and travelling, the cost to produce the book, the cost of PR'ing the scheme, advertising costs for the project, the many hours of design time for the actual book and you have a figure of a real cost to us we estimate of around £700 per shoot.We are not prepared to include extra other than the time and the page in the book, we would question how many others would be as generous as this even). Shouldn't you be offering this free to us as we have a member of our family who is sick? (Whilst this would be a nice sentiment and we do shoot for free for families who are struck by illness on occassions due to all the factors in the previous response this is simply not viable this time round - the whole aim it to raise the money for Candlelighters, if we don't collect any money for the page in the book who loses out? The child won't have a page and Candlelighters won't have the donation).

The media on the whole, with a couple of exceptions, have been equally as unsupportive and questioning of our motives for running the scheme. Having spent years and years building up an honest and transparent business with many, many satisfied and delighted clients we simply cannot afford to have our integrity brought into question like this. So, sadly, we have decided to change the way we are running the book project. The effect on the amount of money raised will be we fear devastating - but none the less we will raise a reasonable sum to add to what we have already achieved. So the project from now on will run in this way: we will continue to offer the free location shoot, viewings of the photos will take place at our studio by appointment and instead of making a contribution to Candlelighters for the page in the book at the outset we will offer clients the option to purchase a space (not guaranteed to be a page) in the book in exchange of a minimum donation to Candlelighters of £25. The book will only be produced when we have enough spaces sold to make it a viable production - clearly it will take longer to fill spaces than pages. It is ulikely now that the book will be published before Christmas - although we will do our best and for those clients already booked and paid on the project we are looking at the possiblity of producing a mini book.

But let's not forget here the value of our "Gift" to you. The gift being our skill in creating beautiful photographs - which we have no doubt whatsover wil be precious. A photographer friend in Lancashire also running this project has met with similar comments and has withdrawn from the project because of that and also because she was involved in a car crash and is unable at this present time to fulfill her commitment for the book. The car crash brought with it a reality check. She realised that she had been avoiding having family photographs taken because she didn't like the way she looked - mainly due to her size. I feel like this too - so can completely identify with her thoughs on this. But for her the reality is that should the unthinkable have happened just now when she crashed her car and her children - aged 2 & 7 - be left without a mum there is no lasting record of her to keep her memory alive in the form of photographs. It is unlikely that her two year old son would be able to remember what she looked like in a few years to come. How sad is that? She has booked a family shoot with us and we look forward to creating something really special for them all in August. But to sum up the extent of our gift to you I'd like to finish this post by quoting another photographer friend:

This weekend I watched my father in law die. Over two days I sat with my wife, her sister and their step mum in a room in a hospice watching his breathing get shallower and shallower, his colour change and eventually his last breaths come. Two days before he was drinking gin and tonic with friends (he was ill, lung cancer which had spread, he knew it was terminal and had made his peace, but the change in those final days was dramatic).

When we got home last night, my wife went to three places to look for some photos of her dad. Our wedding pictures (two months ago he had walked her down the aisle), her sisters wedding pictures and his own wedding pictures (to their step mum).

The importance of what we do isn't measured by the respect we get from our peers. I can honestly say I couldn't identify a single pulitzer prize winning picture, but I can vividly recall a picture of me sitting in my toy box holding onto a car wheel pretending to drive around the garden. The importance of what we do is measured by the impact it has on the families we work for.

Yesterdays newspaper is todays chip paper, the brochure for a new product or service fades within a couple of years. I can guarantee families will still be looking at your pictures in decades.

It makes you think doesn't it? What we do and offer isn't expensive - it's priceless.

Freya In Valley Gardens Harrogate (Candlelighters Book Project)

We thought that we'd show you a complete set of pictures from a Candlelighters book shoot in this post. As said in previous posts the actual picture for the book will not be chosen until we are putting the whole book together as the pictures need to sit together and compliment one another. So this delightful little girl is Freya and her images were created in Harrogates' beautiful Valley Gardens. Once again many thanks to Freya's family for a superb shoot but as you will notice the real star of the show is of course Freya!

It's Not A "Wet Wellie" Book - Honestly! (Candlelighters Book Project)

I thought I'd post a different view of one our book project shoots today - just so you can get a good idea of what happens "behind the scenes" as it were. We do "suffer" for our art sometimes - as you can see from the picture below of Andy knee deep in the freezing river to get the perfect picture of Bethany for the book. These were taken on the stepping stones which cross the river in Gargrave, near Skipton.

We only "discovered" the stepping stones when we photographed a wedding in Gargrave followed by a beautiful reception at nearby Coniston Hall and the couple concerned requested a photograph of the bridal party on the stepping stones. That was in September - much warmer than March!




This particular shoot was a little out of the ordinary in that Yorkshire TV had told us that they were coming to film it - if nothing more newsworthy hit off - for their regional "Calendar News". So we arranged to meet Bethany and her mum slightly earlier than the TV crew were expected and decided to get the shots we needed in the bag before we had TV cameramen in the background etc. Unfortunately something they thought was more exciting did crop up and so they didn't make it to our shoot but that didn't stop us having fun - although I think Bethany was a little disappointed not to have made it onto TV on this occasion.

They have asked us for a list of dates and times we will be elsewhere so that they may show up but this is not at all straightforward for us as we do need the parents permission to have their child appear on TV and it also involves the crew interviewing the parents about the project - plus it can be a bit daunting for the child involved. We have photographed Bethany in the past for a Childrens' magazine cover and knew that she would be the perfect child to cope with all the attention without getting giddy or stressed about it.

So here below we have the set up used for the shoot. Bethany was to walk across the stepping stones (in this case with a brollie as it had begun to rain!) and Andy was to get his shot showing the river meandering off behind her. The flashgun you can almost see on the tripod in the middle of the picture on it's own was to kick a little bit of light back onto Bethany's face ("fill flash" is the technical term) to avoid her eye sockets etc. looking dark.

Here's just one of the resulting pictures (not that you can see her eyes for all that hair!). This picture was taken just prior to Bethany falling into the river! When I say falling in she didn't actually go right under or anything dramatic like that more stepped off/missed the stepping stone and ended up with the water going over the top of her wellie boots! With this picture we've also put a desaturated effect onto it for those of you who have been asking if all the book has to be in colour. These are only a selection of the shots we took and the one I think we are going to choose for the book isn't included here but I don't want to spoil the surprise for Bethany and her mum and dad before they see all the pictures at their viewing session - which isn't booked in for a couple of weeks yet.

Here we are with Bethany and her mum Wendy trying to pull her boot off in order to empty out the water! Just following this we had the most amazing hot chocolate (supplied by Wendy) and as Bethany said "My mum makes the best hot chocolate ever!" We'd have to agree with her there!

We spent a little more time with Andy and Bethany competing against each other to see who can skim a stone furthest across the river. Andy won and I'd be dead meat now if I didn't mention in passing that he managed to skim his across the river to hit the bank at the other side! He mentioned it at least half a dozen times on the way home so I'm guessing it was one of the highlights of his morning along with shooting Bethany - which was one of the highlights of our week last week!

Our thanks got to Bethany and Wendy for being the most brilliant "sports" with the shoot - which with drizzle and falling into the river proved to be a bit cold and wet for all of us! So sorry the TV crew didn't show - hopefully one of them might see this and think what a good time they missed!

We Get Wet - But It's All In A Good Cause! (Candlelighters Book Project)

Well it rained and we got wet - but not as wet as little Scott here! He had great fun getting wetter than just the rain - as you will see further down this post!

We made a day of it on Saturday - with a quick bite to eat for Scott and his older brother Rich in Thornton-le-Dale (the fish and chips there are amongst the best around!), a cup of hot coffee for us and off we went. Just as we were entering the Forest it started to rain. We've been asked before "what happens if it rains?" well the answer is if we can we still go ahead with the shoot. After all rain is part of what makes our beautiful county so lush and green isn't it? Wait for sunny days and we may not get through the 200 shoots we are aiming for in order to make our £10,000 target.

We were in Dalby Forest (as some of you will know from reading previous posts to this blog one of my favourite places). How it has changed however since I was there last time! Firstly the entrance fee for the Forest Drive was £7.00 this time. It was considerably less last time. So if you are planning a visit there it's probably a good idea to plan a lot of time there to make the most of it. There was less big equipment in the main childrens play area too. But the families who were there were all having a great time and the beautiful scenery around the area is just breathtaking.

So we took our wellies (we had brought with us a change of clothes for Scott in the car and change of shoes for all of us) and off we set down to the little stream near the play area right in the middle of Dalby Forest. Scott is the son of family friends of ours - hence why he was travelling with us. Scotts older brother (now 18) has in the past been diagnosed with cancer and treated at St. James's hospital. Candlelighters provided a holiday for Scott and his family and so when they found we were raising money for Candlelighters in this way Scotts family were keen for Scott to take part. It's very special organisation to them as during some of their darkest hours Candlelighters made a difference (Candlelighters registered charity number is:1045077).

So, without further ado we'll let some of the other pictures do the talking!

This last picture shows you what a good sport Scott was - and how much he enjoyed himself. Boys will be boys as they say...!