Last Blog Post!!!!

This will be my final blog post on this site!

www.carlyrodgers.co.uk is the new place to find me.

It's my new website and blog combined and it took a couple of days to set up and it's still being updated with all my new portfolios over this next week but I hope you join me there!!

So long blogger!  ;) 

XXX

The morning I didn't regret

The one thing you may not know is the amount of hours a photographer will spend working at a computer on their own. There are many times I have wished that I had a desk job in an office that was surrounded by people just so it wouldn't feel half as lonely. In my rose tinted view of office life I would have the best conversations while still keeping up with my workload. I'd be surrounded by an amazing group of people that I would enjoying sharing my airspace with and we would share malteasers and giggle about our love lives while all being amazing at our jobs. Not to mention that the office would be the coolest looking office on the planet as well. Retro, with big windows, chalkboard walls and creative and fun. 

Does that sound like your office? Probably not. But in my head that's where I'd be when I feel lonely at my computer working into the late hours of the night.

This morning I woke up silly early after a crap nights sleep. My first thought was, I might as well do some work seeing as I'm up and I went down to my computer desk. The room was dark, gloomy and lonely. Without even thinking I switched the light back off, went back up stairs to the spare bedroom (the one room in the house you can get wifi from bed) and I got under two big double duvets. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep but I decided in my wisdom to watch a movie on netflix on my phone. And I have to say never have I been more grateful that I didn't have to be getting up silly early every day to commute in grey rainy weather to an office. Instead I spent a lovely 2hrs under a cosy cosy duvet and watched a beautiful film with quite a gorgeous Italian lead actor in it. (Mostly Martha - check it out!) And I resurfaced happy and ready to start my day and not minding so much that I would spend it on my own at my computer. Doing work that I love.

Lauren and Scott whose wedding I am doing 2 days after I return from Lake Garda reminded me that I had to come home and to not fall in love with some hunky Italian man and elope. Dear Lauren, if I come across a hunky man in Italy and fall madly in love with him and elope, I PROMISE I will still return in time for your wedding ;)

P.S Above image taken of said cosy bed with VSCO CAM - loving this camera app!

If Voldemort was a birthday...

... he would be the 30th.

For the past year this is the birthday that shall not be named. At first I was in clean cut denial that it was looming but the closer and closer it's got, the more dreaded the thought became because I was not ready to be 30.

Now. Please don't get me wrong, it is an absolute privilege to grow older. I am grateful to have air in my lungs, to be healthy and mostly happy. But 30 in my mind was THE age. The age were I believed quietly in my head that everything should be achieved by now. I'd be settled, have my own place, have savings, have some incredible holidays under my belt and maybe be thinking about a future that would involve marriage and kids. It didn't help that I'm the youngest of three sisters and all of them have the above. And the closer and closer I got to 30 the more panicked I got that nothing was really going to plan. In fact none of the 'I'll have this by the time I'm 30' appeared. I just have felt majorly behind.

Last week I got an amazing email from my best bud Cara who knew exactly how I was feeling and made me see things much more positively. Heres the thing:

I have had an incredible 20's. I really have. I lived in Canada for 6 months and met some incredible people who I'm still friends with today. I worked in New Jersey and travelled around America for a summer. I finally realised after years of skirting around the issue that I need to have a camera in my hands for my heart to be happy because I am an artist. I'm slowly learning to be more business like and to push harder for what I want. I also have met some INCREDIBLE people in my industry who I've been taught by, inspired by and become friends with. I have 3 gorgeous nieces and a nephew, I love my family, I have some lovely old friends and I have made new ones along the way and I AM happy.

If my 20's was for learning new things, gaining new experiences and becoming more happy and confident in the person I am today then I am starting my 30's (as of tomorrow) off on the right footing.

I'll be spending my day with my very lovely twin celebrating our b'day doing fun stuff and will be back at the desk on Friday xox

Special

Sadly my Nana passed away in the very early hours of Sunday morning. Since then we've spent the last few days remembering some really special times we had with her.

How lucky we are in our lives to have found someone that we find hard to say goodbye to. 

XOX

A slight change of plan

I'm not going to lie, today I am having quite the panic as my computer has become faulty and has to go and get fixed which means I'll be without it for possibly 3-4 days. Even writing that last sentence has had me breaking out in a sweat because it means NO COMPUTER. Which also means not being able to do any of my work that requires my computer.  Where's a brown paper bag to breathe into when you need one?!

So I'm doing as much as I can today to try to make the break easier, but I'm afraid this will put me out of action for a few days.

On a more positive note I am looking to the silver linings today and they involve the fact that I had three fantastic and entirely different shoots over the weekend and I loved being creative and having fun with everyone. I also have realised that the break from the computer work will also give me the chance to get working more on putting together my natural light studio here in the house and that's exciting too!

So bear with me on this. I'll do what I can and keep you posted and until then I'll leave you with a shot from one of the shoots this weekend. x

Small World

Last night I was invited along to a ladies networking event that involved an amazing 3 course meal and a room full of women who ran their own businesses. Now usually I would shy away from things like this but when I was asked I just thought, why not! Get out of your comfort zone and go.

I had been in a rush and at the last minute could not find a pretty handbag to go with my outfit so I grabbed my everyday bag, threw my mobile and business cards into it and cringed as I saw everyone walk in with their cute and stylish handbags and kicked mine under the table. It was only when me and the gorgeous girls at my table were giggling over our business cards and discussing one of the photos on the back of one of mine that I remembered my wee portfolio was in my bag from a meeting the day before and I pulled it out to show her the bigger version of the photo.

Within a few minutes my portfolio was taken away and shown around the room. Anyway about 2 hours later a lady came over to the table and asked which one of us was Carly Rodgers. I raised my hand and she sat beside me and told me that I had photographed her children 10 years ago when they were babies!! I genuinely thought she had the wrong person but she kept insisting. She said I had only been a student at the time and I was studying photography. Even at that I still thought she had mistaken me. It was only when she told me where I lived that I knew I was that person. At first I was a bit horrified because I knew back then I was doing everything I could to practice and learn and I had set up a mini backdrop in the house but because I couldn't afford professional lights I was using security lights that were taped to ladders that were then reflected off white cardboard so that the light wasn't too strong. I KNOW!! Ridiculous! But I learnt so much back then although I didn't realise it at the time. 

She was so excited to know that the 19 year old shy girl from back then had continued to do photography and had continued to work at it and is now producing the work that I was doing now and that she has my work on display from 10 years ago!!  I had to point out that I dropped out of that photography course after only one year and even dropped photography for another 3 before it came back to me. But we both laughed over it all and what were the chances of our meet up last night. 

I keep forgetting that my love for photography isn't new. It's been burning for a long LONG time. 

Happy Saturday xo

Priceless

I'm back at my desk after a lovely long weekend that involved a St Patricks Day and a Mothers Day and some bits in between.

This weekend it really hit home how powerful a photograph can be and how much a simple snap shot in time can mean so much decades later.

My Nana is currently in hospital with a broken hip and last week while we were looking through old photos we came across a photo of my Nana and Papa on their wedding day. Mum asked if I was able to restore it which I did. A few days later it came back from the printers and it was just beautiful. Mum got a lovely frame and wrapped it so she could give it to my Nana on Mothers Day as a surprise. 

When we were going through the box of old photos we came across this one. An old photobooth photo taken of my Nana with my Mum.

As a surprise to my mum on Mothers Day I decided to restore it for her so that she could have something special at this tough time. 

Mum was delighted and when she also took it up to the hospital to show my Nana, my Nana was able to remember that it had been taken when Mum was just four years old on a day trip for just the two of them to Bangor. 

There was lots happening over the weekend and the impact of the photo didn't really hit me till Monday when Mum told me the story. One snapshot of a moment in time over 50 years ago that now holds so much more significance. 

Cherish your memories. The photo that you insist you're not getting into because you feel you're having a bad hair day or a fat day or 'I just don't want to get into this photo' day - get over yourself and get into them. Take photographs of your moments now. Make it happen. Because I promise you, that snapshot will mean so much more in years to come. Not just to you but to those that love you. 

The Juice Reboot

It's all Janine Walkers fault. 

About two weeks ago she sent me a link to a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It's about a guy called Joe Cross who goes on a 60 day juice and vegetable detox and cures himself of an auto-immune disease that he was taking a lot of medication for. He ended up completely without medication and lost over 100lbs in the process. The documentary is fantastic and if you can find it I'd absolutely urge you to watch it. Within minutes of it ending I had already set it back up again so that my mum could watch it too. About two hours later she turned to me and said that we should do it. Janine was a week ahead of us and had already bought her juicer and had begun her reboot and her reports were so positive that we thought that it was achievable. 

Now before you get that juicer going I'm going to give some tips because compared to Janine we found this tough going. I remember sending a text to Janine on the first night asking her HOW she managed to get past day 1! 

Why are you doing it?

That's a biggie because that thought was going through my mind in a very loud voice through most of the detox and you need to believe 100% in your response otherwise you will cave. For me the biggest reason of them all is that I am a really bad eater. I LOVE my food but I don't eat the right food. For example... my breakfast usually consists of a large cup of tea and whatever biscuits are in the biscuit tin. And if there is any cake or buns in the house I'll probably have a bit of that too. A lot of my time is spent in front of a computer screen and I am a serial nibbler of junk food throughout the day. A lot of the time I don't even realise I'm doing it. And I know how unhealthy that is so I needed to change my patterns and become healthier and happier before it's too late. My mum did hers to reboot her weight loss and get back into a pattern of healthy eating. 

Weigh yourself beforehand

Now up until Saturday morning when our detox started, I didn't even know we had scales in the house! We decided to weigh ourselves out of pure interest and fascination to see if we would lose any weight during the 4 days. For me it was not about weight loss but to break my pattern of unhealthy eating, but on day 3 when I weighed myself out of pure interest I realised I'd lost much more weight that I would have liked and decided to not continue on day 4. It's definitely handy to keep an eye on.

Do not go out drinking the night before you begin

I can tell you from experience that nothing is worse that dealing with the first day of a detox and suffering from a hangover at the same time. Horrendous. Because of that mistake I put myself off some of the juices we were making simply because they looked horrible. It's bad enough to go without eating so start off on the right foot. Plus I had a 3 day headache. 1 day of that was definitely from a hangover that I could have done without. 

Ice cubes and straws

Exactly as Janine says, these go a LONG way and help immensely! Every drink tastes better with these two factors.

Do it with a friend
Mum and I have both agreed that if the other wasn't doing it, we would have given up earlier. Plus knowing Janine had done it and being able to text and email her throughout was unbelievably helpful.

The first day was the worst for me and I did not like evenings because I remember feeling at my hungriest so to tackle that I went to bed early. Despite being convinced each night that I'd wake up hungry I actually woke up refreshed, happy and not even thinking of food! Mum and I positioned ours over a weekend from Saturday - Tuesday and I actually would recommend that as it didn't disturb too much of my work life however I did have to turn down two separate dinner invitations out on Saturday night and that made it even more obvious I was hungry and missing out on food! 

Here's what I've discovered since the detox:

* My taste buds have gone insane. Everything tastes better!

* Skin and nails look better

* My day can't begin without a large glass of water

* I've experienced feeling really hungry and survived it so now when my brain now tells me 'I'm hungry! Eat something NOW!' I think how ridiculous my brain is and I can survive spending a few more minutes making something lovely and healthy to eat instead of eating the first thing I see

I am so glad I tried it because three days on from it all I can already see that I've broken long held food patterns and it's a good sign.

If you want to read Janine's experiences from it read here

xox

Happy Valentines!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not really a big fan of Valentines Day. I know, I know it's ridiculously ironic considering I photograph romance in all it's forms. Maybe it's because I don't believe in singling one day out of the year to give a big gesture of love. To me, you shouldn't need a date in the diary to do it. Or..... it's maybe because I usually find myself single for Valentines and that's reason enough for it to suck.

Who knows. Anyway. A few days ago I was on my facebook and saw that someone was claiming that the most depressing day of the year was approaching. My first thought was, didn't we just have the most depressing day of the year in January? Is there another coming up??!!  Then it hit me they were talking about valentines day! 

And that's when I decided to take a stand. I should NOT be agreeing with that thought and be putting it out there. Nope. I should find a way for 14th Feb to be a happy day. So I put up a facebook message on Sunday morning. 

Needless to say that yesterday morning I went to the postbox with more than 5 things to be posted. And I loved EVERY SECOND OF IT! The thought of someone waking up or coming home to a wee giggle in their letterbox gave me such a ridiculous smile on my face that you'd have thought I'd just been proposed to by Ryan Reynolds. I had put the good vibes out into the world and I was happy.

This morning I was woken up from a lovely deep sleep by my twin when she came bursting into my bedroom (must remember to take the house key back off her). She shouted out a Happy Valentines and declared she had a present for me. I peeked one eye open and when I saw that there wasn't a Ryan Reynolds/George Clooney/ Sam Worthington shaped man standing behind her so I went back to sleep. Instead she just shouted louder, proclaimed that I had to wake up and then she gave me this...

I'm a chocolate nut so it got me out of bed fairly quickly :) 

My second surprise came about half an hour later when I decided to check the post. Lo and behold I got two 'valentines'

One proclaimed it was from my secret admirer but I can tell the writing a mile off and knew it was from my lovely friend Cara in Manchester. In fact I knew simply from the writing on the envelope and it was enough to put me into a fit of the giggles! The second I did not expect but a lovely friend from my facebook page saw what I was doing and decided to surprise me with one of my own postcards with a message of sisterhood and happy cheer :)

All have made my day and given me another reminder that what you put out there the universe gives you back in return, so make it count.

Happy Valentines Day!! 

xo

January blues

I've had the flu.

I'd say twice since January began but I've a sneaky suspicion that it never went away. The first bout of it was that of the coughy, sneezy and runny nose kind. The kind that you despair when you run out of cold and flu tablets and it became time for the hot whisky. Hot whisky is the last resort but it always works. And it did. I remember waking up after a few days and feeling great and ready to tackle the workload.

And then at the start of the week came the 'other flu'. It has no coughs or sneezes but instead seems to be situated behind the eyes and the nose and brings with it exhaustion. Lots of it. And runny noses. The hot whisky was brought out again and I'm sad to say that even it didn't shift it.

So I did some things to make myself feel better. The big cardigan that was bought for my dad for Christmas that he didn't like? Well, lets just say it's now got Carly flu on it. It's saw me through thick and thin this week and it's pretty much perfect. In it's pockets it holds my tissues (the yucky ones and the fresh to be used ones - different pockets obviously). It's waaaay too big to wear outside of the house and yet I have. And haven't really cared who saw me in it. Which tells a lot about my state of flu riddled mind.

Secondly, I got my hair cut. Technically the hair cut was before the 'other flu' really took hold but may explain why I just decided spare of the moment to go from a simple trim to now having less than shoulder length hair. I think my mum had near heart failure when I sent her this picture by text while it was happening.

I've waited for a bad case of shock to set in and as yet it hasn't because I am loving it :)

And finally I've watched some movies. I finally got to watch Captain America and managed to depress myself for a few days afterward (don't want to spoil it for anyone about to watch but I'm a romantic and the thought of no 'first dance' happening RUINED the film for me!!) But I did cheer up when I saw JJ Field on screen.

And P.S If someone had told me that Richard Armitage played a minor role in this movie as well as JJ Field and Chris Evans all on the screen, I'd have made sure I'd have seen it in the cinema! Running along in a Marvel theme I also saw Thor. Now, between you and me I think I must have spent a few minutes longer getting ice-cream from the freezer than I should have because I totally missed the apparent love connection between Thor and Natalie Portman. But I did make it back in time to witness the cringe worthy snog between them. However on the upside Tom Hiddleston has now replaced JJ Field from the top of my celeb man crush list. And no he did not play Thor. He was the baddie with a dreamy voice :) Once this flu is firmly shifted I'll have to see him in the War Horse.

On a final note, this song has been pretty much been played on my itunes while I work away in my office trying to deny all thoughts of flu. I may not be working the pace that I'd planned for January but I'm still making it to the desk. Take that flu!

Anyway photography related news and updates resume Monday! Happy flu free weekend to you wherever you are xo

The personal shoots from 2011

Yesterday was the first day officially back at my desk because I decided to take more time off. A lovely big thank you to everyone for giving me that breather :) 

I'm going to be entirely honest and say that I am very glad to see the back of 2011. Certain things happen in life, some of them happen personally and others happen to those you love most and that is very very tough to watch and not be able to do anything about. Our wee family went through a lot last year. Hopefully, if I did things right all looked rosy and happy on the outside and I am very happy and proud to say that professionally 2011 was my best year yet. But I did let some workloads slip so that all changes this year. I still can't quite believe that I get to take photographs of important milestones in the lives of others. That's an incredible thing to be gifted with. I don't take it for granted and I just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to all my 2011 clients. I also really want to thank those closest to me for knowing personally what 2011 entailed and for being there. 

2012 brings new things. One of the biggest things is that I'll be putting myself first. Even typing that it felt sort of selfish but it's the truest lesson of all those I learnt last year. As the years pass I'm realising just how precious time is. Business wise lots of things are changing and it's getting me very excited so more news will come soon about that over the next month or so.

I was going through 2011 photographs last night as I wanted to do a year in review with some of my favourite shots of the year and there were so many that I've had to split them up. So first up are all of the personal shots that were taken over 2011(and some sneaky ones added from the end of 2010). I have to say none of these shots turned out as originally planned - isn't that always the way - and after the initial disappointment that I didn't capture what I initally set out to get, I realised that they worked out for the best afterall. Shooting for myself was one of the best things I did in 2011 and something I am definitely keeping up in 2012.

Lynsay and Michael's New Year

What did you do when the clock hit midnight? 

I can bet that if you spent it with the ones you love most, you had an amazing night xox

Happy new year!!