TITLE: Maria and Bump

This image came about at the end of a maternity shoot ....We had shot lots of gentle soft images and Maria and I were working really well together. She understood my ideas and was happy to be a little more daring so went along with my suggestion that we go outside into the UK late Autumn drizzle to take a few shots with her sheltering in the hut I had seen earlier in the back garden. We improvised for this shot with some lace curtains and Maria exuded confidence as she struck a pose. This was my favourite image of the shoot ( if not necessarily Maria's!) I want on to photograph her with her new baby, husband and little daughter a couple of months later.

AUTHOR: Suzy Mitchell (United Kingdom)

For many years I have worked as a professional photographer mainly capturing children and families. I enjoy making images in Black and White and as time goes on my imagery is taking on a more fine art feel, particularly in respect of my portrait work.
After illness this year I have focussed a little more on my personal work, photography has been therapeutic and rewarding as I recover. I am looking for new projects to undertake, perhaps with a travel element and new subjects to photograph. I love the work of Jean Loup Sieff and if I had my time again would love to have been a fashion photographer!
Our daughters have often been my inspiration and as they grow up they give me new ways and ideas of photographing them...I am definitely shifting away from "lifestyle" imagery, endeavouring to produce more posed, thoughtful images which simultaneously relate something of the subject through the eyes..
My first piece of photographic advice was from my Father who told me to "fill the frame" and unless I am telling a story within an image this is what I seek to do.