Welcome to another addition of your newsletter.
We having a break from the usual format to explain some of the changes that are being made. Bringing everything to work like a standard portrait business will make life much easier for you in the long run. Please bare with me and contact me for help regarding your session or any specific queries you may have.
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, we’ve been gearing up to be a complete portrait studio taking on family portraits in addition to the specialized portraiture seen here. Progress has been good. But as with most things takes a lot longer than anticipated 
In theory we should be set up to take credit and debit cards from today. Unfortunately having “Inner Beauty Photography” as a trading name put a spanner in the works. The credit card company wanted to charge for each company name so had to get a letter confirming “PatB Photography” is the actual company name. We’re waiting on tender hooks but are expecting the credit card machine any time now.
I’ve created all the paper work from a complete blueprint of a portrait business. This is all being checked out now by our marketing and sales consultant. Everything is pretty much ready to roll.
The requirements for predominantly high-key photography (white background) is very different from most of the boudoir photography I usually do, which is often using darker backgrounds. I’m researching the correct techniques for doing this as many studios do this wrong with light from the background bouncing back onto the subject. It looks simple but is actually quite technical to do correctly.
The best lighting needs to be soft but also has the ability to create specular highlights. Initially I thought this would mean buying a really large soft box, which cost over £250! With such a big price tag it’s easy to see why most photographers don’t use them – preferring instead to use tiny soft boxes barely big enough for a head portrait. The light modifier of choice is an umbrella.
I have several studio umbrellas but nowhere near large enough for this job. The recommendation is to use an umbrella between 45” and 60”. But like most photographers my umbrellas are less than half this size. And to my surprise it’s really difficult to get studio umbrellas anywhere near that size. Eventually I found a 55” umbrella via one of UK’s leading photographic stores.
Last month’s photo shoot winners
I received several responses to last month’s competition. Organizing photo shoots has not been so easy with the holiday season. Therefore I’ve agree to shoot over the next few weeks at convenient times.
However I want everyone to be a winner!
Therefore we going to hold regular draws. You’ll have a chance to enter and win a free photo shoot. This is all part of the complete shake up of the portrait business.
Even though it’s not available on this website yet – you can win a photo shoot now. Go to www.patb-photography.co.uk and follow the link to apply to win your free photo shoot.
All my efforts are going into building the portrait web pages now. But as soon as they’re finished I’ll be reproducing the relevant pages here. This will be the Impression package, which will replace all the other packages to keep things simple. Beyond this I think there just needs to be three basic options; additional time, intimate bridal photography wedding night gift and working on location.
Next month we should get back to the usual format as everything starts to bed in.
Thank you for your continued patience,
Pat & Imke
PS Check out www.patb-photography.co.uk and see the exciting things we have lined up for you – coming here very soon.
Pat Bloomfield is your photographer / artist. He's photographed nude women professionally since 2005.
Imke Bloomfield is your make-up artist. A keen make-up practitioner trained by professional artists; she has a great flare for creating beautiful make-up especially for you.