Outdoor Portraits by Hamilton Kerr

As the seasons in Scotland are forever changing, it's great to use outdoor locations as a backdrop for portraits. The changing light also provides great opportunities for more creative images.
The Spring presents a beautiful carpet of bluebells, a perfect soft backdrop as seen in these 3 portraits of two young brothers. This was a great location, no too far from our studio in Angus. It was a great afternoon out for the boys and it produced some really sweet photos.

We were recently asked to capture the character of a fun 9 year old girl - Caitlin. Caitlin loves the outdoors and has such character that we knew the studio wouldn't show off her personality to it's best. After a chat about her favorite hobbies and places, she chose her local woodland and her favorite outfit (wellies included!) and we set off on a Summer's afternoon of fun in the trees.
Her Mum Jo came along too - and kindly sent us some behind the scenes snaps from her phone. In these three photos, you can see how we used off camera flash. This helped fill in any dark shadow areas as the sun was quite strong.  This also created side lighting when extra tonal detail in the shadows were needed.

Caitlin and her parents came in to the studio and chose their three favourite photos. We presented them in one frame as a triptych. Below is the finished design.

The recent introduction of Autumn colours makes for a beautiful, rich, red background for this dog portrait. The rusty tones of the Labrador against the foliage makes for a very striking result.

With winter now just around the corner, watch this space for some new shots, possibly even some snow scenes with families wrapped up and rosey cheeked.

For more examples of our portrait work, please visit the galleries on this site, we also have one dedicated just to dogs too!

Cake Smash Portraits at Hamilton Kerr Studio

        Happy Birthdays, captured forever.

Capturing good photographs of your young ones special birthday can be tricky, especially with other kids, extended family members, friends, and clutter around on the day. Why not take time out either the day before or the day after the big day, and book a 'Cake Smash' photo-shoot with Hamilton Kerr. 

We provide a fun setting with lots of space to get great, natural photos of kids experiencing birthday cake, often for the 1st time. 

The expressions and fun action shots make a fantastic keepsake to treasure of your son or daughter. You bring the cake and we provide the rest, and best of all, you get to leave behind all the mess!

Our package includes a personalised montage of 16 squares. This is professionally mounted and framed, ready to hang. 

Book your little one's birthday Cake Smash now - 01575 573 052  or contact Louise

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Hairdressing Photography with Louise Chrystal

The first time Louise Chrystal and I worked together was years ago, on a shoot for a make up artist. Louise was styling the hair to compliment the make up looks. I instantly saw that she had an eye for what would and wouldn't work in camera. Since then we have kept in touch and finally we got the opportunity to plan a shoot.

Louise currently works freelance and was looking to produce some new images to use as promotional material to show a more creative side of her work. When we asked about the planning behind her shoot, she told us she was looking for photographers who specialise in hair photography, rather than general photographers who 'give it a go' with little knowledge of the hair industry or how to create a professional hair photograph.

Knowing that Louise had an early passion for architecture, I expected nothing less than a structured avant garde look. She delivered exactly that, and produced fantastic looking hair that I couldn't wait to wrap my lights around. This particular look was inspired by retro 80's pop culture with a contemporary up to date feel. The make up (by Margaret-Anne McKay) complimented this look perfectly with this seasons metallic hues.

Although the model has dark hair, we decided to photograph her against a dark charcoal background. Having worked with many hair models over the years, we know that lighter tones of backgrounds can wash out depth of colour within hair and can dull down highlights.

The model was shot against a charcoal wall in our studio. We placed a background light on the wall down low, creating a gradient effect from light to dark, we then used a blue gel over the top to tone the wall with a blue tint. We placed a snoot in from the left hand side of the shot. A blue gel was used on the snoot to create a highlight down the neck of the model, and to throw some blue highlights into the hair itself. This again, was to add to the 80's pop feel - the technique was used a lot in old school music videos as well as stills. A second snoot was positioned in from the right hand side to give the band of shine around the hair. These concentrated lighting techniques show off the over all structure of the hair style, and define the face from the background. The warmth from Nicole's natural skin tone was toned down in post production as a cooler skin tone worked better with the cold blue lighting effects.

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If you would like to book your next hair shoot with us, please get in touch and follow this blog for up to date information and more creative photography blogs.

Wella Trend Vision

We have extensive knowledge of the processes required in all of the yearly hair competitions - Wella, L'Oreal etc because we have shot for winners and runners up for over 10 years.

Even if you are not going to be hitting the heights of the London Finals this year, consider updating your Salon's portfolio and corporate image to help bring in young, new clients to your salon.

All photography and imaging is done in-house in our state of the art studio and central gallery or at one of Angus' beautiful nearby locations.

First Post

First Post Baby!!

Welcome to our new blog. This is the place we will share our new fine-art work, upcoming hair shoots, new photos and maybe even reviews of the latest photographic equipment (or anything else that takes our fancy!).  You'll find some of our previous work on our F@*ebook page but if you want the latest images (including a recently finished shoot with Louise Chrystal subscribe to this blog and share, share, share!!