L'Oreal Colour Trophy Scottish Finalist - photographs by Hamilton Kerr

The L'Oreal Colour Trophy is a prestigious hair competition that is now in it's 60th anniversary year, making it the longest running live hairdressing competition in the world. 

Showcasing British hairdressing, the competition celebrates hair, beauty and fashion in a unique, creative and inspirational way.





We have worked closely with hairdressers, capturing their creativity and skills. A photograph of their work is submitted for the first round of judging. The winners then present a model in a live final catwalk showcase. 

Samples of recent photographic entries are below;

Hair - Louise Chrystal at Capello
Make up - Rae Mathieson

Hair - Toni & Guy Edinburgh

Hair - Toni & Guy Edinburgh

Rae Matheson working her magic on one of the models.













Photoshoots are available in your own salon or in our studio. Please get in touch for further information. 

Property brochure photography by Hamilton Kerr

Selling your property can be a life changing move forward for you and your family. 
All too often property owners are provided with less than adequate photographs of their home. 
At Hamilton Kerr, we offer a property photography service that focuses on achieving high quality images of your property which will be used online and in print to produce high quality magazine style marketing brochures to raise your property’s profile for potential buyers.

If you are selling your property, don't lose potential buyers - have Hamilton Kerr photograph your interior and exteriors. Whether you have a light, bright spacious new build, or a warm cosy traditional home full of character, we will capture it at it's best and provide eye catching images. Professional photographs enhance a property's appeal, leading to increased viewings and ultimately a sale. 

Get in touch for details, follow us on facebook and twitter

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!

Landscape photography by Hamilton Kerr

Capturing the scenery of the great outdoors can be a rewarding experience. Landscape photography is an excellent field of study that can be as creative or as simple as your own individual style. The majority of the landscapes here at Hamilton Kerr are by Kyle Hamilton. Kyle grew up on the Angus coast. He frequently visited the beach and coastal villages up and down the Montrose area. He often revisits favorite haunts from his childhood.  I (Louise Kerr) was brought up in Edinburgh, and still find myself drawn to townscapes and more urban landscape images. We are now based in Angus and are fortunate to have gorgeous glens not too far away. We plan to capture these throughout the changing seasons.

This is Kyle, perched on a rock at Loch Lee, Glen Esk, Angus, Scotland. March 2013.







What's in the bag? There are a few essentials in our kit bag when planning a landscape photo-shoot. A tripod is always top of the list. This not only ensures your images are as sharp as possible whilst out in the elements, it also gives you greater options for small apertures and slow shutter speed and ensures you can achieve broad depth of field. A wide angle lens will allow you to capture more of the landscape in one single frame. A polarising filter is great for both skies and water shots. It can make a fairly plain sky really come alive. It is great for both colour and black & white photographs. It also can help with water reflections. A neutral density filter will cut down the amount of light passing through the lens and give you more control if you require a slower shutter speed, essential for slow moving water and more creative images. Other that that, the rest is usually down to the location, weather and lots and lots of patience.

Using the rule of thirds in landscape photography really does elevate your images to a greater level of interest. It encourages you to be more considerate of composition. It makes the eye roam around the image more pleasingly, plus keeps viewers interest longer. Keep this in mind next time you venture out.

This is another behind the scenes shot from a recent shoot at Loch Lee.  You can see there is a dead ram on the right, with the Loch in the background. We came across this unfortunate sight along our walk. Although this was a particularly unusual subject matter, Kyle felt that this captured the true tale of the harsh winter that both the farmers and the livestock have suffered this year.

This is the final image, exactly as it was shot - in one single frame. 

We will post more landscape images throughout the year. We are happy to visit places of interest that are special to you and your family and capture an image especially for you. If you have somewhere in mind, then get in touch. 

Hair Photography by Hamilton Kerr

Photographing hair is a very specialist niche and is a very different approach to photographing models, in terms of lighting, equipment and expertise. We have many years experience in photographing hair, capturing depth of colour, texture, style, shape and theme. Many samples of this can be seen in our Hair & Beauty gallery.

It's now past the glitzy Christmas season rush and hair salons up and down the country are turning their attention to a spring season update of their photographs/marketing images, and in particular -  hair industry awards entries. Photographs are now a key marketing tool for salons.

It is great for long standing clients to see that you are constantly challenging yourself as well as keeping up to date with the rest of the UK, no matter how big or small your salon is. The press exposure generated from these awards is great both locally and nationally. 

Most salons these days have a website, they also have a facebook and twitter page too. Drip feeding your twitter followers with snippets of the behind the scenes shots from your shoot, building up to revealing a fully finished photograph is a great way to keep your followers interested and interacting with you.

 As part of our photography package, we now include extra images specifically designed with this social media marketing in mind.

Salons become a hive of activity getting their moods boards ready, gathering Pinterest ideas, casting models and finalising the details for a photo shoot to show off their creative team skills. There are many industry awards throughout the year, one of the most popular one is the L'Oreal Colour Trophy, established in 1956. This is one of the longest running hair awards in the UK. Salons can compete in both ladies and gents categories, as well as a young colourist awards and the recent afro catwalk addition. You can imagine the fun and the buzz in the salon creating looks to compete in these prestigious awards. We have produced photographic entries for  many salons and have had great success across various categories.

The Wella Trendvision awards are also a very popular choice for many salons. These awards generate themed categories and gather inspiration from around the globe. The 2013 themes are Fusion, Decibel, Echo & Allegra. The idea behind the categories this year was inspired by sound - The Sound of Colour. This is an extract taken from Wella:
"This year, TrendVision 2013 brings together the richness of the audio and visual worlds, igniting a wave of energy to inspire the artist in you, as you interpret the latest seasonal trends in-salon."

The images produced as entries to these awards are also a great update to your salon website.  Not only does it show that your salon is on trend, but hopefully an award winning salon too.  This gives salons an edge over its competitors in this very saturated industry.

There are many other prestigious annual awards too, including the British Hairdressing awards, Goldwell Colour Zoom, Matrix Destination and many more. 

Get in touch to book your 2013 photo-shoot now. Follow us on twitter and facebook too. 

Etched Self Portraits at Hamilton Kerr Studio

We are hosting an exhibition titled “To see oursels as ithers see us"  by local school primary children from the of 25th Jan -1st Feb.

This exhibition of self-portrait etchings by local schoolchildren was inspired by the line from Burns’ poem and made possible by local artist and teacher Maureen Crosbie. 297 children from Northmuir and Southmuir primary schools in Kirriemuir, Angus, took part in this project, creating etchings on acrylic using a dry point technique.

Always keen to turn her work and experiences as an artist into new teaching techniques, Maureen could see the traditional etching process with acids and other chemicals were not possible in a classroom environment. However, the dry-point method using acrylic sheet was one which could be translated easily to work with children as young as seven.

Using the line from “To A Louse” by Robbie Burns to inspire the self-portraits, the children’s work was of such high caliber Maureen decided to ask us at Hamilton Kerr to donate our space to exhibit the etchings.
We are passionate about the portrait medium and have taken photographic portraits of many of the children taking part. We were delighted to be able to host such a great collection of work.

The exhibition runs from 25^th January to 1^st February and the studio is open from 10 am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday.

I hope a few of you can make it along to view these fantastic portraits.

Red Squirrel Playing Peek-a-Boo!

We are lucky enough to live at the foot of the Cairngorm mountain range in Kirriemuir. Kirriemuir is known locally as the gateway to the glens.  As well as the lovely hills and glens we have gorgeous woodlands full of wildlife, including these furry friends:

Whilst in the woods on Saturday, I managed to capture a funny video - here is the link in blue:  video of a squirrel playing Peek-a-boo with me. It was amazing how close it came and how inquisitive it was.
Have a look for yourself, it's so funny. It was taken on my mobile phone so the quality isn't perfect but it came so close to me that the camera and tripod with 300mm lens was far too over the top!

This photograph on the left was shot (I mean photographed - no squirrels were harmed in the making of this blog!) in the low evening sun back in March 2012. I frequently walk the dog through Caddam Woods and I am delighted to say that the red squirrel population is definitely thriving in this area.

My favourite squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) fact: They are mainly solitary creatures but when the temperature drops they can often be found in relatives dreys/dens huddling together and having sleepovers to keep warm.

If you would like to find out more information about the conservation of these animals and what you can do to get involved, please check out the Scottish Wildlife Trust or Saving Scotlands Red Squirrels.

As many of you will know, my other passion for photography is capturing red heads of a different kind - Hair photography. Have a look through our various galleries and please follow our blog for more squirrel activity updates, photography tips and recent projects.