I love the snow. It turns everything into a magical winter wonderland, and even usually boring things take on a new, glittery persona.

The dogs love it! Here are Crumbs and Biscuit:

Crumbs has thankfully fully recovered from her Christmas operation. Snow everywhere!

Just a very quick post today to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoy the snow if you have any (if you don’t, it’s snowing here on my blog and also on my website!), and wrap up warm with some mulled wine and mince pies.

I’m off to my parents home in Northamptonshire, and as the eldest of seven (yes, SEVEN) brothers and sisters the house will be packed with people and presents, and rather too many little naughty dogs!

Also, Sarah and Chris’ beautiful wedding at the York Maze was featured on Rock My Wedding yesterday, part one is up and part two is coming soon!

This is not my usual area of photography, but when I was asked to photograph the charity calendar for Helperby Cricket Club, I said yes straight away. I was glad I had, the calendar girls were amazing fun, completely frank, and (after a glass of wine!) open to any suggestions I made.

The result is a calendar full of beautiful, slightly naked ladies, which will hopefully make big bucks for two charities: Helperby Cricket Club and York Breast Care Unit.

If you’d like to see more, you will have to buy a calendar! They are a steal at just £10 each. Email me for details. And yes, I was made to pose demurely for the back page ;-)

I was thrilled when Rebecca and Edward’s beautiful wedding at The Star Inn Harome was chosen to be a featured wedding in the Wedding and Lifestyle show guide. Rebecca and Edward had gorgeous weather for their wedding last September, and both of them looked stunning!

Rebecca’s dress was from Angel Brides and her flowers were by The Flower Box in Helmsley.

Last week, a group of photographers who met through the [b] school and the Randall Photography Network, went to Blackpool for a work outing (as we all work for ourselves we don’t usually get work days out)! We stayed the night so we could enjoy the Blackpool hospitality to the full ;-)

The agenda was loosely adhered to as we all excitedly discussed albums, marketing, websites etc etc, over very cheap wine that was all we seemed to be able to find. It was a photography geeks dream.

After the afternoon’s chat, we headed out to the beach for a bit of a play with our cameras.

Here is Olivia Brabbs looking rather lovely:

The wonderful Laura Lawson:

The Godfather (I stole this nickname from the Lawsons!), Stewart Randall:

Susie Lawrence doing a spot of modeling:

These are from Barnaby’s blog, the first one is of Barnaby himself, one third of the trio that makes up 3b media. The other two are Rob Booker and Phil Barber.

The Lawsons took these, we were pretty hard to spot in a crowd ;-). This is James Pearson, Mark Byrne, Stewart Randall hiding,
Mark Lenik, Hayley Ruth and Barnaby, and I think Phil is hiding in there some where too.

3b media at work:

Pete Lawson:

Me and Chris MacKenzie:

Laura Lawson looking amazingly gorgeous!

I stole Laura’s camera and took these. Look at those amazing Biscuiteers biscuits:

Chris, Laura, Pete and Stewart:

Barnaby modeling the teeny jammy dodgers we got with our morning lattes:

Mark Lenik filmed some of the activities. If you need a wedding videographer, call Mark NOW! He is amazing!

THE RANDALL NETWORK BLACKPOOL MEET from Mark William Lenik on Vimeo.

Neil Matthews, also came along, spot him in the video!

I love love LOVE my business cards, which were designed and made by Invited Ink. They are letterpressed, with rounded corners and a custom duplexed back in my signature colour, hot pink. I love them so much I don’t want to give them away, which may defeat the object a little ;-)

I was thrilled to find out they have been featured on 3 websites that showcase unsual and creative business cards, Best Design Options, Card Observer, and Business Card 24. It’s good to know I’m not the only one that loves them!

In case you haven’t seen them yet (and you’re not likely to, I’m hanging onto these babies!!) here they are:

My first pet was a chicken. Or a pair of Pekin bantams (small chickens!) to be exact. I was nine years old and must have been an unusual child. While my friends were getting my little ponies and smurfs, hamsters and guinea pigs, I had chickens.

I love all things small and fluffy and so was very excited when I got a hen house for Christmas last year, as I could have my own little brood in the back garden, and get fresh eggs as an added bonus. I borrowed a broody hen, did some hen research, and found some fertilised white Silkie bantam eggs on ebay. Three weeks later, and hey presto, out popped 5 lovely little lemon yellow chicks (the other 5 didn’t hatch, so were not fertilised). They are now 3 weeks old now and their first feathers are just showing, it will be nearly Christmas before we have any eggs (provided they are not all cockerels!) but we are well on our way to the good life! Just need a vegetable patch now…..

10 creamy white eggs before they went under the hen:

The first little hatchling three weeks later (chicks are born on time!):

A few hours later and they are the cutest little fluffy things ever:

You are not supposed to help chicks out of their egg. If they can’t make it alone, chances are nature is telling us something. But, being the softie that I am, I helped one little chick who had been dutifully pecking away for hours and hours and hadn’t managed to make much headway at all. He (or she, he is named Harry but this may change to Harriet) was very weak just after being born. The next morning, Colin bought a little weak, cold chick inside. I didn’t have much hope but made him a cotton wool bed in an old plastic container and put him on the boiler to keep warm. Colin was dispatched to get a jar of baby food (Mum mum was told years ago by a vet to feed an ill bird baby food so I though it would be the right thing to feed him), and I dug out an old syringe we had to worm the puppies (there was no needle, just the syringe!). The next morning, hey presto, Harry seemed to have gained strength and was cheeping enthusiastically. He went back out with Mum and siblings and is now doing fine.

Big brothers and sisters while Harry was inside getting 5* treatment:

One chick is hiding behind Mum:

Happy families, Harry included:

A happy ending!

I have always loved stationary, and I fell in love with letterpress printing the first time I saw it. It is just so luxurious! I think that if a business card is just so damn cool that you can’t throw it away, then that has to be a good thing. Mine were designed and printed by Sally Ann of Invited Ink and I am so pleased with them. They are almost too nice to give away but I will have to remind myself that that is what they are for!

Sally Ann also designs and prints wedding invitations so brides and grooms, take note. You could hardly hope for a more stylish introduction to your wedding.

Here they are, with my signature colour on the back:

And notecards to match:

My childhood holidays were nearly always spent in Harris, my parents first visited the island for their honeymoon 32 years ago and fell in love with it. As a child I loved it, rock pools to explore, white sand to play in and clear, turquoise sea to splash about in (I must have been braver then, that sea is COLD!). It was an undiscovered paradise, but as I grew older I began to get fed up. All of my friends went to Rhodes, Spain and Turkey, enjoying the hot sun and the cinemas, restaurants and making friends, while I went to a deserted Scottish island no one had ever heard of. It was windy, remote and miles from anything really fun, I’d had enough of dressing up warm for walks along the windswept cliffs and collecting shells on the beach. I made up my mind that I was old enough to stay at home alone.

14 years later I decided that I was ready to go back. The hills, the beaches, the rockpools and the sea were as I remembered, the island as beautiful and as remote as I had expected. It seemed smaller then it had when I was a child; the villages closer together and the walks shorter, but everything was in it’s rightful place. Harris has a unique smell I hadn’t known about until this time, a mix of salt and machair, sheep and seaweed, a sweet pleasant smell that tells you that you are by the sea in Scotland.

I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of being thrilled with finding a nest. Gulls, Oyster Catchers and Arctic Turns make their nests precariously on rocks, hills and sometimes just on the beach. One day I found a dark brown spotted Turns egg lying on the sand, the mother circling anxiously overhead. I wanted to build a little fence around it and keep it safe. This is an Oyster Catchers nest (I think!):

A couple of more abstract beach scenes inspired by oil on canvas:

This is my favourite of the week:

Happy Monday everyone, hope you are making the most of the sunshine if you have it!

Today is a very sad day. I have to let my baby go.

The time has finally come for Beans to fly the nest and start his life with his new family. In just over an hour, I will have to give him a big cuddle and a sloppy kiss and say goodbye. He has his bag packed, with all the essentials included; puppy food, favourite toy, insurance, vaccination certificate, and blanket that smells familiar smells of mummy and daddy.

O my little Beans, you captured my heart from the beginning but I know that you will make one little boy very, very happy and you will be his friend for life. I’m glad you’re not going too far and I hope I can come and visit you soon. You will be able to keep your name, but it now has a funky twist: Beanz, as in Heinz.

Here he is all grown up and ready for his new adventure, doesn’t he look handsome with his brand new collar?