Janine Walker's Photo Blog - Photography by Janine

	victoria & mark	1.19.12 • Weddings

It's been an incredibly long day so there aren't too many words rattling around in this head of mine right now. I've been without husband all week (he is skiing don't you know!). Every day at 4pm I've had great intentions of getting the kids down and getting a good night's work done from 8pm onwards. But it appears that I am pining after husband for come 7pm I am lying in a heap, incapable of anything but climbing into bed myself!

Tonight, however, I managed a blog post! Vicky and Mark were married in December. It was cold but oh - the light was stunning. And we were at Galgorm Manor...my absolute favourite. When the sun is setting down there you can create some magic. Vicky was breathtaking. No seriously, what a beautiful bride. So natural. And she beamed all day long. You'll see what I mean when you start scrolling.

I've a few of these pictures but I chose the slightly blurred one for the blog. I'm not sure why, it drew me in.

OK I shall preface the next three images by saying - I know, OK?! Three shoe shots is over the top. Even when I was shooting them I was thinking "Janine, you silly, she'll only choose one for her album...". But I liked the shoes a lot. And I ended up not being able to choose between these shots for the blog. So pick your favourite and move along :)

PERFECT winter flower arrangements.

A happy MOB. Love it :)

Ah Diana you were a great wee bridesmaid. Very attentive :)

A perfect day :)

	removing the christmas blanket	1.11.12 • Personal

All around me last week I saw status updates and blog posts filled with excitement and eagerness to get started with a new year. Creativity and ideas being bandied about all the while I was still wrapped in my Christmas blanket, lamenting the end of the Christmas Happy Hour (this was Andy's invention and might I say he makes a good and refreshing G&T!). I was NOT ready for the new year. I was NOT ready to kick off my snowflake patterned fleece cocoon. I did NOT want to start thinking about work. Not so much work but the balance. This freakin' word that I have grown to hate. January started with me being in the biggest funk of my life.

I wrote to all my photographer friends. They empathised and sympathised and one even told me to buck my ideas up and get on with things (a boy, obviously). But no-one else was in a funk like this. A 'I can't walk past my office without wanting to cry' funk. At one point I found myself wishing I was back working at Tesco - at least my Bread & Cakes aisle was always tidy and I knew where to hide when they called for extra till staff. I just knew that going back to work meant dividing myself in two again, and since I don't have childcare it means I'm a full time mum during the day and a full time photographer at night. The thought of stretching myself again in the way I stretched myself the last 3 months of 2011 is just too much to bear. I could never ever do that again. I don't know how I did it - up at 7am, kids to bed at 7pm, starting work straight away and working until 3/4am. At the time I was OK because I was living it, but once I stopped I kind of burrowed myself in - got on my big comfy sofa, wrapped myself in Christmas blanket and turned my mind off. Then all of a sudden it was 2 weeks later and people were telling me I needed to switch on again and get back to the 20 hour days and my mind said "Hell no!".

So I started off slowly. I sat in my office for a couple of hours, didn't do too much just got used to sitting here again. I took some photos of the boys, did some filing. Eased myself in gently. I'm not quite ready to blog about my excitement at all the creative ideas I have bubbling away in my refreshed brain, but I am ready to draw up some plans about how 2012 is going to go. It's going to be a very different year to 2011 - the year I shot 37 weddings, 24 children, 20 engagements, 9 models, 11 dogs, oh - and adopted 3 children! This year I am only taking 18 weddings so I've more than halved my workload already. I am drawing up a 'work schedule' for the first time in my life - setting myself working hours. There will actually be balance this year because I am going to make it happen. This is my resolution. And also to make Happy Hour a weekly thing. It's just too much fun.

Enough blabbering - I'm out of the funk now. I'm back! And to celebrate I thought I would let you see my lovely new shoes that Santa brought. They are wee beauties. This should satisfy my cousin Sinead who wrote this comment on my facebook wall earlier:

Not a flipping single shoe or handbag message in months........... What has Mommydom done to you? Has is removed the shoe gene??

My shoe gene still here - it's the dominant gene in our family Sinead. Well that and the 'Wee Tops' gene ;)

For Christmas I treated our family to two fab presents (when I say 'our family' I really mean me, but they are gifts we can all enjoy lol!). Firstly, I got one of my favourite pictures from our shoot with Paula blown up as huge as the printer could make it, heatsealed and framed in the most amazing vintagy frame ever. This picture absolutely does not do it justice and I could literally stare at this for hours and find new things to be happy about every time.

My second gift was a book about the story of how we became a family. This is one of my absolutely favourite possessions - it has pretty much every picture in it that I have taken of the boys, plus our two shoots with Paula. It is so beyond precious to me and I will be making one every year for us to open together on Christmas Day. Paula's picture made the perfect cover and I also stole her blog post title :)

250 pages of Walker :)

Lastly, Santa brought me this very beautiful Mulberry leather notebook. I love notebooks as you know, but this is probably the most special one I've ever owned. What the heck do you write in a Mulberry notebook?! There's no way I could use it as a Slimming World diary and normal to-do lists would just not be awesome enough to grace it's pages. So I have decided that this is my 'DO' book. I started off writing my resolutions in there and I am going to do every single thing I've written down. Any page with a Mulberry tree stamped on the bottom has got to be taken seriously. Really.

I'm working on album designs at the minute. If you have sent me your choices - it is coming I promise! I'll email you with a proof :)

	the art of napping	1.4.12 • Personal

Back in the day - PK (pre-kids), I took my naps very seriously. They would only happen on a Saturday afternoon, if I had the day off, was going out that night and Andy wasn't home (for he would look upon this need to nap as a weakness). I would light candles, close all the blinds, have the heating on for 1 hour before the nap to ensure the perfect napping temperature, choose the perfect tv show to nap alongside - usually a fluffy comedy such as Friends - and turn the phone off. I would have my lovely furry napping blanket laid out on the sofa but I would also be wearing a hoodie, because weirdly I like to nap wearing a hoodie. Usually my green one (a bone of contention between Andy and I as he hates 'The Green' as he calls it). I'd have one dog sprawled across my legs (Sonny) and another one curled up in my arms to snuggle (Buddy) and their gentle, happy snores would help me drift off to the land of nod for a pleasant hour.

These days naps could not be more different. They can happen any day of the week and at any time. I can literally sleep standing up - it's a gift really. I'll be wearing whatever I threw on that morning as mid-day outfit changes are a luxury for the child-free. There's no nap prep-time, no candles, no blanket, no heating. The sounds of Ben 10 killing aliens will be bouncing around in my head. The dogs will be someplace The Curly One cannot reach them, daytime naps a thing of the past for them too now that he's discovered climbing. If I know that I am about to drift off for 5 minutes I will make an announcement that I'm going to close my eyes for a few minutes and could no-one belly dive on me or cut my hair at this time. From experience, I know that these are unpleasant ways to be awakened from a nap.

I had quite a few noisy, upright, dog-free naps over christmas and I do believe they are just as effective as the PK ones. It was a restful time but also a chaotic time. Happy, crazy, messy, noisy chaos. We loved every single second of it. It was just as magical as we had expected it to be and more. Who can explain to you what it's like to put two wide-eyed boys to bed believing that Santa is on his way to their house right now? That is priceless and every tiny detail of the evening and the morning after are still so fresh in my mind. Precious memories for us. And we hopefully get another 10 years of doing this :) Unless of course I can convince The Curly One to believe in Santa until he is 15 or 16?!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday too and a break from your daily grind. I'll be back at my desk properly from Monday onwards, I've lots of December sessions to share so the blog will be busy again soon enough. My resolutions for this year are all about figuring out a life/photography balance that works for all of us so hopefully I can come to a compromise that makes me feel like I am doing the best I can for everyone :)

Chat to you Monday...here's a wee glimpse of what I got up to during December - just some random picks from each session!

	there's these boys...	12.24.11 • Personal

I was doing OK until I opened this big brown box the postman brought this morning. I kinda shouldn't have been opening it because I recognised the handwriting as my sister Michelle's...but I saw on the customs form that she'd written 'wooden sign' and I thought, if it's a Christmas sign it'd be a real shame if I didn't open it till Christmas day. Surely Michelle would want me to display it at my family Christmas party tonight?! (My mother will never be dead while I'm alive!).

So 3 curious little faces watched as Andy and I wrangled with cellotape and scissors to eventually unveil these words that had tears pouring down my cheeks the minute I read them. "What does it say mummy, what does it say?!". I looked at Andy to motion him to read it to them but he was crying too and neither of us could read them the blinkin' sign. I don't think I will ever be able to look at this sign without blubbing - Michelle what an awesome present, and even though I cheated and opened it early I'm so glad I did. I've spent all day being ever more grateful than I could possibly be for my 3 beautiful miracles. I've said it so many times this week - if someone told me this day last year that I'd be preparing Christmas for my 3 sons I never ever would have believed them. It's amazing. It's a miracle. I will never take it for granted.

And so today, before I sign off, I thank all of you for everything you've done for us this year. For reading our story, sending me encouragement, love, funnies. For all the hugs - real and virtual. If you are waiting for your miracle take hope from our story. It's there, waiting on the right moment to come into your life.

Happy Christmas.
x

	alfie	12.15.11 • Personal

Just thought I'd blog a few of our Alfie adventures on this fine Friday morning! This next week coming in I am going to step it up a lot to build the excitement for next Sunday. Can you believe how close Christmas is now?

I haven't had a chance to photograph everything Alfie's done. I used to photograph the wee scene in the morning as we discovered it. When the boys asked me why I was taking pictures I made the mistake of saying it was for police evidence as I was going to report him for being so naughty. Well, this didn't go down too well and there was pleading and tears at the thought of poor Alfie having to go to prison for covering our bathroom in loo roll, so now I have to try and sneak a photo once they've gone to school!

Some nights I'll just move him to a different position and the boys will have to find him. Some nights he will be playing with their toys and some nights he will do something naughty. I mix it up a bit but of course they like the naughty stuff the best! We've had loads of correspondence with Santa too, one of the boys was on the Naughty List, but thankfully he is off it now. We were also sent an 'Elf Yourself' video (this is so easy to do - just google it!), he drew mustaches on us one night (this was pretty difficult as all the boys sleep on their front!) and he has come back from the North Pole with presents - lollies and slippers his mum made us.

And yes, I've seen myself quitting work at 3am and going into the kitchen to colour a couple of pages in a colouring book to make them think Buzz Lightyear was having fun with Alfie. The things you do!!

This was the day the baby got hold of him. Andy was up first with the baby, and of course he hasn't a bit of sense and didn't move Alfie off the chair. Well, either he has no sense or he thinks I've no sense. One of the two :)

This morning Alfie had filled the boys school shoes with marshmallows. I had this whole elaborate setup done with a note and marshmallows artistically strewn over the table for effect. Our middle boy is always up first so Andy got up with him and came downstairs. By the time the other boys and I had made it downstairs (a mere 20 mins later), all the marshmallows had been eaten by 4-year-old and poor J didn't even get to see it. Yet again, Andy got an eating before he went to work. I think he hates Alfie.

Santa sent us special envelopes and told us to write our letters and post them off.

This was one of my favourites. Paperchain decoration from one end of the living room to the other. The boys loved this one!

Alfie's mum sent these awesome slippers, made by her own fair hand! The boys love them!

	lyndsey & craig	12.15.11 • Weddings

How could we possibly follow up a Pride & Prejudice wedding you ask? Easy - with a Scottish wedding! I LOVE Scottish weddings, I love Galgorm Manor and I love love love soft Autumn afternoon lighting and tones. So there's a lot to love with this wedding. Starting with Lyndsey's bedroom - how girlie and gorgeous is this?! I had a lovely wee time to myself shooting all the details in here.

This is probably my last wedding blog post before the man with the white beard appears. But I've three weddings this month so there'll be more in January :)

P.S. I have totally lost my voice. I mean, I can barely get a whisper out at the minute. My family are loving it but if I hear the word 'what?' one more time I am going to lose the plot completely! So if you need to talk to me on the phone it's not going to happen for a couple of days. Hopefully it'll be back for David and Kerrie's wedding - otherwise how will I boss everyone about?! (Just kidding...you know I NEVER need to be bossy at a wedding...)!