The colours are reminding me of two shoots over that last years with this gorgeous family - one after their little boy was born, then last year with their little girl too! What a joy it is to celebrate milestones with people. 

Autumn is such a beautiful season, especially in the Lakes.  I'd wholeheartedly recommend it for an outdoor shoot, there's often a crispness in the air and days that gives a little buzz to photos and of course, the colours of the changing trees and landscape make fantastic surroundings.  Whether it's down Ullswater or through parkland, it's a great time for a shoot. Get in touch if you want to make the most of the season! 

If you want to keep up-to-date with goings on here at de la Mare Creative, my autumn newsletter will be out soon with lots of pretty things from across the season. If you'd like to receive it, you can sign up here.

It's with great pleasure that we can say that de la Mare Creative is featured in this month's edition of Cumbria Life alongside the wonderful Liz Newport from Buzy Lizzie Garden Design as well as coverage on In-Cumbria, Cumbria Crack and the Cumberland and Westmorland Gazette.  It's been one of the highlights of the year to work with Liz to capture a few of her gardens.  I can't recommend her work enough - do contact her to have her work her magic on your outdoor space!  You can read the full article below, written by Sally Seed, and if you are interested in recording the seasons of your garden, please do get in touch. 

A shared love of gardens is picture perfect
When garden designer, Liz Newport, and photographer, Rachael de la Mare, met at a Dacre yoga class, they didn’t expect to have gardens in common. Today, Liz is supporting Rachael in a new business venture to capture and record the glory of Cumbrian gardens through the seasons.

Liz, who trades as Buzy Lizzie Garden Design, loves the challenge of creating planting schemes and gardens that look good throughout the year. Rachael, who recently worked with Penrith Town Council and the Penrith in Bloom team on a celebratory film, has always enjoyed capturing the personality and life of plants and gardens on camera. Together, they’ve developing Rachael’s concept of creating very special photographic keepsake journals of clients’ gardens.

Rachael, who is originally from Guernsey but now lives near Penrith, has been a professional photographer for over 15 years. “I love to capture stories in my images and gardens have that element of narrative and continual change. They’re also very personal to the gardeners who’ve worked so hard to create them and there are often special memories, particular plants and other nostalgic elements that give the garden character. I want to preserve those memories and moments and reflect the life and personality of the gardeners and their gardens in a way that can be kept and shared. A book is ideal but I’m also aware that some people may prefer a keepsake box of prints or a framed selection instead.”

To make the concept a reality, Rachael was looking for gardens that she could photograph and capture in this way. She wanted to test and hone her ideas and get feedback from the owners and gardeners before launching the idea as a commercial option.

“That’s where I could help,” says Liz, “as I’ve designed and developed over 500 gardens in and around Cumbria during my 15 years in business in a variety of styles, each one fitting a particular client’s brief and the specific location. I was pretty sure that some of my clients would be happy to let Rachael and her camera in through the coming year to capture the different seasons. So far, the response has been really encouraging and it’s definitely looking like something that could develop into a new strand of work for Rachael.”

The pilot project for the new venture covers five different Buzy Lizzie gardens, including a couple at Manor Park in Penrith. “I’m thoroughly enjoying visiting the gardens,” says Rachael, “and I can see that, over the course of a year, I’ll get to know the owners and their gardens really well and learn a lot about how this idea could work out. I am sure there are proud gardeners out there who will see the value and appreciate the pleasure of having a photographic record of their garden through the seasons. I’m already getting interest in commissions to do this sort of work elsewhere so working with Liz to fine tune the ideas has been invaluable.”

Liz is also very conscious of the challenge to design a garden that has something special to enjoy right through the year: “Spring bulbs and June flowering are quite easy but having the evergreen structure in place for the winter frosts and planting for the late summer into the autumn need careful thought. Seeing Rachael capture one of my gardens on camera is giving me new ideas too!”
“For instance, later flowering clematis species are worth including on any trellis or pergola so that there’s flowering later in the year once the roses and honeysuckle are fading,” she says, “and I also love the daisy family (Asteraceae). Rudbeckia, Echinacea and others are at their best in the autumn and bring vivid colour to a garden at this time of year.”

A shared love of gardens and mutual support is definitely creating a flowering business relationship.

For further information about both businesses, please see www.buzylizzie.co.uk and www.delamare-creative.co.uk

It goes without saying that 2020 has been an unusual year. It’s also been a time of change here as, after 15 years, I’ve gone full-time as a photographer and creative. For many years, I’ve had the pleasure of working for a few days each as a graphic designer for Ullswater Community College and have counted celebrating the students of that school as one of the joys of my life. As 2020 began, it felt right to transition my role out and give my time fully to my business after eleven years at UCC. From this summer we’ve had a name change, from de la Mare Photography to de la Mare Creative, and whilst this isn’t necessarily the easiest year to do it in, I’m excited for the changes and opportunities ahead!

Over the next few months there will be updates on our website and social media pages - we have exciting new collaborations happening, some seasonal shoots and a new photographic venture coming too. So follow us and come along for the ride!

You can find us on facebook: www.facebook.com/delamarecreative and on Instagram @delamarecreative

For many years, March meant my annual visit to Eden Boutique at Newton Rigg for a fantastic couple of days shooting the end of year Creative image work from the hairdressers and beauty therapists there.  Sadly, due to Coronavirus, this year's shoot had to be cancelled so here's a couple of my favourites from the class of 2019 instead!

It's been a busy two or three months leading to a very delayed 'Best of 2017'.  I almost considered leaving it until 2018 but there were so many lovely moments in the last year that I thought it was worth popping them up even if they are a little late.  Thank you to all those who have appeared through the lens of the de la Mare camera this year!
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Starting with a stunning Couple's shoot for Simon and Bethany in January, following their London wedding, this year's weddings have been a joy! There's a couple in here too of Tom and Hannah's stunning Graphistudio album that arrived this year.  Congratulations one and all.

It's hard categorising photos - a few in here could fit into the lovely people section, just they aren't people! Getting out and about or shooting pets in the studio were some of the highlights of 2017, with another successful Pet Week in Angel Square and lots of opportunities for capturing nature.

It's been such a pleasure to work with lots of different local businesses and organisations again this year including the beautiful work of mj cabinetmakers, a stunning fashion collection, work for the wonderful Ullswater Community College (including a little bit of Joey Essex) and Eden Boutique and a project for Hospice at Home's 20th anniversary including a visit from The Duchess of Gloucester.  If you don't know about Hospice at Home, please check out their website - it's a wonderful charity.

Really, it's all about people.  Thank you to all of these people who spent a little portion of their 2017 with me as we preserved a few memories together.  

After a great time at last year in the Devonshire Arcade, we're running our second Pet Week in Penrith.  We saw so many cute fluffy and furry local residents and we're looking forward to seeing even more this year!  We will be in Angel Square in Penrith, handily next to Costa Coffee, next week from Monday the 23rd to Saturday the 28th of October.  Go to our Pet Week page to book in or feel free to contact us for more info. We look forward to welcoming you to Pet Week 2017! 

Once again it was an absolute pleasure to photograph the final projects of the students at Newton Rigg's Eden Boutique.  As ever there was great evidence of creative ideas and skilful execution.  Here are a few of my favourites from the two days...

I'm a little slow in getting these up too but another enjoyable, and lovely, family sitting.  This time the session was a complete surprise for Mum as a Mother's Day present (well done Dad!).  Such a cutie too!

These photos are from a recent walk near Lowther with a lovely family - Nadine, Tom and Mayson had received a gift voucher for Christmas, and it's always fun doing voucher sittings!  A gorgeous day and family.

The last few months(... well six months!) around here have been a little crazy and there should be multiple blogs cataloguing all the things that have been going on but sadly there isn’t yet! Hopefully that will be remedied soon but before spring photos should appear I thought I’d share a few wintery ones from the new camera.

We're on catch up time here at de la Mare Photography!! So hopefully some updates, blogs and photos will be appearing online in the next few weeks but in the meantime we can say hello to this gorgeous model who secretly visited us at Pet Week with de la Mare Photography last year to take a few shots for a Christmas present. 

As per usual, I'm rather behind with the blog-keeping! As a result I have a little load of photos from different sittings to pop up here! One of which is this lovely set from a recent family sitting down on Ullswater.  We walked from Pooley Bridge and had a lovely wonder, climbing trees and paddling in the water along the way.  A perfect way to spend an afternoon!

We are so excited to unveil our Pet Week at Devonshire Arcade that will be taking place over October half-term (24th-29th of October).  We will be opening our studio to your pets be they furry, fluffy, feathery or scaley!  Any human members of the family are more than welcome to join in the shoot too! We'll spend time catching beautiful, professional photos and then you'll have the opportunity to view and purchase the images during the sitting. 

​The Pet Week sittings are a reduced sitting price of £20 and you can view our prints and photo products in our ‘presenting your photos’ page.  We'll be offering a discount on orders placed on the day as well.  There's more information, along with FAQs and bookings, on the Pet Week page but please contact us if you have any questions at all.

I know 'Photos of the Year' type posts are meant to be limited to a small amount of shots (I have a great deal of respect for photographers who can choose 10!) but I've gone for a smaller amount of shots in a variety of categories! 2015 has been a fun and varied year with lots of exciting and beautiful things to capture.  Spring and summer seemed particularly long this year and so there were more opportunities for outdoor photos.  I also had the great joy of becoming an Aunt too (my new nephew Eli makes an appearance below).

To all who I've had the privilege of working with this last year, thank you!

Some lovely locations locally and further down the country (a beautifully sunny Bristol!). Congratulations to all this years couples x

As ever, its a real pleasure to live in Cumbria with easy access to the Lakes.  There were also some new (furry) additions to the residents at Dalemain Mill that will probably mean that next year's 'fav photos' will feature less birds!

Thanks to Creations Hair and Beauty Salon, MJ Cabinetmakers, Eden Boutique, and The Rendezvous Restaurant for some fantastic sessions this year. As always, it's been great to work with Ullswater Community College again this year and join in with all the wonderful things they do. 

Thanks to all the lovely people I've spent time with this year - I look forward to seeing some of you again soon! And of course, welcome to Eli!

Lastly... a little splash of colour at two Hospice at Home Colour Runs.  If you weren't involved this last year and live in Cumbria I'd definitely recommend signing up for the Carlisle or Penrith event.  As you can see, it's amazingly fun!

There may or may not be a film show reel of the year too but just in case - a belated Happy New Year! Here's to an equally wonderful 2016

It was a pleasure to spend Sunday afternoon with 700 runners at Frenchfields in Penrith.  Spending an afternoon associated with running would not normally be my idea of fun but... thrown in a load of rainbow powder, a bit of giddy-ness and a great cause then its a lot of fun!  You can see the whole album on facebook here: http://on.fb.me/1C4KARv (please feel free to tag yourselves) but here are a few of my favourite from the day.  There's a mini-film to follow soon!  Thanks to Bethany de la Mare for being second-shooter!

A very quick round up of a wonderful year - thanks to all those involved!