http://smartphotography.businesscatalyst.com/boudoir.html

Well, it's been nearly a year in the making, but our new Boudoir photography service is launched, and just in time for a special Valentine's Day present!

Brand new sets, specially bought props, and lighting themes which could transform you from 30's Hollywood 'femme fetale' to classic burlesque, and right up to date with black and white or colour portraits oozing sensuous style. We guarantee that this new service will delight all of you looking for a beautiful and sensual portrait collection to wow your loved one, or just to celebrate yourself!

All you need to do is provide the lingerie, and your selection of jewellery - Anna's on hand, if needed, to advise on the best things to bring. After that, leave the rest to us.

Your 2 hour experience includes hair styling, and makeup, and your stylist will be on hand throughout the session to provide enhancements whilst we create a set of portraits that will leave you breathless. You'll have exclusive use of the studio and changing room during your session. Then give us a week or so to finish your portraits, and return to spend a delightful hour in our cosy viewing lounge where we promise you won't believe your eyes!

With our 'soft' launch back at the beginning of December in Vogue magazine, we are 'releasing' the service Oxfordshire wide, with our special Groupon deal http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/oxford running on Saturday 14th January.

Well, sort of!

Following our flood, we're having a clear out and a change around. We've built a new room, and we're revamping our reception, waiting, and makeover areas...

Reception before, (notice the lack of door on the left)

Alternative view with the new store room door... 

The new store, (at the back of the studio), and the view inside the studio during,

and after

It's coinciding with the insurance repairs, so it's a bit of a struggle, but we're getting there.

AND, we're soon launching a new service....have a sneaky peak at our set emerging...

Some of you may know that Downton Abbey is partly filmed in our home town of Bampton. Well, mid-April, and they were back again, filming for the new series.

Here's a couple of views of the 'set' - around the Church, with some of the houses converted to be pubs,

and our local library,' the hospital.....'.

Convincing the security guys he was not a 'pap' Robin even managed to 'sneak' a picture of Dame Maggie Smith, having her final preparations...

So with baited breath we waited, having just watched a slideshow of the final entries in the annual click and fresh photographer of the year awards.

We had been delighted to hear that we were shortlisted, and the excitement grew as we found from the original 300 entries, our 6 entries had all reached the final 24. (12 for families/babies), and 12 for makeovers.

The crescendo of anticiaption reached a peak as the master of ceremonies announced that the winning images were....... not ours!

It's difficult to describe the emotion of delight and disapointment at the same time. Realistically reaching the final judging, with such a number of entries is a huge achievement, and we look forward to next year's competition, and this time not being pipped at the post.

If your coming along to the studio over the next few months we've several competitions that we're gunning for this year, so don't be surprised if we ask you if we can enter your images!

The images are below, in fact there was one more, that i hadn't realised had been shortlisted... so for completeness, here is is:

Unfortunately, it was inside the studio! We returned from our conference on Wednesday morning to a wet reception...... and studio....!

The cause - a faulty thermostat on the hot water tank, which had caused severe condensation on the ceiling, which was then falling, causing streaky patches on the carpet, and a sort of sub tropical rainforest effect, similar perhaps to a sauna....

Anyway, once the heater was switched off the place dried out relatively quickly, we only lost a couple of days, and luckily there was minimal damage to our equipment.

 Here's a quick view of the damage, the worst was in the studio where we lost one of our laminate floor sets, and the studio floor itself took a bit of a beating!

.

The insurers are on the case, so we should be fully repaired soon, in the meantime we carry on, unaffected...