Yesterday I posted images from my studio shoot with Oliver Graham from Magic Olly for his website and general publicity purposes. As well as the studio images, I also booked Olly to host my daughter and her friend’s 6th birthday party in September and took these of Olly in action on location.

Both sets of pictures are completely different - yesterday’s shot with flash in the studio on a plain background are all about showcasing what Olly can do as a performer.  These show the effect he has on a six year old audience, but together both sets of images will I hope help him to get the message across in pictures of what he is all about.

And that message is most definitely side splitting laughter and pure fun.

Olly entertained the children from the minute they walked in til the moment they left, and had them eating out of his hands. They didn’t stop smiling for 2 hours and were either mesmorised  by Ollie’s tricks or literally falling about at his hilarious jokes.  Apart from putting out the food, the parents just sat back and relaxed in deck chairs. Result!

I love photographing children’s birthday parties. They are quite different from the children’s and family portraiture sessions that I do,  but they have a similar buzz about them as children let loose after being cooped up in a church at a wedding,  or when they are released from the classroom at the end of the school  day: the more children there are, the more they tune out from you, run and play free and just be themselves and then you can really capture their personalities and natural interaction with each other.

My daughter loves these images and it is great to have a record of your children once they get to this age where friendships start to be so important to them and life is increasingly about having fun with your mates. And it is great to mark photographically that all important landmark in the year, their birthday,  as well as more quietly and intimately on their own or on a family portraiture session.