A bit about how Smiley Day Photography
Angela Birchall – Smiley Day Photography
Hi I’m Angela
Thanks for popping over to Smiley Day Photography! I love capturing the joy of weddings, delightful Pre Schoolers on Pre School and Nursery photo days, the hustle and bustle of incredible schools for prospectuses and updated website/social media usage, small families, big families, families with dogs, families and grandparents, extended families, new families and families-to-be in and around Guildford, Shere, Godalming, Weybridge, Wimbledon, Twickenham, and in and around Surrey and Hampshire for over 9 years. It’s always a pleasure, a privilege and a blessing doing so.
My clients often comment on how relaxed and natural my style is.
I live with a big heart, passion and enthusiasm.
A few things I love: a little travel adventure, exploring new places on holiday, a quiet moment on my own, time in nature, watching movies with my family, sunsets, rainbows, blue sky, the ocean, warm sunny days, lemons! furry strokes with a friendly cat and paging through beautiful cookery books – very occasionally I actually make something from one. I love a creative project whether it’s a personal photography project, knitting a scarf for winter, making jams and chutneys from Summer or Autumnal fruits in my garden, making homemade Christmas decorations or something new and creative that I haven’t tried before.
I love capturing beautiful bright colours, little details, movement, emotions and connections, beautiful poignant moments and gorgeous light.
Planning photo shoots is a chance to get creative with perspective, composition, lighting, posing and subtly directing. I love learning and improving and am often inspired by my photography role models in different genres.
As a mum and someone whose worked in schools for many years, I have lots of experience working with children and enjoy getting to know little people. as far as possible, look for a location with space for children to run around and explore safely so they can just be themselves and have fun. Smiley Day Photography photo shoots are what I like to call “Smiley Days,” because my aim is that a photo shoot with me will be filled with smiles all day, from everyone, because you’ll be relaxed, happy and having fun making memories as a family while I capture them for you. From scouting out locations that fit the season you’d like to have your photos in, to finding the perfect spot to take photos in, for the best light, I’ll give you guidance along the way, work out a big group pose, and guide you into natural interactions. I like to be intentional in my shoots, so there’s a degree of planning an prep on my side behind the scenes so you can relax and have fun. But I also allow space for
How is all started
Just before we had our first child, a friend who owned a photography business hosted a course teaching how to use a DSLR camera. I didn’t yet have a camera but she lent me one and as I engaged and took notes, I could feel something inside of me coming alive. My mum used to buy our family a weekly subscription to a photography magazine that you pulled apart and filed in different sections and I had loved it. This brought back all that joy. For my next birthday, my husband gave me an entry level DSLR. Over the following few years, I practised all I had learnt, regularly referring to my notebook, creating Pinterest boards of wish-list photos and as I was surrounded by incredibly talented, creative stay-at-home mum friends in my church, we filled our days with coffee-and-cake, playdates, incredibly creatively decorative birthday parties, event planning for church teas and church events, baby showers, 30ths….
My favourite part was taking my camera along and photographing the people, their laughter, and all the details the amazing baker/party planner/food stylists in the group had created , then gifting the host a CD of photos at the end of the day. Here’s a little sneak peek into some of those fun events that gave us brief distractions from houses filled with toys, endless cleaning and sleepless nights.
Then one day a friend approached me to do a paid family photo shoot.
The family must have been exhausted! There shoot was from 9.30-12 then we had a few more photos after lunch and I included almost every pose I loved from Pinterest. They created a lovely big photo wall of different sized photo frames down their passage in their newly renovated home, from that shoot.
A week or 2 after that, my aunt Carolyn Robb, who is a chef and the author of The Royal Touch cookery book, asked me if I would like to help her take some photos of cakes and bakes she’d been commissioned to develop using Green Tea, for a PG Tips Green Tea promotion on the event of the Queen’s Jubillee. The photos accompanied a write up and recipes which were distributed to food bloggers and were featured in “The Lady,” “Food 52” “Female First”, “Heart Home mag” among others. Here are a few of the cake photos I took for her. We used my grandmother’s silver tea set and flowers from her garden for styling props. The bunting in the background was from my cousin’s wedding!
After the first family photo shoot, other friends asked if I’d photograph them and I officially launched Smiley Day Photography on my birthday.