An Artist at Work: Linda Mumba

Linda Mumba is an artist based in Durham, owner of the beautiful card company, Precious To You. Linda designs, edits and produces her own unique range of greetings cards, some of which you’ll see in the photoshoot below!

Linda wanted a few snaps of her at work, and her pretty little studio, and I was only too willing to oblige and have a snoop around! She lives in a beautiful house in the centre of Durham, which I’m sure provides much inspiration for her work. In her studio are some really pretty things that any creative would long for… an original Singer sewing machine, beautiful ribbons and beads, huge canvas paintings, painted by herself and mountains of paint tubes and watercolour blocks. Her back window overlooked the very prettily kept walled city garden. A spot any artist would love to have, I’m sure.

Have a flick through the photos, and don’t forget to visit Linda’s website: Precious To You, and look out for her cards in shops!

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20 Month Old Wander in the Woodland

It was a chilly, damp day for a family walk in the country grounds of Old Durham, but this outgoing family seemed to enjoy it! The little man here is 20 months old, and was one of the first baby photoshoots I took! You can see how he’s grown if you take a look at the previous post, here: http://floralfootsteps.com/2011/10/12/baby-face-youve-got-the-cutest-little-baby-face/

Here you can take a look through our little outing, accompanied by friends Pooh-bear and the very important ball, and add your own captions to the priceless facial expressions!


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A Durham Wedding on the Prince Bishops

I’m delving into the depths of last year’s photographs, catching up with posting some of the beautiful weddings I photographed last Summer.

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This beautiful couple packed a lot into their day, and I certainly had a lot to photograph within the compact 5 hour package they had booked!

First came the church service, surrounded by guests of all ages, followed by congratulating and mingling, and sunny weather for photographs.

Next came the vintage bus, a journey from the church in Witton Gilbert to Durham City, where a short walk later, we boarded the Prince Bishops.

Two hours later, we all clambered off the Prince Bishops and made our way to the Durham Masonic Hall, where guests enjoyed a hearty meal and all that follows, including an emotional speech from the Bride.

I hope you enjoy the photos, it was a beautiful apricot wedding and good fun to photograph (despite being nearly knocked over on the boat by a lady in a maxi dress!)

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This little family were too cute not to photograph!

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The Mother of the Bride and the Bridesmaids arrived first.

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Then the Bride herself made a beautiful entrance.

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Pre-service nerves were all over shortly, as the happy Bride and Groom were wed in the church.

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Outside the church, the Bride and Groom were met with a few flurries of confetti and plenty of photographs from guests.

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A few family photographs later…

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All aboard the vintage bus!

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Walking along Durham riverbank to the Prince Bishops.

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The boat journey was accompanied by a 3-piece folk band, who interchanged instruments seamlessly.

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The boat trip toured around the River to a viewing point of the Cathedral.

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It was windy, sunny, cloudy, breezy, chilly, warm, cloudy, windy, sunny…

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Stopping to wave at rowers passing by.

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And wave to people on the bridges…

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Just a short walk back along the riverside to the reception. I think the Bride gave up on her shoes.

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The Masonic Hall in Durham was decorated beautifully for the occasion.

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The place names were particularly gorgeous – individually named cotton reels with miniature pegs. Cute!

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The guests piled into the reception room and were by all accounts very cheerful!

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The Bride and Groom entered and speeches ensued, followed by food and more merriment I imagine!

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Lately… One Big Story!

So I’ve been gone a while from my blog. Sorry about that! Mainly, I’ve been working on ‘OneBigStory’ a local project set up in Durham involving 300 children from 10 local Primary Schools. The children worked together, a chapter per school, to create one big story.  The story is then written up, illustrated and published so each child can have a copy, and so the book is o sale. Pretty ambitious, huh?

I illustrated the book, based on the children’s illustrations and it was published a few weeks back. Probably the best way to introduce the project is through this video…

 One Big Story from Chris Morgan on Vimeo.

The children created the content of the book in workshops, and then Seymour Jacklin, a local writer, pulled the script together, and Christina Maiden (Off the Page Drama) directed the entire project. Both were an absolute delight to work alongside!

I took thousands of photos during the project, too, and have found it a bit tricky to narrow down to just a few to show you, but below are some aspects of the project that has absorbed rather a lot of time this Autumn!

Above ^^ a child’s drawing of a character called ‘Hobo Dave’. Below, the published version of the character, ‘Hobo Dave’ as drawn by me! (He looks frightening, but he is quite friendly really…)

Above ^^ proud pupils with their work during the workshop sessions. Below, children admire the finished project – their very own copy of the book!

You can purchase the book on Amazon here… One Big Story on Amazon

Late Summer Country Garden Bouquet

PHEW! The busy wedding season is slowly ceasing, and although I love all the weddings I do, and enjoy my work, I must say I’m relieved to have a little more time! For a start, I am hoping to show you all the exciting things I’ve been up to and all that Floral Footsteps has created.

Perhaps I’ll work backwards through the Summer… Starting with last weekend’s wedding; a gloriously sunny September day in a lovely quaint church with a reception at Durham Castle (my second there this Summer). Natural ‘country garden’ style has been much sought after this Summer, particularly the ever so lovely jam-jar posies!

The bouquet featured Dahlias, seeded Eucalyptus, Astilbe, Flowering Mint, Spray Roses, September Flower, Snapdragon, Alchemilla Mollis, Scabious and much more.

Here’s a few shots of the Bride with her bouquet. She spent a good few minutes studying every angle of the bouquet. Each side was a little different!

Avril’s Big Adventure

Two weddings this weekend, both gorgeous. Both Durham graduates, living elsewhere, but returning to the homeland of their affections to seal the deal. Both weddings, surprisingly, had beautiful midnight blue bridesmaids dresses. One wedding was at Durham Castle, the other at the Cathedral. Snazzy. You’ll just have to wait for the lovely shots of those flowers, but if you’re desperate for some, then check out these lovely images by Karen McGowran of Friday’s wedding.

So Avril the van has had an exciting time recently, travelling around the county delivering flowers. Usually, I persuade the ‘handy man’ to do the driving, but this weekend, I drove her myself. Why I chose the weekend to drive through the town centre and up the narrow streets of the busy Bailey, I have no idea…

As I drove along, shrieking slightly, somewhat calmed by my helper for the weekend, Bryony, we wiggled our way along the streets, and onto Palace Green. We enjoyed a brief lap of honour around the Cathedral grounds before squeezing our way through the Castle gates, whilst onlookers laughed, and whipped out video recorders to capture the sight of a neon-yellow van driving prestigiously through to Durham Castle Keep. I wound down the window (squuuueaaaak squeak) and leaned out to say to the groom “I always like to make an entrance”, before parking the van in the courtyard. (Little did he know, as I stepped out of the van, shaking and pretty wobbly from the whole experience, I grabbed my camera in a matter of urgency and asked the lovely Bryony to take as many photos as she could, before cooly asking the chief usher where the chapel was and pretending that everything was completely normal.)

So here’s the shots of that memorable morning, and Avril’s great adventure to Durham Castle for the first time. For shots of the lovely flowers (including coveted David Austin’s) you’ll have to wait a few days…

Graduation in Durham

Well it’s been some of the busiest weeks I can remember recently! I’ve hardly had the chance to blog, tweet, pop a photo on facebook, walk the dog or even sleep…

The blog will be receiving updates in the next few months of the Summer I reckon!

I did think I’d share with you some of my favourites from graduation however… 12 photoshoots in a week, (with a wedding at the end)! It was a great week – I enjoyed spending time with so many happy people celebrating the end of their degrees. There’s quite a few photos to flick through – there were far too many that were my favourites!

As you’ll see, the style of each photoshoot changed dramatically for each individual, along with the location choices and the weather! Each graduate was unique in their approach to the photoshoot, which made the week such a joy to photograph.

 

Commitments

Been working hard recently, not on the stuffs of weddings, as such, but on a full time Christian project based in Durham City!  The local church is very important to me.  I’m a committed Christian, and I believe in the local church community.  It is, after all, what gave me reason to start this very business I run today.

My church is Kings Church Durham, a vibrant, fairly large church meeting in the centre of Durham.  For the past 6 years (and I’m proud to say I’ve been involved every year!) our church has run a community outreach project, creatively named the June Project.

This year, I volunteered from Wednesday through to Sunday (with plenty of prep time beforehand) to help make the June Project happen. Over 130 people, mainly students at Durham University signed up full-time for the project this year!  We go out all over Durham City wearing our “June Project” T-shirts and volunteer by clearing gardens, singing on the streets, ran fun-days, youth sports events and much much more.

Probably the best way to explain the project is to watch this video, created overnight by some good friends of mine: June Project 2012 Video.

As ever, I kept my camera close – and snapped away at unexpecting participants of the project… It might give you a little overview of what we were up to.

The project always involves lots of gardening.  We clear people’s gardens for free.

One team of delegates from the project worked all week with some youth in one of the local estates.

We had a team of clowns and face painters in town and on the fundays, who entertained children and chatted to them about their lives, and about their faith.

There was also an Acoustic Night as part of the June Project this year, with some very talented people from the church playing a few songs each. It was a great night!

It also rained. A lot. But it didn’t stop us…

Role Reversal

There is a face to the Floral Footsteps photographer!  A friend of mine, the wonderful Jenny Jiggins took some photos of me and my husband, Phil in and around Durham.  I spend so much of my time taking memorable photos for families and couples, I decided it was time we had some of us!  So I asked Jenny, and she was up for it.

We walked in and around Durham’s streets, and down by the boathouses by the River, along Prebends Bridge (famous for engagements) and to the spot where we were engaged, over 3 years ago; Observatory Hill.  We had a photo taken of us sitting on a picnic blanket overlooking the city on this hill, almost exactly like a sketch I drew for Phil before we were engaged.  He then proposed to me on this spot, just a few months later, so it was special to revisit this place.

I was a bit nervous to be in front of the camera, rather than behind, but soon relaxed into it. It’s easier than you think…

It Started with 100 Oranges

Well, I’ve got some exciting news to tell you.

It’s a story that started 3 weeks ago.

I ordered 100 oranges, 40 kumquats and 30 lemons for this zesty wedding, and I met Mrs Robinson of Robinsons Greengrocers in Durham.  She was lovely, and delivered my order for free at the ‘Floral Footsteps Studio’, aka – the garage.

The next day, she rang me and made a ‘business proposition’.

Then I went on holiday for two weeks.  Suspense.

When I came back, we met up and chatted and it’s now official that Floral Footsteps will be selling bouquets ‘to go’ in the front of their fantastic shop in North Road on Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays!  Having not had the opportunity to outlet bouquets of flowers in this way before, it’s really exciting that we’re branching into this.  The bouquets will be seasonal, wrapped with raffia (of course!) and mostly under £5.  Perfect for brightening up a corner of your home, and bringing a little nature inside.

Look out for the bouquets – starting this week!

 

Ps- the oranges were fantastic.  I ate some.

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