Hello there, from 'behind the curtain' at Sally T Photography.

I've decided to change how I approach blogging this year and will be putting a little bit more planning into how and what I'm posting out there; I've always loved blogging but at times during busy months I've felt it's taken a back seat to editing.. I'm hoping to remedy that this year.

If you follow me on my business Instagram @sallytphotography, you'll probably have noticed that I chat to you all through Instastories - everything from 'behind the scenes' at wedding, to new album deliveries that I'm excited about, or just to sneak peek a few images that I'm editing that I've been excited to share.. I asked for some feedback over Christmas from those watching who said they really enjoyed a mixture of personal content and business content, so I thought I'd extend that to my blog too.

Behind The Curtain is going to be a new series of blog posts to showcase personal work, talk a little about what's been going on in my everyday life, and what work-related projects I'm working on and what's coming up. You may be aware, or not, that I keep a family blog too called Our Little Gang - so this is going to tie in with that blog and its posts too. 

Another new regular blog feature - The Magic Seven - will involve diving deep into my dusty archives, blowing away the cobwebs and rediscovering some favourite images from the past few years. Seven is my favourite and lucky number for a few reasons, so I'm going to be narrowing whole weddings right down and carefully selecting my favourite seven images and explain what I feel makes them a bit magical.

There will still be posts from recent weddings/family shoots/commercial jobs/stop motion videos as I go too - nothing is changing there.

So! Let's dig back a little into 2017 and recap what was going on at this end..

At the end of September I visited Dublin with a friend after wedding season had quietened down - it felt like so long since I'd taken photographs just for myself as personal work, and I was itching to get my camera out completely for myself. I've been to Dublin before but this time wanted to dig a little deeper. It's a fantastic city and I loved seeing it again - one of my favourite things to do is walk and explore places I'm not familiar with, and we covered a lot of ground that weekend; camera in hand. 

I really tried to take it easy when wedding season was over; I even wrote a blog post about taking things slowly. It's been a busy year at this end, and when Autumn hit I did some cooking, pottered, had some lazy weekend days off with the kids, visited Festival Of Thrift (if you're Teesside based or nearby it's 100% worth a visit) and I booked some time off over Easter 2018 to go an adventure with my eldest, again, camera in hand.

We went on a family holiday over October half term, where I read books I'd had on my shelf for months, had some quality time hanging out with the girls, walked and explored, and even got a bit of a tan..

I loved the few days of snow we had over December, and it made the little town we live in look like something out of a fairytale. I took one of my childcare-free days to walk with Sylvie in the buggy and made a little video one day.. I'm hoping to do more of these little short films this year too.

This Christmas was our first as a family of four, so it felt even more special than usual. I was working between Christmas and New Year, at Rachel and Nick's wedding and at Jo and Neil's, so my husband and I blocked out days in our calendar to make sure we had some quieter days just hanging out as a family too so it all didn't feel too hectic. Sylvie turned one at the beginning of January so didn't really understand what was going on, but seeing her and Vivienne together doing all the Christmassy things was just magical.

My littlest girl turned one! To mark the occasion I made sure to take plenty of pictures of Sylvie that day, trying to capture her just as she is now; having fun, wriggling around... She's a little character and it's going so quickly. We took the Christmas decorations down and put a few up for her on the same day, and invited family over for some cake.

As for this year, I'm going to carry on embracing 'taking it slowly', I have three weddings and two stop motion videos to edit, some blog posts to schedule for here and for Our Little Gang, a few other life and work admin things to tick off my list before wedding season starts again in March.

I'm excited to see what 2018 brings - a very, very happy new year to you all!

Sally x