Author: Melanie Barnfield

Bantham Beach Summer Evening Engagement Photo Shoot

You’ve spent countless hours planning and talking and thinking about your Special Day. We all have a dream and expectation of what you want it to be.

Your wedding only lasts a day but your photo’s will last forever.

If your feeling nervous about your wedding photography your not alone, I get it! It’s not easy being infront of a photographer and a camera pointing at you! 

I’ll always do my best to put you at ease and make you feel comfortable but here are a few tips to help you feel natural, happy and at ease in your pics!

1. Try to Relax! Easier said than done! Being photographed on your Wedding Day is different to any other time, you will be on a natural high, whether you have a big wedding surrounded by family and friends or a small intimate elopement with just the two of you. You will be looking and feeling amazing, your adrenaline will be pumping and your emotions will all be there.  Feel those emotions – hug, kiss, touch and don’t be afraid to have the most fun ever!  

2. Be in the moment. If your in it and not thinking about me or my camera I can capture it so that you can re-live that magical moment again and again. Everyone will say it… “your day will be over in a flash!” This is one of the reasons I love my job so much. Imagine how amazing I feel knowing that I have caught the first time you looked at eachother, the farther seeing the bride, the mother seeing her son all smart and grown up! Friends enjoying being with you and family feeling proud. It’s the BEST!

3. Have Fun. It can take a little time to get comfortable but it gets easier, I promise after a few minutes you will start to enjoy the moment and forget about the camera.  One secret to capturing candid, organic moments is movement. Moving your position and interacting with eachother and those around you helps me to capture genuine, realistic shots and should help you forget I’m there. I’ll keep shooting while you keep moving and together we will create magic!

4. Have an Engagement shoot. I offer all my couples the chance to have an Engagement/ Save The Date session. This is a great opportunity for us get to know eachother and help make you feel more comfortable when it comes to your Special Day. You will know what to expect from me and hopefully feel like your with a friend and I not some stranger with a camera!  There are lots of lovely locations in the South West so you can dress casually, bring along any four-legged friends or little one’s and make a day of it!  Bring along some bubbles, coffee’s or hot chocolates! A picnic or even include an activity you like to do together, I’ll tag along for an hour or two and capture your time together. 

I hope these tips help you to understand that the best way to get great pics is to just relax, be with those you love and enjoy every minute.

If you are looking for a Wedding Photographer in Devon or Cornwall and would like to chat more about the possibility of me capturing your Special Day I would love to hear from you

Pop me an email at info@melaniebarnfieldphotography.com xx

IVF Warrior xxx

I met Ashleigh and Andrew for their photo shoot and after hearing their story I asked whether they would mind sharing it with you all.

I can’t even comprehend the journey they went on but I do know that I feel completely honoured and overwhelmed to have been able to create these images for them to treasure and I can’t wait to meet them all again and capture more magical moments for them

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So our Ivf journey started in 2014, We had our first round which I got pregnant, we were amazed and thought We were the luckiest couple on earth, to actually get pregnant first time, was a miracle. unfortunately this ended with a miscarriage so this is where our long journey continued.Our 2nd and Third round of Ivf didn’t work , eggs just didn’t take. By now another few years had passed and I was beginning to loose hope, the more time went on the more I just wanted to give up. The whole process was so hard and I had been so poorly from hyperstimulation but I wasn’t ready to give up.

Some People don’t understand how much goes into Ivf, it takes a lot of time, months of preparation, a lot of hormone drugs, it makes you feel physically drained and you start to beat yourself up cause you think you just can’t do it.You begin to think you don’t deserve kids and look around at the people that can have lots and the few that don’t really care much for kids and think it’s so unfair.the more time went on the more people around you got pregnant, I would of course be over the moon for them but at the same time just sad for me.Our 4th round, now nearly 4 years on I got pregnant again, we had our first scan, saw our little heart beat and thought finally this is it but unfortunately on our second scan we were then told there was no heart beat, I felt like everything just crumbled down and this was now our time to give up.

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I couldn’t face more heartache but we still had our fertilised embryos in the freezer, 4 to be exact, which they tend to put 2 in at a time to up the chances being pregnant in the first place.So we then had our 5th go, I had a negative reading, but then tested again as I felt I was pregnant and this test was then positive, to cut a long story short that day I had 3 positive readings and 4 negative in one day, again more confusion, more doubt and more heartache and suffering, Ivf is like jumping hurdles, u jump one but then sometimes trip on the way and fall back. This ended up with blood test from the hospital which they picked up pregnancy hormone (indicating I was pregnant) but the levels were low so I had to wait 5 days to have another blood test, if the levels had dropped then basically it’s a early miscarriage (if you can call it that) it’s known as a chemical pregnancy, basically meaning the egg attached itself but is now giving up growing and this is basically what happened. I wasn’t pregnant again. I thought something was wrong me, that I couldn’t carry but I had all the test, there wasn’t.

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Why was it so hard, the more I couldn’t have it the more I wanted it. Now coming up to over 7 years we had our very last 2 fertilised eggs left, one last go, I honestly thought and said I didn’t want to do this anymore but at the same time I couldn’t walk away from our last 2 fertilised embryos waiting in the freezer for us. We now both had the mindset it just wasn’t ever going to work and We just needed to focus on life without kids and with this in mind, I decided I would use them and then 2021 get on with our lifes with no more ivf. Anyway november 2020 we were pregnant again from our very last 2 embryos, it was so hard to be excited, some didn’t understand why We weren’t but to be honest we were both so terrified of loosing it again or something going wrong.Our first scan came and we were told we were pregnant with twins, this was a miracle but again we been here before on the first scan so to be excited was just to hard. Our second scan came and all was good, could this be real, we’re really having twins. It almost couldn’t sink in. Had Our prayers finally been answered, nearly 8 years of treatment, 6 rounds of ivf, were we actually getting somewhere.We were still so terrified the whole pregnancy. 

Anyway our miracle, rainbow babies were born 6.7.21 Thomas and Edward,and of course We had to have a photoshoot with them and I’m so glad We did, these photos were just beautiful, just seeing them being photographed made me cry happy tears. There absolutely gorgeous. Mel did such an amazing job (Thankyou mel) Mel was so gentle to place them in different positions, dress them, wrap them up, not once did they cry, we spent nearly 4 hours with mel creating the most beautiful, perfect pictures I’ve ever seen. I would highly recommend her. We can’t wait to return to do our boys 1st cake smash. X

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