The Photoshoot!!

For days I had been anxiously watching the weather forecast. Sunny or raining? Raining or sunny? What would it be? Fortunately the day designated for the Coombe Leigh DevonBear photoshoot dawned fine and reasonably sunny, although there was a cool breeze. Never mind - we were on!!

Jack, our photographer arrived with his assistant/girlfriend Jen and began to set up the scenes. It was all very exciting and I was amazed at the amount of preparation that goes into what seems - when you see it - to be a very simple shot. Here are Jack and Elona (a victim - sorry friend) who agreed to model for me - setting up the picnic shot.

Meanwhile Amy and Ben appointed themselves as doorkeepers, anxiously watching to see who went in and out, and that no bones, stuffed toys or other canine treasures were being removed from the premises. Ben at least though, had other plans ....


When he saw Elona in the hammock, he felt that modelling was clearly a very simple task and one that could easily be undertaken by an enthusiastic young newfie.

Sadly both he and Amy had to be forcibly removed from the garden when Julie and Elona shot the picnic scene as neither dog would believe that the bags and flasks were actually empty. They were both convinced that cake would somehow miraculously appear - or even better - ham sandwiches!!

Soon it was lunchtime, and Ben took the opportunity to have a quiet word with Jack. Some sort of agreement must have been reached as the following photos appeared in the final batch I received ..

Seems like I don't even have control over my own photoshoot these days!! Trust Ben to have the last word. Seriously though, I'm so pleased with the photos, they really show off the DevonBear products to the best advantage. And all that energetic gardening paid off too, although some of that could be down to Jack's photographic expertise.

Now we're off to the Craft Fairs. Saltram House next weekend and Exeter a couple of weeks later. Still loads to do and not enough hours in the day.

Great excitement at Coombe Leigh

We are all very excited here at Coombe Leigh. We are going to have a photoshoot here at the house with a proper professional photographer. (Not just me with my little digital camera!). Jack is coming to take some lifestyle shots for DevonBears publicity so we are all running around trying to make everywhere look beautiful.

Of course Amy feels she is already beautiful and when the words "camera" and "photograph" were mentioned she immediately started posing madly. She was made worse by the coincidental visit of Kelly, our lovely grooming lady, who came to give her and Ben their regular beauty session. Here's Kelly hard at work ..

Amy feels that she should be the centre of attention, so keeps edging closer and closer to Kelly ..

Meanwhile Ben is surreptiously chewing through the lead Kelly has used to attach him to the railings!

Afterwards they were quite worn out. I didn't have the heart to tell them that we weren't actually planning to include them in the photographs. I expect Amy at least will manage to push her way into one or two of the pictures ... and where she leads Ben usually follows!

As you can see, the grass has been cut ready for the shoot, and look at that lovely edging - shame it's not straight!! Never mind, perhaps wonky will become the new trendy after our uber-cool photographs demonstrate this new look?! (That's the studio/workroom on the left in this picture and the handrail leads to the steps to the courtyard. Our house is built into the side of a hill, so the garden is actually above the house).

While all this activity was taking place, I was in the gazebo painting - Christmas cards!! Surreal or what? But my summer's going to be so busy I thought it was best to start early rather than risk running out of time as they'll need to be at the printers by the end of August.

Here's the first (still rather rough) version of card one for the set of dog cards. More will follow..