Cheerz Box

Before I got my first DSLR I took disposable cameras to gigs, and got the film developed straight away. Then when I got a digital compact I took it everywhere with me and printed tonnes of photos with a Kodak personal printer. Over time I've printed less and less photos, and even now the only time that I get my work printed is for business cards or my portfolio.

Overall we take more photos than we ever have, and less and less of us seem to get our personal photos printed, and it's actually quite sad. If I go into the loft at my parents house there are tonnes of old photos and I love flicking through them.

Recently I got a variety of my personal photos and live music shots printed with the Cheerz app. I love polaroids so the style instantly grabbed my attention, and they come in a cute little box! The Cheerz Box is only £12.95 (+£2.95 postage) and you get 30 photos printed! You can find out more about their printing services and other cool products on their website here.

Here's a few of the photos that I got printed for my Cheerz Box...

These four shots we're all taken on my phone and edited using Instagram, then imported straight into the Cheerz app.

These photos below are a combination taken on my mobile, DSLR and compact camera.

These three shots were all taken on my DSLR and then uploaded to Facebook. All three were imported from Facebook into the Cheerz app.

Looking at the shots below you can see the comparison of two mobile phone shots, with a DSLR shot on the right.Obviously all of these photos don't show you exactly what these images look liked printed, but you can get a rough idea.

All in all I'm pretty impressed with my prints. I kept my photos simple with a white border, but there's the option to change the colour of each border, and even add text to the bottom. While your images will be cropped to a square to fit the frame you can move the photo within the square, if for example an area has been cropped out. The only thing you need to bare in mind is that there might be some decrease in the quality of your images depending on compression done through Facebook, Instagram or any other apps you use to edit your photos.

Now I just need to find space to hang them around the house...

If you're thinking of getting some Cheerz prints for yourself or for a friend as a gift, use the code JEMDOB at the checkout to recieve £4 off your first order!

Practical Photography Magazine - April Issue

Here's the April issue of Practical Photography Magazine which is out on sale now. My face actually appears in this issue...

As part of the 'Click' feature we find 10 inspiring ideas for other photographers to shoot. For this one we took some self portraits and then transformed them into polaroids using the Poladroid App. This was quite a challenge for me as I never particularly like being on the other side of the camera. We all pull silly faces now and then, but being sat in a studio on my own and having to use a remote cable release made me feel very silly. Here are the results (the few that I let them use)...

I also took the gear shots for these pages (not the wedding shots).

Trust No One Clothing

In addition to our previous shoot model Jen Hughes had contacted Trust No-One clothing about using some of their tees for another shoot. Little did I know Trust No-One clothing is run by two of the guys from the absolutely awesome We Are Fiction, (Tom Calton and Ryan Chambers) a band that I happened to put on at a show I organised in Birmingham back in 2010.

For these shots we decided to shoot in Jen’s flat and go with a theme of two girls hanging and posing around their flat. Jen’s living room window and window-sill acted as the perfect base for the girls to pose on and so we decided this would be the main focus for the shots.

 In addition to the window I couldn’t resist taking a few ‘sofa’ shots of the girls lounging around.

 And then felt they would be perfect shots to shoot on Polaroid…. (Impossible Project film)

Both of these Polaroid shots were taken using flash. The first on the sofa appears much darker, whilst the window shot looks overexposed. When shooting the window shot my studio lights were still on and lighting the girls hence them being so bright. For the sofa shots I made sure I turned off the studio lights but the images in this shot seem just a bit too dark.

A big thanks again to Kerry-Louise Hiles and Adrian Love for their help and work on this shoot.

                                                All images are © Jemma Dodd Photography