New beginnings

Oh HEEEYYY GIIIRRRLLLL! (Said in my best Jonathan Van Ness voice)

I am SO excited to be launching my brand new website, with a brand new name! How the devil are you?

Let’s start at the beginning! Why the new name? Well, in a nutshell, I am not called Charlotte Rawles any more! I have been in turmoil over what to even call myself day to day, let alone what to do about my business so it has been quite the long time coming. Amy is my middle name so it seemed fitting to just stick with that, ditch the surname and just be Charlotte Amy throughout all aspects of my life!

So… Here I am, and here is my new site. (And please welcome, Wren’s mullet.)

The theme runs very similar, my core values and beliefs in my photography haven’t changed one bit, if anything they have just grown stronger over lockdown, and I am so happy to be sharing a more refined and personal website with you all.

I hope you can see the hard work I have put in, it has by no means been an easy task but I am over the moon with how it has turned out, and relieved it is all finished and I can finally share it and make the change over.

I will be re directing my old site, so if you are a regular client of mine or you have a session or wedding booked in, don’t worry! I won’t lose any emails and I will keep that up and running as I make the change over super slowly.

I will be adding blog posts as and when I find the time too so I know I usually have a whole heap of weddings and family sessions to flick through, but they are coming! Promise!

So a bit of a life update… (apologies if you follow me on IG already, maybe skip the next paragraph or two!!)

I have noticed that our lockdown has been sectioned off into quarters. We spent the first quarter of lockdown in a ‘OMG I AM TERRIFIED!’ state and also ‘WOWEEEE this is going to be SO FUN having forced time off and ‘YAYYY loads of time with the kids!’. We were on it with school work and creative ideas and we totally smashed home schooling. That energy, of course, quite quickly faded as we realised how serious all of this was/is and the daunting prospect that we actually may not be able to work at all this year kicked in. The next quarter was spent panicking, a lot. We had pretty much lost all our confidence in the government, in our abilities to parent and home school, and I fully threw my toys out the pram. A bit of spice slowly started to come back once many tears were shed, I started doing doorstep shoots and met some super lovely people along the way. We got into a good routine with the children’s school work and it kept our minds off the fact we so deeply missed our friends and family.

Again, that energy dwindled after a few weeks and we were officially fed up with school work and not having fun at all. I had done all of the doorstep photos I could do, so we invested in bikes and bought a kitten. What else do you do when you have no work on and 4 kids stuck at home?! Meet Artemis. AKA Arty.

We planted veg, we dug out a lot of weeds in the garden, I did some painting indoors, we all helped each other out and honestly I think we are at a pretty good stage now and seem to be in a good rhythm. The kids have learnt valuable life skills along the way and whilst we all constantly have at the forefront of our minds how truly devastating this time has been, we have managed to see a bit of light seep through the cracks and have made some really happy memories that I am positive we will never forget.

Although life is going back to normal for a lot of people now, in the events and wedding industry we are a long long way off being able to work at a normal capacity. Weddings are limited to 30 people as it stands, and a big party with your nearest and dearest honestly feels a million miles away. I am totally heartbroken for all the couples who spent so long dreaming of their day, refining all the small details to then have to re schedule the whole day (some couples 2 or 3 times!) and have to re book a lot of different suppliers. 2021 is looking to be the busiest year for a lot of us, and I am so very grateful to all my couples who have made the whole process quite honestly, pretty straightforward and breezy.

I cannot WAIT to celebrate with you all when your day comes. I promise I will wear my comfiest shoes and my (black) dancing outfit so I can party HARD!

I am so thrilled I have filled up some time lately with family shoots. YAY for socially distanced shoots on the beach, it has been SO good getting back behind the camera and shooting other humans that aren’t within my household. I think my own kids are happy for the break too! I forgot what the buzz felt like, and I can wholeheartedly say I am so pumped for work as and when it happens.

Anyway… enough waffling! I do hope you love my new site, please give me all the feedback you like! 10 points if you make me aware of any spelling or grammar errors…

Sending love and warm hugs,

Charlotte x