We visited a Hindu temple in Chennai, and the girls loved the colours and the statues of the Gods, and the space, and the fact that there were lots of cows hanging around….

And I loved that Indy had chosen to wear this dress that she loves so much by Courtney Courtney… how fabulously does it go with the vibrancy of the temple? The painted mandalas on the floor were perfect for doing twirls in in Indy’s opinion!! I think she wore this dress nearly every day on holiday – although to be fair, she did change about 5 times every day!!! 

I keep saying more travel stories coming soon… the reality is the spinning plates of running a business and running a home and bringing up kids and doing the school run/parties/doctors visits/dancing classes etc etc means I rarely get around to editing pictures of my family, and my kids doing the things we love the most… my 2012 resolution is to stop work at a reasonable hour and to do more for us, to help preserve our family memories too, to edit pictures, just like these, of my sweetie pie, enthralled by somewhere we travelled to – so maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to see us in Cambodia, and Bangkok and on some of our other 2011 travels soon,

Kirsty xx

Yesterday, for Chinese New Years eve the girls got to dress up in their special qipao’s and perform at a CNY dinner – I had such a proud Mummy moment as they bravely stood in front of 200 strangers and sang away in their second language and received the hugest cheer

I thought in celebration of Chinese New Year it’d be fun to share some pictures from when the girls and I spent a month in Shanghai last summer…..

I was soooooo lucky to start out my 2012 on a beach in India. We love India, but visiting the Andaman Islands was amazing – they’re a set of tropical islands, closer to Thailand than India and they are just stunning, and so, so friendly and so different from the normal hustle and bustle of Indian life. I admit, I kinda forgot about this project – I was so very in the chilled out zone whilst away – but these are pieced together from our last morning hanging out at our beach hut in remote North Andaman, before changing and taking a sea plane back down to Port Blair, the capital and heading to Ross Island to visit the ruins of the old British headquarters.We’ve been back just 3 days and I’ve loved this project this month for forcing me to abandon the laundry and tidying of Christmas decorations to sit down and play with some photos and take myself back there… so enjoy a day in the life of the Andamans…

Just hanging out…..Our laundry!!!

In an autorickshaw heading to the sea plane – and I think this qualifies as a picture with me in

Driving the auto!! They really had so much fun – my girls would move tomorrow to a country soley on the basis of it having auto’s or tuk tuks!!!

Waiting for the plane – with our 1 bag (and a good job we travel light too as you can’t take the plane if you have more than 5kg luggage per person!!!) and a view of the beautiful islands as we flew over…..

Saffy sat up front and helped drive the auto from Port Blair airport to our hostel – she was so thrilled with herself (we hired the same driver to take us to the airport the next day to fly back to Delih and so Indy got her turn too!!)

Fresh coconuts….

Exploring the ruins of Ross Island…Abandoned church – the kids loved this because it reminded them of clambering through the temples in Cambodia

Boat back from the island and kulfi from the dockside seller – oh so yummy!!

Dosas for dinner – always a hit, and making sure she got the last drop of her mango lassi!!

That was a much busier day than most of our days on the islands, where we hung out at the beach, or at our hut, or went on a jungle trek or sat around eating parathas all morning, or went to the beach, or to another island… you get the picture…

Now head on over to see a different day altogether with the lovely Andrea,

Until next month, Kirsty xx

It’s been a year where I’ve been able to spread my creative wings and take on more editorial and commercial work – and more charity work to help causes important to me.  I’ve worked with truly incredible vendors who have trusted me to showcase their beautiful work.

It was a year where I’ve marvelled at the incredible importance of what I’m blessed enough to do, with photographs, in holding memories for families who have lost loved ones, seeing babies I photographed go off to school and I’ve felt humbled watching the strength of one of my families who are battling cancer with amazing grace.

I get to capture connections, I get to capture emotion, I get to capture precious moments in time, I get to capture realness…. I’ve shed tears, lost hair, lost sleep, not to mention lost my marbles a few times – but I’ve had so many smiles and so much laughter too – I pour my heart and soul into what I do and I can’t thank you all enough for your incredible support, and for opening up your homes and lives to me…

Enjoy some of my favourite moments….

Thank you for an incredible year – I can’t wait to see what 2012 brings….

with love, thanks and blessings and peace for 2012, Kirsty xxxx

Kirsty Larmour Photography will be closed until mid January but don’t go away, there will be an end of year sideshow celebrating all the wonderful things 2011 brought this way…

Until then… Kirsty x

Yet again I had to resort to doing our Christmas cards on the self timer – but we had a lot of fun doing them… here are just a few of the results and a pretty amusing video showing the making of it all….

Hope you enjoyed – have a wonderful holiday season – and see you all in 2012,

Kirsty xxxx

Now I should enter a disclaimer that I do think I must be ever so slightly crazy to mix 2 kids, lots of glitter and 3 expensive DSLR cameras, so use your own judgement on this…..

First of all, take a sheet of card, sprinkle thinly, but across a wide area with glitter, sequins, sparkly shapes etc, etc…. let the kids choose their own – we did one each and then lined them up so we could take pictures of each others

For some simple and pretty bokeh fun and patterns just meter the camera yourself, or put on A mode with the lowest aperture your camera will go to – set it to the middle focus point and hand over for the kids to experiment…

The kids did really well – they loved playing, then using a paintbrush to rearrange their sparkles and taking again….

For some extra fun follow this tutorial on how to get shaped bokeh – we made a lens cover with a heart shape cut out and played some more – super extra pretty…..

They may not be the best most sparkly bokeh pictures ever but I think they’d look great printed for Christmas cards or gift tags – and the girls were so happy with their sparkly pictures.

Have fun…… Kirsty xx

Hope you’re all getting into the festive spirit, Kirsty xx

The day started with an early morning photo shoot and I took a few moments to capture these on the way…..

I got home to find that Ivor, our Elf had not only toilet papered the tree which was sitting waiting for us to decorate – but he’d also gagged a nutcracker – my crossness at Ivor melted when the girls told me they thought he was probably just trying to help us decorate and didn’t know what to use – love how they see good in everything

Once we cleared up Ivor’s mess we started our own decorating..

She loves nutcrackers – her Nainai gave her this one last Christmas and she took more care with this one decoration than all the others put together….

And in the afternoon Indy went to a pony party at the stables – she was so proud to ride a horse….

See, told you it was hotchpotch – but some days are just like that – and December seems to be a hotchpotch month this year – I live in hope that life will calm down once school breaks for the holidays next week – maybe I’ll exude more calm for my January Project 10…

In the meantime, pop over and see Val Spring of the Red Balloon Photography – she left hers to the last minute too but hers is a million times less crazy and chaotic than mine…. I’ll see you in 2012 for another installment, Kirsty xx

If you’ve followed this blog you’ll have seen something of the UAE and the celebrations of National Day before here and here.

This week has been filled with parties, fly pasts, concerts, singing, dancing, competitions, fireworks and the whole city has taken on an air of celebration.

If you’re on my Facebook page you’ll have seen my girls all dressed up for their school party and getting into the fun of the celebrations.

For us it’s more than a 1 day party – this is the country where one of my children was born and she’s incredibly proud of it – and just as we celebrate Chinese New Year for Saffy who was born in China, we are thrilled to be part of the celebrations for National Day here in the UAE for Indy.

She may not be Emirati, but UAE will always be part of her identity. 

The girls indulged me a little photo shoot for 5 minutes after school while they were still dressed up in their kandora’s and with some of the gifts they’d been given by their Emirati class mates.

These are just outside our flat – we live slap bang in the middle of the most congested area of town – it’s not the prettiest part but we love it here

So, to all my fabulous friends – Happy National Day – hope you’re getting into the spirit of the celebrations (yes, we even have flags on our car!) and enjoying the long weekend… until next time, Kirsty x