Susan Collins Photography » Banbridge, Co. Down Photographer – Children’s Portraits, Weddings, Collages, Story Boards, Pets, Commercial, Fine Art, Scanning & Retouching, and much more!

Thursday’s sneak peek is 6-week-old baby J, photographed for the Wee Dotes Competition.

He’s a wee dote indeed! Mum, your photos are nearly ready, we will email you soon!

The Wee Dotes Competition was so successful in 2008 that, after many comments from parents, we have decided to run it again this year,

During the month of March we have been visiting playgroups and mums’n'tots groups but from April we will be available in the studio for Wee Dotes shoots. The shoots are free of charge, every child will have a free entry into the competition, and will receive a free 7×5 copy of their entry. Children from newborns, up to ones currently in P7, are all eligible to take part.

So, phone now to make your booking!

If you attend a playgroup we haven’t already visited, or are a playgroup leader, please speak to us about coming to your venue. We would love to meet you.

We are launching our new “Wee Dotes Baby Plan” today with a special deal just for our blog readers!

A Baby Plan is a package offered by photography studios that often stretches from the baby’s birth until they are 12 to 18 months old. Its purpose is to capture that precious first year in your baby’s life via 3 photo shoots at different stages. At the end, you are usually presented with a small portfolio of 3 photographs.

We have noticed some Baby Plans are free of charge to join, but then you find you are expected to spend loads of money after each session. We put our thinking caps on and came up with a different approach: we ask you for your payment up-front and you receive a comprehensive package within that price.

We have 3 packages from £300 to £700 covering your baby’s first 18 months with 4 full sessions in the studio. This could also be split between 1 Pregnancy shoot and then 3 baby shoots if you prefer.

Normally the Baby Plan is for the baby only, but we will be more than happy to include your older children in these shoots (conditions apply). We offer storyboards and/or Coffee Table books as part of this package, documenting your baby’s first year.

Gift Cards for the Baby Plan would make an ideal baby shower or christening present!

Anyone joining the Wee Dotes Baby Plan during January and February 2009 and mentioning this blog post will receive £50 worth of print credit for their first shoot with us (instead of the normal £25 credit).

Here are a few of our Newborn shoots from 2008.

[sniplet PreSSP]wdnewborn[sniplet PostSSP]

The studio has been fairly hectic over the summer months with the Wee Dotes competition but it is all over now! The competition closed at the end of September and we have photographed the last entrant for this year.

The entries will be given to the judges in early November and the winners will be announced here, on the Wee Dotes site and also notified personally.

We have checked all our clients to make sure their entries are printed and ready to go to the judges, but are also online. Please have a quick check to make sure YOUR Wee Dote is online and in the correct category. Don’t hesitate to let us know if you think someone is missing.

Don’t forget that there is still time to order photographs from your competition shoot as Christmas presents for yourself or family members.

The Wee Dotes Competition continues to go from strength to strength.

We are now taking bookings for July, with the last couple of weeks of June already fully booked up. If you were thinking of contacting the studio to enter the competition, please do so now! We anticipate July will be an extremely busy month as school will be finished and many mums will be able to call in for appointments.

We still need many more babies for the Newborn category (birth to 12 weeks) if you know of anyone with a Newborn, please pass on an invitation to them on our behalf. We also have recently decided we may have to consider splitting the Child category (3 to end of Primary School) in to Girls and Boys as there are sooo many entries for that age group.

If you are part of a Mums and Tots, a Playgroup or even just a group of mummies who gather together in a hall somewhere, why not contact us at the studio to see if we will come out to your venue to photograph all your Wee Dotes entrants in one go? I recently did this for a Mums and Tots group and it was very successful. I think any group of 10 children or more would work well.

Keep watching our Wee Dotes Flickr Set. We try to add photos to it at least once a week. You will see many more poses there than you will on the Wee Dotes site which is kept just for the actuall entries.