Dalgety Bay's first and only commercially based, permanent photography studio blasted off July 24th!
Piloted by Nikki McLeod, a full time, fully-qualified, female photographer, Blast Off landed in the Play Planet (opposite Asda's), giving quality professional photography, at affordable prices, without the hard sell.
Capture all the times of your life; pregnancy, newborn, baby, toddler, children, couples, families, all within the comfortable surroundings of the Blast Off studio and in five easy packages.
LAUNCH DAY went down a storm! Many people took up the offer of a complimentary A3 print from their session, if they booked a session in while attending Launch Day.
Between free balloons, a magic show with balloon modelling, CHAS goodies for sale and the "Cheering For CHAS competition, the Play Planet had the "Sorry we are full" signs up from 10.30am till 3.30pm!
"Cheering for CHAS" did fantastically well. Every portrait session taken at the "Blast Off" studio gets the option to enter the "Cheering for CHAS" competition for a small donation (minimum £2) to CHAS. Every 3 months for one day only, there will be a print display in the Play Planet, and everyone that enters the Play Planet that day will be asked to pick their favourite image by making a donation to CHAS in the collection box beside that image. The winning image will be the one with the most money and will be on display in the Play Planet reception area for the next three months in a huge 20" x 24" frame, and the winner will receive that image once their three months is up. The first "Cheering for CHAS" day brought in the crowds and the money for CHAS and the winner was this stunning image of Honor, taken on the day of her birthday party here in the Play Planet.
PLUS on the hour every hour, from 10am to 5pm, there was a prize draw. Everyone that came to the Play Planet that day were asked to put their name to the prize draw to be in with a chance to win...... prizes included various complimentary products such as framed images, discount vouchers...AND the last draw of the day brought the biggest prize of the day - a FREE SESSION worth £120!
The winners were as follows
Betty Gambier - FREE A3 print
Fiona Gilfillan - £10 discount voucher
Gillian O'Rourke FREE A3 print
Pete Kane - £10 discount voucher
Karen Campbell - FREE framed 7" x 5" image
Mary Graham - £10 discount voucher
Sharon Maxwell - FREE A3 print
and the lucky winner of the SPACESHIP session worth £120 was MICHELLE GLENN!
After an eventful day, there was a private launch party held, allowing friends and family to see the new studio, enjoy the sounds of "Specs n Decks", take part in the Cheering for CHAS competition, and buy CHAS goodies. I was also very honoured to have Ken, a representative from CHAS attend the launch party to explain to the party guests, where their pounds were going to go; I think we all had a lump in our throat listening to the amazing work that the people of CHAS do with the children.
Piloted by Nikki McLeod, a full time, fully-qualified, female photographer, Blast Off landed in the Play Planet (opposite Asda's), giving quality professional photography, at affordable prices, without the hard sell.
Capture all the times of your life; pregnancy, newborn, baby, toddler, children, couples, families, all within the comfortable surroundings of the Blast Off studio and in five easy packages.
LAUNCH DAY went down a storm! Many people took up the offer of a complimentary A3 print from their session, if they booked a session in while attending Launch Day.
Between free balloons, a magic show with balloon modelling, CHAS goodies for sale and the "Cheering For CHAS competition, the Play Planet had the "Sorry we are full" signs up from 10.30am till 3.30pm!
"Cheering for CHAS" did fantastically well. Every portrait session taken at the "Blast Off" studio gets the option to enter the "Cheering for CHAS" competition for a small donation (minimum £2) to CHAS. Every 3 months for one day only, there will be a print display in the Play Planet, and everyone that enters the Play Planet that day will be asked to pick their favourite image by making a donation to CHAS in the collection box beside that image. The winning image will be the one with the most money and will be on display in the Play Planet reception area for the next three months in a huge 20" x 24" frame, and the winner will receive that image once their three months is up. The first "Cheering for CHAS" day brought in the crowds and the money for CHAS and the winner was this stunning image of Honor, taken on the day of her birthday party here in the Play Planet.
PLUS on the hour every hour, from 10am to 5pm, there was a prize draw. Everyone that came to the Play Planet that day were asked to put their name to the prize draw to be in with a chance to win...... prizes included various complimentary products such as framed images, discount vouchers...AND the last draw of the day brought the biggest prize of the day - a FREE SESSION worth £120!
The winners were as follows
Betty Gambier - FREE A3 print
Fiona Gilfillan - £10 discount voucher
Gillian O'Rourke FREE A3 print
Pete Kane - £10 discount voucher
Karen Campbell - FREE framed 7" x 5" image
Mary Graham - £10 discount voucher
Sharon Maxwell - FREE A3 print
and the lucky winner of the SPACESHIP session worth £120 was MICHELLE GLENN!
After an eventful day, there was a private launch party held, allowing friends and family to see the new studio, enjoy the sounds of "Specs n Decks", take part in the Cheering for CHAS competition, and buy CHAS goodies. I was also very honoured to have Ken, a representative from CHAS attend the launch party to explain to the party guests, where their pounds were going to go; I think we all had a lump in our throat listening to the amazing work that the people of CHAS do with the children.
An official press photo was taken of Ken, myself, Zimmy, the Play Planet's alien mascot and two Fife Flyers players Tom Muir & Chris Wands. Fife Flyers is the local ice hockey team who also support CHAS so it was fitting to have them both attend the party.
Overall the day was a success; many people know now about BLAST OFF but even more fantastic is the money raised in one day for CHAS between CHAS goodies, and the Cheering for CHAS competition;
TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!
Many thanks to all who put money in, the target for BLAST OFF over the next year is £1000, so already we are nearly a quarter of the way there! Fantastic!
Be warned, any time you attend the Blast Off studio, be it for a session, a viewing etc, you will be asked to donate even just a pound to CHAS; you won't notice the difference in your purse, but the charity and the children it helps certainly will.
The above images from the launch party were taken by my wonderful friends Iain and Louise Jeffrey of Pure View Photography who very kindly took time out of their holiday, travelling from East Grinstead, to be at the Launch Party.
With thanks go to the following for their fantastic work and help in the set up and launch of the studio;
Gordon and the staff at the Play Planet, Dalgety Bay
Dalgety Joiners, Dalgety Bay
T Moffat Painters Rosyth
Claires Cake Creations Rosyth
Issy Warrick and Jo Bechard Amway Business Owners
Chris Crawford and Barry Moir
Specs n Decks, Paisley
Jackie at Bay Balloons, Dalgety Bay
Mark and Lindsey at Bay Printing, Dalgety Bay
Lorna's Flowers, Hillend
the "Magic Max" show, Dalkeith
and my wonderful hubby for the background support and technical advice!
MWAH to you all!
So iconic....
How cool does Lyn look?
In this area, there was the most amazing old fashioned fire station, which had a fire engine shoot out of it just seconds before we posed this shot! We all had a little minute reading the dedications to the men lost in 911 from this station.
Our final stop was a funky little restaurant I had found a couple of days before!! SweetiePie in Greenwich Village is renowned for their cupcakes, and after a lovely meal, the staff very kindly gave the newlyweds a gorgeous little cupcake to share!! I love how they have a bird cage you can actually sit in for your meal! It was so cute to watch the newlyweds have a snog, from the outside!
My thanks to Lyn and Paul for being amazing clients; they saw the results a week ago, and both sat and cried through the slideshow! They loved the images that, like most clients, they upgraded their album in size!
The reason for Lyn's wish to go to FAO was to jump on the piano made famous by the film "Big"; Tom Hanks had NOTHING on this pair!
Lyn looked pretty in amongst the princess dresses....
After FAO, we took a wander down Fifth Avenue, we of course had to stop at one special shop......
What a difference in weather from the day before....
Lyn gave me several ideas of iconic places she wanted to go to....... one was FAO Schwarz, the famous toy shop.
The "Barbie" display gave me a wonderful background.
Next we moved over the road to the world-famous Plaza Hotel and it's fountain.
Then we jumped in a yellow cab to the South East corner of Central Park. There is a lovely little lake just right in the corner, giving peaceful views with skyscrapers in the background!
