Name: Janine Speake

Business name: Janine Speake Photography

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm. Closed on Sunday

Address: 32 Beatrice St, Oswestry, SY11 1QG

When did you open your business and why?

I’ve been going for about 10 years now. We lived in Australia for a while and that’s where I started. Having had wedding photos which we weren’t happy with was the reason why I started doing this. At the start I mainly did weddings, until I had children, and from then I started doing mainly family and baby shoots.

I opened a premises in November last year, so I was only able to open for a short while due to lockdown – but I needed it because I needed the space to branch out as the business was doing well.

Why in this location?

We LIVE in Maesbury and we had a look for space around the area. I wanted somewhere close enough so I could drop the kids off at school and head straight to work, and that would allow me to pick them up if needed too.

It’s nice to not be far from home and not having to travel too far for work.

It’s amazing having a business here – businesses nearby where my studio is were very helpful and very supportive. Some brought bottles of wine to say well done.

I think some of them were a bit surprised to see us opening a studio during the pandemic.

Tell us about your business

At THE moment, I am really focusing on photos for newborns and families. We do pictures for women who are pregnant – I offer that for free if they book a newborn shoot.

It flows from there then because they then tend to come back when the baby turns one, so I do their cake smash. Then they tend to come back for family shoots as well.

A lot of people who come to me once will come back for more shoots which is really nice.

It is sometimes the case that people will have a baby together and then get married later on, and in those cases they may come to me for baby photographs and then they may get married later on, so they’ll use me for the wedding as well which is quite nice.

I think newborns are my favourite pictures to do, they’re really nice. It has been really tough this year because of the pandemic, I haven’t been able to hold them or anything when they come for their photographs.

Being asked to take photographs of important parts of people’s lives is really nice.

I used to think I wasn’t too good, but then people would keep coming back, and to see their framed photographs in their house which were taken by me, is something which is really nice.

What is your proudest moment?

I HAVE been featured in Vogue and Comsopolitan which I suppose is quite a big achievement, but my biggest achievement is when people come back and book another session with me. That really means a lot. If they recommend me to someone too, it feels amazing.

Any strange requests?

Nothing strange really. Some people will bring really random and funny outfits for their babies to be photographed in such as caterpillars and other random things.