A Summer Garden Party is being held in Ruthin to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Society.

The event is being held on the 21st June at 6.30pm and will feature a Hog roast/BBQ, various stalls and lots of good old-fashioned games.

And if that’s not enough - you can even grab a bargain in the auction of promises and raffle. The prizes include a membership voucher from the Vale Country Club and a voucher for a makeover photo session and framed portrait at BeautyPhoto Studios.

The venue is Rossignol, on the Mold Road. Tickets are £10.00 each and are available from Clemency-Joy Godfrey at Autoproducts (tel: 01824 707555)

Backgrounds must now be 5%-10% grey - not white!

This “new rule” has actually been in place since the guidelines were laid down by the Identity and Passport Service three years ago. 

This year, however, they are applying the ‘new’ standards for passport photos more rigorously. The regulations have always stated that the background for passport photos should be off-white, or 5% - 10% grey.  During 2008 they will begin rejecting photos taken against a white background.

Employing a professional to produce your passport photographs may cost a few pounds more (we charge £10) but it can actually work out cheaper than having two or three attempts at getting it right in a photo booth. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to go through all the rigmarole again should the passport office reject them.

Details about our passport and I.D. photograph service

Whilst in the thick of decorating and floor-laying last week, we reopened the studio briefly (pun intended) to do a quick fashion shoot in the name of charity.

Roger (Mr July) of Autoproducts, has been testing out his company’s new printing press by putting all the Cheeky Chappies calendar pictures onto tee shirts to be sold for charity.

The calendar itself raised over £2,700 for North Wales Cancer Services.  It is hoped the sale of the printed tee-shirts will push the total to over £3,000.

Law student Charli, of Bodfari, took time out from her studies to model the garments.  It was hard to believe she had never modelled before.  She was an absolute pleasure to work with.

So if one of the Cheeky Chappies is close to your… erm.. heart, you will soon be able to buy one of these limited edition sets via the Cheeky Chappies web site or at selected outlets in Ruthin.

More pictures on the Cheeky Chappies web site soon.

Our twelve “cheeky chappies” have just presented over £2,500 to North Wales Cancer Services charity fund-raising manager Ray Pritchard (below, centre)

The cash was handed over during a get-together at the Wynnstay Arms, where we all enjoyed an excellent buffet (courtesy of Autoproducts), everybody kept their clothes on and we even managed to sell more copies of the calender to some of the other diners! Continue »

Now, this is not sour grapes - I promise you -  and if you think I’m out of order, please, don’t be afraid to tell me. Continue »

Win a prize in our Charity Calendar competition!

When we were shooting the 2008 Cheeky Chappies Charity Calendar last autumn, one of our “models” had to pull out at the last minute.  We later discovered that the reason was a directive from his employers that fire-fighters were now banned from such projects.  So I decided to get a little cheeky myself and planted a number of “firemen” on some of the pages of the calendar.  What surprised me was that no-one seemed to notice these firemen lurking in the background of some of the shots. 

Can YOU spot them?  There’s a voucher worth £25 to anyone correctly identifying which pages they appear on.

There are four “firemen” in all.  They appear in many forms, but are identifiable by the fireman’s helmets they are wearing.

You can enter by filling in the form on the Cheeky Chappies web site www.beautyphoto.co.uk/cheeky

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Jayne and Chris are looking for volunteers to help produce some exciting new images for their portfolio.  Continue »

Myleene Klass has followed in the footsteps of Demi Moore and Britney Spears by gracing a magazine cover whilst pregnant and nude.

29 year old Myleen, who was seven months pregnant at the time of the shoot, said: ‘I’m proud of my body. It has made a new life and I find that exciting.’

Of course, you don’t have to be a celebrity to have some beautiful maternity portraits to remind you of this wonderful time.

Jayne & Chris Birchall are offering a brand new studio session designed to bring you the sort of maternity portraits hitherto reserved for the rich and famous.

Congratulations to the Fron Male Voice Choir who’s album
“Voices of the Valley” shot straight into the Top Ten in the national album charts

Jayne & Chris were commissioned to photograph the choir for an international press release, at the beginning of December, announcing their outstanding success. 

The lads, who all hail from the Wrexham and Llangollen area, were pictured in the stage outfits and in their “civvies” to illustrate the fact they just ordinary guys with ordinary day jobs.  Their album is also featured in a TV advertising campaign.

January 2008 UPDATE: 

Jayne & Chris Birchall’s photographs were recently used in Virgin Air’s in-flight magazine “Seatback”

Tens of thousands of passport photos have been rejected for failing to meet strict new rules which were introduced to combat fraud.

UK Passport Service figures showed that out of 597,863 applications in the first eight weeks of the new rules some 81,927 photos - 13.7% - were rejected.   Source BBC Jan 2006

In particular, the “Photo Booth” and DIY photos are most likely to fall foul of the strict regulations.  The face has to be the correct size in the picture, not too light or too dark, no teeth showing, no shadow on the face…  The list goes on.

Jayne and Chris Birchall’s advice is to have these photographs professionally produced at a studio which adheres to the new guidelines and to do so well in advance of your deadline.

Details of the ID/Passport Photo service at BeautyPhoto.co.uk’s Ruthin studio.

Stop Press!

We can now produce photographs for American, Canadian, Australian, French passports and others.