Guild of Professional Photographers Photographer of the Year Awards | Sai Kung Portrait Photographer

About 3 weeks ago, I got an email from Steve and Lesley from the Guild of Photographers to say I had been shortlisted  top 10 for the Portrait Photographer category award. To say I was chuffed and shocked is an understatement. Well Friday night was the award ceremony, which I could not fly in for as you can appreciate, and I found out I came 8th !
OMG I was so surprised and honored to be amongst friends and talented photographers. It was my first year and I am really chuffed to have come away with 2 silvers, 1 image of the month and 24 bronzes.
A huge thank you goes to Steve and Lesley for their on going support and for making the Guild such a friendly and supportive place to be. Thank you to Simon Young for being my mentor last year, and to all my wonderful clients who chose me as their portrait photographer.

Below are a selection of my award winning images from 2012 :

Thank you for all your support, I look forward to continuing my career here in Hong Kong.
Anna xx

Your Life Your Art

January by Instagram | Sai Kung Childrens Photographer

A New Year always starts me off with the good intentions of a photography project. I am a huge Instagram fan and am loving my new iPhone 5 so decided to follow fatmumslim's photo a day challenge.
Each day a word is given as a prompt, really nice and easy and I use my iPhone to take the photo and edit using my iPhone too.

Here is a round up of January :

click to enlarge

Are you an instagrammer? You can follow me at @annabowkis

Thanks for stopping by
Anna x

Your Life Your Art

Peter Pan Inspired Styled Shoot | Sai Kung Portrait Photographer

"Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”

I am a huge fan of dreamy whimsical styled shoots, I think its goes back to my days at college when I studied fashion and textiles, followed by my work as an Interior Designer. Styled shoots bring all those parts of me together! I am also a bit of a dreamer as well, and hark back to what it must be like to be a free spirited child, running through fields in the summer sun!
I grew up in flat in a town!

This shoot was an idea I had had for ages. It ended up being a much smaller shoot than my ideas of grandeur allowed! It was still a lot of fun, and my girls got to help on this shoot. Chief boy prop maker was Lilly, and Izzy was on flower duty and actually came along on the day of the shoot and was my assistant!
 Armed with props and Victorian nightdresses our location for the afternoon was to be the beautiful Hitchin Lavender Fields.
My models for the day were the Harris's. Harvey and Francesca are both professional models, for Ollie this was her first time, and she was brilliant!

Setting the scene with wild flowers, glass jars and magic potions!

 Harvey had a ball being my Peter Pan, and enjoyed being an explorer and adventurer for the day.

“I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.” 

The lovely Ollie, my Wendy.

“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” 

and Francesca...

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” 

“To die would be an awfully big adventure.”

I hope you enjoyed today's post. Would love to hear your comments :)

Anna xx
Your Life Your Art

October's Winning Images | Sai Kung Portrait Photographer

Its that time of the month when The Guild of Photographers announces the judging of the monthly competition. Every month I enter 3 images into The Guild of Professional Photographers monthly competition. I am really pleased to have achieved bars each month to date. This month I received  2 bronze bars.  A reminder of the Judging:

• Platinum Bar – World Class / Awesome (one has yet to be awarded!)
• Gold Bar – Truly Exceptional (so very rare)
• Silver Bar – Very High Standard (very difficult to achieve)
• Bronze Bar – High Standard (above the norm)
• Commended – Good Professional Standard (a competent image)
• Unclassified – Images that are not of national competition standards

Here are my October  Entries:

This month I submitted 2 photos from a styled shoot I did in October at the Sue Ryder Hospice in Peterborough.

Creative Team :


Photographer : Anna Bowkis Photography
Stylist : Emily Daniel
Designer : Wilden Bride
Millinery : Madruga London

Models : Sasha Wright, Jade Orvis
Hair : Vivien Jones
Make Up : Vivien Jones


Thanks for stopping by, I would love to hear your comments on my entries.


Anna x


Your Life, Your Art

Working with a stylist | Hong Kong Portrait Photographer

I had great pleasure of working with Emily Daniel from The Daniel Partnership last month on a styled shoot without people!
We both love interiors and working outside using natural light. Our brief was to shoot indoor scenes in a country setting.

Emily and I had only met once previously at a woman's networking lunch, WIBN in ST Neots. We really hit it off and after meeting over lunch (well it just has to be done!), we decided we would like to work together.
On a beautiful sunny day last month we met at Brampton Woods with 2 cars full of what to some may have seemed like junk! See previous post here
Its amazing what you can do with "junk"!

Vivien Westwood/ Brit inspired

these colours remind me of the seaside

think Jane Arye and Stately homes

Working with other creatives is such a wonderful way to expand your creativity and ideas. I had so much fun with Emily, that we did it all over again with my Autumnal themed bridal shoot  a few weeks ago!

Look out for a blog post coming soon on that shoot.

Thanks for stopping by. Would love to hear your thoughts on this shoot .

Anna x

Your Life, Your art

New Pastures Green | Hong Kong Portrait Photographer

See the title of this post??? Yes you did read right, we are all packing up and headed off to Hong Kong in 2 weeks! EEEK.

Peter, my husband , has been offered an amazing job with a package we just couldn't say no too and in 2 weeks 1 day we are headed to Heathrow with most of our worldly goods packed in suitcases and a 20' container making our way to Hong Kong.

Its an extemely exciting journey, one to be honest I still have not come to terms with, and I am not sure I will until we have found our new home and the container turns up.
We will be staying in an apartment in a hotel whilst we look for a new house. Lots of site seeing for me and the girls :)

My business will be on hold for a few months whilst we all settle into our new home and surroundings. In March I will be launching a new brand with a new website, of which I am really excited about!

This blog will still be up and running, although my website will be down from mid November until March. I suggest you pop me into your RSS feed as I will be sure to keep you all update on our new adventures! In fact I am thinking of making Sunday's post a personal weekly look at our new life in pictures. Perfect time to start that 365 don't you think?!

In the meantime I have so many shoots to share with you all, to keep this blog going until March!

I am determined to be back Wednesday with a share from the style indoor/outdoor shoot I did with Emily Daniel at Brampton Woods.

Thanks for stopping by,
Anna x

Your Life, Your Art

September Winning Images | Cambridgeshire Portrait Photographer

Its that time of the month when The Guild of Photographers announces the judging of the monthly competition. Every month I enter 3 images into The Guild of Professional Photographers monthly competition. I am really pleased to have achieved bars each month to date. This month I received  3 bronze bars.  A reminder of the Judging:

• Platinum Bar – World Class / Awesome (one has yet to be awarded!)
• Gold Bar – Truly Exceptional (so very rare)
• Silver Bar – Very High Standard (very difficult to achieve)
• Bronze Bar – High Standard (above the norm)
• Commended – Good Professional Standard (a competent image)
• Unclassified – Images that are not of national competition standards

Here are my September  Entries:

This month I submitted a model shoot with Amber Tutton, a baby shoot with the cutest baby girl Brooke, and an image from a styled shoot I put together in the summer at Hitchin Lavender Farm.

 Thanks for stopping by, would love to hear your comments on last months entries

Anna x

Your Life, Your Art

You may be asking where I have been these last few weeks? Post scheduled for tomorrow where all will be revealed.