Updated: Muddy but Magical—Sedbergh FolkFest
Updated July 4th: Full gallery link replaces preview gallery.
My third year as official photographer for Sedbergh FolkFest was muddy but magical. Nicer than I ever remember Glastonbury being, too. Click here or on the image above to visit the full gallery.
A wedding to smile about
Last night I visited Rachel and Ian in Penrith to show them their wedding photography slideshow. The best thing about these meetings is watching the couple’s faces as they relive—for the first of many times—the visual and emotional memories of their wedding day.
I’ve just posted the video slideshow at this link. It’ll make you smile.
They've not looked back since
Four holidays and a wedding
Why so little activity on this blog for the past three weeks? (And not much happening either on my blog from my other photographic life ?) The answer is a story of four holidays and a wedding.
For its brochures and website, HF Holidays, an award-winning company for which I lead photography holidays and workshops, commissioned me to photograph a number of its leisure activity holidays as well as the fine buildings, rooms and facilities at two of its network of 17 country house hotels—at Whitby and Brecon.
That was a lot photography, quite a bit of travel and, afterwards, more consecutive hours than I prefer to spend in front of my computer.
But, as usual, it was worth the effort. Elizabeth and Tamsin at HF Holidays’ marketing department are pleased with the results and so am I. Here’s a link to the galleries where you’ll see people enjoying themselves. Worth looking through to cheer yourself up on a rainy day.
What about the wedding?
There’s an HF Holidays connection there too.
Rachel, who does a great job of administering and organising these holidays—as well as keeping the likes of me in line—married Ian just I returned from the assignment. (Yes, she had been planning to do so for a while!) The couple had chosen me as their wedding photographer. They had a great day and so did I. It was one of the most enjoyable weddings I’ve been privileged to photograph.
So, after Rachel and “him indoors” have had the first chance to review the images, I’ll post a link to the pictorial story of a joyful the day.
UPDATE: here’s a link to the wedding gallery.
Cacophonous comestibles
Tomorrow, it’s back to full-on image editing as I catch up on processing after a couple of weeks of prolific shooting. But I am happy to say that, on our day out to see—and hear—internationally acclaimed French artist and composer, Pierre Sauvageot’s Harmonic Fields, I only took fifteen photos. Here’s one of my favourites atop Birkrigg Common overlooking Morecambe Bay.
Interactive musical soundscape on Birkrigg Common, Ulverston 3-5 June 2011
Tying the knot at weddings in Cumbria
Now get out of that one
Weddings In Cumbria, a comprehensive directory and information site for couples planning a wedding in and around the Lake District, has used one of my images to illustrate and explain the Cumbrian wedding day tradition of children tying church gates. Click on the screenshot below see the article in full.
Pink in perspective
She”s learnt to say: “Daddy doesn’t like too much pink.” For now I think she actually agrees with me. For now.
Not everything has to be pink
Royal wedding day at the zoo
While much of the nation was watching the royal wedding we had a family day out at Chester Zoo. I spotted this intimate scene across the orang-utan enclosure. And just in case you suspect any Photoshop sleight of hand, there isn’t any. This is a near 100 percent crop from an image captured with a long lens. Notice the girl’s nose and hand pressed-up hard against the safety glass.
Two at the zoo
The start of the season
... when all at once I saw a crowd ...
With weddings and several photography workshops approaching—and returning from leading my first photography holiday of the year—we spent a warm and wonderful family day at Fell Foot Park at the southern end of Windermere in the Lake District. Read more…
A real family wedding
I’ve been so busy with the business of photography during the last couple of months that I’ve had little time for blogging about a few of the lovely weddings I’ve had the privilege of recording.
Sadie and Mike’s—Lancaster, mid-August 2010—really stood out as a fun and informal family celebration. Bride and groom creatively involved their children in the build-up and the ceremony. Mike’s daughter out-performed even the best of Best Men, while Sadie’s boys proved the perfect bridal escorts!
It was one of the most relaxed and fun weddings I’ve photographed. (You can read about what Sadie and Mike thought about their wedding photographer here.)
Click on the image below to see the rest of the happy day.
Happy bride with family escorts
How to be a serene wedding photographer
Photographing weddings is hard work and lots of fun. There’s a healthy—if it’s controlled—amount of stress and physical exercise involved too: all that leaping, ducking, diving, crouching, climbing on the furniture to get The Shots.
Here’s a good way of avoiding that just-set-off-for-the-wedding-in-the-car “I did put my backup camera in the bag, didn’t I?” moment. Read more…
Huge softbox, massive gold reflector
Is this a softbox, Daddy?
Why you might want to open a photography studio in a farmyard
Last weekend was a bank holiday without a wedding to photograph, so we enjoyed family time (my wife’s emphasis!) and a much lighter than work-a-day camera bag to carry around. I did have a speedlight in the bag, but, after surveying the wonderful lighting conditions in the new “playbarn” at Greenlands Farm Village, I gave it the day off too. Read more…
Sedbergh FolkFest PhotoFest [updated]
Now in its second year in its new Yorkshire Dales location on the glorious south-facing flank of the Howgill Fells, Sedbergh FolkFest is a real early summer treat. It’s a small and as-good-as perfectly formed summer festival. I had a great time photographing it on behalf of the organisers. Check out the 2010 festival gallery by clicking here or on the image below. You can also see images from the previous year by following this link.
English long bow
No rain, no rainbow
This time last week I was preparing to photograph Jenny and Chris’s wedding at St James’s Parish Church in Staveley near Kendal.
A glance at the weather forecast indicated that the soon-to-be newlyweds were due a large helping of luck; there was going to be rain, lots of rain. Happily, many cultures including ours see rain as a sign of good fortune for the marriage. Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata (a wet bride is a happy bride) say the Italians. Mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux (rainy marriage, happy marriage) for the French, and “Ēka gīlā gām̐ṭha khōla karanē kē li’ē kaṭhina hai” (a wet knot is harder to untie) from Hindu tradition—hindi speakers, please forgive the Google translation.
Lucky bride arrives in the rain
Luckily for me, my assistant had packed a large umbrella. Read more…
Photographer makes lots of dough
Who are you calling cupcake?
On Saturday morning, after a frenetic photography fortnight, our daughter talked me into parking the cameras to “Bake bread with Daddy!”
Right now we are in the middle of moving just about everything in the house for a renovation that is finally gathering pace, so the cliché of a cast iron range cooker that usually provides heat for warming the dough was switched off. With flour between our toes and most of the dough back in the cavernous mixing bowl, we wondered where the sticky stuff was going to get the warmth needed to, er, prove itself. That’s when I came over all Ray Mears and Bear Grylls. Why not cover it with clingfilm [Glad Wrap for readers from my wife's side of the family] and put it out on the terrace to bathe in all-too-rare Yorkshire Dales sunshine? That’s what we did. I sold it to the toddler as the dough needing to “have a sleep” before going to work. Whispering and on tip-toes, we retraced our floury footprints into the kitchen.
An hour later and the mix was more than twice its pre-snooze size at which point I had to break the photography embargo for the sake of the Grandparents.
