Posts from the ‘Wedding photography’ Category
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…
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…
More can be a lot less in wedding photography
Revisiting my wedding photography pricing research recently, I came across a number photographers’ websites whose packages boasted “unlimited number of photographs taken” and “500+ images on DVD”.
The first of those promises wouldn’t be much cause for concern if I was looking for a wedding photographer myself, but I do wonder why the photographers needed to mention it. Alongside the second promise of 500 or more images on disc, it would worry me.
Good reportage wedding photography is about a number of things, not least telling the story of a joyful, momentous day in two peoples’ lives. How many images does it take to tell a good story? Sorry for the tautology, but it takes as many as necessary. But one thing I am sure about: it certainly doesn’t take 500 or more. Read more…
How much should you pay for professional wedding photography?
Wedding photography is mixture of art, people skills, science, experience, and hard work. Usually it involves four-to-five days of full-on work. It requires thousands of pounds worth of equipment, and it’s better if it’s based on many years of photography experience. That’s why it isn’t cheap and why, when it is very low-priced, it shows.
Great wedding photography isn’t about booking online, the photographer turning up with a big camera, taking pictures and sending the couple a DVD containing five hundred or more photos all for £400-to-£500. And it is hardly ever about a friend with a nice camera offering to photograph your wedding.
About once a week someone calls or emails asking how much it would cost for me to ”just come for a couple of hours” to photograph a wedding. I understand some of the reasons for this kind of question—not least being on a limited budget in tough economic times, but I have to tell you that professional wedding photographers cannot afford to take this kind of assignment. Read more…
Wedding dress workout
Returning from a client meeting, we stumbled upon an exhibition of historic and contemporary wedding dresses at Middleton Church between Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale. It was a great opportunity for me to hone essential wedding photography techniques of capturing the detail and subtlety of white or near-white silks and satins against white walls in a lovely but dimly-lit church. Not to mention unobtrusively mixing ambient and flash lighting.
Click here or on the image below to see more examples from this impromptu shoot.
Wedding dress central at Middleton Church
