Now that the Bride and Groom have had an opportunity to see their pictures, I can put a few up here. As reported previously I had a fantastic day. Thanks again, Julia and Chris!

You can see more details at my Leicestershire Photographer blog.

The Happy Couple

On Friday evening, after our now-traditional chips-for-tea, I headed down to Kent (this end, not the 60-odd-mile-further that end) in preparation for a wedding shoot. The couple in question were my first booking of people who I didn’t already know – though they were only once-removed on the friends’ network (they weren’t the first shoot of people I didn’t already know, but they were the first to book).

Waking up on Saturday morning, my heart sank. Overcast, light drizzle. I swung by the venue on the way to the groom’s preparations to take an early shot in case the weather became worse, then off to the groom’s preparations, then the groom went to the pub, and it was bridal preparations for me. A lovely cup of tea and lots of shooting later, it was over to the venue where everything else would be occurring.

I asked the event manager whether we were going indoors or out and she said we were going to risk out. It was worth the risk. As the beautiful bride arrived, the sun came out for a really lovely ceremony in the grounds (legal parts having to be completed under the roof of the gazebo, because that’s a licenced premises). The registrar was wonderful, allowing me full reign, tipping me off to the order of events so I could be in the right place at the right time. Moreover, she arranged the table flowers so that I could capture the real signing of the register instead of mocking it up. As long as I couldn’t read the writing on the register, it’s legal. That was a new one for me!

I covered both sets of prep, ceremony, group shots, a car ride for the bride and groom, meal (they fed me too… so I had a gorgeous meal while doing the first set of backups/edits), speeches, bouquet toss, cake, first dance… the works. And what an absolutely fantastic day it was. Lovely couple, great families and friends, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer job.

And I don’t think it’s so often that a wedding photographer gets to take a shot like the one below. And yes, every single guest had a representative lego figure of them created for the occasion. Great work!

Group Photo

This week’s Photo Challenge was forks. To get out of my comfort zone, I thought I’d have a go at some landscape photography, with a nice panorama of the fork wolds…

Following nicely from my last blog, I had my question answered today. I was phoned around 10am. Could I do a graduation shoot? Sure. Could I do it today? Um… sure!

I had Zack’s CreativeLIVE workshop firmly in my mind. I went for a very simple starting setup and decided to work with the clients. Get to know them. Get them comfortable. Don’t try anything fancy other than connecting. Also a nice fresh roll of seamless backdrop didn’t go amiss.

Today's Shoot

These guys seriously rocked. There are some real wacky ideas in the shoot – how about one of them trying to stab the other while he obliviously drinks a cup of tea. Yup – we have that one. A good shoot, and a simple one. It’s a look I’ve been clawing after for some time, but now it makes sense. Connection. Talking to the clients. Spontaneous posing. Keeping the energy.

In fact, I told them they should be a band… this’d be a great album cover!

I’m knackered now!

Here’s a question. I’ve been following Zack Arias’ CreativeLIVE workshop from the weekend. Have a look at some of the shots over here.

Now don’t get me wrong – I know that Zack is an absolute master of light, and also of people skills. The way he chats to his subjects, the way he induces them to actions and reactions that work brilliantly for the camera is fantastic. But I have a question.

To what extent can we attribute the brilliance of these shots to the character, looks, hair, makeup and wardrobe of the subjects?

Could a day-to-day portrait photographer achieve the same results given “normal” subjects?

The floor is open for comment…

You have just under 27 hours to get your entries in for this week’s Photo Challenge. I did mine at the weekend, thanks to Kath & Mike’s kind loan of their allotment on Sunday morning!

So, after a busy week, we had a quick discussion on Thursday night (after I returned home from seeing a prospective wedding couple). Should we get a bag of chips and bottle of wine for our tea on Friday and sit out on the decking eating them? Yes we should. I would have hit all my deadlines by then and we’d be able to relax for a whole weekend.

And so on Friday evening, H swung by the chippy on her way home, I breathed the wine and we had a lovely relaxed evening, had a leisurely tea until the sun went down, then came in and watched K-PAX (good film in my opinion) and it ended up around midnight. “Shall we go for a nice big walk?” I suggested, jokingly. “Ooh yes!” said H, not jokingly. We determined that ‘right now’ would not be a good time for a walk, but instead set the alarm for 4am and went to bed for a short sleep.

The alarm went off, we jumped in the car, zoomed to one of our favourite local spots (Bradgate Park) and commenced a walk to watch the sunrise. For the first time in a very long time I actually took a camera out for fun! A proper camera… I normally just carry the little indistructable camera (pictured with H) when I go out nowadays.

Don’t get me wrong – I love taking the photos I take for a living, but I don’t then tend to want to take more just for fun. But this morning was different.

We marched to the top of the hill at breakneck speed (21 minutes to cover a normal 30 minute walk) and just missed the actual sunrise time. However, there was low cloud and it was therefore another ten minutes before the sun first showed itself. Of course, in the lovely golden-hour light, and with my being a Leicestershire Portrait Photographer I couldn’t resist a quick portrait of H.

Sunrise, Bradgate Park

You can take the portrait photographer out of the studio...

Of course, no trip to Bradgate is complete without a picture of a deer. This one was really brave. I normally don’t manage to get particularly close, but it was I that was starting to become skittish thinking this must be some sort of evil deer that was about to charge at me any moment. But I managed a few nice close-ups before carefully walking away.

A Deer

After that, a drive back home via Tesco, back in the house, cook sossidges, eggs, beans and mushrooms for brekkie, eat said brekkie and all before 8am. Then a couple of hours sleep and back up at the sort of time that we’d get up if we were feeling really lazy on a weekend anyway.

I’m currently processing the wedding I shot on Sunday (what with my being a Leicestershire Wedding Photographer y’know). Good job Adobe Lightroom lets me copy and paste processing settings between pictures, making the process a lot easier than it might have been.

Anyway… I currently have 154 done, 107 to go. They’ll have to be fully processed by Friday so that I can get proof sheets back from the printers in time to have them sitting on my clients’ doormat when they return from their honeymoon. And also because I have another shoot on Friday – location portraits this time.

But what of the title? Knots?

I was always taught that a knot is only any good if it holds well, but it also has to undo when you want it to. That’s why you use a reef knot, not a granny knot. And bowlines – they hold well, but undo beautifully. What reminded me was that the wedding featured a page boy of toddling age. In order to keep the rings on the cushion, they were tied on. This was a Good Thing™ when the aforementioned toddler was swinging the cushion around, beating people up with it and otherwise being toddly.

Unfortunately, there was quite a large pause in the ceremony while the very comprehensive knots were picked apart. I might add scissors to the safety pins, gaffer tape, face powder and tissues in the emergency kit I carry in my wedding photography bag.

Another wedding.

Today I shot my first wedding where I didn’t already know the people getting married, although going along with popular wisdom, I’d had a couple of meetings with the bride and groom and so on the day we met as friends.

Was I nervous? You bet your ass I was! I am pleased with the results? Absolutely!

The sun was in and out of cloud the whole time. There was no real shade available (the usual trick in harsh sunlight), so it was a case of either waiting for the sun to go behind a cloud, or using some very gentle fill flash to lift the shadows.

The couple are absolutely lovely, and it helped that the registrar is someone I know well, and admire very much – and who, just a few weeks ago, did our wedding for us too, thanks Kath!

I went on a refresher course on Tuesday and carried quite a lot forward from it – a couple of posing ideas, some other composition and lighting ideas, but mostly the people skills… when you’re the photographer, you have to take on quite an important role – I managed to liase with the operations team beautifully and that means that people were herded into the right places at the right times. I was even standing at the door of Argos at five to ten this morning having realised that I needed to buy a watch quick! Thank goodness I had it… the ops team, dining team and everyone were relying on me to get my photos done at the right time.

The couple were delighted that I ’stole’ them to mock up the cake cutting. It gave them a 10-minute breather in the middle of the mayhem. And I even managed to run ahead of schedule so they had a good 20 minutes to mingle before we then had to do another set of shots.

All in all a great day… charming bridesmaids, lovely couple, great venue staff, lovely registrar… it never feels like work when I’m there. However, when I arrive home exhausted, I feel I’ve definitely earned my glass of cider!

Wedding

It’s been a bit of a wait, but the wedding photos are here! Hurrah! They’re worth every second we waited too! As a Leicestershire Wedding Photographer it was hard work finding a photographer who would come up with results that I’d be happy with – that’s without spending ooodles of pounds on the likes of Pete Bristo mbe fbipp fmpa fswpp, Peter Ellis fbipp frps fmpa or David Wadley abipp ampa all of whose excellent tuition I have undergone at some point.

We went, in the end, for Helen Keast lbipp who I probably shouldn’t be linking due to being in direct competition, but credit where credit is due, the photos are fabulous and I can highly recommend her work. But only when I’m busy of course *ahem*.

Actually, looking at price lists and qualifications, we’re not really in direct competition… more like I’m snapping at her heels and she’s sauntering casually onwards and upwards. Not too bad a situation to be in – she’ll probably keep one qualification ahead of me.

But anyway… some great photos and we’ve spent a nice evening with a bottle of wine and the laptop plugged into the big telly finding out what actually happened while we were concentrating on where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing!