Tag Archives: Cotswolds wedding photographer

Negative space | Wedding 365#162

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If there is an argument for allowing a little too much headroom in the artistic name of negative space, then I’d counter this with the fact I’m eager to express the grandeur of this lounge at Dumbleton Hall; a wedding venue in the Cotswolds. A quick fire post on the subject of allowing negative space to impose upon your composition, and I use the word impose, carefully. I’m keen for some captures to dictate the eye within the occasional spread in my wedding albums, to draw a little left field surprise. Negative space (the space around the focal interest point of a photograph) is being used for this effect. If this were being marked as a photographic entry in a print contest, I dare say that introducing over half the composition in this ‘negative form’ would raise some eyebrows, but I think it does the job requested of it well. It does give a marked impression of height and it draws the eye down and into the contrast of a busy room.

COTSWOLDS WEDDING VENUE: Dumbleton Hall Hotel

SHOOTING DATA: Canon 5DMk2, EF24mm, F1.4, 1/320, ISO 2000, exposure compensation +2/3

Kingscote Barn wedding photographer | James and Claire

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London cabs, red buses, The Tower, Windsor Castle, Beefeaters, the white cliffs, oh, and the view across the valley from Kingscote Barn in the Cotswolds. These are the seven wonders of England that Americans would consider quintessentially English. Okay, a little poetic licence, but you’ll get the idea when you click the ‘more pictures’ link below. Kinsgcote Barn is nestled in a valley which gives the most amazing backdrop for wedding photographs. It’s the first thing I see when I arrive at the venue. I’m drawn to this scene photographically, and I think that’s obvious by what I’ve included as a taster below. I don’t often include family portraits in my blog postings, but with the winding road rising through the valley to reach a remote farm beyond, well, why not? The groom, Jim, reads this blog pretty regularly, so it was my promise as I left for home tonight, that I would post a couple of memories from the day before my head hit the pillow. Jim, Claire, it’s nearly 1am, I’m guessing the party is at a close your end, so this is for the two of you as you awake later on today. Not many grooms will partake of my passion in Canon, but Jim mentioned the 5DMk3, a camera that is now a fixture in my kit bag. Once again, the images you are about to view have been post processed a little with some familiar house styling; vignettes and a little more contrast in the monochromes, but this camera is that good, that the reworking is subtle and an enhancement only from what appeared straight out of the body.

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Cotswolds wedding photography | Wedding 365#57

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WEDDING 365 PROJECT – 365 days, 365 wedding images.

SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 135mm, F3.2, 1/2000, ISO 400, under by a third.

VENUE: Bay Tree Hotel

ETHOS: I’m slightly torn between two focal points in this image, yet keep coming back to this particular photograph. Suggestion is a powerful tool in reportage style wedding photography so perhaps the exchange of focus between bridesmaid looking on and orchestral presence is not so necessary. I’ve not posed the girl in the photograph, I simply saw her watching on as the first notes were sounded. It’s unusual in my pictures to see somebody’s back in focus and the real action being consumed by a shallow depth of field. However, I think it works here and makes for a wedding photograph that you need to ingest for a moment to piece together the story.

First dance photography – WEDDING 365#11

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WEDDING 365 PROJECT – A documentary wedding photograph each day taken from ‘the bank.’ Ethos provided for prospective brides and grooms, shooting data for the togs intrigued by that kind of thing. Please take a moment to comment if you like this image.

SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm, F1.4, 1/30, ISO 250

VENUE: Bay Tree Hotel, Cotswolds

ETHOS: The first dance. This isn’t always the Hollywood moment one might expect. Often it becomes a shuffle. Despite our best laid plans to embrace and ‘dance like dervishes,’ we settled for the slow shuffle on our wedding day too, to Carly Simon’s ‘Nobody Does it Better.’ Shuffles work well though. A soft embrace, hands together, tender whispered words etc et al are of course staple diet of the slow shuffle, but look further and you will see more. Dad’s proud glance across the dance floor became one of the final images of this wedding. It was the full stop to compliment the shots of bride and groom just before. My inner photographic voice definitely piped up; “That’s it, this one, is in the bag.”