Category Archive: Wedding photographer
Wasing Park wedding photographer | Mike and Sally
I was asked on Monday to submit my thoughts for a magazine article being compiled about photographing weddings in trickier climatic conditions. My thoughts on this were immediately blogged this week here. I find myself ironically able to update those words as today’s Wasing Park wedding between Mike and Sally featured a drop or three along the way. If our latitude and longitude were say 36° 10′ 30″ N / 115° 8′ 11″ W, then wet weather would be less of a problem. In that we’re 51° 26′ 0″ N / 1° 0′ 0″ W, then rain is most certainly a consideration. I often get asked by prospective clients; “But what if it rains?” My answer is based on how many portraits within the landscape of their venue a client requires or desires if such conditions occur, but more often than not my answer simply reflects a reality that we’ll just photograph inside a little more. Talking of reality, being outside is actually a small portion of the day. Generally speaking, you get ready in a room, married in another kind of room, enjoy a wedding breakfast in a room with tables and dance, well, in a room. The wet stuff certainly doesn’t wreak quite as much havoc as couples may fear. Let’s add a third reality; it doesn’t generally rain forever. If I were somewhat more of a formal photographer or one for capturing rather more contrived big production portraits, of course this would perhaps be trickier. Iin documentary terms, a break in the weather provides time to capture some outdoor shots easily. It does of course help if your venue is a good one for ‘weather,’ meaning the plethora of varieties we can receive in one day. Wasing is certainly that, boasting a ‘glass walled’ ceremony and drinks reception room and separate barn for the wedding breakfast itself. A church is but a mere minute or two’s walk from the front door, so this all amounts neatly to present a solution to unkind clouds. There is a mistaken belief that rain will somehow put paid to the festival of enjoyment that is, a wedding. Wrong. Wrong and wrong. We had a fair amount of rain to contend with today, but I hope you’ll agree the images within this post show the story of a day that was magical despite.
Wedding photojournalist | Wedding 365#47
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – Daily choice of a wedding photograph selected from my catalogue, collated from time spent documenting these unique events.
SHOOTING DATA: 5D, 58mm from a 24-105mm lens, F4, 1/800, ISO 640
ETHOS: I maintain that every photographed wedding will yield at least one signature moment, and this is the one for me from this particular wedding. It’s a simple shot featuring three key cast members from the day; groom, bride, bride’s father. They’ve just emerged from the service, friends are firing off their own frames directly in front of them. Bride turns to father and the connection is just magical. Often I photograph how fathers observe their daughters. It’s rewarding that when I return images from a wedding a response I often get is; “I had no idea dad was looking at me that way, I’m really touched.” This is role reversal. I hope this photograph is on her father’s mantelpiece because it says so much about her feelings for ‘dad.’
Dumbleton Hall wedding photography | Jamie and Jennie
Look, from the outset, I’m a softy. My eldest little boy this week told me that I was; “The best daddy in the World,” for the first time. I cried. The Green Mile, Schindler’s List, Meet Joe Black; three films that you shouldn’t watch with me if the sight of a grown man shedding a tear embarrasses you. Unashamedly, I’m soft centered. For me, an observational emotional connect with my clients is important in documentary wedding photography terms. If you follow this blog and indeed the stories within my 365 project or main gallery images, it’s clear that I work stylistically cheek by jowl. I photograph primarily using short focal length lenses, that requires a closeness to the story unfolding before me. I hope the images in this blog piece demonstrate how in wedding story telling, it’s an approach and philosophy that can work well. You’ll be the judge and as ever I’d welcome your comments, either on the blog or by mail. Before you look further though, a further dimension to this story is that the couple concerned I count as friends, our bride Jennie having been a former work colleague when I frequented the radio airwaves. Jennie, I’m so incredibly proud of you for your accomplishments personally and of course latterly professionally, and look forward to hearing your reports as you jet the globe covering F1 2012. (I’m also a little bit envious, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone.) What an emotional day too. You underline why documenting these days has become a vocational life choice. And Jamie, thanks for letting Jen talk you in to allowing her softy friend to be present as photographer on your special day. Lots of love and I hope you enjoy this sneak preview.
Documentary wedding photographer | Update to Alex and Kerry
I’ve received a handful of mails with regard Alex and Kerry’s wedding slide show and one of the final slides featuring fireworks. Click below to read more and you’ll see the image in question, plus a handful of selected black and whites that describe the day pictorially.
Rivervale Barn wedding photography | Raj and Charlotte
I had dinner last night with Steve; best man at my wedding six years ago. See, this wedding thing, it’s all Steve’s fault. He’d insisted I shoot his brother Nick’s wedding a year before my own. He’d not accepted my protestations that I shot only portraits. He refused to believe that I couldn’t turn my creative eye to wedding photography. I quoted £200 as a gesture relating to experience – and I shot that wedding. And so now in 2012, I find myself as a professional wedding photographer by trade, and that’s pretty much my bag. We mused over that fated request last night whilst wrestling the last serving spoonfuls of my wife’s infamous chilli dish, and I repeated a conclusion I’ve made in mantra like fashion of late; no other form of photography that I’ve practiced, is so down to earth honest, variety driven and personally emotional. I’m an old softy at heart and so watching Raj with their son catch Charlotte’s eye as she processed down the aisle was and always will be bound to stir emotions. Wedding photography, and particularly documentary wedding photography is a much misunderstood genre of capture. There is a craft in capturing decisive moments. I genuinely become emotionally connected during a wedding, it’s inevitable, and I hope that comes across in the images presented. At Rivervale Barn, the reception continued – and with a banquet room dressed fittingly for a Christmas wedding only the hardest of Dickensian hearts could fail to be emotively captured by Raj and Charlotte’s poignant celebrations. Dr. Raj, Charlotte, congratulations. You had me at; “Please stand for the arrival of the bride.”
Bioblog | I See (part 1)
(Sound and reasonably fast connection are both required to view.)
It’s been a while coming (a busy end to 2011 has seen to that) but in 2012 I’ll publish a collection of bioblogs covering my feelings about the journeys predominantly made during my weekends, the ethos behind the work here, that of my associate colleagues and a selection of our recommended wedding suppliers. A big hearty and healthy thank you to those that have helped during this process and I look forward to producing the biogs and films in the months to come. Please make sure you view with sound.
Posted in Wedding Photographer
Tagged Bioblog, Documentary wedding photographer, Wedding photographer
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