Category Archive: Wedding photojournalist
The Forbury wedding photographer and a word about light | Wedding 365#48
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – 365 (366 this year of course!) wedding photographs, one per day, this one captured at the majestic Forbury Hotel in Reading.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm, F1.4, 1/200, ISO 4000
VENUE: The Forbury
ETHOS: It’s a long piece on available light this one, so bear with me. I thoughtfully describe The Forbury Hotel in Reading as majestic, because few luxury hotels feel that way; many these days seem rather, well, corporate. The majesty is in the detail rather than size. How many hotels can boast their own small cinema for example? I’m returning to The Forbury to present my wedding stills documentaries at a wedding showcase on the 26th February and look forward to using this facility for that purpose. In photographic terms, for an available light shooter, it’s a venue that offers opportunities and challenges. Sometimes the best action, the most interesting photographs are to be captured in the most awkwardly lit conditions. Cosy corridor looks and feels good in theory, it’s trickier to capture in practice. Here’s a classic example. I’m working wide open in aperture terms, 24mm at F1.4. I’m cranked in ISO terms too, at ISO4000. (Unthinkable that 400 used to be the absolute highest I would dare go in the introductory pro digital days.) I’m minus flash, using the pin spots and wall lighting only for everything including focus! Believe me, it’s somewhat cosier than the capture displays. I’m trying to convey the spirit of the wedding; friends laughing, passing time together. And this comes back to a conversation I was having with a chap named Roy, the father of a bride I met with last night. An amateur photographer himself, he was intrigued how or why flash is not deployed in practically all the photographs I showcase where it could provide a supportive fill role. My response; it alerts guests too much to your presence, often removes three dimension from a subject and far too often performs adversely just at the moment you least expect or want. BANG, the charge from your speedlight napalms the subject in a shape and style my settings had never delineated. Next frame perfect, but oh, the first one was the ‘decisive moment.’ Kit of course is just one part of the equation. Investing in equipment suitable for the task is imperative. But equally one can have all the gear and no idea. Roy’s interest in available light shooting is born of his own enthusiasm for the medium, and was completely in contrast to a phone call earlier in the day where a mother called up to say; I have eight hundred quid, just want some photos, what’s the cheapest you can do? Google trawling to find a snapper. See, some people will never understand the difference between shooting wide open in a dark corridor, poised over a shoulder, sucking every last photon out of a lamp to capture four friends laughing hysterically about life. This is the beauty of what we do as photographers. To some, a photograph is simply a snap, and that’s fine. To others, an opportunity. Roy passed me a great compliment as he left last night; “Your pictures seem to have mood, can’t put my finger on it, but they’re different.” Vive la difference, as I said to a colleague last week on my Facebook page.
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.
Wedding photojournalist | WEDDING 365#36
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – an image per day to demonstrate shooting style, creatively and technically.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 50mm, F1.2, 1/200, ISO 1000, plus one stop exp compensation.
VENUE: Rivervale Barn, Yateley
ETHOS: An icy blast of ‘wintry snap’ has convinced me to check back through December’s pictorial records to reveal this one from Rivervale Barn. Wide open aperture assisted by the latitude of a monochrome conversion makes for a strong composition. Connection is important to me in the process of record and this simple picture has that in abundance. The Christmas tree places the image in a time, a father talking to his daughter provides the narrative and three guests making their own contact with bride and groom seems to glue everything together. There’s no complexity, it’s a simple wide story telling picture.
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.
Wedding photojournalism | WEDDING 365#16
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – A documentary wedding image selected each day from ‘the bank.’ Ethos provided for prospective brides and grooms, shooting data for the togs intrigued by that kind of thing.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm, F1.8, 1/1000, ISO 320, underexposed by a third
ETHOS: Stand back, let it happen, let it unfold, watch, listen, observe some more, capture. Unless logistics or environment dictate otherwise, my advice to couples as they emerge from their ceremony as newlyweds is to go see their friends. Shake hands, hug, kiss, in short; be real. These are probably some of the most raw moments of truth. There is such a release, such an air of jubilation.
Alex and Kerry | The ‘one’ that wouldn’t get away
Let me tell you a brief-ish story before you press the play button on the Vimeo above and make sure you definitely engage sound for this one. As a wedding photographer, impending nuptials are of stout importance to me. I certainly don’t spend my life trawling through the Sunday supps and middle shelf glossies looking for showbiz types wot’ may be getting wed, but one approaching wedding in 2011 was of particular interest to me. It was a wedding I wanted to shoot, nobody could shoot it in fact, but me. And in a year where one William and Kate were getting wed, you may be forgiven for thinking it could be them. But no.
Our office, 2.15ish Tuesday 15th February.
Picture editor Nat: Lester’s getting married.
Me: Piggott?
Nat: No?
Me: Clue please.
Nat: You know him.
I turn the clock back to the early ‘90s. I was a fledgling producer and presenter in radio. I was attending a five day BBC radio training course up in ‘the smoke.’ On the Tuesday, we were promised a big name national broadcaster would pop in on Wednesday morning for an hour or so, to proffer advice and wisdom. So it was with great excitement that a dozen radio newbies from various stations across the isle sat in a London pub that night, musing about the celeb we were to meet the next day; would it be Wogan, Bates, Wrighty, Brookes? Maybe even Saville?
Wednesday arrived.
We sat huddled in training room 1. The atmosphere was tense. Our trainer rambled on about splice split avoidance and tape machine maintenance. We were unsettled; the crowd baying for our big name broadcaster.
11 o clock, the door opened, we took a collective intake of breath a workshop of M.O.T. mechanics would be proud of.
In walked…
Now I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that initially a dozen autograph books were surreptitiously tucked back into our reporter bags. But I remember that moment as if it were yesterday. Maybe it was the odd colourful circus clown type trousers he wore, the likes of which I hadn’t thought possible to purchase. I suspect it was because for the next hour, Alex had twelve impressionable radio presenters hanging by his every syllable. Two years later, by some odd route, I managed to acquire ‘jock status,’ for five minutes in Egton House, the home of Radio 1. I was asked at my BBC board by the controller, who I admired in radio? Wogan, Bates, Wrighty, Brookes, were all names I could have thrown into the ring. Perhaps even Saville.
Lester. I said. Alex Lester. Radio 2. Alex Lester. I was sure.
And so it came to be this year that Alex Lester married the incredibly beautiful Kerry. And I was there to photograph it, ably assisted on second camera by my picture editor Natalie. I regularly feel when I’ve met with a couple, that there is no-one on earth that should be there photographing their day but me, such is the connect, and my emotion. But this one. I just had to shoot this wedding. I’m so proud to have done so, and so pleased to have recorded your words too Kerry, Alex. If ever there were a couple who just ‘should be.’ It’s the two of you. x
Documentary wedding photographer | WEDDING 365#10
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – Daily choice of a wedding photojournalist image selected from my catalogue, collated from time spent documenting these unique events. Ethos provided for prospective brides and grooms, shooting data for the togs intrigued by that kind of information. Please comment, it makes a World of difference.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm lens, F2, 1/100, ISO 800
VENUE: Ufton Court, Berkshire
ETHOS: I’m a people watcher – it is without doubt the driving factor that steers my work in a more documentary direction. In this I like the angle, the feeling of dominance the groom (right) and best man are afforded by the composition, and then the honest account of relatives in the front row. There’s a delicate intensity I quite enjoy.
WEDDING 365#6 | Reportage wedding photography
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – Daily choice of a documentary wedding photograph selected from my catalogue, collated from time spent documenting these unique events. Ethos provided for prospective brides and grooms, shooting data for the togs intrigued by that kind of information. Please comment, it makes a World of difference.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 50mm lens, F4, 1/160, ISO 2000, plus third of a stop.
ETHOS: The rule goes something like this; “You shalt not photograph the actual signing of the register.” I’m yet to successfully educate a priest that I’m not photographing the register itself or breaking data protection rules, and that wide or close to wide open in aperture terms, you wouldn’t be able to read the words anyway, but there are some moments where it is better to ask forgiveness than permission. This is one. It’s so much more than what I refer to as the ‘grip and grin.’ Okay it’s not perfect and in competition, I’m sure a judge would mark down the fact the groom’s face obscures a bridesmaid – but it’s a real moment, and in story telling terms that’s what counts.
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.”
Lains Barn wedding photography | Kris and Helen
In wedding catering terms, Haggis could be considered a bold choice for couples planning the culinary portion of their day, unless, vows are being exchanged on the 31st December; Hogmanay. Of Scottish blood, Kris married his uni-sweetheart Helen surrounded by their closest friends and family on a date where it seemed a rite of passage to toast speeches with Scotch in hand, where wedding favours became the tools of first footing, where a piper announced the arrival of the main course and the groom’s father delivered Robert Burns’ address to the Haggis. New Year isn’t an invention of the Scots, but there are times such as these, where you may be forgiven for thinking that it was, or indeed should have been. Every man wore a kilt, and every announcement heralded a Scottish twist where it was encouraged to find the inner Wallace in ye. Lains Barn seemed a perfectly fitting backdrop for a coming together of the wedding clans; this restored historic barn boasting an honest rustic backdrop, the stuff of Stirling Bridge perhaps, and an inviting winter interior theme pieced together by the Lains team and Essentially You’s Julie Tooby. Before you ask, until the day a supportive Sporran is developed with compartments for lens and lens hoods, my suit remained the uniform of choice on this occasion.
Posted in Lains Barn, Wedding Photographer
Tagged Available light wedding photographer, Documentary wedding photographer, Documentary wedding photographer Oxfordshire, Documentary wedding photography, Wedding photographer Oxfordshire, Wedding photographer Wantage, Wedding photojournalist, Winter wedding photography
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WEDDING 365#3 | Wedding photojournalist
WEDDING 365 PROJECT – A favourite photojournalist wedding photograph selected each day from my catalogue, collated from time spent photographing these unique events. Ethos provided for prospective brides and grooms, shooting data for the wedding photographers intrigued by that kind of info. Please comment, it makes a World of difference.
SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm, F1.4, 1/1600.
VENUE: Lains Barn.
ETHOS: I’m a massive fan of the true grit contasty black and white, the type of print that Robin Bell would produce in his famous London darkroom. This was from 2011′s New Year’s Eve wedding, captured in an exceptionally dark corridor where pin spots were the only available light source. You wait, you wait, you wait, then someone offers an opportunity. I must have hovered around these guys listening to their conversation develop for five minutes or so.
Craig and Liz – Notley Abbey wedding photography
Here’s one I’ve been meaning to post for a while, and it’s as much a mention too for wedding photojournalism and what it is, or can be. A good wedding photographer friend of mine sums it up sweetly; observation not orchestration. It’s nigh on impossible to be purist about our ‘sport.’ Sooner or later someone will ask or expect me to orchestrate a group shot or I’ll ask the bride and groom to simply hold hands for a portrait. Then my cloak of PJ invisibility shreds itself. I just mention this because of late, and following my article in Professional Photographer magazine about church coverage, I’ve exchanged a number of mails with fellow togs about working as a documentary wedding photographer and what that actually means to me. I use many terms to describe my work and yes, I do use wedding photojournalist as it’s a phrase championed by wedding magazines; so I embrace it for search term reasons. In reality though I’m a documentary photographer. If you will, I have a ‘light touch’ on the day. I do help arrange a handful of portraits because when the dust settles and the cake becomes crumbs, this is what is left. This is the legacy of the wedding. Only a small percentage of my work requires any orchestration, and even then I’ll work in my described professionally brisk method, as I want key members of the bridal party to get back to the main event. This is after all a wedding day, not a photo shoot. So, the photographs within this post demonstrate my creative take on the subject of docu-coverage. Notley Abbey, sublime venue, superbly charged atmosphere of excitement, a bride and groom who desired some portraits, but equally wanted to relish time with their friends. Craig, Liz, what a day!
Michael and Natalie – Warbrook House wedding photography
“Hello Neale, I’m Bob.” All wedding videographers are called Bob. There are a handful of exceptions of course, as equally I’ve worked alongside WVs called Barry, Jeff, Mark, Danny and Julie. But in the main, they’re called Bob. Fact. This Bob looked pretty proficient behind his four cameras, and equally proficient hoovering up the canapes and champers. And thus the good humoured banter commenced. (Reference the ‘Bob hoovering’ image if you click more.) Humour was order of the day, and in a second factual revelation; that’s usually the case when a fair proportion of the congregation come from the Emerald Isle. Hosted at Warbrook House, a pretty Georgian country house hotel on the Berks and Hants border near Hook, most guests, and I’ll include myself, seemed to sport an inane grin for the day. This was a wedding that had a smile. It also had a Bob.
Posted in Warbrook House, Wedding Photographer
Tagged Berks wedding photographer, Documentary wedding photographer, Hampshire wedding photographer, Hants wedding photographer, Photojournalism at weddings, Reportage wedding photographer, Wedding photographer Berkshire, Wedding photojournalist, Wedding photojournalist Berkshire
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Silchester House wedding photographer | Steph and Chris
“It’s been almost eight years since I fell in love with you. And if I could go back and tell my seventeen year old self that I would marry you, I think I would just about die of happiness. As I read these vows, I know that before me stands a man who has captured my heart with all his brilliant light. I promise you all my heart’s devotion, and a hand to hold yours through each tomorrow. I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give, completely and forever, in sunshine and shadow. I promise I will laugh with you, not just at you, and to make your dreams as important to me as my own. I promise to bake you lots of brownies, and to always kiss you good bye before you go to work. You are my pillar of strength, my soul’s fire. I love you.”
