The Boswell’s

So, my time to shine, my first official wedding, not sure where to start, Terri had contacted me a few months ago and asked me if I could be their official photographer, we met a few times to discuss what I could offer in the way of time and photos. I had agreed that I would bring an assistant with me to help the day go smoothly.

As I haven’t done many weddings I could only show Terri the weddings that I have attended as a guest. I have been to a few recently and have taken some lovely pictures which Terri was very happy with.

So the big day was upon us, and we arrived at Terri’s with loads of time to get all the shots while Terri was getting ready, I was very nervous when I arrived and within the first 20 photos the nerves had gone and I was taking pictures knowing that I had the shot I needed.

It wasn’t long before we had to leave Terri’s and make our way to the Church to meet Mark, Here we took some pictures of him and his best man, and farther before the guests started arriving.

After speaking with the Vicar, he did not want us to take any pictures during the service, so we spent the time we had before the bride arrived taking pictures of the church and guests.

By now the wedding was in full swing and we took a back seat documenting the whole event for Terri and Mark, we drove to the reception and took some more pictures of Terri and Mark arriving and got straight on taking some more detail shots of the function room, speeches and the first dance.

We took over 1500 photos between the two of us for the day and Terri and Mark were so pleased with the results. I’d like to thank Terri and Mark for letting me be part of their special day.

Mr and Mrs Hawke

So I'm catching up with my blog, and have nearly covered everything that I have done recently and will be able to blog about things I want to do and that are coming up rather than what I have done. 

So Its June still and I have been asked to attend a wedding as a guest by an old friend from school called Gemma, I thought this was a good opportunity to try out my wedding workshop before I do my first real wedding as the official photographer. I kept things simple and travelled with my D300s, Tamron 17 - 55mm f2.8, Nikon 70 - 200mm f2.8 and a SB-800. All this fitted nicely in my little bag so was easy to carry around with me all day. 

Now since I was a guest I thought I would mingle with the crowds and try to get the candid photos of the anticipation and run up to the bride arriving trying to avoid the official photographer so as to not get in their way. 

During the service I wasn't taking any pictures as we had all been asked to not take any during the service. I did manage to take a few more candid shots before Gemma arrived. Outside again after the wedding, it was the same as before, looking for the shots that others weren't looking for, the kids playing with bubbles on the grass while their parents have their photo taken with the bride and groom, groups of people talking after the service and of course the Bride and Groom.

After getting lost on the way to the reception, it would be a good idea now to mention it to anyone else that is also looking to do weddings or any kind of event photography is to double check the invite and make sure you get the right hotel. I was sure it was at the new continental hotel however after getting there and not spotting anyone I knew, I checked the invite and it was the Copthorne hotel. 

By the time I got to there most of the buffet was gone, and so was the official photographer, this was my time to shine! I started with a quick drink and mini pizza to keep me going as I hadn't eaten since breakfast. After a qucik refreshment i was then equiped with the 70 - 200mm I had my back against a wall and was taking more candid photos of the Bride and Groom as they walked the room talking to all the guests. 

 I had arranged to stay through out the speeches and in to the evening reception for when more guests arrived. I found a table near the end of the room where I could be out of the way but still able to get all the photos of the head table during the events to come. 

I got some great shots from the day and managed to turn all the pictures around in a weekend for Gemma and Patrick who in turn were thrilled to see them all when I delivered it to them before the honeymoon.

I'd like to say thank you again to Gemma and Patrick for asking me to be a part of their special occasion.

Sports with Sarah

July now and I'm slowly getting the hang of this, well kinda, makes it easier knowing that no one reads these yet as I am a little new at all this! 

So, I have written myself a list of things I need to blog about to catch up with what I have been doing all things photography. Back in May I was emailed through my model mayhem account by a lovely young lady called Sarah, we exchanged a few emails and booked in a photo shot around the ideas that she had. It was to be a sports / fitness shot so I took the Friday off work and spent the morning organizing everything ready for the shot.

I'd never really planned a shot so well, usually they are very last minute but this was usually with friends so I could leave them hanging round while I get things sorted. I wanted to be more organized and more professional so I had all my gear out where I was going to be shooting and all the props near by and waited for Sarah to turn up at lunch time. 

After a quick intro we got straight in to shooting, Sarah had seen a photo I had taken using a stone wall as a background and wanted to do something similar. This was ideal for me as it was the wall at the bottom of the garden so I didn't have to go very far and if I had forgotten something, I could quickly get it.

Sarah was very enthusiastic and great to work with, I'm not the best at giving direction but she needed very little keeping me on my toes changing positions between the shutter. I took over 600 photos for the day using just a SB-800 and a Lasolite 60cm softbox triggered using my wireless remote.

After the shoot reviewing the photos I wanted to try to create the '300 effect', if your not familiar with this there are loads of videos on YouTube showing you how to do this in Photoshop, I tired it on a few images but was only really happy with it on the image at the start of the article. 

I'd love to be able to post all the images so that you can see them all but that seems a bit to much so if you would like to have a look at the rest head over to my facebook

Another update

So, it’s the end of June, late and I have just finished my first big wedding, but lets forget all that now and go back to March when I should have posted about the Wedding workshop that I went on and how I found it with some examples and stuff.

Well it all started when I was asked by a friend if I would photograph their wedding in 2012, I had plenty of time to think about it and I thought to myself that I should just go for it and say yes and see what happens. I have until this point always turned weddings down as I was always worried that I would ruin the Bride's day by leaving the lens cap on or something ridiculous like that.

With that in mind I started searching online for some wedding courses or workshops in Plymouth and there was nothing, so I widened my search to Devon and I have a search result, yep just one so I clicked on the link and I was taken to Bangwallop's homepage. I navigated round the courses to see what workshops were on offer and they had a 2 day wedding workshop with Lorna Yabsley. After speaking with Bangwallop I booked myself in to the course and found a nice little hotel in Salcombe to stay at so that I didn't have to drive their and back every morning. 

The course was really interesting and Lorna covered loads of subjects and senarios that may occur and how she deals with them, we drew knowledge from her experiences as we sat in the studio listening to her talk about her experiences as a wedding photographer. Shortly after a break the Model arrived and we started setting up taking detail pictures of the dress and getting ready before we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we set off in to the town with Bride and Groom taking pictures as they headed down towards the jetty to catch the ferry to the beach on the other side of the river. Their we spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of the couple in different situations taking advantage of the beautiful scenery that Salcombe has to offer. After a few hours on the beack we headed back to the Studio where we downloaded our cards and reviewed our images with Lorna and her team giving up advice on the shots we had taken.

The Second day we spent mostly in the Studio talking about the business from the initial meeting, planning the wedding timetable up to the delivery of the album. It was all very interesting and I feel that now I have the confidence to be able to go out and photograph a wedding for my friends.

Thanks to Bangwallop for all the help.

june already?

Hello and welcome back,

I think its safe to say that the new years resolution has gone out the window! As I'm still very new to the world of blogging, I am still finding it difficult to get in to a routine and sit down and write something. Its not like I don’t have anything to write about either! catching up on my posts I can see that I have haven't mentioned the Wedding workshop that I attended in Salcombe or what I have been up to with the new kit that I brought, also and probably most importantly how I got on with the Plymouth Half Marathon :)

Well lets start with the 13 mile 'stroll' I did on the 29th May, I have mentioned that I was going to be talking part in an effort to get some level of fitness back. So I stopped training about 3 weeks before the race, as I couldn’t find the time to get out and run, not running the distance before I thought it was going to be tough but reflecting on it now it didn’t seem to bad and would almost describe it as pleasurable. I had no goal other than to finish the run and not to walk sections like others were doing. Going from my usual pace I was averaging on other runs it was about 10 minutes a mile which gave me a rough guide of 2 hours and 15 minutes. I paced myself very well and managed to get in a better time of 2 hours and 10 minutes :)

I know this doesn't have much to do with photography but what the hell I spend a load of time out running in the countryside.

So back to Photography, I have been asked to do a few weddings and in the past have always turned them down as I did not feel I have the experience to be able to do them. That’s why I went to Bangwallop Studios in Salcombe for a 2 day wedding workshop with Lorna Yabsley, had a really good weekend and chatting to an experienced wedding photographer about weddings they have attended and how things have gone wrong and how they have become stronger from those experiences. 

Gotta shoot off now, but I will do another few posts talking about it all I promise!

March Update

Hello everyone!

Sorry for a late post, I have been super busy and am struggling with keeping the blog up to date with everything that’s going on at the moment.

Needless to say work is keeping me very busy and I struggle to do anything when I get home but enough about me ranting on about work.

So where did I leave off from last month, well I still haven’t managed to edit my photos from the Hockey matches or even burn them to CD, will be doing that as we speak for my friend. From the same weekend I used the 70 – 200mm F2.8 from LensPimp to do a portrait shoot for my girlfriend’s best mate and I have just finished the final edits and uploaded them to facebook for all to see. Still got loads of pics to do from last month let alone what I have been up to this month so far!

So Focus on Imaging 2011, what a day, despite the 5am start for a 4 hour coach trip to Birmingham it was really worth it and would recommend it to anyone in the UK that can get there.  It’s a really time to meet other photographers, suppliers and see what’s new on the market, some of the highlights from the trip were meeting the guy that invented the Orbis Ring Flash, James Madelin really nice guy and a really good demo of his Ring Flash that I even brought one!

I spent a lot of money since my last post, even before talking about buying the 70 – 200mm from focus I also brought a Nikon D300s from Ebay, absolutely great deal came with battery grip spare cards, batteries and still has 9 months warranty. The only reason it was for sale was because it was to heavy so I managed to grab myself a bargain.

So I also managed to get myself a Bag, a few memory cards, 50mm 1.8, 70 – 200mm F2.8 VRII, Orbis Ring Flash, Mono Pod.

So I have loads of new kit to play with when I get some free time!

A new lens...

Hello, well this is rare, a second post in the same month!

If i can pull my finger out and find the time I'm hoping to have even more this month but I wanted to just mention what I have been up to recently other than work and the running (yes running training for the Plymouth Half Marathon in May)

Last weekend i was asked to Photograph a friends hockey team, great I thought as i have been watching others blog and post sports portraits and thought I'd love to give it a go. So I started looking on flickr for some other hockey photos and have read a thing or two about sports photography and you really need a good bit of glass.

Currently i am only sporting a 70 - 300 f4-5.6, its pretty old but does the trick for out and about general use so i thought to myself I should try this guy that was recommended to me who hires out gear and is local so I can just pop down and collect it. LensPimp is the site and on there was a Nikon 70 - 200 f2.8 VRII which is a lens i was already considering in purchasing when i can afford it.

After registering with the site to hire the lens in question for the weekend (3 days) it cost me £49 which was an absolute bargain i thought, this would allow me to take photos for my friend that they would be happy with and i would get to play with a lens before i take a loada money out to buy it.

Needless to say i love the camera lens and ended up using it Friday, Saturday and Sunday taking over 800 pics in a weekend.

So anyway i just wanted to say that i will be busy processing my pictures but hope to have another three posts detailing each day. 

I'm off to Birmingham NEC  2 weeks today for the annual Focus on Imaging camera convention if anyone reads this and is going on the Wednesday I'll see you there. (I'll be the guy with the new Nikon 70 - 200 f2.8)

Feburay Update...At Last

Hello world, my second ever blog post and its February, I did say I was going to start a blog but I have been struggling to find time to get out and take pictures let alone sit down and write a blog.

I have managed to take a few pictures of my friend Phil while he was down from Bristol, and also a recent trip to Llandudno in North Wales which I’d like to share with you.

I’ve not really mentioned the gear that I have or what I’m using, I used to think that it was important that I had a decent camera and lens and other accessories, which isn’t true, I have a decent compact camera that takes RAW photos and think I’ll do a mini project with the compact to show that you don’t need an SLR to take good pictures.

My first Picture was taken in my Garden where I have this 7ft stone wall that runs down the back of the garden and all the neighbours as well, this was taken with my Nikon D80 and a Sigma 105 Macro lens, just goes to show how versatile a Macro lens can be. Also used a Lasolite 60cm softbox with a SB-800 with a wireless trigger which was camera right.

This was one of my favourite pictures from the day, recently I joined ModelMayhem where I have a fairly new profile and was looking for pictures that I could use to show my work to other like minded peeps. After a few days I received a friend request from a photo retoucher called Argiris from Greece and I decided I’d give him ago to see what someone with some more time could do with it. What I got back was exactly what I wanted and was very pleased with the results.

My other Image was taken after reading a few blog posts from Dave DiCello @ HDR Exposed. He has dedicated most of his photography to HDR and his local Ice Hockey Team. Dave has some very useful tutorials on how to create your very own HDR pictures. After going to a HDR presentation at my local camera club I have started looking at his blog and the results that he is producing, very jealous of both the HDR pictures and that fact that he blogs around 5 days a week :P

Anyway my second image was based on reading his blogs before I went to Wales, we (the missus and me) drove to Stockport on the Friday and stayed with family and on the Saturday we went to the sea side (I know, how quaint) so in the car to Llandudno we went, we arrived and it was not the best conditions for a HDR, not a cloud in sight anyway we pressed on along what turned out to be at least a mile of promenade before we got to the pier, taking the usual tourist pics with my compact on the way I noticed that the sky was burnt out and even with the built in ND setting in the camera it wasn’t as I was seeing it. So I flipped my camera over in to bracketing mode and started snapping away three exposures +/- 2 stops.

At the end of the Pier there was an old glass building painted with blue trim, I walked around the whole thing looking for the best angle and thought this could be an excellent HDR if I can get it right. I set the camera to +/- 1 stop and took three exposures. Today before I started thinking Mike you should really do another blog or else it’ll be like every other new year’s resolution you give up I opened Photomatix and dropped in the three images, if I had more time and had thought about it more I should have taken them in RAW to allow me to get the most out of the image, there is a lot of noise in the image, and I am aware that it happens a lot in HDR images.

Not many people are fans of HDR images and even fans have different opinions on what makes a  good and bad one, some like it realistic others fantasy. Me, well it depends on the image and that’s that. Everyone’s entitled to their views and it won’t be everyone’s cuppa tea. Speaking of tea i'm off for a cuppa! I hope to get some more pics over the weekend as i am taking some of a friend playing hockey so hope to have another post soon!

see you then

New Dawn

Hello, and welcome to my first ever blog,

I can't believe its taken me so long to get on the blogging wagon, its strange as am a computer technician by trade so you would have thought that i would have a blog to go with my twitter, facebook, myspace and so on accounts.

Well I'll be keeping this one short and sweet but basically i will be blogging about my photography how i progress with shoots as well as behind the scenes and anything else that comes to mind.

I follow the strobist and Chase Jarvis Blogs as they are always really interesting to read with some great ideas and inspiration hence starting the blogging.