John & Sophie’s Wedding Celebration

I recently shot John & Sophie’s wedding celebration at The Malt in Burley-in-Wharfedale. They got married in Baden-Baden in Germany just before Christmas and had a party back in the UK for those of their friends and family who couldn’t make it to Germany.

The party had a German theme (complete with steins and sauerkraut canapes) and a great time was had by all. I’m told the celebrations went on till six in the morning – needless to say I was tucked up in bed long before then.

Favourite Bride & Groom Shots 2009

February’s usually a slow month for weddings, so I’m taking this opportunity to do a couple of posts on favourite images from 2009.

We’ll start with some non-candid Bride & Groom shots. I’m not a fan of dragging the B&G off for an hour mid-wedding and posing them to death – photography isn’t the most important part of a wedding – spending time with your family & friends is what it’s all about. It’s the photographer’s job to record this – hopefully with a large slice of flair and elegance.

That said, you’ve just got married, you probably look as good as you ever will do and you’re feeling pretty loved up, so it would be churlish not to try to capture some of this.  So I aim for two things with my B&G shoots – do them quickly (so the B&G can get back to the party rather than hanging out with a relative stranger) and produce images with a natural feel. Here are a few examples, see what you think.

Sarah & Dave were married in Burley-in-Wharfedale; their wedding reception was in a marquee in their garden. Their house is more or less at the edge of the moors, so we took a quick walk into the countryside to shoot some B&G stuff. The sun was just on its way down and this is my favourite from a brief but very successful shoot. Who said shooting into the sun was a bad idea?

Julia & Stephen, Feversham Arms, 22 December 2009

Julia & Stephen were married at the beautiful Feversham Arms in Helmsley just before Christmas. They were a really chilled couple and it was a great wedding; they weren’t enormously keen on being photographed, so my brief was very much to hang back and capture the action unobtrusively (which is pretty much what I’m happiest doing anyway).

It was my first wedding at the Feversham Arms – seems like a fantastic venue, especially for intimate winter weddings. Here are a few shots from the day:

Dom

I recently did a shoot with my brother-in-law Dominic. Dom’s presented radio shows for the BBC and Sky in the past and now has his own show, which is soon to move to one of Yorkshire’s largest stations on a Saturday morning.

He’s also very photogenic (though don’t tell him that) and has done a bit of modelling in the past. The purpose of this quick shoot was to add a few new shots to his portfolio, so we were trying to produce a number of shots with different looks – here’s how we got on:

Family Faves 2009 – Kids

Aside from photographing weddings and doing lifestyle portrait shoots it seems like I don’t get a lot of time at the moment to get my camera out for fun.

I look forward to family holidays for all kinds of reasons, but not least because they represent an unrestricted chance to get out the camera for pure enjoyment. I get a huge kick out of photographing family members, so to kick off my blog, I’m going to do a couple of posts showing a sample of my favourites from a couple of family holidays this year (and some family days out).

This isn’t pure self-indulgence though – the style of these is essentially identical to my lifestyle portraiture. So if you’d like shots like these of you and your family, get in touch.

We’ll start with some kid shots:

This is my little boy Charlie on Bolton Abbey Steam Railway (which is great for kids if you live around Ilkley or Skipton). Despite his expression in these photos, he’s usually a very happy soul (except when it’s time for bed). I love this shot.