Shona & Pablo - Broxmouth Park Wedding - Dunbar - North East Wedding Photographer

Last weekend in between two weeks of Jury Duty (not my favouite experience in the world) I worked with Lauren Mcglynn again as a second shooter for a lovely wedding at Broxmouth Park in Dunbar. It was pouring rain on my drive up there, but the sun came out just in time for the wedding to go off without a hitch. The venue was lovely and the ceremony took place in front of a giant tree that had been planted by Queen Victoria in memory of her husband Albert.

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Yuli and Callum - Wedding Photography - Dunkeld Wedding

I had a great day working as a 2nd shooter with photographer Lauren McGlynn at the weekend for the wedding of Yuli and Callum at a stately home in Dunkeld. The wedding was quite unusual, a blend of traditional scottish heritage mixed with some enthusiastic Greek dancing, and lots of fun to photograph.

Congratulations to Yuli and Callum!

Bridal Photoshoot: Part 1

I did a photoshoot with my friend Esther yesterday, basically to have a bit of practice and flesh out my portfolio a little bit. I had her wear a couple of outfits with flower and shoe variations so just have some fun capturing different details.
I will be posting the photographs in 2 parts, just because otherwise it would be a ridiculously long post!
We went to a woodland area next to the Rock Hall Estate (which I posted photographs of a few days ago) and it was really beautiful. It was a very bright sunny day, which was sort of a shame as it meant the light coming through the branches was very bright and harsh, making troublesome shadows at times.
I actually bought the dress that Esther is wearing here, for a mind blowing £12! I actually couldn't believe it. It was on ebay for £12 and it was one of those listings where I almost assumed it wouldn't look anything like the image because it was too good to be true! Then when it arrived I was so happy because it was actually still really quite nice. The lace on the bodice is maybe slightly to cheap looking for it to be a real wedding dress, but the back of the dress is just gorgeous with the low back with buttons and the long flowing train. It was exactly what I wanted for this photo shoot so I was very happy. Onwards to the photographs!

30 Photo Challenge: Day 14

I did a photo shoot today with my friend Esther as a sort of styled bridal shoot.I have quite a few good photographs I think, but I am still in the editing process so here's a quick sneak peek for now.


 

30 day Photo Challenge: Day 13

I bought some flowers today that I will be using for the photoshoot with Esther at the weekend and I decided to just have a bit of a practice doing floral and detail shots.

Charlotte Photoshoot

 I did a photo shoot with my cousin  last week to practice my portrait photography as well as play around with a few things I might face if I do wedding photography,such as veils. Charlotte is extremely photogenic (and beautiful) and a perfect model for this sort of thing and it was a lot of fun. The photograph that I actually like the best was actually sort of taken by accident and not planned at all.  She was wearing a long auburn wig for the photographs because I wanted a pre-raphaelite vintage feel to the images and because Charlotte had just had all her hair chopped off a few days before and she was feeling a bit self conscious about it. However, at the end of the day (about half 7 in the evening) we got back to the house and she took off the wig and even though her hair was all messy and pushed back from being up inside the wig I thought she looked amazing so I quickly took her out into the back garden and took a few quick shots and I think she looks incredible. The evening light is creating such soft flattering shadows on her face and, having used my trust 50mm lens at F/1.8, the background is nicely blurred out just showing the hints of the ivy behind her. I often find the best photographs are the ones that you haven't planned and weren't expecting.

Gibside Wedding Photography Workshop: Part Two

 These are the second set of photographs from the photography workshop at Gibside. The Chapel at Gibside was absolutely beautiful, It had a slightly unusual set up with a raised platform in the centre surrounded by railing (which you can see to the side of some of my photographs) and no seating. The lighting in the chapel was beautiful, it had just started raining outside as we went in, and the white cloud gave a lovely even light. This meant I could capture quite light images without having to significantly lower my ISO. I also mainly used my 50 mm prime lens which works extremley well in lower lighting conditions.

After the service we went outside to do the formal portraits with the bride and groom. Unfortunatley the front of the chapel was off limits to us because of construction work being done, which was a shame as the front is a beautiful Georgian structure. Instead we had to use the side of the building, but the final images still work quite well I think.

Gibside Wedding Photography Workshop: Part One

I recently took part in a wedding photography workshop at Gibside, near to Newcastle. We were in the Stable building, which was a lovely setting quite far into the grounds, with a cobbled courtyard and cafe.
 It was a 2 day workshop run by Going Digital and taught by wedding photographer Bev Charlton. (If your interested you can look at their website here, they do a range of different photography workshops).
On the first day of the workshop Bev did a presentation giving us a load of useful tips and information as well as some of her own advice from her years of a wedding photographer. We then went out and practiced a few techniques using the other pupils in the class.
On the second day there was a bride and groom model hired for the day and we used them to do a basic run through of the structure of a wedding; from the bride getting ready to the church to the formal portraits afterwards. Although we still had much more time than we would have been able to have had it been a real wedding situation, Bev tried to keep us on track and experience the timing constraints that you have to face when in a real wedding situation.
I took so many photographs! The models were both great, they were a couple in real life so were very happy and comfortable around each other making it so much easier to capture the real moments between them. I have managed to whittle down the images a bit, but I will still split them up into two or three posts to give me chance to edit them and put them together.

These are the initial shots taken within the room getting read, with closeups of the shoes and rings, the bride coming down the stairs and then the first portraits taken in the courtyard of the Stables.

Laura and Chris - 2014

In the summer of 2014 two of my best friends from high school got married in a beautiful service at Rothbury. I wasn't the main photographer for this wedding, but I managed to get a few pictures that I was happy with. I made the photographs into a little album for my wedding gift to them and they were so happy with it! It took a little while for the professional photographs to come back to them, so they were glad to have some good quality images to show people while they waited. I was so happy to be a part of this wedding, especially having seen the relationship from the very beginning, when we were all just 15!

Rachel & Matt Wedding 2012

 A few years ago I was asked to do the photography for the wedding of my friends sister; the wedding was a small intimate affair and was lovely to be a part of.

Rachel was pregnant with her son Max at the time and looked stunning in her vintage inspired dress and hairstyle. The reception took place in Tynemouth and in the evening, after the afternoon tea, cakes and speeches, we had chance to go out to the beach and get some lovely shots of the bride and groom and the rest of the wedding party.

 Being asked to do the photographs for this wedding was what first started my interest in photography and thinking about trying wedding photography professionally. I feel like my photography has improved a lot since this first foray into wedding photography, and my lens collection has certainly grown (these were all taken with the standard kit lens), but I am still proud of these first photographs and feel like they still stand up well against my newer images.