Archive for June, 2008
Masks on!
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008[photopress:maskedparty2.jpg,full,alignleft]Sunday night, we found ourselves at one of Oxfordshire’s premier venues, Notley Abbey for a masked black tie event. We’ve photographed weddings at this former residence of Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, but this was somewhat of a special party thrown in honour of two of the owners’ children as they celebrated respective milestone birthdays. It’s inspiring to see the lengths some people go to sport a mask fit for a joint 18th/21st, but I do remain slightly in awe of the chap who felt a welding mask would be an award winner.
[photopress:maskedparty.jpg,full,alignleft]
Those black and white moments
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008[photopress:andywilliams.jpg,full,alignleft]Without sounding adversely sickly about why at Breathe we choose to shoot weddings, it’s the candid moments that make our industry so exciting. It’s hard to tell on a two inch screen how you’ve captured a scenario until the day’s work is downloaded later on the same evening. Purists may argue that a download doesn’t carry quite the same excitement as seeing an image chemically appear before your eyes under red lights in a darkroom, but for me, that download lays bare as many truths about the day’s photography as a good few hours swathed in toxic fumes. (For those that ask why I [Neale James] use so many smaller memory cards, I’ll repeat a blog entry from much earlier. Smaller cards mean more changes during the day for sure and if you shoot raw, you need to keep a far closer eye on the shot counter as it runs ‘dry’ that much quicker. But smaller cards also mean if one corrupts, you’ve not lost a whole wedding. Part maybe, but not a whole. Good wholesome tip.) This image is taken from the weekend’s wedding just gone. Congrats to Katy Locke and Andrew Williams, wed at St. Mary’s in Aldermaston – a venue that holds dear for the simple reason it was my own wedding venue. It’s a dark church, smallish windows, lots of tree shade and the normal rules apply; no flash during the ceremony, low key and unfussed. But the rewards are high when bride and groom exchange time with no attention paid to the 200mm lens poking out from a pew three or four metres away.