Can someone tell me where 2009 went?
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009I have soaked this year up like a sponge, it’s been one of the best! Thank you thank you thank you to all our fabulous wedding clients – it’s been the busiest most artistically rewarding one yet and I’m thrilled that you chose me to photograph your special days. Before this starts to sound like a New Year’s testimonial to a previous twelve months of business though, I just wanted to create an ‘ickle’ wrap to the summer so that I can start blogging again. So, a couple of images from some recent nuptials then onwards and upwards into the dark evenings as winter descends and I really start to push the prime lenses to their limits.
Okay okay, so four images from near enough 10,000 presented to clients over the last two months!!! It’s been a fabulously busy period, watch this space for more.
A trip down memory lane
Monday, August 17th, 2009Mark and Natalie’s wedding at Holy Trinity in Bengeo with a reception at Ware’s Fanham’s Hall is a commission that stepped right back into my youth ‘billingi’ years ago. I grew up in Hertford’s little known satellite town called Bengeo, a place by the way my Tom Tom refused to give me an ETA for as I edged up from Berkshire passing every motorway maintenence vehicle that’s ever been built. I’m sure they store them all on the M25 for personal humour. Some shots from the day with running commentary.
Mark just ahead of guests arriving. I haven’t been to this church since I was a boy scout, so it was strange to tread the carpet (which I swear they haven’t changed) to the alter.
I shot this twice. This was the initial (and better) grab shot as I emerged from the reception venue car park to find Mark and Natalie still in their vintage Rolls Royce. I was worried about excess motion blur and the loss of groom in the background so tried to set up a technically better documentary scenario. As always the reconstruction was a poor relative, so I stuck with the one my insincts initially got excited about.
Great Tythe Barn wedding photography
Sunday, August 16th, 2009Darren and Linsay’s wedding took place last Wednesday in Gloucestershire at the Great Tythe Barn near Tetbury. It’s quite a unique wedding venue as many guests come here to stay the week with friends and relatives prior to a ceremony. The 16th Century Tythe Barn is surrounded by a hamlet of Cotswold stone cottages, some essential amenities and… Frank and Furter; GTB’s New Zealand Kune Kune pigs. (I suspect they laughed their little trotters off when they were named.) Strong Scottish flavour to this one, kilted groomsmen, a piper and Ceilidh, the latter being an informal Scottish dance requiring a sizeable degree of lateral concentration if you’re swinging a partner whilst trying to retain a little male dignity.
Rivervale Barn wedding photography
Sunday, August 16th, 2009It’s been good to see Rivervale Barn grow into a working wedding venue over the past year and it was even more special to shoot my first wedding there at the start of the week, Rivervale’s fourth. Double congratulations then; John and Moyra for the incredible turnaround that I’ve witnessed, from nought to sixty five thousand tiles in twelves months, and Alex and Carrie our bride and groom for the day. Rivervale has one of the finest ceremony rooms I’ve had the privilege to work in, huge floor to ceiling windows (there must be 40/50 feet of glass) that drop kicks light into the room in cathedral like fashion; a photographer’s dream.
Where are they now? Sian, Matthew (and Jack!)
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009About a year after our own wedding, we covered Sian and Matthew’s day, also at Silchester House near Reading. I’ve really enjoyed catching up with the lives of those couples we photographed on their own wedding day. I’ve been sending out mails gradually and have a stack of stories to tell. So to continue the ‘Where are they now’ feature, in their own words (well, Sian’s…) “Since 6th Oct 07, what’s happened? We went on our six week honeymoon to Oz; fantastic. We’re living in the same house with an extension on the way. The most exciting development has been the birth of our baby boy Jack Christopher Hart, born 9th May this year weighing in at 8lbs 13. He’s now ten weeks old and a gorgeous boy, who likes to smile and talk. (Sian it gets even more amazing. Our 15 month old has just brought me a frozen pea that Mummy dropped on the floor. To him, it’s the most amazing thing in the World. His delight at sharing this tiny object with me just makes my heart dance!) We’re loving being parents; the best thing we have ever done. Coincidence that your little boy is also called Jack, it’s such a cool name. (I agree Sian!) Our wedding pictures are our pride and joy – the photos were so lovely and really helped us to capture our memories. I can’t believe it was nearly two years ago – time flies!! We both turned thirty this year and we are having a fancy dress party dressed as rock and pop stars. The band Target will be there, they played at our wedding. Very excited about reliving that part of the wedding again.” Matt, where’s the invite? Have a great time, your wedding was a brilliant party from start to finish. Loved the old bus too. Made for some bus-tastic photos. Didn’t want to use the fab word again… my English teacher would roll his eyes and that weird tobacco he kept, and then smoke it in a Shakespearean tragedy. He was strange like that.
Where are they now? Annabel and Mike
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009It’s fair to say that most of us are so preoccupied being busier than busy in this hectic go go non stop You Tube Google World we frequent personally and professionally, that we forget to take stock and remember sometimes where we’ve been and what we’ve achieved. Well, I’m going to try and redress that with the following blog feature. It won’t be long before I’ll be batting at the 200 not out wicket, a double century of weddings; experience that began tentatively covering my best man’s brother’s wedding as a favour, to a career that has taken me across continents. I’ve been trained and mentored by some of the industry’s finest and found new important friendships with fellow pros that share the following professional impulse; a desire to document a day so uniquely special to each client and do it whatever the weather, whatever the day and even when England are playing a World Cup match that’s actually on a channel we don’t have to pay for. We’ve been tremendously lucky at Breathe in that we established a social portraiture and wedding photography business in Newbury earlier this decade that has not only provided us with an income to feed hungry family mouths, but introduced us to some fabulous couples and families. It’s their stories that enthuse upon me that weekends were not made for drinking beer and watching X Factor, and so I begin a series of blog entries about the couples I have witnessed saying ‘I do’ through a selection of lenses. 3rd February 2007, Annabel and Mike were wed in Windsor with a wedding reception at Great Fosters near Egham; a grade one listed building that is remarkable for a list of reasons that would make this blog unreadably long. In Annabel’s words: “Mike and I are doing great, still living in Windsor. We’ve been back to Great Fosters for our last two wedding anniversaries, which was really lovely. We always pay homage to Jane Austen’s curtains. (A reference to the fact that needing to darken a scene whilst photographing the couple round the hotel, I whipped these historic items closed risking the demise of one of the World’s most historic curtains.) Mike went out to South Africa in June on a boys tour to watch the Lions. He ended up doing the highest bungee jump in the World off Bloukrans Bridge (about 216 m) – crazy fool. All 18 stones of Yorkshire goodness dangled on a piece of elastic! Other than that, we’re still at the same house but have been giving it and the garden a bit of a makeover. No baby Annabel and Mikes… yet.”
Breathe Pictures launch new web design
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009For those zooming straight through to the blog from Breathe’s splash page, take a click to our main website from Breathe links. It’s a brand new design! It’s been updated with new galleries to promote wedding photography in Newbury our hometown and has many new and unseen images. For those who have prompted, there will indeed be a whole new section on portraiture coming soon, but with the nuptials season in full swing, right now pretty much all of our attentions at HQ are devoted to that cause. It’s a busy August with the best part of half of it being spent at celebrations across the south of England. Personally I’ll be clocking up some miles too shooting weddings on the coast; Dorset being one of my personal highlights as that’s where I spent many of my childhood holidays. So take a moment to visit the new site, let me know what you think of it in the comments section here, I’m a big boy and happy to take some constructive crit.
Breathe Pictures photograph featured in The Times
Saturday, July 18th, 2009Nice surprise to hear from a client getting wed next week to say one of our prewed pictures has appeared in The Times Marriages and Engagements section. It’s page 91; a slightly cross processed image taken from Neil and Hannah’s prewed shoot about a month back. Newspaper print process is not always kind to this kind of colour treatment, so I thought I’d pop it online in all it’s originally intended glory, plus a couple of extras beneath. I’m off to Sir Charles Napier, a new venue today (for me anyway) in Chinnor; car’s packed, batteries are charged, the primes are, well, primed. (Photography quip-ish.)
Rivervale Barn wedding photography in Yateley
Thursday, July 16th, 2009Solid day today spent at Rivervale Barn in Yateley shooting test and stock images for this stunning new wedding venue set on the banks of the Blackwater, approximately one hour from the smoke. It’s one of the most incredible barn projects I have ever seen but don’t just take my word for it, take a peak at the images below. (65,000 reclaimed tiles by the way, now THAT takes some laying.) Owned by John and Moyra Illsley, they’ll also be your hosts for the showround if you visit. I think meeting the owners creates a special relationship when planning a wedding, without doubt. By the way, if you’re wondering who the mystery bride is, it’s Nat, our new recruit at Breathe Pictures! She recently joined the company to fulfil a retouching and photographic assisting role. Dressing you up as a bride for some test shots at Rivervale Barn may have seemed a strange initiation Nat, but I think you rose to that challenge well! (Flowers courtesy Cherubs of Reading and bridal wear from Jennies, as featured on recommended links.)
Cantley House Hotel wedding photography
Sunday, June 21st, 2009Pastures new this weekend as I photographed at Cantley for the first time. Well done Steve, well done Sian, fab day, and one of the most original evening mobile studios yet! I know that by the time you get a chance to read this, you’ll more than likely have returned to your hotel for some early evening R&R following a day supping island cocktails on a beach under a sun umbrella in Hawaii. As much as it’s a great honour to photograph at familiar venues where as a company we’re a preferred photographic supplier, it’s equally good to tackle new locations. If you’ve read the blog or taken in the kind of thing that inspires me as a wedding photographer through my images on the main site, you’ll know that I much prefer available light to napalming a scene with heavy flash work. When I started photographing weddings, a strobe would be attached to the camera pretty much all day. I’ve become subtle in ‘me old age…’ (cue comments on how kids have no respect these days and how in my day you had to climb up inside chimneys for pocket money.) And so, it was a delight to see a venue with some large windows to throw shafts of light on to various scenes. I look forward to going back one day.
Oh, and as for the mobile studio, we moved outside for the first time in a long time, and invited guests to embrace an Hawaiian theme. What is it about grown men with grass skirts and inflatable sharks? Loved it!
Wasing Park wedding photography
Friday, June 19th, 2009I’m spending a reasonable amount of my summer at Wasing photographing weddings and it’s a venue I’m very fond of. A couple of shots from Tom and Anna’s fabulous nuptials as the post edit work now begins. Quick mention too for Wasing Park chef extraordinaire, the wonderful Joe. I quite like, when given the opportunity, to get into the kitchen at a wedding. The wedding banquet is such an important facet of the big day and chef is an important player and unsung hero frankly. When the thanks are read out, the list of key players will oft include the coordinator, for good reasons clearly, but rarely chef. So Joe, incase you get to read this, you’re an absolute star, and I can’t wait to show you the book of stuff I’ve recorded in your kitchen over the last few months.
Wasing Park wedding photography
Sunday, June 14th, 2009For fear of becoming a BBC repeat, I may have mooted this before; keeping up the blog is sometimes like keeping the diary you were bought for Christmas aged 9. (For some reason mine was always a Disney one featuring Mickey and friends. It continued that way well into my teens.) You diligently filled it in for ooh, a good seven days following New Year’s Eve, then it became a series of ‘Got up, had lunch, went to bed’ comments for week two and by week three, it transgressed to a doodle pad at best. However I have a blog guardian it seems in Robbie, who wed Sarah yesterday at Wasing Park. So, Robbie, your enthusiasm for updating noted, some images from yesterday. I look forward to seeing you when you return from your honeymoon in July.
The Black Barn wedding photography
Monday, June 8th, 2009Their private viewing gallery now online, here’s just a few scene setters from Chris and Caroline’s wedding in Berkshire.
Great Fosters wedding photography
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009It was an early ’set off’ yesterday for Adam and Julie’s wedding. Usually I’m car bound during Wossy’s Radio 2 gig, but if the radio splurts a dash of Brian Matthews when I turn the engine over, then I’m probably dodging traffic on the M25. Destination Ewell, arrived 10.30, service midday (sent to the balcony, up in the Gods at the church, if you’ll pardon the usage) – why is it everyone in the House of God is welcome bar the photographer? Anyway, back to a favourite venue of mine, the Tudor splendor that is Great Fosters near Egham for the reception. A couple of years ago at the very same venue I’d been doing an arty lit shot with the bride on a stairwell. I whipped closed a couple of curtains, only to find these were original designs by Jane Austin hung in 1798 by the great lady herself. I get selective vision when I’m photographing weddings, so large ‘don’t walk on the grass’, ‘don’t photograph in here’, or more pertinently titled signs like ‘don’t touch these curtains ever ever ever’ don’t tend to fog my vision when trying to grab a shot. Still no harm done, honest guvnor. A couple of favourite images from yesterday then…
Smile for the man?
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009I reckon, standby – HUGE generalisation about to emit via this ‘ere blog… I reckon, that the main reason people have a fear of being photographed, is not that their soul will be stolen and sold to the cheapest bidder via Ebay, but they feel a pressure to bring on an unnatural smile. Such is the memory of school photographs where the history tutor (why was it always the history guy) would stand in the school photographer’s doorway and threaten you with six of the best if you failed to show your parents via a smile how wonderful your schooling days were, that many an adult now likens a trip to Doctor Camera with a one hour subjection to root canal surgery. It is true that I may as a photographer ask a sitter to smile, or at least crack a faint smiley type expression thingie to show enthusiasm for the session. But usually that’ll be during a family shoot, where you know your work won’t be displayed if you return a Victorian presentation of earnest intensity. Often though I won’t ask for that, opting to create some kind of diversion, usually by conversation, where the subjects engage more naturally. I shot two pre-wedding shoots today with couples I’ll see over the next couple of months – and I like to think, both shoots will yield some cracking images. Each session started with the usual mantra; “I hate having my picture taken.” By the end of it though, I hope that both couples felt we’d done nothing more hellish than simply walk through the countryside adjacent to my studio, popping a couple of shots here and there, and talking about their wonderful honeymoon locations. I asked one of my couples; “Now, how many times in the last twenty minutes have I told you to smile?” Just as an aside, some parents who bring their children for a family shoot will feel the shoot hasn’t yielded any gold if they don’t remember a particularly smiley visit. I’m delighted when I receive a mail or phone call to say how surprised and delighted they are with the results. A little wry smile appears on my face, naturally that is.
The wedding documentary book is released
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009I’ve been working on one for a number of months now as an alternative to our choices of wedding album. Many couples I work with would love to include a great number of their wedding photographs in an album, but subtlety often plays a role in their final choice. So after some time searching I have finally found a published product that feels and reads like a book where there is no limit to the number of photographs you can place in a 100 to 200 page presentation. Don’t think album though, the pages are thinner and it has a wrapped cover. See the book at our showroom in Thatcham, Berkshire.
What to do with your photo CD!
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009Use it as a coaster. Hang several from a string on a branch above your veggie patch to scare those seed eating birds away. A mini frisbie. Make up mirror. Attach it to your forehead via a loop of elastic to look like a doctor at a fancy dress do. Or… take it to Snappy Snaps of Newbury and let them print the images contained at high street prices. For a long time now many of my local photographic peers have berated me for selling digital images instead of purely prints. And to an extent, I can see the method behind their angst. Traditionally, negatives drove the currency behind a photographer’s life and business. It’s true that many a photographer would more willingly sell his Grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal than relinquish ownership of one single strip of archived negative. (That’s one for the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans.) And digital images of course are only a modern extension of the neg. So why do we let our precious digital negs loose for clients to ‘use and abuse?’ Well since I’m quoting verse from the classics, let me reinvent Jimmy Saville’s 80s ‘Age of the Train’ sonnet… this is the age of digital photography. We watch, use and share digital files as daily habit, so why shouldn’t photography be a part of that process? We have been quick as photographers to embrace the advantages digital imaging provides us on a business and creative platform, so it seems somewhat selective practice to only share half of this new technology. There is an argument that clients may well take your image, recolour, stretch, mutilate or sell it for their own gain following hours of your own hard work. But as a business colleague from Planet Corporate used to say to me years ago; “Move on!” Why let files collect digital dust on your server, when they should be doing the one thing photographs were designed to do; share. So yes, I’ll proudly continue to include digital files in my wedding package, and yes, I’ll proudly continue to sell digital files to my portrait clients. I may well guard my rights on a commercial level, but in the social photography field, I believe it’s time to share. In closing, allow me the absolute honour to recommend a digital print shop that all my clients can contact; Snappy Snaps of Newbury. I have access to many print specialists in the UK and use differing skillsets from each, but time and time again I return to my local favourite. The fact they print on site means they are accountable for the quality at a consumer facing level. They use the highest quality papers and employ staff that know how to produce a black and white. (I’ve seen how green a monochrome print can be emerging from a supermarket lab!) More to the point, all staff members own cameras and practice the artform. And here’s proof…
Jay and Katy
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
The farm right now (home of Breathe’s studio) feels fabulous. During the winter I rarely use the yard, grounds and fields around us – so it’s great when some kindly weather drops by. Much of my social photography calendar is and will be taken up this year by wedding photography and pre-wedding shoots. A couple of shots from Jay and Katy’s pre-wed shoot featuring some new colour work; textures and the sunburnt look of old Polaroid stock. Boundary pushing is very important in this business, and I’m really trying to edge away from what’s around me, so the post production work being carried out at ‘Chez Breathe’ is entering a new era of development. Hope you like them!
Low light wedding photography
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008[photopress:wasing_park.jpg,full,alignleft]What I sometimes struggle to understand when talking to fellow pros in the wedding photography industry, is why photogs run inside and strap a speedlight (flash) to their camera body the moment the sun makes an exit from the skies above. I’m a relative newbie to the habit of chasing any light that makes itself available to shoot in and I’ll admit to being inspired by some of the Aussie and World market leading wedding shooters like Ghionis and Schembri in that particular field. But I have definately found that the age old cliche of ‘looking for the light,’ has, if you’ll forgive a hideously contrived company pun, ‘breathed’ life into my passion for capturing wedding images. Alongside those more candid moments that fashionably have become labelled as wedding photojournalism, there’s always time to go look for a shot that hopefully won’t appear in nine out of ten albums. The weekend just passed I photographed at a brand new venue called Wasing Park. A fabulous couple, a fabulous venue… and possibly the biggest bridal suite bed I have ever seen. Anyway, by the by, above – a couple of pics from when the sun went down. I know I know, you’re expecting scenes from the venue, perhaps the obligatory stuff, but nestled in hundreds of acres of prime farming countryside, I couldn’t resist an old Fordson tractor that resided down an overgrown lane, and as Wasing has invested in some of the most incredible lighting features – a shot that reflects the attention to detail that’s gone into downlighting parts of the venue. And then finally, below, I kid you not, a completely unarranged moment, when passing by the best man at the end of the wedding banquet, I spied the chap altering his notes.
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