King of The Castle

Weddings and portraits have taken up most of my time this last week but alongside these I was back at Melville Castle twice. One was for a wedding show and the other for a photo shoot with Casper and Hamish, both of which were great fun!

I arrived at Melville Castle bright and early and did my usual look around to check the lighting and that everything was as I would expect to find it, which it was. I earmarked a couple of nice spots to shoot Casper and Hamish though I was fully aware it was going to be entirely up to the two of them whether or not they wanted to pose there! Casper was going to be the main model. His owners were having their golden wedding anniversary at the weekend and we were after a nice shot of Casper which would be enlarged and mounted as an anniversary gift. Melville Castle’s weddings and events manager, Arlene, had booked me for the photography as I do a lot of work for Melville Castle as well as shooting many weddings there each year. She was friends with Casper’s owners and the pictures of him were to be a surprise present which would be presented at the anniversary party. As well as Casper, Arlene also wanted a picture of her own dog, Hamish, and also a picture of Casper and Hamish together.

Getting the two dogs to Melville secretly was a carefully organised covert and clandestine operation, lol! Anyway the two clients presently arrived and the first priority for Casper was inspecting the castle while Hamish headed off straight into the bar. Smart dog, eh? The bar eventually was to Hamish’s liking and he came back through and paused for a second or two on the stairwell that is commonly used for the cake cutting ceremony at the castle’s weddings. I managed to grab a quick shot of him as he sat there which proved to be Arlene’s favourite as she said I’d caught his usual expression perfectly.

We then took the two of them around to the front of the castle as I really wanted a shot of Casper with the castle as a backdrop behind him. Casper however wasn’t too interested in this as he was more fascinated in the castle’s fountain. However, I did manage to grab one shot of him during the nano second he paused in front of the castle! Initially we started off trying to get the two dogs to pose together for a picture but neither wanted to ‘sit’ as the extensive castle grounds were far too inviting. So, I told their handler just to leave them alone for a while and I’d try and shoot some natural images as they enjoyed themselves. Very often this approach generates the best images anyway rather than trying for formal posed shots and today was no exception. I got several good pictures as the two of them played around and then we took them both back inside and viewed the shots on my laptop.

Everyone was thrilled with the pictures and Arlene found it extremely hard to decide which one was the best and to have printed and mounted up for the anniversary gift. In the end she decided it was impossible to just pick one and instead chose three which I would have mounted in the same style and for which she would buy a special presentation box. She also had the same problem choosing a photograph for herself of Hamish and eventually narrowed it down to four. I heard later that Casper’s owners were absolutely thrilled with the photographs which have all now been framed and hung proudly on the wall!

As I left Melville Castle after the session I took a quick photo of the castles gateway. I do a lot of photography for the castle’s marketing and promotional requirements (in fact I’d just been looking though the new castles brochure that has just come out and for which I did the photography) and I noticed the large banner that sits on the walls either side of the entrance gate advertising the various events that the castle is hosting had just been changed and another one of my photographs was now advertising Sunday’s Wedding Show. There’s going to be a wedding show at Melville Castle once a month now until the end of the year so I’ll tell you more about them next time as well as all the exciting changes to Melville Castle that the new owner is in the throes of making.