Anyway I might get chance to back track over a few things in the next few weeks but for today I’ll tell you about my last wedding, which was down in the Borders last weekend. As a wedding photographer in Edinburgh I get the chance to travel all over Scotland photographing weddings at some of our most magnificent venues. But last weekend’s wedding had me at three all in one day!
Leigh-ann and Jonathan were getting married at Gavinton village church and then onto their reception at Wedderburn Castle. I was booked to start at Leigh-ann’s parents home in Lauder, which meant I’d have the three different venues on the day. This is really nice as it produces a real diversity of images as well as capturing the entire day from start to finish.
I arrived at the house for 11am and did an hour of pre-wedding preparations and bridal portraits, as well as a request from Leigh-ann’s father to photograph his Japanese koi-carp. In fact, he had more photographs taken of himself standing proudly by their pond than what he did standing with Leigh-ann! (He knows I’m only joking lol, couldn’t resist it!) 
It was then a half hour drive to the church where I grabbed a few shots of Jonathan and his bestman and ushers before the wedding cars started to arrive. I also hooked up with Geoff from watchthebirdie from this point onwards who was producing the wedding video. I’ve worked with Geoff on many occasions and he’s the only videographer I recommend so I was really chuffed when he won the 2009 VOWS award for vidoegraphy just a few weeks ago.
He was still buzzing actually, lol!
Following the wedding ceremony, which I photographed reportage style for the most part, we headed back to Wedderburn Castle where we’d agreed we’d do most of the classic photography including all the group photographs. By now it was getting late into the afternoon and the sun was dropping quickly. I know many photographers do not like winter weddings, in fact some just won’t do them due to it “being too dark for photography”, but I absolutely love them!
I spent a few years doing commercial and editorial work before I went back into wedding photography fulltime and this included some landscape photography so for me the last two hours of sunset right at the end of the day has always been magical! That’s why it’s known as the golden hour. So I knew we were going to get some gorgeous, atmospheric images! There’s a few examples posted here for you to see.
The first is a 'standard' arriving at the castle image with the bride and groom posed classically beside the wedding car with the formidable Wedderburn Castle making a dramatic backdrop. I also did a similar version too without the car, posing the bride and groom at the castle entrance and shooting from a very low angle to accentuate the mightiness of the castle. I converted this image to black and white so it would complement the first shot. I then rotated around Leigh-ann and Jonathan for the natural looking image here with the sun setting right behind them which produced a nice warm, romantic picture.
After all the group shots I took Leigh-ann and Jonathan back inside the castle to capture the last few minutes of the golden light. The suns low angle was pouring through a couple of the huge, ornate windows high above the main staircase creating a be-speckled array of pools of light and shadows. You’ll notice from the three images taken on the staircase how warm and distinctive it makes the photographs appear, particularly the shot of Leigh-ann right at the top of the staircase leaning on the banister. The angled golden light doesn’t last for long but with flow posing techniques I was able to shoot around 30-40 different images in about ten minutes before it disappeared.
After the wedding breakfast, and of course all the speeches and cake cutting, I quickly took Jonathan and Leigh-ann to the bottom of the staircase whilst it was free from passing guests and family and got a wide shot of the two of them at the foot of the staircase with the Christmas tree all lit up behind them. This is another atmospheric photograph that you cant get until the light levels are low enough.
The day concluded, photographically anyway, with the first dance. Regular readers of my blog will know how much I enjoy the first dance photographs. They are so full of character once the lights come down! I got a good mix of full length and close ups as well as my trademark first dance image looking up at the couple from floor level. And, no, I don’t lay prone on the ground for this. Far too dangerous with so many stomping feet!
0 comments:
Post a Comment