And the winner is...

Well that’s it! The Wedding Photo of the Year competition finally closes. I did say in my post on Friday that going into the last weekend “no one is safe”, and that proved to be the case! Before giving the results can I just say “Thank you” once again to everyone who took the time to vote and leave comments. I’m glad everyone had fun with it. A couple of people attempted to vote twice, but it did say “one vote per person” so the second one was discounted and a couple of you sent in messages but forgot to actually state who you were voting for, lol, but as you’ll see from the results it wouldn’t have swung things differently. Anyway, here’s the top five…

5th place: Katrina and Paul’s photograph.
4th place: Leigh-ann and Jonathan’s photo.

3rd place, with 61votes: Lucie and Ryan’s photo.
2nd place, with 88 votes: Kelly and Nick’s picture.

1st place, with 116 votes: Jenna and Casey’s photograph.

And my favourite comment from the competition: “Nick scrubs up quite well, but to look that good must be thanks to your photographic magic!” Thanks for that Richard. And don’t worry, I wont reveal your name ;)

So, well done to the top five couples! The couples in second and third place will receive an enlargement of their photograph printed and mounted and the winners will get their image produced as a gorgeous Gallery Print. I’ll also do a free Trash the Dress shoot for any of the top five who are up for it. Trash the Dress is currently taking America by storm but hasn’t yet taken off over here with the famously reserved and conservative Brits. Basically, what we do is a post wedding photo session where we can be more adventurous with the poses and sets and locations as we don’t have to worry about “not getting the dress dirty”. Not only is it a unique opportunity to wear your wedding dress again, but its great fun and produces innovative and fantastic pictures. So perhaps all of you who have voted in the competition can now talk Katrina, Leigh-ann, Lucie, Kelly and Jenna into booking one!

The top five photographs will be left on display on my portrait website: www.relaxedimages.com

As well as my own Wedding Photo of the Year competition I’ve also been judging the SWRI Photography Proficiency course this week. I was appointed as National Judge last year, so this is my second one. All the candidates spend the year honing and improving their photographic skills across 12 different categories and then they enter their best image for each category. They come into the SWRI head quarters where they are sub-edited and made ready for judging. I then come in and start going through each candidates entry of twelve images. As well as allocating marks to each photograph, which are then tallied up to give their final overall score, its my job to write up a critique on each image for the benefit and future progress of the candidate. There is a three tier award system for total scores upwards of 65% with the highest award being for an achieved score above 95%. It’s certainly interesting work and something I enjoy enormously.

I’m also patiently awaiting to see how I have done in the 2009 Wedding Album of the Year competition. This is run by the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers, and as one of the largest association of photographers in the world it is one of the most fiercely contested competitions amongst professionals with literally several thousand entries. Anyway, I’m hoping I’ve picked up a Special Merit Award for one of my 2009 wedding albums so I'll let you know in due course.

Please keep a check on the News pages of my websites as there is a couple of good wedding shows coming up soon and I’m also going to be running a special valentine’s day promotion for anyone who may be currently looking for a wedding photographer in Scotland. Thank you again for those who got involved in the Wedding Photo competition, and don’t forget to encourage the girls to go for the Trash the Dress :)

Wedding Photo comp - Final Weekend

You would not believe how thick and fast the votes have been pouring in this week. Its been great to see all the photographs receiving such interest and nice comments. As it has been so popular I thought I'd post a "latest update" as we go into the final few days. The competition ends at midnight this Sunday, 24th.

Here's the current top five positions...

In 5th place at the moment is Katrina and Paul's photograph.
In 4th place, slipping down from 3rd, is Leigh-ann and Jonathan's picture.
In 3rd place, a new entry, is Kelly and Nick's photographs (and the votes for this image are still surging in as I write, so NO ONE is safe!

In 2nd place, but still closing the gap, especially over the last two days is Lucie and Ryan.

And currently clinging on in 1st place is Jenna and Casey.

I'd originally said the winners would get their photograph specially printed up and mounted but as things at the top are so incredibly close between Jenna and Casey and Lucie and Ryan I'll also do something for the runner up as well. (And if the votes keep coming in for Kelly and Nick at the present rate I'll probably have to do something for the top three! lol). So the runner up will receive a mounted 12 x 8 print of their image and the winners will get a top of the range 18 x 12 Gallery Print (normal price £100). I'll also do a free Trash the Dress shoot for any of the top five who fancy it!

Good luck to everyone over the weekend and the winner will be posted here on Monday.

Wedding Photo competition latest

Well my Wedding Photo of the Year 2009 competition is proving to be great fun right now. I’m getting scores of votes coming each day and its been really good reading all the comments that have been attached to many of them. Its been particularly interesting reading the comments made from ‘regular’ visitors to my blog who have no affiliation to any of the couples but simply voting on the merits of the image itself.

Anyway, the competition will run until Sunday and then I’ll publish the winners names and image on here next week. But for now I thought you might find it interesting how the voting has been going and reading some of the comments that have been left.

I launched the competition on Friday 8^th January and then emailed the 15 couples who had made it through to the final selection. I also posted a link in the News section of my wedding website which receives a few hundred hits everyday. Initially, Leigh-ann and Jonathan’s picture picked up the most votes, both from their family and friends and also a few neutrals. Lucie and Ryans photograph slowly began catching up and by Sunday evening had poked its nose into the lead. So at that stage the top three images were Lucie and Ryan, then Leigh-ann and Jonathan followed by Jenna and Casey who were pretty much neck and neck with Kelly and Nick.

On Monday and Tuesday Jenna and Casey went storming into the lead. They continued to receive plenty of votes mid week too and by Thursday I thought they wouldn’t be caught. However, there has been a rejuvenation in votes cast for Lucie and Ryan and whilst Jenna and Casey are still out in front the gap is now considerably smaller. And going by last week things can quickly change.

Once again I would like to thank everyone who has taken time to vote and leave me comments. Here’s a few of the remarks that I’ve received (I’ve omitted the names of the senders just to protect the innocent, lol).

Lucie and Ryan, a beautiful natural image.

Excellent photos to remember their special day

Leigh-ann and Jonathan’s photograph is simply stunning!

All great photos! Congrats!

Kelly and Nick, so romantic.

Casey and Jenna to win coz they are lovely

Love the pose of Marguerite and Gordon.

I would like to vote for Jenna and Casey to win. I think they look amazing and the photo is fantastic!

Katrina and Paul, beautiful bride, beautiful car, beautiful city, beautiful photo!

‘mon the Harrowers!

You have made them look so relaxed and comfortable.

The pictures are so beautiful!

Lucie and Ryan, they look so natural and so in love!

Daniel and Anja coz he has the same kilt as me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwww!

I’m not 100% sure if the last comment is a descriptive expression of emotion or if someone was suffering a heart attack just as they posted their vote! lol

Anyway, that’s the latest about the competition. Keep the votes coming in and if your chosen couple is not in the top three I suggest you start posting the link out to as many of your family and friends as possible. You have until Sunday. I’ll post the winner here next Monday, but if you cant wait until then I’m at the Queensferry Hotel, just under the Forth Road Bridge at North Queensferry, this Sunday for a wedding open afternoon between noon and 4pm, so if you want to look in and say Hi I can accidentally let the result slip out ;) Also if you are currently planning a wedding and looking for a wedding photographer I’ll have plenty of albums with me so come along for a look and a chat.

　

2009 Wedding Photo of the Year competition

I have a colleague across in the US who last year came up with an idea of having his own Wedding Photo of the Year competition. He went through all the weddings he’d shot over the year and whittled all the photographs down to a final 10 and then he posted them all on his website and invited everyone to vote for their favourite. To be honest he only came up with the idea because things were quiet being right at the end of the year and he’d decided to have a brainstorming session, lol. Anyway it was a resounding success and all the family and friends of the couples in the final selection had great fun voting in keeping up to date with it all. So this year I thought I’d try it myself.

Well I launched the competition just a few days ago on January 8th, posted the images on my photographer Edinburgh portrait website, and emailed the couples who had photographs in the final selection. Well what fun its proved to be! Before I tell you a little more about it I’d just like to thank everyone’s who has taken the time to visit and look through the images and then vote with their personal choice. I’d also especially like to thank all of you who left such nice complementary comments about the photographs, too.

I have been involved in judging many photograph contests and competitions over the years for several magazines and organisations but this is the first time I’ve done it with my own pictures. What I did was look back through every wedding I’d photographed in 2009 and selected my favourite image from each. This in itself was hard enough as there is around 200-500 photographs for every wedding. However, having got them all into a final selection came the task of whittling them down to 15. I know my colleague went for a final 10 but as there was so many good pictures I gave myself a bit of leeway and allowed an extra five, its my competition after all, lol!

Selecting the final shortlist was based on a few differing factors. From a photographic point of view I wanted images that not only had visual impact but also variety between them and also, as the winning photograph will be printed and mounted for the relevant couple, I wanted it to be a picture that not only did I like personally but would be something the couple themselves would be thrilled to hang on their wall. I believe the final selection portrays this nicely. I’m going to just go through half a dozen examples and tell you why I selected them just to give you an insight into my thought process…

The shot of Lucie and Ryan is simply photojournalistic photography at its best, capturing what was literally a split second yet crucial moment of their wedding day that portrays their happiness, love and affection in one single moment of time. Kelly and Nick’s photo is simply a timeless, romantic picture that will never date. The image of Katrina next to the wedding car outside the cathedral is just so stylish, showing off the elegance of her dress, the car and the oldy worldy Edinburgh setting. With Alyson and Duncan I shot a series of images beside the pond at Shieldhill Castle, all of which were good enough for the top 15, but most of them I know already hang on their walls but I don’t recall seeing this one, so if it wins they’ll have a new addition! Leigh-ann and Jonathan, well I don’t think I need to say anything about this one, it speaks for itself! Jenna and Casey is just a good, fun, contemporary image that I know any magazine editor would die for. A simple, uncluttered background and a natural, fashionable pose that suits black and white perfectly. Jenny and Duncan and Anja and Daniel are both great examples of staged classic photography that makes the most creative use of their location and has plenty of impact.

I’ll run the competition for two weeks and keep you up dated here on the blog. I can tell you that it is a very very close call at the moment, the three leading photos being (in no particular order as they would say on X-Factor, lol) Leigh-ann and Jonathan, Lucie and Ryan and Jenna and Casey. However, I’ve had a couple of emails this morning from couples who have only just got the competition email I sent out so I’m sure things will hot even more over the next few days!

To see all the fifteen photographs click the link in the second paragraph above and it will take straight into the competition gallery. I also have a few exciting promotions at the moment, both for weddings and portraits, so please keep a regular check on the News pages of my wedding photographer Edinburgh website as well.

Btw, the snows beginning to thaw as you can see in the pictures! Brrrr!

New website's for 2010

Well 2010 is here! 2009 was certainly action packed for me starting off the year with my smallest ever wedding of four people and concluding the year with a wedding of 5000! Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, lol! I have a strong feeling 2010 is going to be bigger and better than ever!

Photography wise I’ve been busy making a few changes. My main website is now completely wedding oriented and I’ve launched a new, separate website for portraits, although this does also include wedding photographs too. The central changes to my main website is more wedding information, which includes full price list as well as album pricing and details, a Testimonial page containing a few quotes from my thank you cards and letters and a News page which will be regularly updated with the latest news, events, promotional offers, etc. There are now five dedicated wedding galleries, one containing a selection of images from several weddings and then four real life weddings. As you know I frequently advocate that bride and grooms see several real weddings when looking for a photographer in order to establish consistency of quality, something all the bridal magazine stress the importance of too, so four real life weddings will allow visitors to the site to do this online and compare the quality of my photography against the other leading wedding photographers in Edinburgh.

I hope the Photographer Edinburgh website complements my main photography site. There is an exclusive bridal portrait gallery accompanied by a Baby gallery and a Children’s portrait gallery. I also have a Pet gallery to upload in the next few days, too. My First Year Baby Storybook package is proving really popular and I’ve got several bookings coming in for 2010. It’s an innovative idea spawned from my Storybook wedding photography. A baby’s first year, photographically anyway, is probably its most important as they grow and change so much and so quickly. So just as with my storybook wedding photography which chronicles the unfolding of a wedding day photo-journalistically and then is collated into a pictorial storybook record, I do about four different photo sessions throughout the baby’s first year culminating with their first birthday party, and then I’ll work with the mum and dad and design a First Year Storybook album ensuring that those precious and un-repeatable memories are captured and recorded forever.

If you get chance to take a look I would appreciate any feedback on either or both of my websites, whether it be good or bad. I’m always available to meet up for a personal consultation with anyone looking for a good wedding photographer but I’m also going to be out on the road a couple of times during January at the Queensferry Hotel wedding afternoon on the 17th and also at the Melville Castle wedding fayre on the 31st. As an aside…Melville Castle also has a new website, which although (like mine, lol) is not fully complete it is live online. It has a great selection of really cool wedding photographs shot at Melville Castle by this guy called Philip Hawkins. I believe he has also done the main wedding photography for their forthcoming brochure too, ;) Melville Castle's new website.

Anyway, you can use the contact page on either of my websites or drop me an email with any comments on the new site look. If you can send links to anyone you know too that would be great. And remember I’ll be regularly updating the News and Events.