Weddings and magazines.

Well we’re beginning to come to the end of the main wedding season. Traditionally May through to September are the main wedding months. I still have a few weddings booked right up until the end of the year but after October there will be longer interludes between them. I’ve also been doing some magazine work the last few weeks and have a few more in the pipeline over January and February. The recent work has been quite diverse and has included titles like: Best Scottish Weddings, Real Life Weddings, The People’s Friend, The Scots Magazine, Scottish Home and Country and has ranged from small features like Wedding Gallery, through to a two page spread, a six page main feature article and a front cover. I’ve also been involved with producing some new brochures for a few Scottish wedding venues.

Some of you already know that I did a lot of magazine work for a number of years. However, when Coffee Table Books entered the wedding market it fuelled my enthusiasm for weddings even more so I cut right down on the magazine and publishing work to devote the vast majority of my time to weddings. Not only is the designing of Coffee Table Books a great outlet for creativity, but I knew I would also be ahead of the game as I’d been doing similar design work for the magazine and production houses. All wedding photographers know that the key element of Coffee Table Books is their design. The actual production, or manufacture, of the final book is carried out by your chosen finishing company. There are quite a number to choose from all offering differing levels of quality, and therefore price. A photographer will choose which company he will use to produce the final book based upon these two elements and his client base. For me, I want the highest possible quality so I use a company here in Edinburgh who use superior materials and are where I can physically call in and ’touch and feel’ the product all the way through the production process. I pay a little bit more for this than if I opted to send the work out overseas, which I know a lot photographers choose to do. Of course, other wedding photographers in Edinburgh, and indeed anywhere in the country, can also use a high end production company, so that is why it is the design that sets the albums apart and makes the flow of each book unique. For photographers who produce really stunning Image Books, their design is a closely guarded secret. I am often asked by fellow wedding photographers and photography students how I created certain layouts and spreads, as many of them are not possible in the album design templates that are commonly used. Of course, I tactfully decline to answer these questions, lol! But this is one reason why I still like to keep my hand in with magazine work. As well as supplying the photography I’m sometimes also consulted on the actual look and feel of the article or feature. This has enabled me over the years to work closely with a number of Editors where I’ve learned a lot of inside tips and tricks. So, when digital technology suddenly made it possible to produce a set of wedding photographs as a Coffee Table Book I jumped at the opportunity!

Another reason I like to keep my hand in with magazine and publishing work is that it keeps the photojournalistic side of my wedding photography sharp. There really is nothing like working on a commission for a magazine or journal to appreciate the true meaning of the word ’photojournalism’! When it comes to commissioning photography magazine Editors are quite ruthless, which they have to be. They will commission you once and if you don’t come up with the goods you’ll never get a commission again. There are no excuses in this field. You turn up for the assignment - you get the photographs - you deliver them to the Editor. You cant say “Oh, but it rained on the day” or “things didn’t go as expected” or “we didn’t have enough time to get all the photographs”. They are not interested in any of that. All they want is a set of stunning photographs. I recall one occasion I was sent down to Floors Castle for In Britain magazine and part of the arrangements were a half hour session with the Duke of Roxburghe, which was also to include an interview. On the morning I was phoned by the Duke’s personal assistant to say I would only get fifteen minutes with him, even though the magazine had booked the half hour. But then when I got to Floors the Duke himself decided he only had five minutes! And believe me, this is not an uncommon occurrence. So you can see how your skills really do get honed to perfection. Incidentally, (in case you were wondering, lol) on this particular commission the Editor liked the photographs so much she ran the article as a seven page feature when it had originally been scheduled for four and the Roxburghe Estate liked it so much they booked me to come back down and do some photography for the Roxburghe Hotel.

I adopt exactly the same policy with couples I meet up with looking to book me for their wedding photography. I simply promise them that they will get superb photographs from their wedding day no matter what! I’ve included throughout this post a few images illustrating some photojournalistic shots from recent weddings that captured key moments and expressions from various stages of a wedding day. I can’t post any ‘secret’ Image Book spreads for obvious reasons, lol, but if you can make it along to the Queensferry Hotel open evening next Wednesday between 6pm and 8pm I’ll have plenty of books and albums for you look through over a coffee or glass of wine.

Wedding photographer sued this week.

Well there’s been great interest this week in yesterdays news item about the wedding photographer who has been sued for delivering substandard photographs. As you will know from many of my previous blog posts it is these type of ‘photographers’ who create all the wedding photography horror stories and why it is so important you check out and book a good fulltime professional as opposed to a Saturday guy, or Weekend Warrior as we call them in the business. Now, I don’t know all the details as to how this particular couple ended up booking this photographer but I had a look at the photographers website (which incidentally I note is no longer online at the time I write this) and to be quite frank his images were dire all round!

Now all photographers will have some kind of portfolio to show to potential clients. This may be their website, wedding albums, brochure, etc. So it is very important that you give it a good look. And before booking anyone make sure you see plenty of wedding albums and study carefully the images. All the albums should be of complete genuine weddings, beware of the ones that are compilations from a number of different weddings. The standard of photography you see in the sample albums will be what you can expect from your own wedding day. It is highly unlikely a wedding photographer who’s albums are full of mediocre pictures is suddenly going to produce a set of stunning photographs at your wedding.

Another good tip is ask to see their most recent weddings. Most wedding photographers these days will provide the brides and grooms with their own online gallery. If a photographer is reluctant to let you see these then alarm bells should be ringing! All good photographers are immensely proud of their work and will be more than happy to show you as many photographs and albums as you wish. You’ll have noticed from my blog how most of what I talk about is weddings and wedding photography. That is because I love them! I love photographing them and I love spending the days afterward designing and creating the albums and books. These are a photographers selling tools, so make sure you pay more attention to them than to his sales patter.

We are coming into the wedding fair season and as photography is one of the key elements of the wedding day you’ll find at these shows photographers are a plenty. At the last big wedding show I exhibited at there were almost twenty Edinburgh wedding photographers. It is estimated that between 60-70% of wedding photographers are part-timers rather than bona fide full time professionals so if you are going to be attending any wedding shows please be careful. The couple in the above news item found their guy at a wedding fair!

Anyway, I hope some of what I’ve said may be of help. I had intended my next blog entry to be about my recent magazine work but decided to do a quick on this subject while its still fresh in everyone’s mind. I’ve posted a few images too from Louise and Alan's recent wedding at Craighouse in Edinburgh. If you want to see some more there’s three extensive wedding galleries on my website and I’ll be at the Queensferry Hotel open evening on October 21st.

More weddings at Melville Castle

Well I’m currently in the middle of five weddings all at Melville Castle with Anja and Daniel’s being the middle one of the five just this last weekend. This puts me well ahead as having photographed more weddings at Melville Castle than any other wedding photographer in Edinburgh. Melville Castle is now enjoying a new lease of life under its new owners and the beautiful venue is even more enjoyable to photograph at than ever before. I’ve also been here a couple of other times for wedding shows too, so I’m seriously thinking about moving in! lol. I’ve also been doing some magazine work too, that I will tell you more about next time, which is the reason I’m falling behind with my blogging!

Melville Castle is currently operating as an exclusive wedding venue, which I really like as it makes the weddings very private and intimate. There is also a new marquee up adjacent to the castle so it’s able to cater for even the biggest of wedding party’s. My last three weddings however have all been around the 100 mark so we haven’t needed to use the marquee. If you’ve been to Melville you will know how beautiful it is both inside as well as outside. All of the main south facing rooms have huge ornate windows that allows the light to simply flood through. Use of light is critical in photography and it is one of the key skills that set photographers apart. For my style of photography I like to exploit the natural light to its fullest extent sometimes carefully marrying it with light from a speed light, which is often called fill-flash or controlled flash. This is particularly important for bride and groom sets and bridal portraits. With bridal portraits my objective is to make the bride look as glamorous as possible. So I just imagine I’m shooting a front cover magazine image as the basic principals are exactly the same. Firstly I need to ensure that the light and shooting angle is the most flattering, which often entails manipulating the light either with a reflector or enhancing it with supplemental light from the speed light. And then, secondly, I need to make the subject feel comfortable and confident so as to get the best out of them. I also use what we call ’flow posing’ to make the session smooth and enjoyable which produces the natural, relaxed photographs that I’m known for.

On Saturday we had mixed weather with sunshine and showers and blustery wind. As is often the case we were able to pop out for fifteen minutes or so between showers and grab some outdoor pictures, including all the group shots. Anja and Daniel had booked me for 8 hours starting with pre-wedding preparations at 12.30 through until the first dance at 8.30pm. So we were going to get a good mix of around 300 images from the whole day.

I first met Anja and Daniel at a wedding show here at Melville Castle earlier in the year. I visited them again a few days later at their home for a chat and a more leisurely look through wedding albums and books which is when they booked me to photograph their wedding day. I then met back up with them four weeks ago and we chatted more specifically about the day itself going through their timings and arrangements etc. This series of meetings is the norm for couples in Scotland. For those coming from overseas or up from England we’ll have a series of telephone conversations instead.

The day itself was fantastic! Everything went off like a dream and we got a stunning set of photographs. All the photographs shown here are from their wedding and I’ve popped in a couple of Anja’s bridal portraits to illustrate what I was saying about utilizing the light. We had a lot of fun doing the main bride and groom sets, as you can see from the ’piano’ picture. As part of the re-decorations Melville Castle have just been getting an electronic mini grand piano which plugs in and plays itself. We could resist sitting Daniel down behind it and miming away as it played through a few tracks!

The next Wedding Show at Melville Castle is scheduled for Sunday, October 25th. The fifth of my five-in-row Melville Castle weddings is Saturday 24th, so maybe I will book a room! Anyway, if you fancy coming along and seeing some of the changes here I’d love to see you.