Morag and Iain's wedding at The Hub

Well 20th February was the big day for Morag and Iain and I arrived at The Hub about 2pm. It was a 3pm ceremony and I was booked to start at 2.30 through until the first dance. The day went against the weather forecast and we had rain which wasn't a problem but it meant the big dramatic shot in front of the spire (which I spoke about in my recce post) wasn't going to be possible with Morag as the ground was too wet and we didn't want her dress getting spoiled before the dancing. So, instead I did it with Iain and his bestman. Because of the rain I didn't have the deep blue sky behind the spire as on the day of the recce, so instead I coloured touched Iain and his bestman against a black and white background using a special trick I employ to enrich the texture and tones of black and white images. The result is pretty much what I anticipated and I hope you agree it looks really effective.

Morag arrived in a Mark II Jaguar and I grabbed a couple of quick shots of it outside the entrance as well as one of Morag and her father, and the two bridesmaids sitting in the back. Normally I would ask the bride and father to pause for a couple of seconds beside the car and shoot a full length and then a close up, but due to the rain I didnt hold them up at all but shot informally as they entered and then made their way along the upper gallery aisle and into the ceremony. The ceremony was lovely, the registra being a close friend of the family, and I was able to shoot from the corners of the room and capture the spontaneous smiles, laughs and a couple of tears. Following the signing of the registra, which I shoot live without them being aware of it and then also do a couple of quick posed shots just so they have both sets, the bridal party took their champers down to the foot of the main staircase for the formal group shots. It took me about 15 minutes to do the usual bridal party groupings then another 5 or so for any special requests then I did another 20 minutes with Morag and Iain by themselves getting them back in plenty time for their wedding breakfast even though up until that point they had been running behind schedule.

We had four speakers, the father of the bride, the groom, bestman and then grooms father who had been asked especially to say a few words too. I move around inbetween the tables to shoot the speeches from various different angles and viewpoints. At the same time Diane will shoot from the back of the room with a long telephoto lens so we get a really good range and variety of pictures and then argue about who got the best! lol Following the speeches was the cutting of the cake and then a few drinks in the bar before the dancing.

I always love photographing the first dance. I'm something of a low light specialist and find the ambience and atmosphere when the lights are brought down low for the dancing to offer enormous creative potential (have a look at the two examples I've just uploaded into my main Wedding Gallery on my website). I stayed down on the dance floor whilst Diane went back up into the gallery with the long lens so she could grab some overheads to add variety to the main set I'd shoot from the floor. Basically I'll follow the couple around the dance floor getting a mix of close ups as they exchange intimacies and looks, full length shots, and also wide shots of the whole dance floor. I have a few secret tricks which I enjoy bringing out towards the end of the first dance but obviously I can't mention them here or they'd no longer be secret!!! ;)

The Hub's website is: http://www.thehub-edinburgh.co.uk/

More wedding images are in my main Wedding Galleries on my website.

Wedding recce

Yesterday I was at The Hub in Edinburgh doing a recce for next weekends wedding. I do this to prep for every wedding and it’s one of the reasons I’m able to work so quickly and smoothly on the wedding day itself as I can plan out where and when I want to be so as not to use up more time than necessary on the formal group shots and bride and groom sets. With the photojournalism coverage half the secret is being in the right place at the right time, and this doesn’t happen by accident. So I have a chat with the venue wedding co-ordinator, which was Louise at The Hub, so I get a good idea of how the day will unfold, what the bridal party’s timings are, and can therefore select the most advantageous vantage points I want to be in at certain times of the day. Most of my bride and grooms select a mix of photojournalistic and classic photography, so the advance recce assists with both.

The Hub is a converted 19th Church of Scotland Assembly Hall and sits at the top of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile just a stones throw from the Castle. It is very impressive and atmospheric, both inside and out and I’m already looking forward to shooting some fantastic pictures next week.
I’m booked to start half an hour before the ceremony with a few shots of the groom, him and his bestman and ushers. I’ll do these in and around the main entrance. I really like the dramatic view looking up the spire into the sky and I’m probably going to shoot a similar one to what you see here but with the groom positioned right under the door archway. I may come back later after the ceremony and take another version with the newly married couple too.

After the pre wedding shots with the groom I’m awaiting the arrival of the mother of bride, bridesmaids and then the bride herself. Most of these will be taken reportage style as there isn’t going to be a lot of room for the bridal car to maneuver outside the church and I don’t want to hold up the process. I’ll try and grab a quick shot of the bride and her farther in the back of the car and then I’ll get them to pause for a second in the entrance for another before we proceed up the staircase onto the gallery. The Hub’s Main Hall is so large that the ceremony will be held up in the gallery, the north wing of the gallery providing a unique, spectacular aisle for the bride to walk along with her father. From here on in I won’t interrupt the proceedings at all but shoot everything reportage style, capturing the spontaneity of the day and all the key moments; the vows, declarations, ring exchange, first kiss, etc.

Following the ceremony everyone will proceed down to the Dunard Library for drinks and then we’ll do all the formal group shots. I’m going to do these at the foot of the rear staircase and utilize the character and atmospheric lighting. I’m happy to shoot unlimited amount of formals, but even so, it shouldn’t take me much more than 20 minutes to get through them all and then we’ll take the bride and groom away for about half an hour having them back for their wedding breakfast.

I have a number of spots earmarked for the bride and groom set which will allow me to make the most of the spectacular backdrops and produce a set of natural, relaxed, contemporary images which is one of my trademarks. Following the bride and groom shoot the rest of the evening is all photojournalism coverage all the way up to the first dance. Check back next week to see how they come out.

The Hub in Edinburgh: http://www.thehub-edinburgh.co.uk/

The Scottish Wedding Show

Well, February is the month of Scotland's biggest wedding shows, one in Edinburgh the other in Glasgow, both organised by QD Events, and the weekend just gone was the first of the two at Edinburgh. Along with the famous catwalk shows there's over 200 leading specialist wedding companies exhibiting their products and services covering every category imaginable...it was definitley the place to be this weekend!

We were exhibiting for the first time at the show and were quite excited at being offered a key stand on the main corridor leading to the catwalk show. We set off in the snow early Saturday morning, grabbing a coffee from Costa to sip on the way, and arrived about an hour and half before the doors were due to open giving us plenty of time to get set up.

The show attracts over 4000 visitors, and despite the snow the number was up by 200 compared to the previous year for the Saturday. And Sunday was even busier! I have no idea how many visitors we got to our own stand but we certainly got through a lot of promo cards and took tons of requests for my Wedding Photography Information Pack, which I finished sending out yesterday. Going by the enquiries from the show and also those coming through my website, 2010 looks set to be a very popular year for getting married. 2008 was very busy for us, this year has seen a little lull, possibly due to the uncertain financial situation, but 2010 looks set to boost right back up!

I got chance to chat for a few minutes with some of the other exhibitors too. It was good to see Lee Live, hot from his 2008 VOWS Award win. Lee is one of Edinburgh's top singer/dj's and we've worked a lot of weddings together and we were both exhibiting at the recent (smaller) wedding fair at The Point Hotel. Scott MacGregor from The Point was also there, The Point having a stand at the other side of the hall. It was quite advantageous because Scott uses one of my StoryBook albums featuring one of my weddings from The Point to promote the venue to prospective brides and grooms. After being suitably impressed they invariably ask him who the photographer was so he just points across the hall to my stand and over they come. Big smiles from me! David Ho wasn't situated too far from me either. David is a fellow photographer based down in the Scottish Borders. One of the thing we both have in common is that our wedding albums are quite different from those of our fellow photographers. Most wedding photographers rely on album creation software which is preloaded with templates and you simply have to drag and drop your images into the predesigns. Both David and myself have the skill to work from a blank canvas and create our own designs based around the photographs, as opposed to the other way round, which makes our albums exclusive and unique. Many of the top Scottish venues had stands there too so I left Diane looking after our stand during the quiet periods and did the rounds saying hello to the wedding planners and co-ordinators I work with throughout the year. I was also was 'forced' to sample some of the varied wedding cakes from the wedding cake makers, but don't tell Di!

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All in all it was a great show and now I'm busy making arrangements to meet up with the brides and grooms who visited us to discuss their plans in a little more detail. The next wedding show for me is going to be Melville Castle on March 1st. Come along and say hello if you get the opportunity.

My smallest wedding

Well I closed out the month of January with the wedding of Jo and Julian at Airth Castle. The last time I was here was September last year for Lynsey and Scott's wedding. Airth Castle provides a splendid backdrop for wedding pictures with plenty of nooks and crannies inside to exploit its historical character. For Lynsey and Scott's wedding day there were close to 200 guests in attendance (which made it great fun assembling them all around the upper balcony for a big group shot). By contrast, Jo and Julian had 2 guests making this my smallest wedding ever.





Every wedding is entirely different, one of the reasons I love my job so much, but talking with the registra after the ceremony we both agreed this was very special because it is the smallest possible wedding you could have (in the UK by law the bride and groom must have 2 witnesses present). My wedding day started with a few shots of Julian and his best man on the castle steps before I headed down to photograph Jo and her bridesmaid as they made their way up the long drive to the castle for the ceremony. I paused them on steps too and grabbed a couple of quick shots before we proceeded into the Morning Room for the ceremony. The ceremony was really pleasant and passed off nice and smoothly. I usually work away unobtrusively in the corners of the room and capture all the key moments and emotions of the ceremony (the marriage declarations, exchanging of vows, rings, etc) followed by the signing of the register.

I shot some informal pictures while the four of them enjoyed a glass of champers then we went for a stroll around the castle for the remainder of the photographs. I do a good mixture of classic photography as well as photojournalistic images and with both I make sure the couple look natural and relaxed. I was booked to finish at 4pm so we did around half an hour of post ceremony photography in an around the castle and I ended up with just over 150 pictures from the day, all of which they'll get at high resolution on their disc.

Part time wedding photographers

I met up with a couple last night who are looking for a photographer for their wedding later in the summer. So over coffee we had a chat about their plans and a browse through some sample wedding albums. During our discussion the bride told me how her sister had recently been married and was very unhappy with the final results of their photography. It seems the photographer they had booked provided less than half the photographs originally promised, and of these, the pictures were very disappointing. When expression her disappointment to him his answer was that there was nothing he could do as it had rained on the day making photography virtually impossible! I could hardly contain my incredulity! Anyway, the couple had a few prints from the sisters wedding and as soon as I saw them I knew straight away that the problem was they had booked a part timer.

In the UK it is alarmingly estimated that over 60% of puported wedding photographers are Weekend Warriors (part time Saturday photographers). I recently attended the SWPP (Society for Wedding and Portrait Photographers) Convention a fortnight ago which had close to 10,000 delegates, and the percentage of part timers was probably closer to 75%. When I first started out in wedding photography I could never understand why people would book a part timer for such an important occasion as their wedding. After all, surely it's obvious who is going to provide a better set of photographs...someone who shoots photographs day in day out, or someone who sits in an office or factory all week long and then dusts off their camera on a Saturday? However, with fancy ads and marketing, unless you ask in advance, you may well not find this out until it's too late!

Now it is, of course, possible for a part timer to shoot a nice set of photographs of a wedding if everything comes together perfectly and goes off according to plan. But, in my experience most weddings will find that many things dont go perfectly according to plan or something unexpected happens. For most professionals this is just part of the course as it happens pretty much every day and we are getting paid to provide a set of stunning images no matter what happens. In fact, for most creative people its the unexpected that fires our imagination and motivates us to work even harder. Let's take the above situation as an example...

It rains on a wedding day. The above photographer actually thought the bride and groom would understand why they couldn't have the original standard of photography, because it unexpectedly rained it off. Now this is actually quite a common complaint from part timers, along with it being too dark and their camera's developing faults, etc. To be frank, it is one of the most incredible comments I have heard! All good photographers know that the essential element of photography is light. For any kind of portraiture, wedding or otherwise, the best light is soft light. It is the most flattering and complimentary and ensures the subject will look at their best. Now let me ask you...what kind of light do you get when it rains? That's right - soft light! So how can anyone possibly say the photography's off because unfortunatley its raining? The light is so perfect when it rains it's a godsend! Have a look at this photograph of Maggie...

It was pouring down when Maggie arrived at the church. With the help of white wedding umberella's and outdoor rain covers on my camera's we got her from the car into the church still looking pristine and perfect. This shot was taken about half an hour after the ceremony back at her reception venue. If you look hard enough you will always find a few suitable places where you can make the most of the light whilst keeping the bride and groom dry. Archways, overhangs, doorways, canopies, entranceways, windows, etc. Of course, the photographer has to know how to utilise and manipulate this light to the best possible advantage, but at the end of the day its this kind of expertise you are paying for. Notice how the soft light creates such a beautiful portrait. It is nice and even and smooth and therefore flatters the five main planes of the face. There are no harsh shadows or features. I shot around 100 images within 20 minutes and they were all as stunning as this!



What about darkness? Isn't that every photographer's nightmare?

Ally and Kevin got married last October. Their venue was The Caves in Edinburgh. As the name implies it is entirley underground...so it's pretty dark! So dark in fact many wedding photographers wont work there. Being near Holyrood Park the plan was for the mainstay of the photography to be carried out in the Park and then returning to The Caves for the wedding breakfast. But the day dawned wet and windy and steadily got worse! Going outside was just not an option so it simply meant working within the low light levels. To be sure, low light is a challenge for photography, but it's this type of challenge that makes the job so enjoyable and it draws upon your creativity.

I knew there was a small cellar behind the bar area and dragged in a sofa and some weird and funky lights and we simply did the formal group shots in here. Generally, it takes me less than 20 minutes to get through all the group shots and then my wife (my assistant and 2nd shooter) and I took Ally and Kevin into some of the nooks and crannies of The Caves for the bride and groom sets.

I must point out that all this doesn't happen by accident. Obviously a lot of creativity comes on the day but in advance of every wedding I visit the venue so I can check out the lighting and locations and plan the options for differing and changing circumstances. This is all part of the job. Basically, aside from pre-wedding meetings and discussions, every wedding is at least a weeks work. Not only will I visit the venues in prepping for the day but I'll have several discussions with the venues wedding co-ordinator and run through things like timings, etc, so we can ensure the day runs smoothly. After the wedding day I'll spend a day editing the pictures and uploading them to their online gallery followed by two or three days of album design and printing. Again, you will not get this level of service and quality from a part timer as they have to be back at work Monday morning hence only getting perhaps a couple of hours on an evening to work on your wedding images.

Anyway, I'm sorry if this has been a bit of a rant, lol. I'm afraid it's something that kind of irks me whenever I hear stories from disappointed brides. Fortunatley, the couple I met with decided to book me on the spot so I'm looking forward to being at their wedding in the summer.

Gallery Prints

The start of 2009 see's the launch of my Gallery Prints. These are the latest generation display prints set to replace Canvas Wraps and Acryllics. Our ProLab has just installed the first Chromira printer in the country which produces the highest standard image resolution in the industry. So we're pretty excited about being able to supply our clients with the highest quality display prints available. So the first few days of January saw me selecting images to make up as samples. There is basically going to be two categories...landscapes which will sell from my website, and Gallery Prints for my wedding clients.

For the landscape sample I decided to use my Skye Cuillins from Strome Castle image.

This is my biggest selling image and is quite well known throughout Scotland for its numerous magazine appearances and gallery sales. It was first produced and distributed by the publishers Edinburgh Art who wanted to produce a range of twelve of my photographs as fine art prints. Over the years this picture has out sold all the other eleven, and a couple of new ones that have been added along the way, by four times.

For the launch of my Gallery Prints, however, I decided to tweak the picture and use a unique black and white conversion process I've recently been experimenting with. As you can see the result is pretty cool!

For the wedding sample I decided to use a great shot from the wedding of Liz and Bruce a few months ago at Melville Castle. The old historical castle provides a superb backdrop for bride and grooms getting married there, but to create the dramatic background of this image I needed to get in fairly close to Liz and Bruce with a wide angle lens and lie prone on the floor looking up at them so the character of the castle would be exagerrated as it loomed behind them. I then colour touched Liz and Bruce and turned the background to black and white.

We printed this one off at 30" x 20", which is fairly large, and looks spectacular when hung! Gallery Prints are laminated, lacquered then mounted to foamex and heat sealed, making them incredibly light weight yet with solid, rigid protection. Hence, they can be hung without a frame giving the effect they are floating just off the surface of the wall.

Anyway, all the samples and mailings are finally ready. All I have to do now is update all the prints and prices on my website. Yikes! I better cracking!