To infinity and beyond…

At least, that’s how it felt. I’m used to travelling all over the place to shoot one thing or another, but a recent adventure to Whitehaven in the Lake District had a touch of the epic about it. Spectacular open spaces, an 800 mile roundtrip and a very strong smell of petrol kind of scratch the surface of a weekend I won’t forget in a hurry.

The irony of this particular commission is that I was a ‘prize’. Yes, my services had effectively been won in a competition some months ago. It all originated with Perfect Wedding magazine approaching me about offering a full shoot and art book in return for some significant publicity within the magazine. This seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, I agreed to the deal and the wheels were set in motion. The ad shown below popped up one month and, apparently, a stack of ‘contestants’ came forward… so this is what it’s like to be fought over? Not really.

Upon reflection it’s quite amusing that the winner of the competition lived in the North West of England, and I’m based in the South East. It’s absolutely no reflection on Gayle and Russell, who are a fantastic couple and lovely people, that my eyes opened a little wider when told that I’d be off to the Lakes. I’m pretty sure I’d have flown had it been more convenient with airports, but it was a case of getting down to the job in hand and doing your very best. I didn’t really know what to expect from the location or the weather, so my ‘great mate’ John Marsh was along for the shoot, backing me up with some fantastic shots and ideas. The elements can get pretty wild in a location like Keswick, and as our main area for shooting was going to be a hotel on the shores of Derwentwater a two man approach was always the solution to getting the most out of the time available.

Usually with a wedding commission I’d have scouted the venue beforehand and upon arrival know pretty much what I’m going to do. In this case a recce just hadn’t been possible, so we stopped off on the way to our hotel to wander around the venue. Everybody’s first impression of the Lake District is the sheer scale of the environment and it was obvious we needed to capture something panoramic at the water’s edge, which meant using the jetty opposite the hotel. When you look at the final shot it feels simple, which to my mind is how photography should look. What you don’t get is how the bride had to pick her way between the wooden slats so her Jimmy Choos didn’t get wedged, or the fact that I couldn’t have done the shot at all on a windy day which would have made the water choppy. For this image to work it needed a 24mm lens to slightly pull the edges away from the centre detail and enhance the glass-like look of the water which is nicely reflecting the sky. We were very lucky, all the elements came together, on another day it just wouldn’t have worked.

A wedding day for a photographer is like keeping lots of plates spinning. Your mind is constantly ahead of what you’re currently shooting and the feeling that your photographic window of opportunity is slowly closing is ever present. This means that while on the jetty my mind was on the other vista to be captured. In discussion with Gayle and Russell they knew of a little spot hundreds of feet above the lake, and time allowing they wanted to venture up there and see what we could do. At the time of chatting they (wisely) didn’t elaborate on the access to the high shot, so off we trotted in my car to take on what seemed like the World’s tighest, steepest cart track, complete with Olympic standard pot holes. Once at the spot the view was breathtaking, and to be honest I’m not convinced the shots do it justice, only a painting could capture the real mood. As usual, simple direction to the couple to just relax and enjoy the moment resulted in something which works nicely in comparison with the jetty images. In theory it’s basically the same location used as a background, but the elevation lends a whole new feel to the scale of the lake and well worth risking life, limb and a bent front bumper!

One thing the state of the road did achieve was to take our minds off the smell in the car, which brings me back to the aforementioned petrol odour. On the drive up I’d had the misfortune to use a faulty pump at the local garage. Once my tank was full the sensor in the pump handle failed to shut off the flow of unleaded, resulting in my jeans and boots being soaked courtesy of the ratbags at BP. Initially the smell was a little overwhelming, but over time it was nothing a sense of humour, a Guinness and an open window couldn’t cure…

Where did the summer go?

I guess it sums up our summer to say that it never rains but it pours, which as it turns out is a pretty good overview of work during the last couple of months. Something like 14 weddings, numerous commercial jobs and a ton of book design has made the last few weeks zip by. So rather than concentrating on one topic in this post, I thought I’d cherry pick some notable moments…

Pass the parcel… If you’ve organised a wedding you’ll know it’s all about making the day personal, but still fun for all attending. Doesn’t really matter if it’s table names, dress code or location, people always attempt to make their day just a little different from those they’ve attended themselves. So imagine my surprise when I sat down with Eleanor and Richard to chat about the make-up of their day at Cowley Manor, only for them to describe how the wedding breakfast would conclude with a swift game of ‘pass the parcel’? In truth, the plan was genius. Their day was a very personal, compact occasion with under 20 friends and family attending, and so after the speeches the idea was to get cracking with the parcel passing. A gift of relevance had been bought for each guest and had then been packaged up within it’s own layer of wrapping. But the tricky thing now was to stop the music when the right person held the parcel, else the wrong present would be revealed. After a couple of hiccups with the iPod pause button it all progressed well and I remember driving away thinking it set the perfect tone for the rest of their evening : fun, informal and memorable.

Catching the sky… If you ask anybody who’s hired me you’ll (hopefully) be told that I’m easy to work with. I don’t like to try and force things to happen regardless of it being in a studio or on-location. I’m a firm believer that people are at their best when they are relaxed and so I try and make however long I spend with them fun and a bit of a laugh. Don’t get me wrong, between us we need to obtain results, but life’s too serious to not have a giggle. A great example of letting a picture just happen was during the final minutes of daylight at Helen and Gregg’s wedding at Gosfield Hall in Essex. Things had drifted a little out of order during a rain-affected day, and so the traditional confetti throwing took place in near darkness. While shooting this the sky was changing rapidly and as the guests filed back into the library Helen, Gregg and myself took a little wander to chat about how things had gone. As we walked and talked there was a moment when I managed to capture a vivid silhouette against a gorgeous sky. It’s a simple shot, with the added touch of Gregg still being in his top hat. It almost feels like a photographic full stop to a great day with a fantastic couple.

Deja vu… My previous life came back to haunt me in July via the scheduling of a trip to Brands Hatch to cover a round of the World Touring Car Championship. SEAT UK’s Head of Press and PR, Mike Orford, hadn’t really laid out a brief, it was all about capturing something nice for the files and a selection that reflected the atmosphere of the event where SEAT was expected to race well. It’s quite amazing to think that after almost 20 years working in motorsport I hadn’t been to a circuit for almost a year, and upon arrival I came across several old faces and colleagues who hadn’t seemed to move from the place I left them some 10 months earlier… I don’t think they’d left the press room in all that time, just that somebody had come in to dust them off! Getting back into the swing of things took a couple of hours but after a while it all came flooding back. I’m not sure I could go back to doing it all the time, but blowing off the cobwebs and getting out there again was fun. Kind of.

Lights, camera, action… It’s somewhat of a contradiction with studio photography that it takes a ton of gear to make the end result look simple. But that was the nature of a recent commission with the Eastern Development Centre. The organisation exists to support the NHS and also development of health and social care systems in the Eastern region. I’d been asked to shoot portraits of approx 30 staff for on-line bios and future use and so the idea was to produce something simple, making the individuals look friendly, approachable, keeping away from the very stiff, standard corporate portraits people usually associate with business. I’d been given the boardroom for the day which was perfect in which to set up the lights and background paper. Grey had been requested as the background shade because it’s neutral, it wouldn’t clash with whatever clothes were worn, and had a little depth to it which neither black or white offer. Each person had been given a time slot of 10 mins with me and within that period I tried to not only shoot the pictures, but also try and outline exactly what I was trying to achieve. I felt it was also important to let them see the raw shots as we progressed and so when each person left the room they had already deleted what they didn’t like and kept those they did. This made the final selection much easier with nobody dreading the final results. It’s also important to point out that within a group of approx 30 people there are those who like, hate, and are curious about being photographed, so it’s vital to use the my slots of time to try and ease them through the process. All in all an enjoyable day, and with the excellent support of Ruth Kent at the EDC it all went smoothly.

Now things start to change because on the wedding side the days get shorter and that presents all sorts of new issues. But at the same time that gives you a new canvas because the trees are evolving in colour, the light is warmer in the late afternoon and all these things can be turned around to photographic advantage. Mix all that up with meetings for future commissions and clients fine-tuning book layouts and it doesn’t look like slowing down any time soon…

Beauberry House

Working and spending time in different places all over the country is a true joy of commercial photography. I’ve written in posts before about particular venues, and this one is about a recent discovery, an exciting building dating back to the early 1700’s which is now called Beauberry House.

Nestled away nicely just off Gallery Road in London’s West Dulwich, the building ticks all the boxes from a photographer’s point of view. Light rooms, the obligatory staircase for atmospheric shots, and sits amid the spacious, attractive Belair Park. I had visited Beauberry a few weeks before the shoot with Mo, the bride, to discuss some ideas and get a feel for the place. It’s always exciting to see somewhere for the first time and I recall driving away from the meeting thinking about what could work well on the day. Fortunately it all went like clockwork and we were blessed with great day’s weather with the relaxed feel of the photography hitting the spot and fulfilling their brief.

The original site consisted of two farms. In 1785 the main body of the house was built and called College Place. The estate’s name was changed to Belair and in 1859 various extensions and alterations were undertaken to ultimately create a 47 room building, much bigger than it is today. In 1893 Sir Evan Spicer was granted a lease on the property and this was in place until his death in 1938. Belair was sold at auction but fell into a state of disrepair during World War II, at times used as a storage premises for the milatary.

Over the period of 1946-1980 Southwark Council held the lease and gradually oversaw the rebuilding and restoration of the house to nearer it’s former guise, which was a much smaller property than it had become. Still under council control the building assumed a role similar to a Village Hall between 1980-1995, often used for local ballet lessons! In 1996 a complete refurbishment turned the property into a restaurant/bar and after changing hands another couple of times it became Beauberry House in 2004. Further upgrades took place and after 2 new al fresco diners and an outside bar terrace were added it reopened on Valentines Day, 2006.

The modern day Belair Park is a public space, but the building itself remains private. Upon arrival your first impression is a grand, white facade. But also the feeling of an intimate venue, perfect for a gentle day like a small wedding. It’s obvious from my portfolio content that I like to shoot environments, as well as people and detail, so I thoroughly enjoyed this first commission at Beauberry. Thanks to excellent on-event support from Oleia Leclercq, and the freedom to work encouraged by bride and groom Mo and Miguel, I felt the day flowed really nicely. From various chats with guests my impression was they loved the place, many taking the time to walk in the park after the wedding breakfast and savour a summer’s evening among friends and family.

Of course, you don’t have to commit to marriage to sample the atmosphere, you can just book in for some fine dining, you’ll be made very welcome indeed…

First impressions

Whether we acknowledge them or not, first impressions count. Clothes, food, places, people, whatever – it’s that immediate thought which stays with us and is very hard to change. Photography is no different, people know what they like, and a glance at a picture creates an instant yes or no inside the brain. It’s because you only get one crack at forming this opinion that editing is so important towards the presentation of your work. I have always tried to treat a selection of pictures as something many people are going to automatically criticize, my objective being to provide as few reasons to do so as possible. I also try and make things easy. People are commissioning me to provide a service, I’m there to solve problems and not create a couple of new ones. 

A couple who are waiting to view their wedding photography don’t want to see 900 unedited shots from which to choose a set number for prints or a book. It bores them, whether they admit it or not. I can think of countless tales of families who waited months to make their selection because they literally couldn’t face going through a DVD full of images which displayed massive content repetition. Promising hundreds of pictures is a tactic some photographers use during initial meetings to convince a prospective client their high price is justified. But there’s only so much material you can obtain from a wedding day, it’s impossible to obtain several hundred without introducing significant padding to bloat the final tally. Portfolios are all well and good, they give a quick insight into a style, but seeing a few full wedding day selections is really the only way to accurately predict what you’ll receive from a photographer. If the quality of material displayed in a cherry-picked portfolio is frequently evident throughout a full wedding shoot, then people will take notice.

My editing process starts as soon as possible after the wedding itself. It helps me to almost seamlessly flow into working on the selection because the feel and atmosphere of the event is still in my head. The photographs are stored chronologically on our server in the office and immediately backed up onto several DVDs, just in case something happens to a hard drive. For a couple of days I’ll play around with colour balance, skin tones, black and white conversions and sometimes order changes. This is because sometimes you shoot things out of natural order depending on available time. A good example would be arriving at a venue where the ceremony and reception are to take place. If you’re there before anybody else, and you’ve got 10 mins to kill, then shooting dining room detail is another thing off the list which also frees up time later in the day. So while the detail content might have been shot at 11am, you’ll want those pictures to appear in your final selection around the time the guests seat for the wedding breakfast, so they are nudged forward a few hours. All these tweaks take time.

Upon completion of the selection, typically 150-200 different images, the files are uploaded to a dedicated web server. The access address and pass codes can be agreed beforehand so viewing is possible on honeymoon (if applicable). Having the previews on-line isn’t much of a step forward for the couple themselves, because there’s always been the facility of seeing contact sheets or a softback proof book. Where the web really comes into it’s own is the mass availability to family, friends and work colleagues. A lot of the people who can nowadays pour over the thumbnails probably never saw the whole selection before, and from a business perspective it’s great exposure for the photographer, not to mention priceless word of mouth, still the most solid form of publicity.

Hopefully the first and lasting impression given is an easy to navigate, high quality set of shots which captures the atmosphere of the day. It’s the culmination of a lot of thought, a few stressful moments and loads of clever pieces of kit supplied by Canon and Apple!!

Perks of the job (part 2)

Anybody who reads this blog on a regular basis (you really do have too much time on your hands!) knows that when in wedding mode I’m fascinated by some of the venues at which I’m lucky enough to work. A little while ago I wrote about the grandeur of shooting in large churches and Cathedrals. However, equally as impressive in their own way are some of the locations for civil ceremonies.

One such location is Cowley Manor, at which I shoot a handful of weddings each year as one of the recommended photographers. The Manor perfectly blends relaxed surroundings with a dash of formality and the staff’s bespoke approach lends itself to smaller weddings, ideal for families who want their day to be intimate and personal. At the planning stage couples are guided by in-house coordinator, Sarah Keatley. Sarah’s attention to detail and wonderfully enthusiastic manner make her a pleasure to work with, and from my side I’m never in the dark about plans and timings due to her support. It then becomes apparent that the venue’s trump card is the quality which is evident on every level.

Upon arrival you’re greeted by a 19th century mansion feel, then once inside the staff are relaxed, helpful and available without being constantly on your shoulder. There’s a distinct chilled-out 70’s feel to the decor and once seated in the main lounge you won’t want to get up again for quite some time. It sounds obvious, because the whole point of a hotel is to provide a relaxed, pleasant atmosphere during your stay, but Cowley has a calmness about it which puts you at ease and allows a visitor to make the most of the visit.

Assuming you can drag yourself away from the log fire in the lounge, you’ll find it’s the grounds which really cap the whole experience. The Manor is set in approx. 55 acres of grounds, providing the feel of an adventurous wander. A large terrace overlooks the lake and beyond this there are various nooks and crannies in which to explore and lose yourself, and it’s right here that a magical little tale has become legend. It’s said that the writer, Lewis Carroll, was strolling in the gardens one day when he came across a little girl happily playing. After briefly chatting to his new friend he returned to his room to begin writing a short story based on the young lady’s happy disposition. Her name was Alice Liddell, and the short story eventually became Alice In Wonderland. A magical place indeed…