The Memories Thru a Lens Blog

I recently had the pleasure of photographing a wedding at the Donnington Grove in Newbury.  More about the wedding later as it was a really superb day with some amazing finishing touches so deserves a full post.

In the meantime, the bride and groom in their pre-wedding shoot had a game of Pooh Sticks and so on the wedding day, armed with a bride and groom duck they played it again.  The question is where are the ducks now… the bride won the race and off they drifted down stream as Mr & Mrs Duck, Mrs Duck leading the way of course!!

So have you seen these bride and groom ducks, do you know where they are?!?

As those of you who know me or read my blog will know I certainly don’t profess to being a landscape photographer, wedding photography and portrait photography is a little more my forte.

However there are some places in the world that as a photographer, you simply can’t visit without having a camera stuck to your eye the entire time.  One such place for me was Venice, I do believe I actually saw it through my 5Ds view finder!  The architecture is amazing I think its one of the places in the world where you just walk around thinking wow what a view, what a sight!

So here below are not wedding or portrait photos, but some landscape photographs, or cityscape photographs I should say.  Enjoy a wedding and portrait photographers view of Venice!

It’s been a busy few weeks as August always tends to be; one of my favourite commissions has been to shoot some headshots for a young up and coming actor.

Phil Dunster contacted me as he is just starting down the path of becoming an actor and needed some professional head shots taken to accompany his resume.

A professional headshot is a must have for any actor or model,  a headshot is mainly a photograph taken of your head and shoulder and truly captures your look without to much post production on it, it should look like you not a photo shopped version of yourself.  They are often black and white, mainly because its basic and looks professional.

It is really important to get your headshots taken by a professional as it’s the first thing the casting director will see.  It is your only chance of making a first impression and if you fit the role you may get the call from your headshot alone.  So it is definitely a worthwhile investment.

Phil was great to work with and I’m pleased to report he was really pleased with his shots, I hope they get him lots of work.

So here are a few photos from the shoot; keep an eye on the TV and movie world he could well be the next Robert Pattinson!

To everyone getting married, the actual marriage ceremony is obviously the most important part of the day.  To some couples however it is more about the whole day and celebrating with friends and family.

Once such couple I have had the pleasure to photograph was David and Anna, I do believe the ceremony to be the shortest I have ever witnessed, which is exactly what they wanted.  They chose the Hotel du Vin in Henley on Thames to host their short but intimate ceremony and drinks reception.

The Hotel du Vin is a lovely venue for those who aren’t looking for a church ceremony, its a converted brewery in the middle of Henley and the ceremony room is akin to a barn and even has a mezzanine balcony.  So its certainly true to say the wedding ceremony was packed to the rafters.

David and Anna held very much importance on their friends and family being a part of their day, they even wanted them included in the signature artistic portraits, that I take of all my brides and grooms on their wedding day.  It really did make the images a lot of fun as Davids brother relished being in front of the camera which lead to lots of laughs.

We headed off by the river in Henley and after stopping for an ice cream for the bride, got some really fantastic shots.

Later on it was off to just outside Thame to their friends farm, where they had a huge marquee and enjoyed the rest of their wedding reception with even more guests.

I knew it was going to be a merry reception when I saw the tables, the favors where bottles of spirits and shot glasses!  Needless to say there was definitely a state of joyful exuberance and some very high spirited guests by the time the wedding breakfast was over.

Here are some of my favorites from David and Anna’s wedding day.

Having been a bride myself I know that most brides would like their wedding to be remembered and be a little bit different to anyone else’s and one of the big conundrums for your wedding day its the favors.

Wedding favors are small gifts given as a gesture of appreciation or gratitude to guests from the bride and groom during a wedding reception, and its believed that it started with aristocrats giving a small trinket box filled with sugar cubes or delicate confections, as in this era sugar was an expensive commodity and it was believed that sugar contained medical benefits.  (Can you imagine giving sugar in this day and age people would think you where slightly bonkers and perhaps jealous of their teeth!)

As sugar became more affordable it was replaced with almonds as the bitterness of the almond and the sweetness of the sugar was said to signify the bitter sweetness of a marriage.

Today I think couples have gone well away from sugared almonds as most people don’t like them, except perhaps your Gandpa!

Favors have become a big part of the wedding reception planning and are usually picked to compliment the theme of the wedding.

So here are some ideas for the future brides and grooms who might be struggling for ideas!

At my own winter wedding which was in late December I had tiny stockings for everyone, thanks to my mum who painstakingly made them all….

Another good idea is a lottery ticket like this wedding I covered in Oxfordshire, I would be pretty happy winning a million courtesy of the good friend or relative who included me in their wedding!

A wedding I covered at The Tythe Barn in Oxfordshire gave mini-love spoons.

At snow covered wedding at Missenden Abbey the candy canes went down a storm.

One of my favorites is defiantly sweets and this wedding I covered at The Randolph in Oxfordshire gave everyone their own little jar of jelly sweets.

One wedding at The Friars Court in Oxfordshire had a really great approach to it, the wedding itself by purpose had a very non traditional theme and the favors where no different, the where bags of tablet (a scottish fudge type sweet apparently!) baked by the groom himself in a big basket for guests to help themselves… with a cuddly monkey for the younger guests!

And finally I think we all look forward to a wedding to see our friends or family member tie the knot and enjoy several drinks to celebrate, so what better favor than a shot, this wedding at The Hotel du Vin in Henley went a little further with the favors…. each table was named after a spirt and said spirt was on each table as the favor; but to be sure everyone partook in the favor the name places where shot glasses, I think the tequila table was the first to drain their bottle!

Whether you read my blog all the time or you have just found it, if your a guest, bride, amateur , professional or just enjoy reading the blog and looking at the images please do comment I would love to hear your thoughts!

I photographed Andy & Hazel’s wedding at Elcot Park in Berkshire, it was an overcast day with showers here and there but that didn’t bother me I knew we would get some fantastic images and I was extremely pleased with them as I set about post processing them.

Elcot Park is a lovely wedding venue, it has a historic building and some lovely ground looking across the Berkshire countryside which provide a prefect backdrop for the artistic style of photographs of the bride and groom which I like to take.  Andy and Hazel really are a lovely couple, I don’t think ether of them stopped grinning all day and I felt very honored to be able to capture it for them.

I hadn’t shot at Elcot Park before so I was really looking forward to their day, I really enjoy shooting at a new location it really keeps my creative juices flowing as its a whole new canvas that I haven’t used before, so photographer prefer to shoot a the same venues over and over again perhaps because they are a perfect supplier for said venue, but for me its better creatively and more challenging to mix it up a bit and shoot here there and everywhere.  That said I never shoot in the same way even at a venue I know, to me its about the couple not the venue, its the couple who would dictate how I will shoot on their wedding day as I do it in more a documentary way than a posed one to enable me to get that loving look and emotional moment that can not be faked.

I particular enjoyed with Andy and Hazel shooting their bride and groom portraits, they radiated happiness on their wedding day the love they feel for each other was clear, so for me it was a perfect combination to get some great images.

Here are a few of my favorites

Whether you read my blog all the time or you have just found it, if your a guest, bride, amateur , professional or just enjoy reading the blog and looking at the images please do comment I would love to hear your thoughts!

One thing I never do is rush my couples to pick the pictures for their wedding album, I feel that its entirely up to my clients to ponder over and be sure they have picked the correct images that they would like to showcase their day in the wedding album.

Which is why only a few weeks ago I finished an album which I shot back in December.  Andy and Kerry got married at the Vineyard at Stockcross near Newbury in December, it was a fantastic day and we got some great shots.  Which in part is why Andy and Kerry took a little while to pick their album; they had so many images they wanted to include that it took them a while to pick the ones they wanted for their wall and those they wanted for their album.

One unique thing that they wanted for their album was their invite to be the cover, when they showed me the invite I had no doubt it would look fantastic and Im pleased to say the finished version looked even better than the electronic one, the gloss cover really suited the purple.  I couldn’t wait to hand the album over to them and Im pleased to report they are as pleased with it as I am.

Thanks Andy & Kerry for choosing me to be your photographer, Im really pleased I have been able to give you wedding photographs and a wedding album that you can cherish for many years to come.

So here is the album below, enjoy….

I have finally found five minutes to set up a Facebook fan page.  I will be updating this with photos, news, tips and my usual general wonderings, so click the following link into your browser and enjoy!

http://tiny.cc/hvzwq

As anyone who reads my blog will know that sometimes Im a bit slow at keeping it updated, which is why the pictures in the following post may look like they weren’t taken in the last few weeks of sunshine and warmth!

My approach to children’s portraiture is a little removed from the usual white background images you see everywhere these days.  For me taking a portrait of your child is all about capturing the essence of the child and capturing that one look that tells you everything about them, or that one look that tells you they have done something they shouldn’t.  I don’t believe this can be done is a stark white studio, instead it takes time for your child to get comfortable with me and be comfortable in their surroundings so doing the shoot in a location they already know means have the battle has been one.

Which is why I found myself up on the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire to capture one gorgeous little girl, she is a real cutie and absolutely loved the camera, which bodes well for getting the relaxed portraits I am after.  Also being a Pepper Pig fan as soon as she saw muddy puddles it was all Mo could do to keep her out of them, it did make a lovely shot though and I made sure we had some in the can first with nice white tights before the mud splattered them.

I of course added a little bit of my secret magic to the images, the Ridgeway makes a lovely backdrop particularly in the spring when the colours are warm and inviting.  Although a few of the images where jsut crying out to be black and white, sometimes black and white just adds another dimension to the photographs, hopefully you will agree.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

I had the pleasure of doing a pre-wedding photo shoot at the Donnington Grove, Berkshire a few Saturdays ago.  Neil and Charlotte will be getting married there in July and wanted a pre-wedding photo shoot so they could get in the mood for the big day, plus there are so many good places to take photos at the Donnington Grove we needed to have a good walk around to see how long we will need on the day for their bride and groom portraits.

It was a lovely sunny day which is good and bad, its great because all of the colours there are so vibrant; the greens of the golf course against the blue of the sky, but also not so good because bright sunshine means harsh shadows which is not so good on faces, but I wouldn’t be much of a photographer if I didn’t know how to cope with that.

Im really looking forward to shooting Neil and Charlottes wedding, they are a fantastic couple to work with and the intimate touches in decor they have chosen for their special day will really make for a very special album.

Here are a few favorites from their pre-wedding shoot.