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December 13, 2011 – 9:40 pm
Landscape Photographer Of The Year Exhibition
You may recall that I was recently awarded commendations for two images at the Landscape Photographer Of The Year 2011 competition. You can see the two images on display at the exhibition at The National Theatre on London’s South Bank until 28th January. It’s an amazing collection of photographs, the best photographs from tens of thousands of entries each year; it’s well worth a visit if you like this sort of photography as there are images from some of the most talented landscape photographers in the UK. Of my two images, the mushroom image “Under The Shelter” has received the most publicity, and here’s me grinning in front of it at the private view last week.
The private view was a great opportunity for me to meet some of the other winning photographers from the competition. The images are all shown at an appropriately large scale so many of them are more impressive than when viewed in the book. In particular, this image by Damian Shields has far greater impact at exhibition size and I was able to congratulate him on this.
The exhibition has generated quite a bit of interest in the national press. Here is the mushroom pic on the centre spread of The Guardian as part of their selection from the exhibition last week:
… and here it is in Amateur Photographer magazine:
But the most exciting appearance, of course, was in an article in the Crewe Guardian:
It’s also been chosen by Time Out for their selection and, less importantly, here in The Daily Mail.
Here’s more from the exhibition, including one showing a slideshow of images projected onto the side of the National Theatre:
If you can’t make it to the exhibition, there’s always the book:
The mushroom image was also selected as one of the ten images for the postcard pack of the exhibition.
The best way to stay in touch with what I’m doing – photographically speaking – is to sign up for my Photo Of The Week email.
October 24, 2011 – 9:02 am
Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011 Winning Images
Although this has become predominantly a wedding blog, today I’m celebrating a double success at the 2011 “Take a View” UK Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. Both these images were successful at the final stages, and consequently will feature at the exhibition starting on December 5th at the National Theatre in London. They will also be included in the popular book of the competition winners (available next week). The mushroom image (from Harrop Tarn in the Lake District) was voted by the judges as a runner-up in its category, and will feature in the postcard pack that is sold from the exhibition. Both these images are available as 40x30cm mounted and framed limited edition prints (contact me for details).
It’s become an ambition of mine to make the exhibition, and I’m elated as it’s the only serious national landscape photography competition, open to both professionals and amateurs.
The above image also featured in yesterday’s (23rd October) iPad edition of the Sunday Times (thanks to @ColinSBell for supplying this):
Colin has also kindly uploaded part of the full size version of the iPad edition.
If you’d like to receive my “Photo Of The Week” email in your inbox once a week, then please do sign up here .
September 21, 2011 – 4:25 pm
Sandbach Wedding Photography – Vintage Wedding in Cheshire
This was one of those weddings that I’d been very much looking forward to since we booked it in the spring. Laura and Kevin are a great couple, and despite living just a stone’s throw away from me in Sandbach in Cheshire, found me via the internet. It was clear that they embraced the documentary style from the outset, and I’ve very much enjoyed having the opportunity to photograph their wedding.
It’s obvious that Laura and Kevin put a lot of effort into designing their own take on a post-war vintage style wedding reception, and the hall at St Mary’s Church in Sandbach was decked with beautifully assembled tributes to this period in history.
Bridal preparations were at The Chimney House in Sandbach, and ceremony was in main church building at St Mary’s.
Pre-wedding nerves!
Here’s a typewriter intended for messages of goodwill to the bride and groom, and which was rather monopolised by children.
The wedding singer is Heather Marie, who gave us a great 50s-style performance.
September 1, 2011 – 3:45 pm
Consall Hall Gardens – Wedding Photography
Staffordshire Wedding – Laurie and Sid
Consall Hall Gardens is a remarkable venue. Amazingly, its grounds extend for 70 acres and contain six lakes. It’s a bit of a hidden gem lying in the Staffordshire Moorlands countryside, just a stone’s throw from the Peak District, and it was enormously satisfying to photograph Laurie and Sid’s wedding here.
The ceremony was outdoors, and the weather just about held up, with merely a few spots of rain as the bride was arriving. Unusually for me, the bride and groom requested a lengthy session of group and posed photographs, which was a huge amount of fun (even for a documentary photographer like myself!) as we were driven by Justin, the venue manager, around the site on a golf buggy. So there’s a rare chance to see some posed imagery from me here on the blog.
As with most of my weddings, the day began for me at the bride’s family home for wedding preparations.
It’s often the case that putting on and fastening a wedding dress can take a long while on the day itself, but Laurie took it all in her stride.
… and we’re just about there now…
The ceremony took place in a courtyard surrounding a small pond.
While the guests were eating their sausages, we were driven around the site to our pre-arranged locations for posed photographs.
The food at Consall Hall is superb, and after dinner the evening’s events got underway with the speeches:
As well as the familiar cutting-the-cake ritual, the families were invited to light an oil lamp, a Sri Lankan tradition, I believe.
Laurie and Sid can be seen here showing off their considerable talent for latin dancing during the first dance.
Finally, I’d like to thank the bride, groom and their families for the warm welcome that I was given, and also to Justin and the staff at Consall Hall Gardens for being so helpful and accommodating.
June 8, 2011 – 5:50 pm
Wedding Photography at The Plough and Harrow Hotel, Birmingham
Stacey and Richard’s Wedding
It’s always a privilege to photograph any wedding, but it’s particularly enjoyable when the couple has made a lot of effort to make the day very much their own. Stacey and Richard ensured that there were plenty of idiosynchracies in the schedule to stamp their mark on the venue for the day. Hopefully some of their quirkiness will show in the photographs.
The Plough and Harrow hotel is a compact hotel in the city of Birmingham that has made plenty of room for larger weddings. The registrar on the day was happy for me to cover the ceremony (always a bonus), and was also highly entertaining, keeping everyone amused during what is often a nervous half hour.
Synchronised make-up?..
The bride’s mother took charge of proceedings as the bride gets into the dress for the day:
The red balloons for the table decorations were presumably intended to match the bride’s hair.
I love the subtle tones in the bride’s veil in this image:
If you’re looking for a pair of comfortable bridal shoes that don’t attract too much attention, these might be what you need…
Bow ties are cool! Especially when you’ve mastered how to tie them yourself…
Yes, this is a cake!
The groom is just getting used to that strange new circular thing on his finger:
… and finally we come to the first dance…
Full information about the photography service that I offer is available at my wedding photography website.
May 18, 2011 – 11:15 am
Vinopolis Documentary Wedding Photography – Emma and Jamie Get Married in London
Two weeks ago, I was privileged to photograph the wedding of good friends Jamie and Emma at Vinopolis, just south of the Thames in central London.
Vinopolis’s Great Halls (where the reception took place) form an impressive venue for a wedding – two enormous caverns with 50 foot high brick walls built under a nineteenth-centry railway viaduct.
Any city centre wedding with minimal car access is a challenge, but this was doubly so as it was on the weekend of the Royal Wedding and also the local area was subject to road closures as a giant viaduct was being airlifted into place above Borough High Street! So I packed a small selection of lenses and a couple of light stands for the dancing shots into my ThinkTank bag and trekked off to the first location at the couple’s house. These are some of my favourite images from the day. Incidentally, all photographs shown here were taken with just two wide lenses – the 24mm prime and the 16-35mm zoom.
(has the groom’s suit shrunk or does it by any chance belong to the bride’s nephew?)
I often like to include details of what the makeup artist uses as tools of the trade:
The shape of the dress and the dark colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses certainly presented me with some great graphic compositions for black and white:
How else to arrive in London but in a black cab?:
I love the fact that modern cameras make it possible to obtain images at all in this level of light, especially with such low noise characteristics:
A rare chance to see a bit of posed portraiture from me (the area around Borough Market is a visually impressive part of London, so I felt compelled to include this):
Applause for the newly married couple, and we start to see how magnificent the venue is:
The speeches presented me with a problem, as it was fairly difficult to get any kind of view with a long lens from the back of the hall, so I crouched in front of the top table to avoid getting in anyone’s way, and poked my lens up over the table from time to time.
Generally, I’m an available-light kind of photographer, and pretty much the only time I use flash at a wedding is for the first dance (off-camera of course), just to add some atmosphere:
The reception continued on into the evening with a céilidh. I managed to grab a few shots before the whole venue descended into organised chaos!
There’s something rather wonderful about photographing a good friend’s wedding, and in this case it was doubly true. I also had the advantage that comes with a friend’s wedding of having that little bit extra rapport with the couple, and therefore a better understanding on their part of how the documentary photography process works.
March 31, 2011 – 5:40 pm
Peak District Commercial Photography: Blacksmith At Work
This is Darren Ainsworth. He works as a blacksmith near Buxton in the Peak District.
I had the privilege of photographing Darren in his workshop and I have to say that I had no idea how intricate the skill is and how much is involved in producing the finished product. I think I had in the back of my mind the childhood memory that a blacksmith makes horses’ shoes, but I am now educated that this is the skill of a farrier, which is a similar skill to that of a blacksmith. In fact, Darren tells me that he is a Farrier, Blacksmith and Wheelwright.
Darren works entirely with his hands, in the traditional sense, which is unusual as most pieces are manufactured by machine these days. It does mean that he can produce bespoke pieces of metal and that everything he makes is unique.
The following photograph demonstrates just how dangerous the job of a documentary photographer (er, I mean blacksmith) can be. Darren had earlier explained that the process of fire welding tends to make the sparks fly (as the flux and impurities are squashed out when hit by the hammer), so I hid behind a four-inch wide pole. Unfortunately, I am not four inches wide. Notice that Darren is, sensibly, wearing goggles.
Here’s a small selection of images to demonstrate some of the skills involved.
And here’s the finished product:
Darren has, apparently, made his own wheels for a Penny Farthing bicycle, and I’m hoping to get the chance to photograph his skills as a wheelwright at some stage in the future.
Contact me to discuss my commercial documentary photography or to get in touch with Darren Ainsworth.
December 24, 2010 – 11:53 am
Kingscote Barn Wedding Photography – Chris and Em
A week or so before Christmas, I returned to Kingscote Barn, a now familiar location on the edge of the Cotswolds. Chris and Em’s wedding took place in that short space of time between the two recent cold snaps. This was a real blessing in so far as all the guests (and the photographer!) were able to travel with no problems.
The lights were dimmed, and the ceremony took place via candlelight, which presented its own challenge for the photography, but does add to the ethereal nature of the images. The photographs may make it look light daylight, but it was twilight, and very dark indeed. The reception was a laid-back affair, and I think the friendly nature of the wedding couple and their celebration comes across in the photographs.
Here is a selection of my favourite images from the day. My thanks go to Chris and Em for allowing me to photograph their wedding.
See more wedding photography from Kingscote Barn.
November 18, 2010 – 6:31 pm
Photography Packages Now Featuring Jorgensen Wedding Albums
I’m very pleased to announce that, after an extensive search, I will now be featuring Jorgensen Wedding Albums in my Wedding Photography Packages for 2011. They are the best quality albums that I’ve managed to source, and after testing many other manufacturers of “Classic” matted albums, I can conclude categorically that they are the best quality albums that I can source for the kind of documentary photography that I do.
A comprehensive choice of sizes of Jorgensen Wedding Albums will be offered alongside the existing range of Graphistudio digital albums.
The image below shows details of one of the 16×16-inch Jorgensen Wedding Albums. Each album is beautifully hand-stitched and bound together. This particular album is bound in quality black leather; mats are charcoal with a white core (white mats are also offered); the mats are bevelled at the edge of each photograph and at the edge of the page. It’s worth noting that pretty much any geometric arrangement is possible for the layout of images on each page.
