Following on from Brides and guides Pt 1 here is Part 2!
In 2015 I was asked to cover a friend's wedding which caused a little panic in my head. The obvious thing to do was to get some practice in, but photography training courses are far from cheap and take a lot of time. I've already mentioned in another blog that I don't have that long term attention span, like most people these days. We all want stuff quick quick quick, now now now, or yesterday would be even better.
I already had some skills from what I had taught myself along with some useful youtube tutorials and a bit of 1-2-1 tuition with Adrian Dewey the year before. I just needed to see what I could do with some models in wedding dresses and suits in the right locations, and I most definitely would benefit from some incredibly useful direction and tips from the wedding photography pros – Kim Hawkins and Jodie Chapman.
Today's photo blog includes a few of my favourite images from the afternoon once we'd had a decent lunch at a local pub in Buckinghamshire. The venues this time were Bisham Abbey and All Saints Church, Bisham.
Something that really stands out was Jodie's tip to try shooting in monochrome. When shooting in RAW you can see everything in monochrome on the back of your camera but when processing later on in Lightroom you still have all of the file details in colour. Genius. I had no idea about this and would probably not know this by now either.
It's been a while and I apologise to both of you who follow me. My silence has been silent and I promise to make it up to you.
Right now though, I'm back and ready to rock. It's been a crazy few months, loads has changed, and I've pushed the photography in a completely different direction; this time towards weddings. Weddings have to be the scariest, dauntiest, challengiest things to capture as a photographer and I'm diving in feet first.
This Summer I am so lucky in that I have a few special friends who have put their full faith and trust in me to deliver their big day back to them in the form of gorgeous photo memories. I am not ashamed to say that I am bricking it, but I've spent a LONG time preparing and feel pretty bloody confident that I'll get the results that everyone wants.
Step 2 – buy a wedding dress and practice with it. Yeah… I bought a dress but it's still in a bag.
Step 2b – attend a Wedding Portfolio Builder day with The Trained Eye, just North of London. 4 brides, 2 grooms, 3 venues, decent weather, and the rest is up to me. That's what this blog is about; showing you the results of the day. First of all though we need to look at Step 3.
Step 3 – learn how to process images from Step 2b. This took a while!!
Step 4 – plan ahead for everything that could go wrong. Double up on cameras, lenses, cards, batteries, and anything else that could fail on the day. Done that. Let's do this!
So, back in March I went along to South Bucks to spend the day with 2 great tutors in Kim Hawkins and Jodie Chapman. Both had different styles, but very modern, very on trend, and it was all about using natural light which is what I love doing. I hate artificial light, but maybe I don't understand it enough just yet. For now, I'm happy to use what nature gives me.
This took up most of the morning and was pretty hard work. I don't have the most expensive, most professional camera, but it's not all about the equipment and I think I got some great results. The best camera and lens that anyone has, is the one in their hands.
By this point of the day I was hungry, and as I'm typing this I'm hungry. We all went to the local pub for some much needed refuelling, and right now I'm going to head off for the same.