Adam + Janine = Engaged!

Janine first got in touch with me a few months ago about shooting her wedding, which is going to be in May next year. We met up for a coffee and a chat at the little-known cafe that is Starbucks - in fact it was pretty funny as neither of us actually knew what the other looked like, so when I saw someone who looked like they were waiting for someone I said, "are you Janine?" luckily she said yes, rather than, "I'm calling security". It was then that I recognised her fiancé, Adam, as a former member of the Preston-based metal band (circa 2004) Asylum. In fact, I think we both competed in the same battle of the bands competition, though they got way further than we did.

Anyway, a little while after this meeting we organised an engagement shoot, which I decided should be in the heavenly resort of Blackpool. Now, Blackpool has many downsides, like the fact that it exists, but as a photographer I kind of love it. Preston, where I'm from, is a bit like Blackpool's more sensible, but slightly more boring (photographically at least) twin, and so I was sure that if we headed west we would surely find some interesting locations.

Arriving in Blackpool, and feeling more than a bit fearful for our lives/sense of superiority, we set about finding some cool backgrounds. Very quickly we found a great yellow wall, which I think was the side of a ropey looking amusement arcade. So, here are a couple of photos from there:

I also really liked the contrast between the red door and the yellow wall.

Anyway, next we headed towards the sea front to take a few more, and as it was windy we ducked in behind a wall. Like this:

After this was a quick outfit change in the pier's loos, going for a more edgy, rock n roll look. I think this was the point where we started attracting a few stares. So we stayed on the pier and found these deck chairs:

Next, I suggest to A&J that they could go down onto the beach while I stayed on the pier. This is when we got this shot:

After leaving the pier I spotted these black and white chequered lights, and got the idea for these shots:

And last, just as it was starting to rain, we had a quick shoot in front of a ghost train wall that I'd seen when we were doing the yellow wall shots:

So, that's the story of our shoot. Comments welcome!

The story behind the picture [Episode 2]

A while ago I posted a photo from Ben and Clare's December wedding, along with a little story of what went into it and the context in which it was taken. I like this idea and I think I'll make a regular feature of it.

Looking at photos is great, but I really think they come alive when you understand the story that is contained within them. Episode 2 of 'the story behind the picture' features a photo from Emma & James' wedding, which I shot a couple of weeks ago.

In contrast with the past couple of weeks, today (30th July) was a baking hot day - probably what E&J had had their fingers crossed for for over a year. I had already photographed all the key moments of the day and they had just cut the cake. The final official duty I had was to capture some images of their first dance as husband and wife. Now, normally I'm a big advocate of using ambient light whenever possible, as I feel that you can really sense the atmosphere in the photograph, whereas using flash can kind of kill the whole mood. This was not one of those times.

For around half and hour prior to the first dance I was trying to envision what I wanted from the dancing shot. Photographically there are a lot of things to bear in mind: firstly, it's almost pitch black so you have to decide how wide you want to open the aperture (which gives a very limited depth of field, meaning you run a risk of not getting the couple in focus); secondly you can lengthen the time the shutter remains open (anything less than about 1/60 of a second leads you open to motion blur); and thirdly you can increase the sensitivity of the sensor (increasing ISO sensitivity gives brighter pictures in low light but also means more noise). Hmmm ... what to do? I decided that the two flashes in my camera bag had been too lazy all day and needed to come out for some exercise. I wanted the couple backlit, but not rendered as silhouettes, which meant that I had to rig up one flash on a stand high up behind the couple and another one opposite to light the viewable side of the couple. The only other thing to bear in mind was how light or dark I wanted the background, which wouldn't be affected by the flash. I didn't want a black hole behind them but I wanted to keep it on the dark side (like Darth Vader). Using my 50mm f1.4 lens I shot in manual mode at 1/125 second, ISO 800, f8.

So, they are the technical details of the shot. The cake had just been cut, but the master of ceremonies tried to immediately go into the first dance (I'd mentioned to him that I'd need a couple of minutes to re-set the flashes after the cake-cutting photos, but I think he forgot) so, very untypically for me I jumped in and asked to delay the dance for a couple of minutes - I never do this kind of thing normally, but I knew that all I'd need were a few seconds and Emma & James would get a far better photograph. Here it is, just how I wanted (after a few tweaks in post processing) - the story completed by Emma's dad watching in the background. So, here it is. Comments welcome.

Lisa & Boo's Engagement Shoot

My friends Lisa & Boo are tying the knot this summer and a couple of weeks ago we went to the candy floss capital of the North-West (Blackpool, of course) to hang out and take some engagement shots. Once the kids (mine, that is) were in bed we jumped in the car and headed to the location. As it happened, this turned out to be one of the funnest shoots I've ever done and was so chilled out I don't know whether it ever was a 'photoshoot' - more just having fun together, with me taking a few pictures.

After parking up we made a beeline for the nearest doughnut stand, before wandering over to the pier - making sure we didn't do an Alan Bradley impression on the way across. We did so many fun things, like shooting targets, playing air hockey, riding kids' rides and playing the racing camel games, before wandering down to where the beach would've been had the tide not been in. The light was amazingly good, with the sun just thinking about setting, giving an almost orangey glow to everything. Boo got soaked, leading to a John Wayne-esque walk back to the car.

Camera geekiness

So, I've decided that a geeky camera blog post is way overdue.

Did you know that there are mobile phones available now that have a higher megapixel count than my main camera, which I use to photograph my clients' weddings? Crazy, hey?

Most normal people (that is, not a geeky camera nerd) are under the impression that more megapixels = better camera, so therefore any 16 mp camera is better than any 8mp camera. Well, this is only partly true. Megapixels do matter, but only to a point. A 1mp camera phone picture nearly always looks rubbish, but does that mean everyone interested in photography needs upwards of 15mp just to get a decent image? The short answer is absolutely not.

My Nikon D700 cost £1,750 (without any lenses) and yet has 'only' 12.1 megapixels, which was actually a downgrade of my previous camera, the 12.2 mp Canon 450D. So why did I bother blowing all that money for something worse than what I had before? The answer is that not all megapixels are created equal. Unlike all but professional DSLR cameras the Nikon D700 features a full frame sensor, which is about double the size of the sensor in most other DSLRs (and many many times larger than the sensor in a smartphone's camera). What this means is that the manufacturer can either pack more photo sites onto the sensor, like the 24.5 mp Nikon D3X, or it can make fewer, but larger photosites. Larger photosites, to cut a long and boring story short, vastly reduce the noise to signal ratio, making clean and beautiful image files in extremely dark conditions (such as in a church) without the need to blast everything with flash. My Canon 450D hit its limit at ISO 1600, and looked absolutely awful at that setting. (ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor - the higher the number, the more sensitive the sensor is, meaning the ability to achieve sharp pictures in low light without the need for flash or long shutter speeds, and with it motion blur). If absolutely necessary, my D700 can be pushed all the way up to ISO 25,000 plus. Admittedly, at this extreme the image quality does suffer, but what it meant in practice was that at a recent wedding I was able to get some shots of the bride dancing with her father in almost pitch black conditions without flash and with almost no motion blur - to use flash would have killed the mood in the picture stone dead.

Anyway, did you know that digital camera bodies these days are only part of the story, and that photographers in the know would much prefer to invest in great lenses, as those are what truly makes the difference in image quality that you see in their pictures. Also, most of the best lenses out there are called prime lenses, which means they don't zoom at all - if you want to get closer you have to move with your legs. The simpler design of these lenses means fewer compromises and almost always a fast maximum aperture (the ability to let in more light per click of the shutter) of f2.8, f1.4, or even f1.2 in some cases.

These professional lenses are really really good, but unfortunately they have price tags to go with it. All of the lenses I want at the moment are over £1,000 each at the moment, used. Here's what I've got in my bag at the moment and how I use them as tools in my photography.

Nikon 28mm f2.8D - this wide angle prime lens helps me get large group shots at weddings, captures great landscapes and enables me to take pictures of a bride getting ready in extremely cramped rooms.

Nikon 50mm f1.4G - a standard prime lens, this is neither wide angle nor telephoto, meaning it roughly sees what I see. The image quality is amazing and the mega-fast maximum aperture means I can shoot in the lowest levels of light and also blur out a background completely.

Nikon 70-200mm f2.8G - this is a professional grade telephoto zoom lens that is renowned for its ability to make amazing portraits. In a wedding I can stand at a distance and record details, emotions, etc, without interfering in the scene. By the way, a tip is never to use a wide angle lens to take a close-up portrait as it will distort the subject's features.

Nikon 105mm f2.8 Micro - This is a new addition to my collection (it's being delivered in the next day or two). A macro lens is a lens that allows the photographer to get ultra close to the subject, making it ideal for taking photos of insects. Wedding photographers use a macro lens to get great, detailed photos of things like rings, which are too small to be photographed well with other lenses without the help of a closeup filter.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll indulge in another geek-out session very soon.
Bye!

P.s. If you have any questions about photography I'd be delighted to help in any way I can.


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Kathryn & Matt!

It probably hadn't escaped your attention that I'd been looking forward to this wedding for aaaaaaages. A month or so back I went down to Bristol to meet up with our friends Kathryn and Matt, and to do an engagement photoshoot with them. Now I get to share their wedding day with you, as I saw it.

We actually drove the 196 miles down from Preston to Bristol the day before (kids handily dropped off with the grandparents, and took part in a wedding rehearsal, followed by a meal out with Kathryn's family). I should probably mention that my wife Shirah was a bridesmaid!

The weather on the day was a bit crappy, but that didn't spoil a thing. Luckily the B&B we were staying in was only a 5 minute walk (or as I found out also a 5 minute run, with all my camera gear flailing around) from the church. Note to self: must get fit if I'm not to have a premature heart-attack. While Kathryn went off to get her hair done I had a sneak around the B&B looking for good photographic opportunities, then when they went off to get the flowers I set about photographing the dress, tiara, shoes, and anything else I thought told the story of the day. The rings were AWOL and it was only when I legged it up to the church that I managed to track them down to photograph - all of which took about 1 minute, but luckily within this minute I managed to find a great background for them (well, I thought it was great. the best man probably thought I was insane).

After some portraits of Kathryn with her bridesmaids it was time to get to the church. Now, it turns out that M&K have some super-cool friends, who'd really done so much to help make their day run without a hitch. Ross, I think you should be a professional wedding co-ordinator! The rest of the day ran really well, with some great speeches, a song performed by Matt to Kathryn, and some of the funkiest dancing I've seen since I was at the primary school disco 20 years ago.

Hope you like the photos - I'd love to hear your comments, and, if you were there too, your memories from the day! I'll be posting more images when M&K return from their honeymoon :)

One year on ...

It seems hard for me to believe, but it's now just over a year since I set up my 'other baby', Philip Bamber Photography. So much has happened, so much has changed, that i'm struggling to keep up - looking at my website now you'd probably find it strange to know that i originally had no intention of doing anything besides kids' photography. No weddings. Never. So, what changed? Well, what didn't?!

Though I'm still on the world's steepest learning curve and I'm only taking baby steps, I can't help but be pleased with how things are going, especially considering I have to work another job as well. I've spent countless hours wrestling with questions like "who am I, not only as a photographer, but also as a person?"' and not necessarily getting many clear cut answers. In fact, just as I think I'm closing in on the answer there is a shift in what I want, my artistic tastes, etc, etc, so I feel a bit like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit at times. The CEO of Starbucks has also had at least 3 cruises, paid for entirely by my Latte purchases, as i try to put all my fragments of ideas and concepts into a tangible business plan - this still evades me, as my original 2 million page plan (for the kids' photography) is now utterly obsolete.

So where did the wedding photography thing come from? You know what, I honestly don't know. As I say, I'd never had a wedding enquiry before and wasn't even advertising this service, when a friend commented on some pictures she'd seen on the ubiquitous Facebook and mentioned (I think she was joking at the time) about maybe doing her wedding. So i thought, you know what, this could be fun, and as it was almost 2 years in the future it didn't stress me out too much. Since then I've shot 2 weddings (both such great experiences in such different ways), with several more booked for the coming months. Honestly, though I've enjoyed many of my jobs in the past, nothing fulfils me and makes me want to push myself as much as my little photography business. I have no desire to create a world-wide franchise, and most of the most inspiring photographers I have seen and heard have been the most humble.

So who am i now? I want to be:
Creative; honest; ethical; artistically uncompromising; down-to-earth; friendly; approachable; efficient; respectful; passionate; utterly referrable

I guess this is my 'to be' list, which is something I have got from one of my favourite photography professionals, Mike Larson. I know that I am never going to be all of these things at any one time and I will probably fail many times, but it is something I strive for at all times - my perfect future self, if you will.

My hopes for the next 12 months are to give my all to my clients, not just in terms of taking beautiful and artistic photographs, but in creating a generally wonderful experience all round. I want to make a move towards including slightly quirky, individual weddings, as well as classical ones. I want I want I want.

So yeah, happy birthday to me and thank you to all my clients, both past and present, I'd be nowhere without you guys.

All the best,
Phil


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Matt & Kathryn's Engagement Shoot

1) I love engagement shoots
2) I love Bristol

It goes without saying that when both of the above combine it makes me happy. Matt and Kathryn are good friends of mine and are going to become Mr & Mrs in May. This was my 4th visit to Bristol in about 9 months, and I love how artistic and alive it is, with all kinds of people doing their thing.
 
For the shoot I was totally relying on M&K to help me out with locations, and they took me to a couple of really nice places - Matt was keen to avoid the typical graffiti'd wall backgrounds so we headed to a cool park with some secluded little areas. Now, here's where I should probably admit that I HATE having my photo taken, and generally look like either a terrorist or a village idiot (or a combination of the two, which is worrying). Luckily, M&K really helped me out and at least pretended not to be too self-conscious.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how edgy the background, how sublime the lighting conditions are, and how well composed the pose it, if the couple are tense and not having fun the photos will simply not be any good. I'm really happy with the way the shoot went and I dare say we even had a bit of fun along the way, too.

Anyway, here are a few photos of this most excellent of couples, and I can't wait till May!

Phil

Embracing Your Inner Snob

We live in a disposable culture. You can buy anything at a discount price and easily replace it; nothing is worth anything anymore. Nescafe & Primark have convinced us that it's better to have 'cheap & cheerful' (which really means 'adequate and replaceable') than spending more for things that last and that we actually want, need or like.

I have had enough. 

I want to have things that last, but that I love and am proud to own. And those are the kinds of products I want to provide. Not prints that cost 2p each and look 'alright' - prints that cost a little bit more but are worth every penny. I've decided to offer you products you will want to show off to your friends, not hide when they come round.

This is why I am so pleased to have found Folio - high quality, highly ethical practice and just generally amazing. I've just received, & now passed on, Ben & Clare's wedding photobook. Don't get me wrong, these books do not come cheap, but man they're good. They've paid attention to every little detail, from the sumptuous leather cover, to the organic feel of the presentation box. Here are some pics to prove it.

(Presentation Box) 

 (the cloth bag to further protect your book)

 (names  can be stamped on the front cover to completely personalise the book

)

 (high quality 'art cotton' media - you can even see the protective paper inserts that it comes with)

 (lay-flat spreads enable prints plenty of room to breath without being sucked into the central gutter)

(crisp and vivid colours)

Yeah, so I guess this is a taste of what I'm about, with Folio as an example. I also design my own page layouts, so will see the process through from beginning to end.

I'd love to hear you thoughts on this, so comments are more than welcome :)

Phil

p.s. thanks to Ben and Clare for letting me use their book in this post

Just look at what you could have won.

So, the other week we were coming out of Sainsbury's (happens to be the closest supermarket) and were accosted by a sales rep from a photographic studio in Lancashire (who will remain nameless as I don't want to slag off another professional - well, not directly at least), and agreed to enter a prize draw to win a portrait shoot. "Why not?" we thought. It was booked and, yesterday morning, we went.

Now, I must admit, (rather ironically) that I wasn't particularly looking to going, as I envisioned something akin to jobsworths from a double-glazing company battering you down until you agree to buy something you don't want. Now, in reality, I really enjoyed it, though not as much as Eden, who absolutely loved it. He screamed with delight every time the studio lights fired (to the displeasure of my left ear). The photographer himself was a great guy, really chilled out and not at all pushy. In fact, he was just like I would like to be myself in that situation. So where's the problem?

The problem lies not in their images (which are great, if a little gimmicky/cliche'd for my tastes), but in their whole way of running their business. Though we weren't pressured at all, we were given a copy of the price list and given a time to come back to the studio to view the images. Great, hey? Unfortunately not, no.

What will sadly happen on the viewing night is akin to extreme emotional manipulation and a real sense of sadness that all of these wonderful images of my beloved family will have to be doomed to being deleted, because of the sheer scale of the prices involved. Every image we view will have to be answered with a 'yes', 'no', or 'maybe'. Eventually, even the 'maybe's' will have to become 'no's'. We will leave the studio with nothing more than one or two framed 7x5" prints, whilst we try to make mental photos of all the ones that got away. Images on DVD are available, but only at a cost of £553 for 10 (first viewing only), or £700 ish if bought after that.

The journey home was a sombre one, and made me even more determined not to make my clients feel how we were feeling right then. Where they pressure you into buying things you can't afford, I'll leave the door open for you to buy your photographs for up to five years, with no threat of losing valuable memories to my Mac's trash bin. My DVDs come as part of every package, and contain 15 of your favourite images (high resolution, of course). Extra images aren't cheap, but they are affordable, as opposed to crippling. While they offer a studio viewing, I currently offer a private online viewing gallery, away from the pressure of a sales-hungry photographer/wolf breathing down your neck.

Yes, it's going to be sad seeing all those images dying before their time, but it's made me more determined than ever not to do the same thing to my clients.

Your feedback is valued and appreciated. Updated information is now live on my website. See www.philipbamber.co.uk for details

Branching out

So, I've decided that I'd really like to add a new string to my bow, in the form of arty photos that anyone can buy from me for their walls (if you feel so inclined). This really will be a mixed bag of all kinds of things, like landscapes, urban photographs, abstracts, and who knows what. So, here's the first photo for you, along with the story behind it.

This all started due to sheer lack of sleep on the part of my wife. We managed to palm off our 2-year-old on his grandparents, but I said I'd take our youngest for a drive around. I took my camera gear just in case we happened upon anything worth getting out of the car for. It really was a bit of a mystery tour, and I didn't really know where we were to be honest. Anyway, past Longridge we turned down this long straight road, and I saw this really cool looking landscape of marsh and trees. Making sure Caleb was fine, I squeezed between the dry stone wall and barbed wire fence and started quickly trying to find a picture. My first attempts didn't really work out as, with forest in the background, there was no separation of subject and background. I span round a bit so that the background was mainly sky - this meant that the tree was no longer swallowed up by the forest. So really this was about seeing the wood, not the trees.

I really liked the angles of the two hillsides, the lean of the tree and the colour and texture of the marshy grass. I decided that, to make it all a bit more arty, I'd manually defocus the tree, leaving it a bit more abstract in the frame. At home, I tried to keep all the Lightroom and Photoshop work really subtle and to a minimum. I added a couple of light textures, played a bit with the colour, tweaked the contrast slightly, and, besides a slight vignette (darkening of the corners), that really was about it.

So there we go, hopefully it was worth getting wet socks for. I really appreciate any comments and feedback :)

Phil

The story behind the photo: Episode 1

Hopefully this will become a regular feature on my blog, where I can give you all a bit of the story about how the photograph came to be, as well as what I see in the image. OK, so the first picture I want to show you was taken at the wedding of Ben and Clare, on the 29th December 2010. 

It was one of those days when the sun really took its time getting over the horizon - a bit like me pressing the snooze button ten times before getting out of bed, but by the time we all arrived at Ashton Memorial in Lancaster for the ceremony, the sun had had its coffee and was ready to go. Now let me tell you that this venue was absolutely special in so many ways, not least in terms of the lighting and ambience inside the building. It is completely surrounded by windows, but no light comes from above (a photographer's dream really). As I probably mentioned in another blog post, this ceremony was really intimate, and whilst it was obviously a wedding, Ben and Clare had thought about every last detail of the day, to make it completely unique to them. Following the ceremony, I really wanted to just let Ben and Clare soak up the experience and enjoy themselves and their guests, without being instantly snatched away for a million group photos.

Anyway, eventually we decided to pop just outside the doorway for a few portraits of Ben and Clare together. This is where this photograph was taken. After taking a few head-shots, I looked down and instantly saw this image in my mind. 

So, what do I see in this image, besides the obvious answer of 'feet'?

Well, I'm looking at some pretty subtle things I guess but let me give you a few insights. 

1) The lighting - this was the whole reason for the shot, as I noticed how cool the light looked through Clare's dress. It kind of glows, doesn't it?

2) The lines - There are a few lines in this image that I think really help the composition. Notice how just by Clare's feet there is an angle in the gap between flagstones? Well, that line is mirrored just above by the way Clare's dress is falling. Her feet are also aligned with the direction of another gap, leading to the bottom middle edge of the frame. The angle created by Ben's feet runs perpendicular to this line, which for reasons unknown I like.

3) Dynamic range - There's a really big tonal range in this shot, right from the whitest part of the sunlit dress, to the blackest part of Ben's left shoe. I also happen to like the almost creaminess of the flagstone in the bottom left corner.

4) Simplicity - I'm in a bit of a purist phase right now, which means I really want to let the natural qualities of the image shine through, rather than processing the crap out of it in photoshop. 

Anyway, this is a bit of an insight into how I look at this photo. It would be great to hear some of your thoughts or observations, just make a comment below :-)

Phil

Updates and shmupdates

Yet another of my meandering blog posts, I'm afraid. Here's what's been happening with me over the last week or so ...

1) I've got a new hobby, and it's called photography! You see, with the digital age comes disposability (is that a word?) Don't like a photo? Just press delete and it's gone, no cost to you. This often leads to people taking a million pictures and liking just one or two. So, my new hobby is this: grab my wife's old Nikon Film camera, loaded with a roll of black and white film; grab a random lens that happens to fit the camera; grab a light meter; go for a walk, again, somewhere pretty random, and take photos. Of what? Anything! The only rule to this game is that you get one shot at one thing - no repeats. What this does is force you to get everything absolutely spot-on in the camera, so first comes a meter reading, which tells you your aperture and shutter speed, then you compose the shot as best you can, focus and shoot. And the best part is you'll never know what you've shot like till you get the film developed. Well, I like it anyway.

2) Product research - My philosophy on the products my business offers is very simple: they've got to be good enough to make you think "wow!" This is what I said the day my print samples arrived anyway. Not all printers are created equal, it turns out. So, I'm currently having fun seeking out the coolest and best quality products out there. I actually take a pretty big risk (so would say many other photographers) by giving my clients DVDs of high-resolution images .. after all, why would a client come back to me for prints when they can just take the entire DVD to Asda or Snapfish and get something that looks good for 1p? Quality. My products (not talking about the images here) are amazing. They rock. They look and feel so so good, that after having them you may not ever want to go back.

3) Photo Training - So, I'm thinking very seriously about putting on an action-packed, hands-on crash course in beginners' photography. In an afternoon you can learn all about crazy things like Exposure (no in the flasher sense), different lenses, aperture, ISO, and all the other scary things that lurk in the basement of your Digital SLR camera. No more Auto!

Bye

Being a chameleon

OK, so you're probably wondering (as am I right now) what I must have taken to make me put a title like 'being a chameleon'. I'll level with you, I have a seed of an idea, which I'm hoping will grow just by typing, stream of consciousness style.

For quite a while now - pretty much since I started my photography business - I've been constantly asking myself who I am as a photographer, and consequently, what is my brand? What is my place in the market? What is my natural style? This is something I've been having some major headaches over. It's true, when you hear a guitar riff, you can take a guess at who could be playing it. I don't know much about painting but I could probably recognise a Picasso if I saw one.

Here is the problem: I like Picasso, but I also like Rembrandt. I like Indian food, but I also like Italian. Sadly, the two are not particularly reconcilable. It's the same with my photographic influences. I love the fresh, carefree, lifestyle approach of photographers such as Mike Larson, Jose Villa and Jonas Peterson. But ... I also love the fine-art, restrained, high taste feel of Damien Lovegrove, Jerry Ghionis, etc.

I'm beginning to get to the point of this post I think. Creating a successful brand is largely about being true to who you are, and - to a point at least - modelling your business and your art into an avatar of yourself. One of the most annoying things about me (from my point of view) is my tendency to change depending on who I'm with, or, in artistic terms, to let my influences sway me too much. For example, after looking at a fine-art portrait by Damien Lovegrove, all I want to do is create high art that people can look at whilst sipping port and smoking a Cuban (cigar, not citizen). Then, ten minutes later I check out Mike Larson's blog and I just want to drive to the nearest beach at sunset and have a fun shoot with a great couple.

I'm not sure there is an answer to this conundrum, other than to return to the title of this blog.
A chameleon can change its colour, but it's always a chameleon, it can't morph into a completely different species. So maybe I should just relax, whatever I do, so long as I stay true to my vision, it will still be .. me.

The end, for now

Happenings

One of my goals for 2011 is to try and keep this blog updated. So, without further ado, let me tell you all what is happening in my world at the moment. I currently share a house with two sick kids (well, just slightly ill really), and it's beginning to drive me slightly bonkers. I've been meaning to take some more 'arty' photos of Caleb for a while now, but whenever I think of it, he's not interested in the slightest. Today, however, I managed to take a series of shots, one of which I like. Right after this one he proceeded to vomit milk out of his nose.

Apart from this, I'm really trying to think about what direction I'd like to take my photography in 2011. I've even downloaded a handy little app onto my iPad, called Moodboard Pro, where I can make a collage of all the images that really inspire me, and make me say "wow, I wish I'd taken that one!" I've only just started, but am finding that photographers such as Jose Villa, Mike Larson and Jonas Peterson are producing some really great stuff. Their work is so fresh and full of life, that it makes me want to go out and take pictures. In fact, I think I'll carry on with that right now!

Ben & Clare's Classy Winter Weddding!

I know it's been an age since I've written a proper blog post, but then I have had another son, and it has been Christmas :)

So, last Wednesday was a day I'd been looking forward to for aaages. Yes, it was Ben and Clare's wedding. What I loved about this wedding, as well as the couple themselves, of course, was the way they made it just how they wanted, and in doing so, showed themselves to be people of great taste.

The day began at around 8am at the Lancaster House Hotel, next to the university. Oh yeah, they'd decided to walk in to the ceremony together, which meant they were able to enjoy breakfast together too. The light was still struggling to break across the horizon at this point so I got chatting to some guests, whom I hadn't seen since we all left school in 1998 (is it really that long ago?!). After a brief panic about my camera, I discovered it had been set to 'lock' mode. Regaining my composure, I came back in and started shooting the day, as I saw it, in a mostly documentary style. We got to do a great 'first look' series of shots, when Ben saw Clare in her dress for the first time (maybe I'll get to blog those sometime soon).

Next was the ceremony, and the venue was the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster. This is a stunning building right on top of a hill. A string quartet played a mixture of classical stuff and tunes by modern bands like the Verve & Snow Patrol.

Next was Hipping Hall in Kirkby Lonsdale. This is another beautiful cozy little place, which happens to serve amazing food. We hung out in the lounge for the group shots, then headed off for lunch. Later in the day I got to take Ben and Clare off for a few shots by themselves, and, as it was pretty much dark by this point, we went for some more dramatic, flash-lit pictures. So, all in all, this was such a cool day. Sublimely classy and fun too :)