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


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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