The Early Bird..

Woke up at 4:15am to feed Elliott and, unable to get back to sleep, decided to make a big mug of tea and get on with some work. I actually feel strangely productive at the most unsociable hours. I still have a bit of a backlog of images to work through but I'm also excited to start editing the photos from Louise & Brad's wedding this past weekend. It was a fairly religious wedding, with the church service being the main part of their day. Luckily Evelyne and I had plenty of access within the church during the ceremony and we came home with a fantastic variety of shots from all angles in the church. There was a balcony which ran down both sides of the church allowing us to shoot from above. Amazingly, the vicar told me that no photographer had ever asked if they could photograph from up there before!
Here's a portrait of Louise just before she left for the church...


Sunday was anything but a day of rest this week, beginning with a photo shoot with local band, The Arcadian Kicks whose gig I reviewed a few weeks ago. Together with make-up artists, clothes borrowed from Top Shop and their manager (who also drums for The Charlatans) we spent a couple of hours wandering around parks, hotels and industrial estates getting a good variety of shots for them to choose from. Hopefully they'll be pleased with the results and maybe John will let me do some pics for The Charlatans some time..

From there I had 2 viewings with potential wedding clients, both of which have now confirmed us as their wedding photographers. One wedding is at the beautiful Eastnor Castle which looks like a dream venue for photographs. The second is for Charlotte & Steve who are the kind of couple I could imagine becoming good friends with. Both were at the Metallica gig I covered for Rock Sound at Wembley so I'm sending them a print from the show as a thank you for the booking. Charlotte is also French speaking, as is her family, so it'll be good to have Evelyne there on the day (her first language is French) to help out. Charlotte runs a company called Traces Of Rock which sells kids clothes with a rock style to them. Check out the website HERE.

Sunday night saw my friend Toni and I heading over to Nottingham to see Warrior Soul at a tiny club called Junktion. It was a bit of a blast from the past for me as it must be a decade since I even listened to them. It was a good gig though and great to see them in such a tiny venue as I'd previously seen them opening for Metallica at the NEC Arena.

Since Sunday things have been somewhat more relaxed and Evelyne and I have taken time to reorganise the office, watch The Departed, which was fantastic, and go for lunch with fellow photographer, Emily Quinton, her boyfriend Stef and their little girl, Imogen.

I had to get home for 3pm to register for a place on the 5 day seminar with Jerry Ghionis, which, although not til next June, I'm extremely excited about. There were only 20 places but it looks like I got in. I'm awaiting my confirmation..

Off to Chester today to introduce Elliott to his great grandma. While we're there we have an appointment to see the events co-ordinator at Chester Zoo, as they now do weddings there. I love the idea of having wedding images with the animals in the background. I'm not really a massive fan of zoos but Chester Zoo is certainly one of the best, with a good reputation.

Some more photos from our own wedding, courtesy of Bianca..

Stadium Rocks!

Often at a wedding I know instantly that I've captured something just a little bit special and Rachel & Wes' wedding was one such occasion. The reception venue itself was less than inspiring when it came to locations but as soon as we wandered away slightly with the couple we found some great light and fantastic locations for shots. These two images were taken about 5 minutes apart..



This evening I visited Holy Trinity Church in Sutton Coldfield where I'll be shooting Lou & Brad's wedding this weekend. It's a pretty impressive church with a huge stained-glass window at one end. It was good to meet the vicar beforehand to discuss where I can shoot from and he was more than helpful. I asked if I could shoot from a balcony which ran down the side of the main hall and amazingly he said no photographer had ever asked to use it before. Evelyne will be assisting me on the day so between us we have all angles covered and I'm excited to photograph the event. Lou is the sister of Dave whose wedding we did last month. Here he is in top hat and tails..


It's a while now since I've done any overseas DJ gigs but tonight I chatted to my friend Alung in Jakarta who puts on events at my favourite club in the world, Stadium. He's looking to bring me back out after I played there 2 years ago. This club opens on a Friday night and doesn't close til Monday morning and is packed throughout! Truly amazing. Last time I played there I did a 6 hour set, part of which you can download HERE. We talked about me doing a few Asian gigs to celebrate ten years as a house DJ. It'd be cool to dust off a few of my favourite tunes from the past decade and play them to people who may have missed them first time around. We'll see what happens...

So, the computer is ordered and Tony has been demonstrating some of the tasty new toys I'll shortly have at my disposal. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. It's gonna be another 2 weeks before Santa drops off my new toy but I'm looking forward to unwrapping it.

Setting standards

Popped over to Manor House Farm Cottage (they obviously couldn't decide what it was) to visit John, Jane & family to show them the photos we took of their two girls, Eleanor & Grace. They're a great family and put a nice healthy order in for framed prints and a photobook. Here's a couple of pictures from their shoot..




Lisa Gault has shown us a few more pictures she took at our wedding. Here's a great one of Evelyne..


The new Rock Sound magazine is out with my photos of Biffy Clyro, As I Lay Dying, Darkest Hour and Himsa. I may be biased but I have to say that Rock Sound is my favourite of all the rock mags out there. They cover a great variety of music and don't just stick My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy on every cover.

It's always interesting how one job leads to something else in this business. Doing a shoot for a kids clothes shop lead to me working for Live 24-Seven mag which lead to me meeting a restaurant owner who asked me to do a family lifestyle shoot before recommending me to a couple who then confirmed me to shoot their wedding. It just proves a point which I've mentioned to many photographers that you just have to get out there and see what happens. If the work's good enough and you're professional and polite, jobs will naturally come your way.
Yesterday I did a shoot for a store looking for images for their Christmas advertising and the store owner chatted to me about doing a family portrait as a gift for her parents' wedding anniversary. In the evening I was working at Da Vinci's restaurant and met up with ex-champion show jumper Emma Jane Brown who wants some portraits of her kids. I also met a man who might be producing our new brochures for us.

All these jobs are great news but it does mean I have to be super-organised and efficient if I'm gonna keep all clients happy. It's not my strong point if I'm honest, but I am getting better. Hopefully my new super-computer will make life easier too. We're ordering it today...

Received Yervant's book "Dancing With Poppy" which has some fantastic images in it. I thought I could use some more inspiration for posing couples on the wedding day. Yervant's work is so artistic and, together with Jerry Ghionis, Marcus Bell and, of course, Jeff Ascough, he is setting a standard I'll be forever aiming towards...

Gotta love the grindstone!

Seriously, if I'd imagined the perfect wedding in the perfect location with the perfect group of people I doubt I would have dared imagine a day as incredible as our own wedding day. We were so lucky with everything. The weather was fantastic so we moved the ceremony from inside the fort onto the clifftop lawn overlooking the sea. The people who made it down to Cornwall were such a great bunch and the whole atmosphere of the day was something we'll never forget. From the gorgeous ceremony with our own vows and that view to the photo shoot, the fantastic buffet prepared by my relatives, the pub quiz (complete with a round about ourselves as well as a few questions in French for Evelyne's family) and finally a slideshow that had grown men in tears and an evening of great music and great friends, our wedding was just more than we ever could have wished for.
We have yet to see many photos but here are just a few that people have emailed over so far...

(Photo above by Geoff Rogers)


Photo above by Bianca Barrett




Photos above by Lisa Gault

It was great fun being on the other side of the wedding photographer's camera for a change too and made me realize even more how important photographs are to any couple getting married. We're so excited to see all the pictures taken on our day and it's good to see things from our clients' point of view. Being wedding photographers ourselves meant that we were more than happy to make time to create some great images from the day.

The whole week in Cornwall was just brilliant. Even the day after the wedding we were out n' about enjoying the late English summer and even spotted some seals basking on the rocks. The venue itself was idylic and it was sad to leave it behind but we had 5 days that we'll never forget.

Once we got home it was back to reality with a bang! Magazines wanting images, bands wanting promo shots, couples wanting to meet us to view our work, plus plenty of wedding images to finish off and prepare to show clients whose weddings we'd covered just before our own. Things are crazy busy with the business now and I'm loving every minute. The only thing dragging me down was my PC which just isn't up to the job of handling all these photographs. The last week has been a rude awakening that I need to upgrade, culminating in me ordering my first Mac after continued recommendations from friends and colleagues, not least Tony, my best man. The new computer sounds like a beast and I can't wait to have it in the office to see how it can improve my workflow.

Nat & John loved their pictures from their wedding and ordered another £700 of images for the album. Here's a couple of my faves from their wedding at the stunning Grafton Manor..



Plus one of me at work, taken by Evelyne...


Tammy & Dave were also happy with their photos and are trying to decide which they'd like for their album. Their reception was at Swinfen Hall, a great venue with a really friendly bunch of guests. Here's some images from their day...




Since our own wedding it's been non-stop. Evelyne and I would love a day off to ourselves but we're gonna have to wait for now as the work just keeps coming in. We did find time this weekend to visit the National Weddng Show at the NEC just to have a nose, check out the competition and decide whether we wanted to have our own stand there next year. We subsequently booked for next October after seeing just how busy the show is. It's not cheap to exhibit there but I'm sure it'll be more than worth it.
While at the wedding show we met photographer Emily Quinton and her boyfriend Stef. They run a similar business to ourselves and I'd stumbled across Emily's site the week before and emailed her to say how much I liked her work. It was good to meet them both in person and I have a feeling we'll be getting to know them better. We've both recommended clients to each other for dates we already have booked. Check out Emily's site HERE

After visiting the wedding show we met 2 couples looking for photographers for their wedding day and both meetings went well. Sometimes I feel like I'm having to sell myself as if it's an interview, which I'm not keen on, but usually it feels like a friendly chat about weddings, photography and often totally unrelated subjects and those are the clients we love to work with. Damien Lovegrove calls them "warm fuzzies" as opposed to "cold pricklies". I know what he means though. One of the people we met had already read this blog before too which I was surprised about. While at their house they were playing KT Tunstall and today I was up at the Academy photographing Miss Tunstall who I have to say I love. People who know my love of brutal hardcore metal might be surprised to hear that, but my music taste really is extremely diverse and I think KT Tunstall writes brilliant songs with a lot of personality and live she's so engaging and witty it's impossible not to like her. I can imagine sitting around a camp fire on a beach in Scotland listening to her play songs and tell stories...
Here's a shot from tonight's gig..


Speaking of music photography, I've had 2 of my MySpace sites re-designed by a guy called Liam Flaherty. You can see the results HERE and HERE. The design is clean and simple and showcases the images really well so I'm pleased.

Here's a shot from a band promo shoot I did on Saturday afternoon. The band is called Liken

Wedded Bliss

Off to Polhawn Fort in Cornwall for the week with friends and family. Our wedding is 2pm on wednesday. It's gonna be a great week... Photos here soon...