Wedding photography and portrait photography in Greenwich, London
SubscribeIt’s late and I’m off to a workshop first thing in the morning, so quickly posting a single from today’s lovely, lovely wedding. This is Nicoletta about five minutes before she walked down the aisle at The Dorchester. She was just so stylish. If you were a guest at the wedding, do get in touch so I can let you know when their full gallery goes on-line.
Kate and Paul married yesterday at the Haymarket Hotel, just off Trafalgar Square, in a stylish family day involving their guests, stunning food and lots of balloon animals. Kate’s dress matched the soles of her shoes … but you’ll have to wait a week or two to see how stunning she looked in it.
Yesterday’s wedding with Lola and Tunde was a wonderful family affair with some dedicated portrait time on London’s South Bank, despite the freezing conditions and flurries of snow. Here is a single from our cab ride to our portrait session.
I’ve just shown Marie her and Hendrick’s portraits I took in Reigate last month – and she’s happy for me to share them on the blog. I absolutely love them – and am so pleased that Marie agreed to get up very early for beautiful autumn light in our portrait session. Hendrick is a wire-haired dachshund, named after a brand of gin – quite fitting for a pub manager’s dog. Hendrick has a large glint in his eye and adored being on such a large walk with us both, responding especially well to doggie treats which Marie brought in her bag and his favourite speaky toy.
My mother and stepfather Bill have been visiting the UK from their home in Australia – to meet their new grandchild – and to have a break. They invited me on their week-long canal holiday from Bath and I was able to go with them for a couple of days in the past week. We set off in reasonable weather, mastering a swing bridge early on in the trip, then had a day of miserable cold and rain, hunkering down in the cabin for games of cards, crosswords and the papers with mugs of tea.
On my final day, we had the most wonderful cold start with mist rising off the water and a clear blue sky. Cyclists, runners, dogs and their owners all use the tow paths alongside the canal and it’s great to be surrounded by ducks, swans and other birdlife. Apart from one near miss when another canalboat skipper seemed to have missed seeing us, it was a peaceful trip with incredibly still canal water that ended just after going through our first lock at Bradford-Upon-Avon. This took about 45 minutes, including filling up with water and we could relax at the nearby Lock Inn for an all-day breakfast.
I’ve just spend this weekend in Abergavenny for its annual food festival, which is billed as the best food festival in the UK. Since I haven’t been to any others, I don’t know how true that statement is, but I had an absolute ball. The sun was out for the entire weekend and we found ourselves part of it from early Saturday morning with a singer/guitarist serenading all day in the street below – luckily the place I was staying was right in the middle of Abergavenny.
I hadn’t taken a ‘proper’ camera, but had the iphone on one of its first outings for these photographs. Part of the sellout party entertainment at Abergavenny’s castle on Saturday night was Little Rumba, formerly known as The Tango Band, so I was well pleased. Dad was celebrating his birthday and became part of entertainment with the Cosmic Sausages with the band singing him Happy Birthday and dressing him up in a blonde wig and pink feather boa for The Swedish Song.
I’ve just opened the post from the Master Photography Awards and found that I received six merits from entries to this year’s competition. The merits are based on impact, composition, colour and workmanship and were entered in the portrait and wedding sections.
I love looking at galleries to keep me inspired. Usually it is non-photographic work, but yesterday I wanted to see Lisa Tomasetti’s Burnt Memory exhibition at Hoopers Gallery before it closed on Friday. The main reason for wanting to see it was because she had collaborated with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey. The lighting in the large square photographs was very strong and rich and featured women and children of various cultures in carefully composed spaces. I liked the photographs – quite different from traditionally captured portraits where one of the main features is to see the sitter’s likeness. In these, strong shadows often hid either all or most of the faces.
Later in the afternoon, I went to the Courtauld Gallery for its regular collection including Gauguin, Cezanne, Gainsborough, Van Gogh, Seurat, Eric Gill, Kandinsky and Manet. Each has such a strong style, it’s a reminder to photographers that we constantly need to be developing our own as well, evolving through our lifetime.
The gallery collection includes a number of wedding chests and currently there is an exhibition until May 17 on just this niche item. Exhibition curator Dr Caroline Campbell gave a talk about the items yesterday, explaining how the main two wedding chests on display were commissioned in 1472 in Florence and were the work of a carpenter and two painters.
What makes the wedding chests especially rare is that the sides would feature painted scenes. In the 19th century, there was a school of thought that fine art and decorative arts should be separate, so many of the panoramic paintings were removed from their chests and framed. The exhibition featured a number of these, appearing on the walls as ‘regular’ framed paintings.
The chests apparently would be carried through the streets of Florence when a bride made her way from her father’s house to her husband’s for the first time, as part of the wedding ceremonies. Dr Campbell wondered how this was possible when six or seven experienced art technicians had struggled to get the empty chests to the Courtauld’s top gallery and when originally used, they would have been full of precious items.
It seems quite daft that the workmanship of beautifully carved chests and their painted decoration should be separated. Artists are affected by everything them – from other artists (the Courtauld has a Van Gogh self-portrait with a mutilated ear after he’d had an argument with Gauguin), the social graces of the time (Gainsborough’s portraits of 18th century ladies are shown with their faces demurely away from the artist’s gaze as would have been appropriate at the time) and Lisa Tomasetti’s work on film sets has led her to work with a cinematographer.
It was a brilliant day away from work, finished with beautiful dusk over London. 
I spent Friday and the weekend at London Baby Show at Excel Centre, talking to parents and parents-to-be about photographs of themselves and their families. There was a selection of announcement cards on display, maternity and newborn art prints and sets of vintage style framed children’s prints. It was great to talk to so many people about their families and how they would like to capture them for now and when they grow up – seeing mum and dad in photographs with them as children looking young!
A new product I had on display was the Queeensberry 8×8″ albums. Pictured here are the silk-covered albums (top red one, blue and stone) and the micro suede in a delicious rasberry.
Although most of my time is spent shooting and working on client images and albums, improving my skills and learning more about photography is also a very important part of my professional life. This week, I’ve been at Focus on Imaging in Birmingham, the main UK photographic trade show. For much of yesterday, I was on the MPA stand, observing the judging of Licentiate panels. It was a fabulous experience I had organised ahead of time, to learn more for when I’m mentoring other MPA members for their first qualification. It was brilliant to see how thoughtfully and enthusiastically the judges approached the panels of 20 photographs, looking at the overall impact of the panel, the photographer’s ability to focus, composition, ideas, colours, retouching and posing.
Not all of the panels made it through, but whether they did or not, each candidate had time with one of the judges to go through the panel, learning about its strengths and weaknesses to improve their photography. It’s a process that I have found invaluable in my learning and developing a style.
Yesterday was also a time to catch up with other photographers, find new products and learn more advanced retouching methods.