Wedding at St Andrew's Church and Ramada Hotel, Dover

I had the pleasure of photographing Louise and Adam's wedding yesterday at the Buckland Church of St Andrew and the Ramada Hotel, Dover - see their wedding gallery.

After an overcast week the sun was out with a vengeance yesterday - incredibly strong and contrasty and without a cloud in the sky. Still, better than rain. Apparently this August has been the gloomiest since 1912 - let's hope the next one like this is 96 years off! The upside of this was that the interior of the church was a lot brighter than when I was there earlier in the month - no ISO 3200 this time.

Louise and Adam are a fine-looking couple (and pretty athletic too - check out Adam's leap above) and I soon had them posing like catalogue models. They were great fun to work with. After all their hard work they deserved a glass of champagne. We had intended to pop the cork under 'controlled conditions' but it shot out like an inter-continental ballistic missile giving us all a shock in the process - it did result in some entertaining shots though.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Wedding at Ramsgate Registry Office and Smiths Court Hotel, Margate

I had the pleasure of photographing Nikki and Michael's wedding at Ramsgate Registry Office and the Smiths Court Hotel, Margate on Sunday - see their wedding gallery. Unfortunately, it was another rainy day but we did get a small window of opportunity to do some outside shots in the gazebo at the registry office.

Nikki and Michael were fantastic though - they got on with enjoying their day and didn't complain once. Nikki was 7.5 months pregnant and still managed to have a smile on her face all day. Regarding the groom, Michael had the biggest wedding ring I've ever seen - look at the two in comparison in the top shot.

Thankfully the Smiths Court Hotel had a wonderfully light dining room. They didn't blink an eye as I rearranged all their furniture to set up for the group shots. My 35mm f/1.4 L and 85mm f/1.2 L lenses were perfect for this situation, allowing me to throw the background out of focus.

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Wedding at Maison Dieu and Dover Castle

I had the pleasure of photographing Naoko and Kazu's wedding at Maison Dieu (Dover's rather fine Registry Office) and The Keep of Dover Castle - check out their wedding photos. As appears to be the norm for August 2008 it was mainly overcast for most of the day (no rain though), but the sky cleared in the evening and I was able to get some great sunset shots.

Naoko and Kazu certainly pulled out all the stops for their wedding with a Routemaster London bus taking us up to the magnificent Dover Castle for the reception. It was the most cosmopolitan wedding I've ever photographed with a huge range of nationalities represented (drawn to the UK to work with Cancer Research).

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This weekend's weddings

My batteries are charged, my memory cards reformatted, my lenses cleaned and my bag packed and ready to go - it's wedding time!

I'm off to Maison Dieu House and Dover Castle today to photograph Naoko & Kazunori's wedding and Ramsgate Registry Office and Smiths Court Hotel, Margate tomorrow for Nikki and Michael's wedding.

Monday will be a day at the computer applying my digital wedding workflow.

Fingers crossed for the weather!

Check out my photography here: Kent wedding photographer

My digital wedding workflow

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

In response to a reader's question I present my digital wedding workflow. It's very efficient and allows me to finish processing a wedding by the next day.

1. RAW files loaded from memory cards to a folder labelled with couple's names.

2. Imported into Lightroom.

3. Quick eyeball of all photos in library module. If a shot is spoilt by blinking or grimacing, or if someone has walked into shot, use X key to mark image as reject.

4. Verify and then delete rejected shots.

5. Work through all the images in the develop module (I can do 200 shots an hour when I'm in 'the zone' - use the paste develop settings within Lightroom to save time).

6. Tonal adjustments are the major correction to make. Tone curve to strong contrast (I apply this to all the images in two steps by copying the develop settings from the first shot and then pasting to all the rest). Recovery and exposure sliders to adjust highlights. Fill light and brightness to adjust shadows (this can introduce considerable digitial noise if the image was shot at high ISO). Contrast and blacks to further tweak contrast.

7. Adjust white balance and vibrance. If interior shots are bathed in fluorescent light, adjustment to tint (green-magenta shift) is necessary.

8. I use the 'Previous' button at the bottom of the develop module extensively. It pastes the previous photo's develop settings. Notice that I am not making changes that are unique to a shot at this stage (such as crops and rotations) as I do not want to paste these between images.

9. I now export all the images as JPEG files (Quality 80%, resolution 240) and use the post-processing 'Export actions' facility within Lightroom. I've created a Photoshop droplet based on an action which removes digital noise using Neat Image and then sharpens the image (file size can expand to 6MB). You need the pro-version of Neat Image to do this. I've created a custom noise profile for my EOS 5D - Neat Image can read the ISO setting in the EXIF data and apply the right level of noise correction. I prefer Neat Image's noise removal and Photoshop's sharpening to the equivalents in Lightroom.

10. I have a top-of-the-range MacPro but it still takes 3-4 hours to complete the above step - I often run it overnight.

11. I import these files into Lightroom with the couple's names and the suffix 'tweaked jpegs'.

12. I now adjust cropping, straighten shots and make any other minor tweaks which are necessary.

13. I choose my picks from these to make up my web slideshow.

14. I export all the shots twice as high res (files now typically 2MB) and low res (resize 1000 x 1000, resolution 72, typically 300KB) images which are burnt to DVD.

15. If I want to do any really special treatments I can use the adjusted RAW files and export to Photoshop as 16-bit TIFFs.

Please feel free to post any comments.

Check out my photography here: Kent wedding photography

Wedding at The Grove Ferry Inn, Upstreet, Kent

I had the pleasure of photographing Gemma and John's wedding on Saturday at St Nicholas Church, Sturry and The Grove Ferry Inn, Upstreet in Kent - check out their wedding photos.

Gemma and John were a wonderful couple and there were no shortage of entertaining guests either - a terrific wedding day. Unfortunately the light was of poor quality all day with the sky being fully overcast, so there were plenty of opportunities for fill-flash to enliven the shots and some white balance tweaking in post-production.

As well as having had a run of lovely couples this summer I've also had a run of incredibly dark churches! It gets more challenging every week - it was ISO 3200, f 2.8 & 1/20 sec all the way. I used my 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens which can be handheld at very slow shutter speeds for quite a few shots. Images were cleaned up using Neat Image. I've been asked a question - thanks Lee! - regarding where in the digital workflow noise removal should take place - I'll discuss this tomorrow.

The reception was held in a marquee with a black, starry-sky ceiling, so ambient light was low and subjects were lit from behind - exposure compensation of at least +1 stop and flash on. Aspiring wedding photographers take note!

Check out more of photography here: wedding photographer in Kent

Wedding at Lympne Castle, Kent

I had the pleasure of photographing Tanya and Duncan's wedding at Lympne Castle yesterday - check out their wedding gallery. A fantastic couple, a fantastic venue and a sunny day with a blue sky! My only complaint was that the light was very strong and contrasty - a nice fluffy, white cloud shielding the sun would have been nice.

Off to Sturry and the Grove Ferry Inn today.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Family portraits at Westgate Gardens, Canterbury

I had the pleasure of photographing Christine and her parents at Westgate Gardens in Canterbury on Sunday - see their portrait gallery. It was extremely gusty, so we had a few pauses to let the wind die down, and light levels varied constantly as clouds passed in front of the sun. I took the opportunity to put my 70-200m f/2.8 L IS lens to good use.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent portrait photography

Wedding at St Mary's Church, Stone, near Dartford

I had the pleasure of photographing Joanna and Daniel's wedding at Joanna's family home, St Mary the Virgin Church, Stone and the Next Generation Club, Dartford - see their wedding gallery. It was raining and blowing a gale all afternoon but Joanna and Daniel didn't complain once - true British stiff-upper lips! I'm sure there were many disappointed brides and grooms (and wedding photographers) across the UK on Saturday - the weather truly was atrocious. I only took one shot outside - the bride sheltering under an umbrella as she arrived at the Church. Under these circumstances it's time to improvise and make the best of the opportunities available. We had been scheduled to go to the Ingress Abbey and gardens for photographs after the ceremony but I recommended we head directly to the reception venue. There was a nice room adjacent to the function room with sofas and tables. These were rapidly cleared to give us a space for group shots - I could just squeeze the whole group in with a 16-35mm lens.

The Church was the most technically demanding location I've ever worked in. I had a great location next to the choir, and facing the couple, but unfortunately they were strongly backlit and I was forbidden from using flash. For a lot of the shots I was exposure compensating by +2 stops and getting shutter speeds of 1/25 s at f/2.0, ISO 3200! It was dark in there. I was changing my exposure compensation for every shot as I wanted to be spot on under these conditions - I knew that digital noise would be a huge challenge at these light levels and that even Neat Image might struggle to clean them up. The results are right on the limit of what the Canon EOS 5D is capable of - roll on ISO 25,600 in the 5D Mk II!

Check out more of my photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Wedding at St Augustine's Priory, Bilsington

I had the pleasure of photographing Helen and Richard's wedding at St Augustine's Priory (an absolutely superb venue for a wedding - a photographer's dream) in Bilsington, near Ashford, on Friday - check out their wedding gallery. We didn't see a glimpse of blue sky or sun all day, but it rained only briefly, and it didn't spoil the fun. Probably the most jolly couple I've ever photographed, and certainly the keenest on cars!

With the sky being overcast the light was bluish so I adjusted the white balance in post-production to warm up the images shot outside. The sky was easily over-exposed so I exposure compensated for some few shots to guard detail, and then also used the digital equivalent of a graduated neutral-density filter in Photoshop. I also took quite a few high dynamic range shots. Inside the Priory light levels were very low, so it was up to ISO 3200 at times (digital noise was removed with neat image), combined with a wide aperture. In the evening I took a few shots under-exposing for ambient light and filling the foreground with flash - it's much easier to do this when there's still some light in the sky and you can get the balance between the two exposures as you want.

Now on to processing yesterday's wedding!

Check out more of my photography here: wedding photographer in Kent

Sharpening in Photoshop

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

I recommend you read my previous two posts on sharpening for a deeper understanding of this process: Sharpening using unsharp masks, part 1 and part 2.

Sharpness depends upon the 'crispness' of edges (technically known as acutance) and the resolving power of your camera and lens combination. For an excellent overview with diagrams see Sean McHugh's excellent Cambridge in Colour website. Once you've taken the picture there is no way to alter the resolution of the image but the acutance can be improved using unsharp masking.

An unsharp mask identifies the edges in an image which is then used to mask a higher contrast version of the image overlayed with the original. This increases contrast only in the edges of the image - the dark side is darkened and the light side is lightened - increasing acutance and giving the appearance of increased sharpness (check out the concept of Mach bands to understand why this is so). If an image is over-sharpened, however, artefacts known as halos are observed (areas that are too bright or dark in the image).

In Photoshop, the degree of sharpening using an unsharp mask is controlled by amount, radius and threshold. Amount controls the increase in contrast at the edges, radius controls the scale of detail that is sharpened (the radius relates to the degree of blur added in the unsharp mask - the bigger this is the more detail that is lost) and threshold the existing level of edge contrast that is required before sharpening occurs (in a portrait, a higher threshold will sharpen eyelids and lashes without touching the skin).

An important point to consider is that the best combination of amount and radius to sharpen an image depends upon whether it is destined for screen or print. For screen it's better to have a high amount with a low radius to bring out fine detail, but for print a lower amount with a larger radius to reduce the spread of ink (larger amount means more ink).

Feel free to post comments with any questions you may have.

I'm off to photograph a wedding at St Augustine's Priory in Bilsington, near Ashford, this afternoon. After a very overcast start to the day, the weather is now looking promising - fingers crossed.

Check out my photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Sharpening using unsharp masks, part 2

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

To set the scene I recommend you read my earlier post - Sharpening using unsharp masks.

If you work through the procedure detailed above you will create an unsharp mask of your image which, when overlayed with the original image, gives the appearance of sharpening.

Why does this work?

Two desaturated (colour information removed) copies of the image are created, one is inverted (black to white, white to black) and the blending mode (a way of combining two layers in Photoshop) between the two is switched to colour dodge. In this particular blending mode blending with black has no effect on the image contained in the other layer and blending with white gives white. Since the images are the inverse of each other the blended image is white.

Here's the clever bit. The inverse image is now blurred slightly. The new non-white pixels added due to blurring will overlap with the non-white pixels in the original and an edge outline of the original image is observed. These layers are merged to leave the outline which is then combined with the original image using the multiply blending mode. This causes the overlapping areas to become darker (result colour = top colour x bottom colour/255) and hence the contrast in the edges of the image is increased.

This increase in contrast gives the appearance of sharpness.

If you're confused feel free to post a comment. There's more on sharpening to follow.

Check out my photography here: wedding photographer in Kent

Wedding in Dover and Great Mongeham

I had the pleasure of being Sarah and Gary's wedding photographer on Saturday at the Buckland Church of St Andrew, Dover and Pixhill Cottage, Great Mongeham. Wedding photographers across the UK must have been cursing as the British summer delivered heavy rain and high winds. I was very impressed with Sarah and Gary's stoicism though - they said it was a pity that the weather wasn't better just once and then got on with their day. That's the spirit!

The Church was the darkest location I've ever photographed in - the shot above was taken with an 85mm f/1.2 L lens at 1/100s, f/2.0, ISO 3200. The light levels must have been particularly low due to the overcast day but even so, I wonder how photographers without the best kit would handle this venue. It was lit by fluorescent lamps so after adjusting the white balance I also adjusted the tint (magenta-green shift) in Lightroom. The vicar was quite stern and forbid me from moving during the ceremony (I did a bit) and it was impossible to get unencumbered shots of the couple face on, due to metal latticework, but I managed to get some great shots. This I think is the essence of wedding photography. All the odds might be stacked against you but you have to do your very best nonetheless. No throwing up your hands in despair!

We then moved directly to the reception which, fortunately, was held in a large, bright, beautifully-decorated marquee - a much better location. The trick with marquees is to add positive exposure compensation to account for the brightly lit white canvas in the background - the closer you get, and the more of it that fills the frame, the more you compensate. I used between +2/3 and +2 stops when not using fill-flash.

Check out more of my photography here: wedding photography in Kent

Wedding at Sidcup and Bexleyheath

I had the pleasure of photographing Elizabeth and Richard's wedding at St John's Church, Sidcup and then the gardens of the The Stables, followed by The Boathouse, at Danson Park, Bexleyheath. The couple were photogenic (Elizabeth had the bluest eyes I've ever seen) and charismatic and the venues were picturesque - a photographer's dream! The only challenges were the grumpy verger in the Church (I got told off for moving location) and the rapidly changing lighting when shooting portaits in the gardens - clouds were scudding across the sky due to the strong wind. It was a case of looking for the shadiest spot and using flash to light the scene. I was photographing in partnership with a lovely chap called Colin Streater. He concentrated on reportage-style shots whilst I focused on the classical wedding repertoire - it makes life a lot less stressful.

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Emily and her Nana at Deal beach

My final set of photos from last weekend - I was very busy! Emily and my Mum at Deal beach in Kent on Sunday afternoon. Taken with an 85mm f/1.2 L lens.

I'm setting off for Sidcup shortly to photograph a wedding and will be shooting another in Dover tomorrow. August is  the cruellest month!

Check out more of my photography here: wedding photography in Kent