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

Feedback from family photoshoot

I received some lovely feedback today from Jennie regarding the photoshoot we did at Kearnsey Abbey, near Dover, last month.

I wanted to arrange a complete family get together for my partner's surprise birthday present, and after some 'ums' and 'ahs' from various camera-shy family members, I managed to rally everyone around for a photo shoot.

Although several of us were quite nervous, David put us totally at ease, and the results were absolutely tremendous. We agreed on a mixture of sensible portrait shots in combination with more natural, laid back pictures. It was great fun to do, and everyone enjoyed the shoot immensely.

We got the disc a few days later as promised, and were astounded at the amount of shots taken in such a short space of time. The photos are all crisp and clear, and we were all pleasantly surprised with how good we all looked!!

All in all, we've now got a fantastic reminder of a great day, and David has provided us with a wonderful collection, hopefully to be enjoyed and treasured by the whole family for years to come.

Thank you David.

Jennie and Colin, July 2008

Click to see their photo gallery.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent portrait 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