Leading up to Good Friday the weather was not looking very good, but as I was packing my gear into the car the sun was shinning, looks like is going to be a great day for Sarah and Andy. The St Michaels Manor is only 5 Miles from my home so it wasn’t a very early start. I arrived around 8:30 and meet up with Helen Griffin of Helen Griffin Photography who is Second shooting with me today.

First order of the day is to get a few Venue shots in the bag before too many people are about and the light becomes too harsh or as we are in England it start to rain. Next order of the day is coffee, can’t start work without my ‘cup of joe’. After the coffee I ran through the days times and events with Helen, as I hadn’t shot here before a took a walk around the gardens and House to pick out some locations for the group shots, bride and groom shots etc. plus some backup locations just in case of rain.

Today’s wedding would all be in the same venue, no rushing from bride prep to church to reception. I gave the bride a call and after a short wait she was ready to go to Hair and Makeup. So here we go another long day as a wedding photographer starts.

Here are a few images from Sarah and Andy wedding day. As you see the rain held off and I had a great day shooting the wedding, congratulations to Sarah and Andy, many thanks to Helen for doing a great job as my second shooter and a thanks to Paul, Helens (partner/and her second shooter).

The 15mm f2.8 fish eye is a great littlt lens in small spaces, but make sure you don’t get your feet in the shot.

A bit of HDR fisheye, starting to get cold and cloud over.

This weekend I shot Andy and Nicola’s wedding a Letchworth Hall Hotel in Hertfordshire, my normal tools of the trade are two canon 5D MkII’s and a bunch of lens ranging from a 15mm f2.8 fisheye to a 70-200mm f2.8 with my 1D MkIII as a backup, but this week I was going to give my new Fuji X pro 1 a test run.

Unfortunately I hadn’t spotted a firmware update posted on dpreview that stops the annoying aperture chatter when the camera is in use, so I spend the whole day with a camera that sounded like it had a bunch of crickets inside it. In spite of that the camera performed very well, the AF is a little slow but the images are crisp and have very little noise even at high ISO’s.

One other thing about the X pro 1 is that is so unobtrusive people hardly know you’re taking photographs, unlike my 1D MKII and a 70-200. You can use a smaller lens and get in closer and still get a great shot without people spotting you. I was going to take the camera out for a test drive in the countryside but this weekend it just rained and rained, maybe I will get a chance later in the week.

Didn’t get a chance to use the 18mm f2.0, but the 35mm f1.4 is a great little lens, here are a couple of image from the bridle prep section of the day.

• 35 mm
• f1.4
• ISO 1600
• 1/950

This year at Frantfurt’s Musikmesse I didn’t get much chance to get out and about in the city, here are few images from the last day waiting around before the flight home.

Sunday morning the river.

Hundred of couples have come to the Eiserner Steg, a pedestrian bridge across the river Main, in Frankfurt, to show their everlasting love to each other, by attaching a padlock to the bridge (often engraved with their names and the date) and throwing the keys into the river.

More “love padlocks” on the Eiserner Steg iron footbridge in Frankfurt.

October can be a very unpredictable month for a wedding, Jo and Ian’s at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire was no different but this time the weather gods where smiling, in fact they must have had the biggest grin ever because it was the hottest day in October for 100 years at nearly 30C.

Brocket Hall is only 3 miles from home so I didn’t have a long journey, which is always nice; I started with some detail shots just to warm-up, Cake, flowers, the building & breakfast room etc. Today I was shooting with Deborah Newton as my second shooter, a very talented children’s photographer but this would be her first wedding, but what a wedding to start with, we had a great venue, the best weather in 100 years, a beautiful bride, opera singers, fireworks and a terrific band.

Bridal prep is always fun, a mix of girly chit chat, champagne and diamonds, but today we had a full house today with the bride, two bridesmaids, friends, hair and makeup, two photographers and a videographer, oh and a four poster bed.

Here are just a few images from Jo and Ian’s wedding at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire.

Jo’s Hair and Makeup by Shahnaz “themakeupgirl“.

Jo gets her man.

The First dance

Now a dance with dad.

Dating back to 1540, Down Hall in Hertfordshire was a wonderful wedding venue for Cheryl and Chris to get married in. As you can see from the photographs the weather was perfect, well at least for the bride, groom and guests, for us photographers a outdoor full sun drinks reception can cause a few problems what with the huge contrast different between the bride in white and the groom in black.

Bridal prep was blast as usual, its always fun when you get all the girls together doing hair and makeup, some of the stories you hear!  Cheryl had a open door policy at the hotel, I think mostly because it was such a hot day and what with hair dryers,curling tongs going full blast for a couple of hours, anyway this meant that we had a constant stream of friends and family popping in to congratulate the bride, which can make for some great moments to capture.

Here are just a few images from the wedding day, I will post more on my wedding site when I get time click for more. Hertfordshire wedding photography.

A proud dad getting ready to walk his daughter down the aisle.

I though I would try something different for my group shot this week.

It’s embarrassing story time again! this time the bride.

Not to be left out the groom gets his embarrassing story.

It was an early start for me as Devika and John where getting married at ‘High Noon’ which meant hair and makeup for the bride and brides maids was in progress when I arrived at 8:00. The wedding was being held at Tewin Bury Farm Hotel a 17th century farmhouse with its converted farm buildings set amidst idyllic Hertfordshire countryside.

This is a tale of two weddings, Wedding one: Devika and John got married a few months ago in Mauritius ( the home of the now extinct Dodo), where Devika’s family and friends are from, I talked to bride about the wedding ceremony and it seems to be a much messier affair compared to an English ceremony, both the bride and groom get cleansed by rubbing turmeric into their skin and hair, and then they walk around a fire seven times, there’s a lot more to the ceremony then these two events, blessings, prays, flowers etc, but these two stood out the most of all to me.

Wedding two: the return match happened on 29th July, this time in England, and nobody would be rubbing turmeric into anybody, I don’t think that the bride would have liked her elegant ivory wedding dress modified with a bright yellow spice!!  Although the colour of the dress was a break with tradition Devika did hold onto a little bit of home her Red High heels. The Brides maid took up the red theme looking stunning in custom made Red Silk dresses from Mauritius. One more suprise for her family and friends was that the top tiar of the wedding cake was made with the inside layers of sponge in Red,Blue Yellow and Green the colours of the  Mauritius flag.

Here are a few images from the day, more to follow on my Hertfordshire wedding photographers main site.

Although brides in Mauritius traditionally wear red wedding dresses Devika did hold on to a small bit of home with her Red High heels

Devika showing off her red high heels to the girls.

Now here’s a first for me both the groom ‘shown above’ and the best man had their speaches on an ipad, it seems that not even a wedding is safe from apple.

This week I had the privilege to be part of the very first Jasmine Star workshop in the UK, myself and 19 other Photographers took part in a one-day workshop all about ‘Branding’, something that I and I’m sure other photographers all have had problems with when they first start out.

Over the last five years Jasmine Star has established herself as a photographer and as a ‘Brand’ so who could be better to learn from. So when the opportunity arose I jumped at the chance.

The whole event started the evening before on the roof gardens of the Sanctum Soho Hotel where Kat ‘RocknRollBride‘ had arranged a small drinks and nibbles get together, a bunch of photographers and their partners waited in anticipation for the guests to arrive. Then it was time, Kat, Jasmine & JD walked around the corner to whispers of ‘she’s here’, a hush fell over the bar briefly, Jasmine looked slightly nervous but that soon disappeared as she started chatting to us.

Within minutes we where all talking and  chatting in are little groups around the bar again, Jasmine and JD then spent an hour or so talking to each and every one of us, I found Jasmine friendly, easy to talk to and after talking to her for awhile was looking forward to the workshop the next day.

To echo Cristina rossi’s Blog:

“I would highly recommend Jasmine’s workshop to any photographer seriously wanting to take their business to the next level, it surely was worth every penny. Jasmine talked openly about every aspect of her business and answered every single question that was asked of her honestly and concisely”.

The workshop was held at a great venue ‘One Marylebone”, it’s so classy, elegant and the light is simply awesome with huge windows and white walls.

Workshop catering supplied by The Recipe

Rachels Hair  by Severin Hubert of The Hepburn Collection

Caught on camera during the photo shoot Kat (left) From “Rock n Roll Bride” & Elbie Van Eeden (makeup) where busy Tweeting away about the days events, many thanks to Kat for organising the event.

Photographer Dave McNeil trying out his just out of the box Fuji film X100.

JD arriving with a flowers for the outside photo-shoot, Jasmine husband and second shooter.

And yes Jasmine Star is in London look a Red Bus!

All great things have to end, and so it was with the workshop, but that wasn’t end of it we all walked down to a local restaurant where we got to spend a few more hours the Jasmine & JD over a meal. Jasmine moved from table to table so that she could chat to every one of us, still happy to answer any of are questions.

Final Thanks to Kat, Venetia, Delia, Mark &  Gareth for keeping me out bar hopping in Soho until the small hours!!

Here is a list of everybody envolved in the event.

Venue: One Marylebone http://www.onemarylebone.com/ (Alicia)
Flowers: Pollen Nation http://www.pollen-nation.co.uk/
Cakes: Restoration Cake http://www.restorationcake.co.uk/ (mini cakes) and The Art of Cake http://janetmohapibanks.com/ large ‘rose’ cake)
Furniture (chairs/tables/screen/sofas): Great Hire http://www.greathire.co.uk/
Caterers: The Recipe http://www.the-recipe.co.uk/
Hair: Severin Hubert of The Hepburn Collection http://www.hepburncollection.com/
Make Up: Elbie Van Eeden http://elbiehairandmakeup.wordpress.com/
Behind the Scenes Video: Richard Wakefield of FX Films http://www.fxfilms.co.uk/
Organiser/general dogsbody: Kat Williams of Rock n Roll Bride http://www.rocknrollbride.com/
Models: Rachel & Dan

At the end of May I shot a wedding of two parts; Hayley and Ross got married on 12^th May in Las Vegas and had their reception in Royston Hertfordshire, two places worlds apart, Royston can trace it roots back to Roman times, Las Vegas Established in 1905.

Even though the reception was separated from the wedding via more then 5000 miles and 2 weeks here in Hertfordshire we had the ‘Full Monty’ Bridal prep, Groom prep, Bridesmaids, best man, drinks, cakes, speeches, dancing and lots and lots of fun.

And a first for me we had Bridal and Groom prep in the same room a the same time, we had two panics the groom had forgotten his tie, good job this happened here in the UK, lucky the best man came to the rescue and did a quick trip to pick it up from Ross’s house just down the road. The second, once again with the groom, lose buttons on his waistcoat, many thanks to Joanne one of the bridesmaids who came to the rescue.

Here is a small selection of images to give you a flavor of the reception of Hayley and Ross at the Banyers Hotel in Royston.

After being fired from “The Apprentice” Glenn found himself back at his day job, but only for a short time as he returned this week to the BBC with the rest of this years other fired apprentices and the four finalist to film “You’ve been hired”.

But I did managed to grab a quick half hour out of Glenn’s busy schedule for a quick photo shoot around Luton. We did get a few raised eyebrows as we rushed about the centre of Luton on a busy Lunchtime, Suited and booted Glenn in a very sharp suit and me in my old jeans and tee shirt. I wish we could have had a bit more time to find some different locations and shoot for longer, but some times you have to take what you can get.

Anyway many thanks to Glenn and here are a few of the best shoots from the shoot.

After looking at all the BBC Images of Glenn Ward, who is one of this years apprentice candidates I thought it was about time I releases some of my images of him. Glenn approached me several months ago about doing some pictures of him that he could send to the BBC for a program that was going to be on in spring 2011. It didn’t take long before Glenn told me that he was going to enter “The Apprentice”. I asked him what sort of images he wanted, he said “moody”. Lets hope we haven’t gone to far, we will have to wait to see how the BBC have portrayed him. The New season of “The Apprentice” starts on May the 10th don’t miss it