On a sunny but windy 25th of September Vicky and Paul got married at St Mary’s church in the centre of Luton. The bride stayed with tradition and arrived at the church a bit late, but well worth waiting for she looked beautiful. A great service followed by a tea and cakes in the church hall for some of Vicky and Pauls friends then off to Letchworth Hall Hotel for the wedding breakfast and evening reception.

The church building you see today is the largest in Bedfordshire and one of the finer medieval churches in England. It dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries. The earlier church was built about 931, founded by King Athelstan as an act of thanksgiving for victory over the Danes. The land here was owned by the king in Saxon and early Norman times and the church was very richly endowed.

Here is a small selection of the images from the day.

Hair, Nails, Make-up, rush rush rush!

Four!!

Swan Honda’s James Ellison took a sensational victory in the second race of the day at Silverstone as he kept the Title Fighters behind him. The tension now builds ahead of the final round in two weeks’ time as the title standings were yet again shaken up.

Ellison said: “It is so emotional to win especially after everything that has happened this season and I had so many things going through my mind but I needed to stay calm, but I got excited on the last lap and got a drift and then bit but fortunately I held it!”

Relentless Suzuki’s Michael Laverty saw his chance of another podium vanish on the opening lap when he was involved in a crash at turn one with Loris Baz and Chris Burns whilst the Swan Honda of Ellison powered into the lead ahead of Kiyonari and Michael Rutter. Laverty rejoined but was forced to retire with a technical problem just a lap later.

Josh Brookes was working his way up the order and made a move on Alastair Seeley on the third lap to put the HM Plant Honda up to fifth and then he was pushing Gary Mason hard for fourth. However there was disaster for Rutter as he crashed out of third place at Aintree on the fourth lap. Mason then was in a potential podium position but Brookes made a move the lap later to go third and relegate Mason to fourth. The Australian was then on a mission to try and close the gap to leaders Ellison and Kiyonari however finished third to move second in the overall standings ahead of team-mate Kiyonari.

I had last weekend off, no weddings, but I did keep my camera hand and eye in by covering a 3 year old’s birthday party. The weather was sunny and I managed to get some shots outside before we went inside to the party. Inside was an old barn, a few tungsten lamps and three small windows, it was very dark inside the barn and I had to get out the 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 and turn the cameras up to 1600-3200 iso.

On reflection I think photographing a 3 year old’s birthday party was not an easy option for a weekend, not to say that photographing weddings is easy but they are a bit more predictable than a bunch of 3 year old’s running about and playing on a bouncy castle.

During the second free practice session of the DTM at Brands Hatch, the drivers of Audi and Mercedes-Benz searched for the limit in preparation for qualifying. Eventually, Paul Di Resta set the fastest lap time with his AMG Mercedes C-Class. The Scot completed his fastest lap of the 1.929 kilomtres short Indy circuit in 41.101 seconds and thus toppled erstwhile leader Timo Scheider with seven minutes remaining. The Audi works driver had been on top of the time sheets for most of the session with his personal best time of 41.166 seconds.

Scheider ended up fourth in second free practice, after Oliver Jarvis and Gary Paffett moved up into second and third place respectively in the closing stages of the session. Thus, three local drivers from the UK locked out the top three positions. The nice balance between the two manufacturers competing in the DTM also became apparent in the following positions: Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz), Mattias Ekström (Audi), Ralf Schumacher (Mercedes-Benz) and Martin Tomczyk occupied fifth to eighth place

Ralf Schumacher

On Saturday morning, the search for the best possible set-up took its toll. Yellow flags were out for a while after David Coulthard, Maro Engel and Markus Winkelhock went off the track. Apart from a few kilograms of gravel, the cars remained largely undamaged, so that all drivers were able to resume their session. The longest distance, 54 laps, was completed by fastest driver Paul Di Resta. Scheider and Winkelhock only completed 24 laps each.

Susie Stoddart