Capula, Imtech Corporate photography

See! It's not all about wedding photography, there's plenty of other types of photography I enjoy. Today we're in the commercial and editorial photography world.
A few months ago Staffordshire based IT/Electronics company Capula got in touch to get a cover shot for the magazine of their parent company - giant Dutch engineering firm Imtech.

They approached me with a concept of Business Development Director Simon Coombs working on an idea accompanied by portraits of Simon showing off different aspects of the company.

Here's what we came up with, a few that weren't used are in there too along with a couple of behind the scenes and the article the magazine ran with :)

Nerissa and Travis, Wedding photography, Donnington Manor Hotel.

I figured, as it's snowing at the moment I'd post one of my summer weddings to bring a little sunshine back into your life.

I've been holding this one back for a while now. I have quite a few weddings queued up ready to be blogged but this one has been at the back of that queue for a while.

I'm not completely sure why but I know for sure one of the reasons is that I LOVED this wedding. Everyone was so happy and joyful for these guys which made it so easy to photograph. The whole family got involved with helping the day along and so many guests turn out to celebrate!

Steal The Stars

Steal the stars are a young folk duo from Stafford out doing doing the festival circuit at the moment and will be at a festival near you soon!

I wanted to approach this shoot a little different to the usual, a challenge, using only one lens and no lights or reflections and see what can be done straight from the camera. The photographs needed to be quite folky and hipster, containing a little meaning but also not be completely depressing.

Have a look at their facebook page and twitter. They've recently released their EP "Little Hands" and it's really good, I think you can get a peak of it on the page too.

Have a look at the rest of the shoot below! 

Stuart and Victoria, Wedding Photography, The Ashes, Endon

I've been updating my portfolio ready for 2013 which means I scour through all the weddings from 2012 and pick my faves to show off on my wedding photography page.

Ideally, I wanted to pack the page exclusively with photography from 2012 to show off my latest style, the absolute best I can produce at this point in my photography learning curve. For the most part I've achieved this goal. With the exception of two, possibly three images on the wedding page, all of the pictures there are from last year.

However, there are one or two from the three years I've been working as a wedding photographer that I can't shake. These photographs were taken at the right place, the right time, with the right people and I've never been able to surpass the lighting, the personality, or the general je ne sais quoi (yeah, I just spoke french) of these photographs.

So, in order to keep them in line with the portfolio I revisited some of them on old dusty hard drives to give them a 2013 spruce. I don't keep many of the RAW originals of the photographs, just the finished edits, to save disk space. The two other images had to be edited from their finished product which, as a photo editors will tell you, is a cardinal sin but I discovered that I had not deleted the RAW files from Stu and Torys wedding at The Ashes, Edon from... 2008? 2009?

I can't actually remember what year it was but it feels like a world away from where I'm am now and as I nostalgically looked back through the images I could see where I have now learned from mistakes and some where I shouldn't have changed anything at all.
It's obvious I was quite new back then. There are little hints to my inexperience such as blur from shooting with a slow shutter speed, taking lots of photographs in portrait, not double checking the focus point is correct and taking the group shot in bright sun so everyone is squinty. But I am surprised at some of the photographically technical points I was quite good at such as composition, depth of field, and my awareness of where light was.

So I decided to revisit a few of Stuart and Victorias wedding pics, give them an edit from 2013 me, it's the closest I'm ever going to get to going back to 2008 to slap myself in the face and say "don't do that!".

Not only are Stuart and Victoria a ridiculously photogenic couple but I still remember the day clearly, all the fun we had, the chatting, the wonderful light, clouds, guests, staff. I wanted to give them a update because they took a chance on a new, 20 year old, young professional and brand new, raw, wedding venue, that The Ashes was at the time, and allowed me to continue my learning curve, to take a couple of chances with their wedding photography to see if we can get that shot that's just a little better than average.

Anyway, I've rambled enough, here's a few highlights from Stuart and Victoria's wedding at the The Ashes, Endon from.... around 2008/9.

Amanda and Richard, wedding photography, Three Horse shoes, Leek

This pretty couple are Amanda and Richard who got hitched at The Three Horseshoes Inn, Leek.

The Three Horseshoes is a wonderful venue resting in front of the staffordshire moorlands. The lovely gardens at the rear show off a spectacular view and inside the staff prepare a beautifully cosy wedding service turning around the same room into a large, lavish wedding reception area afterwards with nice big windows to bathe the room in light :)