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.
