Priti and Chris, Staffordshire wedding photography, Heath House, Tean

Whoo hoo! We've moved into September of last year and what a wedding I've got for you today!
Priti and Chris had their wedding day at Heath House in Tean on a beautiful sunny day, perfect for wedding photography. Personally, the image above is one of my favourite EVER. I love the chairs and how they were stacked out. Sometimes it just comes down to a little bit of luck and, boom, an awesome wedding photograph.
A very very long day, I think I had to catch a flight that evening to a wedding in Spain too. But it was well worth sticking around until the end to get some crazy party shots, and a pretty spectacular first (and second) dance.
Thanks so much for the Heath house, their staff and catering for being so helpful on the day. Also, a huge shout goes to Wayne The Staffordshire toastmaster, I've seen many toastmasters in my short career but none as good and helpful as this guy.
Remember, we're still booking for 2015, lots of couples have taken up our new wedding photography offer - We now have at least one wedding booked for each month next year! This is quite unbelievable to have this level of booking a year ahead and thank you so much to all of the couples who have been to the studio recently :)

Rachel and John, Keele Hall Wedding photography

Whew! it is hot!!! We've been lucky over the past weekend where I had my first two rain free weddings of the year! It's taken until July, but it's finally happened. Hopefully this amazing weather keeps up for the next weddings this month!
We also had amazing weather for Rachel and John's wedding last year! I'm going to start wishing all the brides and grooms a happy anniversary when I post because I seem to be getting round to posting weddings to the blog almost exactly a year behind now, so Happy anniversary John and Rachel!
It was a beautiful day at Keele Hall, one of my more regular wedding photography venues with both John and Rachel looking absolutely awesome! These guys really thought about their guests with the sweet cart, and casino keeping everything going but also, check out the retro arcade games which seemed to be as entertaining for the adults as it was for the kids!
I've had lots of bookings for 2016 coming in over the past few days, even a couple for 2017. For more information on booking wedding photography for 2016 click the link, and to take a look at my rather out of date wedding photography portfolio click the link too. Hopefully, when I find some time between the weddings and the studio I'll be able to up load all of my new stuff!
There's about 70 pics below, take a look!

Jenny and Karl, Wedding photography, Slaters Country Inn

Whew! What a month! It's still not over!
I've neglected the website and Facebook recently because I've been so busy. April is easily my busiest month this year with around 7 weddings left to finish!
It's meant that Jenny and Karls wedding at Slaters Country Inn, which I photographed a few weeks ago, can only be posted now.
FUN FACT: This is one of two weddings this year where a Brummie has married a Stokie! These two were so much fun and so many funny things happened including a few  Harlem shakes.
For your viewing pleasure:

Skye and Mark, Shropshire Wedding photography

Happy new year everyone! Life as a wedding photographer doesn't seem to stop as I was right back to it on the 4th at an amazing wedding. Things are looking good to have a small(ish) break soon so I can update my website, put in the new wedding photography package and hopefully make some nice new refurbishments on the studio :D
My editing schedule has actually reduced significantly now. Only a few hours ago finishing the photographs from my last wedding. It means for the first time in around 9 months I'm actually up to date!!!!!! (until the weekend).
I had only one night of partying over Christmas and it became apparent I am not used to it. A combination of an intolerance to alcohol and food, the freezing cold weather and a hectic, never ending schedule has got me pretty run down with flu at the moment. Hopefully I'll be getting over it tomorrow ready for events this weekend. Looking through Skye and Marks sun-blessed wedding I'm feeling a little better already.
Skye and Mark had their wedding in Shropshire with their reception at a lovely little restaurant in the middle of Shrewsbury. This meant we had an amazing opportunity to explore a historical and interesting town where we found some cool colours to play with.
Skye and Marks wedding sparked a slight change in the editing style last year. I know I changed my editing style on this wedding because the action I created for it is still called "Skyemark". It has a lot more teal tones and a little more push in the whites while moving away form fades. The style stays pretty similar to this right up until December this year.
I've recently found the beauty and ease of lightroom 5 and for the lower light of the winter months I'm trying lightroom with a little bit of a dim curves fade and no colour tones. I may add a little colour to future edits but at the moment I'm loving the fade style of photographic editing in wedding photography.
Enough of the photography geek talk. To see some pretty photographs of a really pretty couple, take a look at these guys below. I've gone a bit crazy with the highlights. Usually I'd only show around 50 images from a wedding normally but as it's the new year I think there's around 100.
Hope you like!

Richard and Diane, Welcombe Hotel, Stratford, West Midlands wedding photography

It hasn't been all that long since I posted the last wedding for Alex and Kim but it's August now, with 12 weddings between now and September 1st (not to mention the few in September) I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to make much time to write blog posts.
It's great news as this is my busiest year ever. I must admit, the workload is heavy and I could do with some elves to start helping me out but I'm so greatful to all of the couples who have booked and that my wedding photography continues to be successful. However, I did want to start posting some weddings that were actually photographed this year! Rich and Diane became my first wedding of 2014 when they unexpectedly moved up the date from April. It turns out it was an excellent decision as their original date was completely rained on.
I've not photographed at the Welcombe hotel before but I must say the gardens and wedding ceremony room were very very pretty. As you can expect from these huge manor houses we have large windows that let in enormous amounts of light to the right places and then some dark corners to create some really cool, moody shots- take a look:

Emma and Luke, Wedding photography, Oxford

When you take a couple outside in the rain onto one of the busiest high streets in the country, stop traffic, stop pedestrians and actually include pedestrians as actors in your shot... it better come out.
This is officially my favourite wedding image at the moment (the monochrome version further down this blog may actually be my fave) just because I know there's 4 ushers on either side of this picture trying to create a little walkway for thousands of weekend shoppers. This is actually the corner where the two met after chatting on the internet. I knew exactly what I wanted the image to turn out like and this must be one of the few times the image has ended up exactly how I imagined it, including the bike and taxi.
We only took a couple of shots outside, due to the rain and busy streets but I was so lucky the town hall had such a beautiful interior. A great challenge, a crazy couple who I've gotten to know much more as the year has gone by and a slight change to my normal wedding photographs.

Studio Engagement shoot

I can't believe it's taken this long to merge the studio and the weddings so close together. I always thought it would be too limiting to have an engagement shoot in the photography studio. In truth, this still wasn't my idea, but proved it was very possible to take some strong engagement pics in the studio. Here's a few highlights:

Joanne and Kevin, Wedding Photography, Park House Hotel, Shifnal

Oooooh it's been a tough March. Very cold, very snowy. It was no different for Jo and Kev's wedding at the Park house hotel in Shifnal. It didn't stop an amazing and creative wedding from going ahead though. With Kevin serenading Joanne down the aisle, a brilliant photo-cake and an excellent best mans song there was plenty to photograph despite the entire wedding being indoors :)
Props go out to the Park house hotel for up lighting the coves of the venue. It's a simple, and inexpensive way venues can make their events more atmospheric and makes low lit rooms a dream to photograph (check out the first dance for a good example).
Congrats Jo and Kev :D More pics under the cut!

Rokk Savage, Band photography

I took Stokie metallers Rokk Savage into the studio a couple of weeks ago. No strict brief, just some basic white-mid grey-dark grey shots that would allow their designer easy use to add text and backgrounds. No gimmicks, just pics.

Sam and Libby - Family portrait photography

Sisters, Sam and Libby met with me in Telford for a little portrait session. We wanted to get a few shots of them together and a few of Libby on her own as a gift to their parents. As luck would have it, it snowed again yesterday, in the middle of March! What is happening with the weather?? Still we went out and pick up some beautiful pictures of them both. Take a look!

Fiona and Steven, Wedding photography, Ringwood Hall, Sheffield.

I'm back from a mini break in Norway before my life goes into the intense work phase. My Wedding season intensifies this weekend until October so there may be less blog activity with time taken up by editing and deliveries. To all my brides and grooms booked in, I'm still contactable at all the same places including briscoe@briscoephotography.co.uk.
I've held on to this one for quite a while now. No reason why, I just haven't found the right time to show it off. It was a chilly December day at Ringwood hall. I've photographed weddings quite a few times at Ringwood hall, the last time I was here with Emily and Anthony (you may recognize a few faces from this wedding).
It was very different from Emily and Anthony's wedding. Their's was on a bright, sunny day with lots of time spent out doors where Fiona and Steven's was much colder and spent indoors in closer quarters, a much more challenging situation. It was a still beautiful as Ringwood hall has an amazing interior with large function rooms and beautiful, low lit decor. The staff are also brilliant and helpful allowing me to wander while they continued their great service.
I won't jabber on, have a look at the pics :)

Karena and Peter, Staffordshire wedding photography

From the large, vibrant wedding of Nerissa and Travis to the refined, intimate wedding or Karena and Peter. Another wonderful couple in their own way with a violin, Harry Potter readings and only a handful of guest at the Lords of the Manor hotel.
It was an honour that Karena and Peter hired me to photograph such an intimate day.

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 :)

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 :)

Oscar and George - Family portraits, Staffordshire

I've been sitting on these for a while now, I didn't want to post them until all the surprise gifts had been given out at Christmas. It must have been November when I went to the park with Oscar and George to get some pics of them for Nan and Grandad. I really enjoy this type of child portrait. It's much better than sitting in a studio, much more fun for the kids and the pics have more to say than my usual studio family portraits. It was very cold so we didn't have a lot of time before everyone started to get cold but here's a few of the highlights :D

Alicia and Andrew - Crewe Hall wedding photography

It was a chilly 1st December for Alicia and Andrews wedding at Crewe Hall. A beautiful, low lit, venue - a challenge to shoot but wonderful if you get it right. The room was spectacular and the reception room was just as good with everything set up and decorated beautifully for Christmas.
Some awesome quirks at this wedding, my personal favourite (aside from the dressed up pug) was the place names, named after some of my own fave TV shows.
This is likely to be my last blog post until after Christmas, I'm quite glad it's this wedding as I'm really happy with how the images came out considering the challenging nature of the venue.
Have a look :)

BABIES!

This is a public announcement BABIES. That will be all :)

Tussk band - Gentry shoot

I had some super fun time with the Stoke band Tussk yesterday. We'd been talking for a few days about shooting a gentry style pic. Music photography isn't something I do very often anymore but when I get the chance I love pushing it out and doing something a little quirky like this.
You can check this band out at their facebook page.

More underneath the cut :)

DJ Gurps and Ali Abbas

DJ Gurps new track Ouskurri 2 featuring Manak e releases at midnight tonight so I thought I'd show two covers that the label came up with along with a few of the originals.