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:

Amy and Brett, Wedding photography, Swindon Golf Club

Morning! I've just come off a double wedding weekend and still feeling the physical effects and soreness from it. But before I get back to editing I wanted to pop up another wedding. Amy and Brett had their wedding reception at Swindon Golf club in the West Midlands, the first truly sunny wedding of the year!
It's also become a running theme this year of riding golf buggies everywhere, a huge perk of the job :P
Another beautiful church, beautiful venue, beautiful bride, beautiful groom, beautiful guests, beautiful day :D

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.

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.
 

Gemma and Craigs beach wedding, The Seiners Arms Hotel, Perranporth, Cornwall

Well worth the long drive. Craig and Gemma had an amazing wedding on Perranporth beach in Cornwall and I was lucky enough to be picked to capture it :)

They picked a beautiful day, one of a handful of weddings I've photographed this year where it didn't rain! The Seiners arms is practically on the beach-  the sand touches its walls and the staff are so friendly and informal.

I've never walked so much at a wedding. The hairdressers, brides house, grooms hotel room and venue were all in walking distance so I lugged my kit a good few miles, wore my shoes down a bit, all worth it :)

Megan and Sam, Keele Hall, Staffordshire

Megan and Sam tied the knot at Keele Hall.
The rain held out just long enough for us to have a walk around the grounds. I love shooting at Keele Hall, the staff bend over backwards to help me as a photographer and the guests. This meant they were more than happy to get me to a room with a great view for the group shot!
Here's a few from the day:

Fun with make up too.

I can't believe I forgot to blog these. Earlier this year I had a day with a few make up artists and models for their portfolio. It was fun but very challenging. These pics were all created up against the kitchen door with various backgrounds hung over the door and a few different light modifiers. I've had a quick look through the NEFs and couldn't find any set up shots which, is a little annoying. I left the make up and styling completely up to the pros :)

Which brings me up to now :)
With wedding season slowing down it's time to start updating my own 2013 portfolio, changes will be happening on the site in the next few weeks but I'd also like to hear from any models, stylists, muas and designers who might like to collaborate on something a little larger scale in the last few weeks of November and January/February 2013. 

Hope you like :D



 


Models: Kavan Sokhi, Laurie Austin
Make up Artists: Sanj Sandhu, Harminder Kaur

Liz and Chris Wroxall Abbey, warwickshire wedding photography

You may have noticed I posted the slideshow video from this wedding above ^. I've finally worked out how to post HD(ish) videos of the day up here. It's a shame they're not 1080 but 720 will do I guess. View full screen and HD for best results :)

Once again - it rained. Most of my weddings this year have been in the rain - it makes things more difficult from a photography point of view but we still got some great stuff. We were lucky enough to be in and out of the venue in between bursts until right at the evening when it poured down.

It didn't stop us having an amazing day. Wroxall Abbey in Warwickshire is an AMAZING wedding venue. The rooms contained ridiculous amounts of window light and the building contained lots of character it made the photography indoor so much easier. Liz and Chris seemed to have a great time with a brilliant vicar, amazing guests and hilarious speeches. Definitely a wedding I'll remember for a long time :)

The video doesn't contain all of the wedding images from the day. I could only fit a few into the songs but it gives you a good taster of everything that happened. If you can't sit through all 16 minutes of it I've posted a few highlights below :)

Untitled states

Wedding and events band Untitled states got in contact with me a few weeks ago.From what I gathered they've been around for a while but are now taking it to the next level with a new website and images. I had a quick listen to one of their recordings after the shoot  and it was really, really good.I've only posted two on here because I want you to go to their website. They've put a few more up there so have a look :)www.untitledstates.co.ukwww.facebook.com/Untitledstates

John and Veronica, Sheerness, Kent

Just a quick one tonight!
I've got a lot on and I'm trying to update this as much as possible.
A few weeks ago I traveled to Sheerness in Kent for Veronica and Johns wedding. A lovely, sunny day, one of the few I've had this year - we soaked up all of that sun and blue sky.
The church was amazing. A cozy, traditional church with hundreds of years of history.

Anyway, enough from me, here's a few :)