Attitude wins major national award

We were recently commissioned by Ian at Attitude Men's Hair to shoot some images for the up coming British Barber's Association national competition finals. One of his stylists, Jordan Evans, found out a few weeks ago he was in the finals.

The final event took place in London last weekend and Jordan was in the last 10 of the British Barber Association's National Student of the Year competition in the category Trend and won 1st place!

However, the excitement was not over as, a few moments later, Jordan was named as the
British Barber's Association National Student of the Year! Fantastic news and well done Jordan!

This means he wins a place on the "Menspire" team that will see him travel the country working on photo shoots and London fashion week,  Salon international and the Pro live tour! 

Huge congratulations to Jordan and to Ian and the whole team at Attitude.....

Here the images we shot for him that won the competition....

Welcome to new 2014 wedding clients Tim and Sarah

We are delighted to welcome Tim and Sarah as our latest 2014 wedding clients. We met recently at the West Tower wedding show and chatted for a good while about photography and our philosophy and approach to photographing weddings.
A couple of days later, Tim emailed to say...

"Both myself, and Sarah, went away really excited by your approach and considered it, compared to everything else that we've been looking at, really refreshing.

We really liked what we saw and we'd really like to invite you to create the photography at our wedding next year."

Thanks so much Tim and Sarah for choosing us to document your wedding!

Caroline and David's wedding preview....

So, here are a few faves from Caroline and David's wedding....it was a great day, and, in spite of a bit of rain, there was lots of fun, love and laughter.

The West Tower was stunning as always, Laurie had done a fabulous job with the flowers and  DJ Steve Mitchell was on top form.... especially as he has got a new assistant for his first dance intros....think I make all the difference mate!

It was a pleasure to document this beautiful wedding and be a small part of such a special day.  

Partnership with The Weding Vine

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that we have partnered with the exclusive wedding inspiration site The Wedding Vine. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be their expert professional photographer answering questions sent in by brides and grooms.

This is something we have been looking to do for a while as so many brides and grooms have similar questions which, it appears, they can never get satisfactory answers to. We are delighted to have been able to see this come about with the help and support of the team at The Wedding Vine.

This will be a forum for any questions related to any part of wedding photography from insurance, professional affiliations etc right through to albums, image rights and the weather!!

If you have any questions that you would like to be answered, you can send them directly to the wedding vine, or to me, and each month, a selection will be selected and the answers will be available on their website..

We are really excited by this and it promises to be a valuable resource for all couples as the plan their Special Day.

As more detail a become available, they will be  posted here and our Facebook pages...

Cheers

Ian

James and Sharron's pre wedding shoot...

We recently met up with James and Sharron in Sefton Park to shoot their pre wedding images. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon to have a wander round and shoot some gorgeous images of them both. Our daughters are involved as 2 of Sharron's bridesmaids and out little buy is desperate for a role on the day too! They all came with us on the shoot which added to the fun (and stress!!)....

We did have a good time and both Sharron and James did really well as the park was quite busy...here is a video and a few stills from the shoot....



 

Fujifilm X series...Fuji X100s review.....

Late last year, I was fortunate to get hold of a Fuji X Pro 1 from Fuji UK for a week and write a review based on my experiences with it. The review was in 2 parts and you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. I was so impressed, I fell in love with it, well, not love, but you know what I mean..hopefully!

Being so busy in the following weeks, I finally settled down to buy one and heard news of the imminent arrival of the X100s. I decided to hang fire on the X Pro and wait for the X100s.

As soon as I could afford it, I sent off for one. After my time with the X Pro 1, it was fairly easy to "get into" using it. However, I simply wasn't expecting or prepared for what I was about to discover.

I used it around the house for the first couple of days and just couldn't put it down. I ran the battery flat several times as it was seemingly attached to me!

We had a wedding coming up and I decided I loved the X100s so much, I would take it along and see if I could use it confidently in the pressured environment of a full day wedding shoot. 

Normally, I use a Nikon D3s and mainly a 24-70 2.8 which I l.o.v.e! However, it is heavy, obvious and, well, just big!

So my thoughts were...would I be confident to use the X100s over the Nikon? Would it suit our documentary style of photography? What would the reaction of the couple and guests be? Would I feel "less" professional? Would it help with my "tennis/ photographers elbow"???

Anyone other photographers suffer with that? Mine is agony and using the X100s is a blessed relief.....

So, here are my answers, then some images with all the settings for all those who want to pixel peep.

As soon as I started shooting the groom prep images, it was hard to stop. it just felt so natural, so "right" and it really did make me feel less obvious.

It certainly suits our style of photography, being almost exclusive documentary. The couple didn't really notice it to be honest and it was other guests and "uncle Bobs" who seemed the most interested. In fact, one guest asked me"that's a bit of a comedown isn't it? Not a pro's camera is it?" I just laughed it off and said something about paintbrushes and paper and being able to paint....

I couldn't care less really what people may think or say, as long as the clients trust us to produce emotional and creative documentary wedding photography then a camera is just a tool for me to do that, and the Fuji X100s is a pretty good tool.

Is it perfect? Well, have you ever got that "perfect" shot? Is that your fault or the camera's?

Oh yea, it will certainly help relieve the pain in the elbow, though I'm not sure it will part of a prescription on the NHS any time soon...imagine that!!

It is a joy to use. I can't help but agree with the reviews by Zack Arias and Bert Stephani...this is the best camera I have used. It's small, feels right, looks right, produces stunning images and feels like an extension of my eye/ mind/ heart/ soul. It's the best, in my opinion, not because of one outright performance factor, but because of the sum of the parts. It really just gets out of the way and allows you to shoot. I had a short street photography trip a couple of days after it arrived and you can see the results on my personal project site A Simple Mind.

So much has been the impact so that it has made me think about what my gear bag may contain in the next couple of years. At the moment, I can honestly see us covering complete weddings with a couple of these and maybe an X Pro 1, which I could get for less than the price of, say, a new Nikon D4.

The summer is going to go a long way to help making that decision as I use it more and more at weddings...as I'm writing this down, I'm finding it hard to believe I'm saying these things, but there you go. Sometimes, one just knows when something is right, and, for me, the X100s is simply that, right.

We'll see what happens over the coming weeks and months......

Here are a few images from the 2 weddings we have shot since I have had it...I have included the exposure info for interest for those who are interested!

1/250, f 2 ISO 2000

 

1/25, f2.8, ISO 2000

1/70, f 2, ISO 2000

1/70, f 2, ISO 2000

1/120, f 5, ISO 400

1/320, f 5, ISO 2000

1/600, f 5, ISO 2000

1/400, f 2, ISO 400

1/125, f 5, ISO 400

1/300, f 5, ISO 2000

1/70, f 4, ISO 1600

1/75, f 2, ISO 800

Please feel free to leave thoughts, comments etc and share via Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest and any other social media outlets you may have access to..

Cheers

Ian

Chris and Sam's wedding preview.....

We had a truly memorable day a couple of weeks ago with Chris ans Sam and their lovely families and friends. We set off early and made our way to Sam's mum and dad's house where Hazel stayed to cover the bridal preparations and Ian headed up to Rivington to join the Groom Chris and his party. there was a lovely atmosphere at both locations as everyone was looking forward to what would unfold during this most special of days.

Sam had arranged some very special gifts for her groom Chris including a red (great colour, I know Sam's dad would approve!!) Kitchen Aid mixer with his name engraved on (hint, hint!) and also some first Edition Winnie the Pooh books, incredible!

The groom's party, and the majority of guests, were taken to the church on a vintage double-decker RouteMaster bus....they had originally looked at a red RouteMaster but it was too tall for some of the roads it would be using, so they booked a model that wasn't as tall but was certainly as cool!

The journey to the venue on the bus was great, if a little tricky to photograph, however, the Fuji X100s was perfect for this. Everyone was a little nervy when we took a wrong turn, but we were soon back on track.

The ceremony took place at the beautiful Rivington Parish Church, which is very special for Sam's family, as was Rivington, where we had shot their pre wedding images.

After the ceremony, we shot a few portraits around the historic church grounds before making our was to the awesome Rivington Barn a couple of miles away. We did a few more portraits here as well as the group shots.

Sam and Chris had organised a balloon release which was a really nice idea and, although it was really windy, the balloons got away, well most of them anyway, apart from a few caught in a nearby tree!).

The speeches were brilliant, especially the Fresh Prince of Bel Air inspired best man's speech, good work Matt! Sam also made a speech, only the second time we have seen a bride make a speech and it was very moving.

Another surprise was the first dance. Sam and Chris had worked on a routine which they executed brilliantly, one of the images here shows a last minute rehearsal.....

We have so many images we love from the day, it's been so hard to pick some to show here without showing the whole lot, but that wouldn't be fair on the happy couple!

Hopefully, this very small selection will give a flavour of the joy, love and happiness of the day which was plain for all to see....

Enjoy....