Bubbles & bagpipes & sunshine in Sweden

Every now and again I get asked if I photograph weddings and the answer is always the same....  I'm not a wedding photographer, it's not what I do. But when Matt & Sara asked me to photograph their wedding the answer was easy, these are two of my dearest friends, it was an honour to be asked. Then they showed where it was all happening and I was virtually begging them to let me make photos there. :-)

These two are kind, gentle and gorgeous people, they take care of me when I behave badly and we spend a stack of time together in our little corner of south west london. Just don't ask what "marrying mr darcy : the boardgame" is all about, or who's winning the ongoing pool tournament.

Just a few shots before they head off on their secret honeymoon adventure....

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Matt got ready in the room above Sara so I flitted backwards and forwards whilst everyone was putting on their finery. Matt's friend Dylan decided to video Matt's thoughts on marriage whilst he was trying to tie a bow tie.... not an easy combination!

I reckon my friend Matt scrubs up pretty well.

Sara just looked like a Hollywood star in her beautiful dress.

There were bubbles instead of confetti. I love bubbles.

Our friend Fiona rushed over during dinner because she'd peeked outside and the light over the lake was looking pretty gorgeous so the 3 of us snuck off for a couple of frames in the sunshine.

I love this last shot, it's so simple and sweet.

Thanks so much guys for having me along for this glorious ride, I know you're going to conquer the world and have a fabulous time of it together. There'll be 100s of images waiting for you when you get home. x

Jamie : Both Sides

Jamie and I have been talking about a new photo project for a while now, but we wanted something different. There's actually another idea in the works also, but this one came first....

It starts with Jamie, well looking like Jamie, perfect make-up and rockstar curls..... 

....that morphed into this....

....another thought....

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....finally got the idea of where this project should be....

....then we added water - whilst standing on a bath mat!!

....now those are all processed in a very specific look, a colour palette that I love. But whilst talking through the edit with Jamie last night we came up with the plan that this would be better.

The left half is straight out of camera, just colour-corrected back to her natural skin tone. Then the right half, the "perfect" half is my processing, a little cross-processed.

It's totally different to anything Jamie and I have done before and I love it. Does it say what we wanted to about beauty and probably post-processing? Maybe, maybe not! :-)

PostScript...

Then the final shot is totally different. It's from early on in the shoot, before the make-up destruction. It didn't fit the general plan, but I wanted to test some different processing, and this is the result. I've never made anything that looks like this. It's just so sad and beautiful.

In The Heights : Southwark Playhouse

For the last few days I've been trying to put into words how magnificent this show is... words fail me often in these occasions, I hope these images come closer to explaining it.

Long story short... if you can get a ticket, and they're few and far between after the slew of amazing reviews, you must see this show.

In The Heights stars Nathan Amzi, Victoria Hamilton Barritt, David Bedella, Josie Benson, Courtney-Mae Briggs, Damian Buhagiar, Raffaella Covino, Gabriela Garcia, Reiss Hinds, Emma Kingston, Jonny Labey, Dex Lee, Sam Mackay, Christina Modestou, Sarah Naudi, Eve Polycarpou & Wayne Robinson. It is directed by Luke Sheppard & choreographed by Drew Mconie. Check out the Southwark Playhouse website for all info and ticket details.

These images must not be used without written permission.

One frame : Wolverine

Watching x-men - first class again, prepping for days of future past - not that I know when I'm going to find time to get to see it. In honour I thought I'd repost this shot from last year's mcm expo at Excel.

I wish I knew this guy's name to credit his awesome costume.

Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare...

The gentlemen of the School of Night quite regularly blow my mind, the words come falling out of their mouths and their brains at a rate I can hardly follow. They create worlds which a simultaneously brand new and steeped in tradition. Yesterday, for the 2nd year in a row, I witnessed them performing at the Globe as part of the Shakespeare's birthday celebrations. I love photographing at the Globe, it's so colourful and full of life, plus it's daylight.

 

As I was out for the day and this performance was all of 20mins long, I decided to break from the norm and not carry a stack of kit with me. As such these are all shot on the tiny new fuji xa1 - a camera that seems well beyond it's tag of an entry level mirrorless camera. I just love using it and it doesn't get in anyone's way.

 

Happy Birthday to the bard. :-)

Pictures of me....

 .... not taken by me.

I have issues with having my photo taken, it's not always been that way - but over the last decade or so I've found it really hard to have my photo taken. But I feel bad that I can't do what I expect other people to do for me, be comfortable in front of a camera.

So, the last 2 weekends when I was photographing other people I asked them to turn the camera back on me, and what I ended up with was 3 images that I really like of me.

Maybe I should practice having my photo taken more often.

 

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Photos by Ed, Jemima & Matt. :-)

Spring in the city.....

.....or "it looks beautiful and sunny, but it's a bit chilly".

These are my wonderful friends Matt & Sara, some of my best friends, whose wedding I will have the pleasure of photographing (yes I know I tell everyone that I don't photograph weddings, it's because I don't as a rule!) at the end of May.

Finding somewhere that didn't feel like a wind tunnel was a challenge yesterday, but the light was gorgeous. We really did need the several stops for hot chocolate and beer and then roast dinner, hands were made of ice for most of the day.

My "muse" in a bowler hat.

I think I've photographed my friend Jemima more times than I have anyone else. Every time looking completely different and every time equally gorgeous.

We haven't had beautiful sunshine like this for a long while though and at times it was hard to keep your eyes open in, but that just led to some searching for shade and shooting straight into the light. What with the pink dress, the river reflecting the stupidly blue sky and the gorgeous light bouncing round the turbine hall, there's quite a bit of colour in these shots.

 

As well as always looking fabulous, Mima is a pretty brilliant illustrator, you can check out her stuff on her facebook page. It'll make you smile, especially if you like anything "vintage" ;-)

 

As I turn up the collar on my favourite winter coat.....

My friend Ed cut all his long curly hair off recently so we decided to take some new photos..... that's the short story.

The slightly longer story is that for pretty much the whole of january & february it rained, not a little bit, but constantly. By the time march arrived I was pretty much climbing the walls to get outside and make some pictures, then last weekend I went on a photo walk with some fellow instagramers and rediscovered the brilliant bridges over the regents canal, but I had no-one to point a camera at. So on saturday, Ed and I spent an hour or so chasing the light underneath the bridges. Plus he cut off all his long curls so we needed to make some new pictures. ;-)

Check out Ed's website at www.edwardhandoll.co.uk - there's music stuff and actor-y stuff. :-)

There's also some more experimental wide shots that need to be blogged later, but i'm thinking about the edit further.

2013 in a nutshell.

I realise that I never made a review of last year and that perhaps the new blog needs one. To be honest, whilst 2013 was happening it felt like there was no time for photography, everything was about making the sound studio happen. But when I looked back there's some shots that I just loved making, I feel very lucky that this is how I filled my "spare" time. Sometimes it's hard to believe that all of these different projects and everything that surrounded them was last year, the months felt like they were just whipping past with no time to breathe.

Totally mobile photography.

Ever since Fuji launched the x100 I have been swooning over their perfect little digi/old school cameras. 

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There is no way I could justify one of the top end models, I'm not looking for a dslr replacement, I don't need something that is like my canon. It's more that I wanted something that fitted in a pocket and was easy to have fun with.

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Enter the xa-1, their littlest, least complicated member of the x-series. It's marketed as the entry-level model, but from what I've seen of it, it's just lovely. And with fuji's new year lense deals it's a bit of a steal. 

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What makes me smile so much though is it's wifi capabilities, it connects to the iPhone app, you browse your images, transfer what you want and then it's into whatever mobile editing you fancy. 

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Everything in this post is shot on the Fuji xa-1, transferred wirelessly whilst having a coffee and then edited in snapseed & totally rad's pictapgo.... It's like a brave new world. :-) 

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Oh, and then I created this blog on my iPhone, completely mobile photography. :-)

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