Bit of a unique wedding photography post today as it is the photography from our very own wedding!  That’s right photographers get married too!  We got married at the end of April at the Punch Bowl in the beautiful Lyth Valley in the Lake District.  Before I go on I cannot speak highly enough of The Punch Bowl and all the staff, they ran things absolutely perfectly, it was everything we hoped it would be and if you are up that way I would highly recommend dropping in for a spot of lunch, the food is to die for!  For about a year I have had clients enquiring as to who is going to take our wedding photographs.  We had some specific requirements for the photography, as a photographer I wanted to have a certain amount of control how I wanted the photos to turn out, both at the time they are captured and also how they were processed, so most professional wedding photographers were out straight away (not that they wouldn’t have done a fantastic job, there are some brilliant wedding photographers out there at the moment).  So I turned to my good friend Sam who loves his photography and who comes out with me from time to time to take photos.  Sam soaks up photography info like a sponge and I’ve watched his shots improve consistently over the years so as long as he said yes, and as long as he didn’t crack under the pressure, I knew we would be ok!

We had been up to the Lake District during that heat wave we had in March (remember that!) for a few practice shots, we had got the ‘couple shots’ perfected using the great surroundings so we were happy with our choice with Sam taking the photos.  I had said I would process the shots how I liked but he was also free to do as he liked with them, so all the shots here have been taken by Sam but processed by myself, Carol and I are both huge fans of black and white photography, hence why most of them are in Black and white.  If you are interested in seeing any of Sam’s other work, he maintains an active flickr stream, well worth a look for any photography enthusiasts.
I hope to put out a Real weddings piece for this wedding so stay posted, as soon as I can get the wife to fill in the questionnaire!  I will say we were very lucky with the weather as we had pretty solid rain for the entire month of April and even on the day it was raining seemingly everywhere except the Lyth Valley, the micro climate played to our advantage!  So I’ll put up some of our favourites of the day now, hope you enjoy looking at them as we certainly enjoyed having them taken.

We were recently at Waterton Park in Walton near Wakefield covering the civil partnership of Rebecca and Michelle.  It was all very relaxed and light hearted, I had one eye on the weather, unusual considering the weather we had in March, but it stayed dry and we managed to get outside for a few groups and some informal photos of the lovely couple.  Michelle had arrived in an awesome retro VW camper van as a surprise from Rebecca, I have a lot of time for these things, very photogenic.  So it was nice to do some shots around that after the ceremony.

Both Michelle and Rebecca were very relaxed and easy to get along with, most of the informal shots were just walking around the beautiful grounds at Waterton.  The couple had expressed an interest in some HDR (High Dynamic Range for non photo types) shots so I’ve uploaded some of those, as always they get both the tweaked and plain versions.  I always say if there are a few shots they like when they receive the photos that they would like processed further that isn’t a problem.  The cake was also very special, the models sat on the top were very lifelike!  We were there to cover the speeches and the first dance so we managed to get back out for a few more shots around the bridge and island in the evening, although we got back inside when it started getting a bit chilly!  As always I’m posting a few shots here and the couple will have the images out to them in a day or so.  Congratulations once again from Carol and myself and all the best for the future.

Just a quick landscape photography post to say I currently have an exhibition running in Wakefield on the Wakefield Artwalk The actual art walk is taking place on the 28th March, there are several venues but if you are interested in seeing some of my landscapes they are being displayed at Jordan’s Solicitors.  The images are available to view (and buy) on the night of the artwalk and for about a month after, though I think you have to view by appointment as the room is sometimes in use.  Hope you can drop in and have a look I have about 12 large prints on display of the landscapes around the Yorkshire region.

Full Names?
Danielle & Matthew Hirst

Wedding Date, Location and number of guests?
11^th February 2012 at Holdsworth house hotel near Halifax.  74 guests for the day, 125 (approx) at night.

How long have you been together?
We’ve been together 3 years.

Wedding Dress – Designer, Style, where you got it?
Kate Sherford Harmony dress from Swanky Bride Hipperholme

Bridal party attire – groomsmen and bridesmaids?
3 Bridesmaid dresses from Debut Debenhams  MOH from Bank. Groomsmen and Groom hired from Moss Bros Leeds

Accessories – Jewellery, shoes, flowers?
Jewellery and Bridesmaids hair bands were from Accessorize.  Flowers from Stem Design. Shoes all vary.

About the wedding day ?
Most magical day of our lives ever!! It was like a fairytale! Having all the people we love most in the world together for one day was amazing, and marrying Matt!

Any theme or colour scheme?
Colour scheme was a mixture of very pale vintage pinks and candlelight!!!  Theme was fairy woodland.

Any particularly special moments or highlights?
Ceremony. First dance. All of it really.

Favourite photograph of the day?
Love them all but especially the ones outside at night time under the lights with the shadows. They were amazing!!! Ooh also the black and white ones had a nice kind of 50’effect according to my mum! and love the vintage ones, it’s sooo hard to choose!! also the one with the beautiful bridesmaids!

Anything you would do differently?
Nope! (oh maybe practice a more ladylike laugh lol)

Any surprises on the day?
My beautiful gifts from Matt in the morning!!

Can you give any advice to couples on their day?
Fill every moment and don’t rush anything.  Really enjoy the time you spend talking to all your loved ones and don’t take it for granted.   (Also maybe have a bit / a lot of champagne before you walk down the Aisle….calms the nerves no end!

And finally, any suppliers you would recommend?
STEM DESIGN!!!!  Lynne is amazing so friendly and helpful!! Swanky Bride, the lady was fantastic! and obviously you and Carol (if you would be called suppliers? Suppliers of happy memories!!!!! (cheesy!)

So there you have it, the last answer was a little cheesy but I thought I’d allow it, it might have even earned her a few free prints from Carol and myself!  Congratulations again folks.  I have done a post with the photos from this wedding for anyone to check out.  The slideshow is also below and there is always my facebook page if anyone fancies stopping by for a like!  Thanks for reading.

We recently had the pleasure of providing the wedding photography for the beautiful wedding of Danielle and Matt at the Holdsworth House Hotel near Halifax.  I’ll start by saying that we had been looking forward to this wedding since they booked us over a year ago.  Danni and Matt are such a lovely couple it was another one of these weddings where we really felt more like guests with cameras instead of wedding photographers.  Holdsworth house is an equally lovely venue, we did a great wedding there last year and have quite a few coming up this year as well so we were quite excited about doing the photos.  There was quite a thick frost about which is generally the case for February weddings but it looked great, almost like a light dusting of snow,  I knew if it stayed clear and we could get the couple outside before it got dark we would be laughing.  It was quite cold out, people weren’t overly thrilled about darting out for the quick big group photo but we managed and did a few smaller groups indoors but I always say to couples I try and keep group shots to a minimum.

Danni and Matt had to endure the cold for a little longer as we wandered about getting a few shots but they were great and didn’t feel the cold (or so they said!) It would be far too cheesy to say their love for each other kept them warm, so I won’t.  Danni was an old work colleague of my assistant (& soon to be wife) Carol so it was nice that we weren’t total strangers.  Both the bride and groom were really easy going and a lot of fun to take photos of.  The couple had put a lot of work into all the decorations, going for a bit of a vintage theme.  They had cool candle jars covered in lace and had made sloe gin for the favours which looked great in the little bottles.  Each table was named after a famous movie couple which I thought was a great idea.  Everyone enjoyed the meal and the speeches and we stuck around until the first dance just doing informal shots here and there.  All in all it was a great day and we were happy to have provided the photography.  Danni had wanted some of the photos processed in a bit of a vintage style which I love doing.  I put in a few black and whites too but as usual the couple get both the colour versions and any different versions we do, all on disc to print and share as they like.  I’m putting a couple of photos up here and on my facebook page.  Congratulations again folks, I’ll have the discs out soon and we both wish you all the best for the future.

Another compilation post today, this time regarding Black and White wedding photography.  Firstly let me start by saying I love black and white photography, not just wedding photography but various other genres, for example landscape photography.  There are many Black and White wedding photographers out there which I drew a lot of inspiration when I was learning the basics, I won’t go into them all here as you might end up booking them for your wedding!  I love the timeless quality the black and whites have, not old fashioned as such just something that will never look dated, or not as dated as some of the sin city inspired colour isolation wedding photos out there.  I also enjoy the vintage style photos which are popular at the moment as they compliment the rusticy , DIY, type weddings which many couples are going for at the moment but I always come back to the black and whites and generally my favourite shot of a wedding will be in black and white (or monochrome).

Brides and grooms tend to like them as it gives the skin a more flattering tone and smooths out any imperfections or blotches.  The black and whites also work well with the informal documentary style of photography that we like to do.  Not that we are purely photo journalistic and have no interaction with the couple at all, far from it, but we do try and let the day unfold on it’s own and just get the photos as it happens.  The black and white style does take some tweaking and again is unique to each photographer, I always say it’s not a case of just clicking a B&W button.  Generally the quick black and whites come out as uninspiring, low contrast collections of grey pixels whereas I like to tinker a little and make the whites nice and punchy and the blacks deep and moody.
Another bonus with getting all your images on a DVD is we also include the colour versions of the black and whites if they aren’t quite to your tastes, or if you fancy an early marriage argument where one prefers the black and white and the other prefers the colour!  But as this isn’t an in depth photography post (one or two of those in the archives) I’ll just get onto posting some images and a slideshow and see what you think.  Thanks for looking folks.

We were at Bagden Hall in Denby Dale (between Wakefield and Huddersfield) at the end of last year for the wedding of Sheelin & Sean.  It was a lovely Christmas themed wedding with all the tables named after Santa’s reindeer.  Unfortunately instead of crisp clear snow we had endless grey rain!  I’m always an advocate of getting the couple outside under the umbrellas if possible for some wedding photographs but it was just torrential, so we stayed inside.  Luckily there were plenty of christmas trees and lights about and a lovely log fire so we did a lot of the shots around there.

Sheelin and Sean were lovely, I hadn’t met the couple before the day, this happens from time to time around busy periods but I had nothing to worry about.  There were a few nerves before the ceremony but once that was done everyone relaxed.  There were lots of children at this wedding, not to mention Sean & Sheelin’s kids making up the majority of the bridal party.  It’s always nice when there are kids about as they generally don’t hide from the cameras.  The couple didn’t let the rain dampen their spirits and seemed very relaxed when we went for a few photos.  A special mention must go to Hollie for providing one of the shortest wedding readings we’ve seen to date, emotions got the better of her but a friend stepped up to finish it.  All in all it was a lovely day and we were glad to be involved.  I’ll put up a few images here and on my facebook page.  I’ll have the slideshows up soon and get the disc off to Sean and Sheelin very soon.  Congratulations once again and all the best for 2012.

In my previous post I showed some of my favourite wedding photos of 2011, so I thought I would do another but concentrate on my favourite shots of just the bride.  I have had the pleasure to photograph the weddings of some stunningly beautiful brides in 2011 and I always try to get a couple of images of just the bride (usually they are more into the photos than the chaps) just to look back on a few years down the road and remember the day.

Most of these are just spur of the moment shots when the bride is just thinking to herself or laughing at something someone has said and you know the moment you take it that it will be a great shot.  As I’ve already mentioned a lot of these brides are very beautiful and with the additional work that go into the hair and make-up, not to mention the dress, they are very easy to take good photos of.  What I love about a lot of these images is you get a glimpse of how these brides are as people and, as I have mentioned on numerous occasions in the wedding posts, pretty much without exception, all the couples I have worked with have been lovely people and I always say it is a pleasure to be involved in taking there wedding photos on one of the happiest days of their lives.  So this is a bit of a thank you to anyone who has used us to take their wedding photos in 2011 and all the best for 2012.

We were at one of our favourite wedding venues a few weeks ago, the beautiful Hazlewood Castle for the equally beautiful wedding of Claire and Phil.  The weather was absolutely perfect for wedding photography.  It was a little bit chilly but the low winter sun was just fantastic.  There had been a bit of a mishap concerning the rings which we won’t go into but apart from that the day seemed to run without a hitch.  Phil had had a bit of a late night but seemed relaxed and ready for the day, Claire looked stunning and could possibly be a late entry for the stunning brides of 2011 list.  Their little daughter Niamh was a bit camera shy at the start but soon forgot we were there and pulled the odd cheesy grin!
There was a small intimate ceremony before the bride and groom headed to the chapel where all the rest of the friends and family were waiting for the blessing, both ceremony’s were lovely, and it’s always a bonus to get two shots of the father going down the aisle with his daughter.  Phil did an excellent job of keeping Claire warm whilst we wandered around getting a few couple shots then it was inside to get out of the cold and have some drinks.  We were asked to sit with the guests for the meal which is always nice so we could recharge a little before the speeches.  A special mention goes to the groom for making his entire speech into a fantastic poem.  I had a keen interest in the grooms speech as I shall be doing one in a few months!
Anyway it was a great day and we were thrilled to have provided the wedding photography.  As usual I’m putting a few shots up now and will get the discs out as soon as possible.  Congratulations once again from Carol and myself and all the best for the future.

I am going to be exhibiting a few examples of my landscape photography work at the light in Leeds.  The exhibition is called ‘A view from the North’ and comprises of landscape photos taken all over Northern Britain.  There will be photographs from local national parks such as the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors but also from the lake district and a few pieces from around Scotland.  The idea behind it is we have such natural landscape beauty in this part of the world, all relatively close by and hopefully these photos will encourage people to get out to these spots and check them out.

If you are into photography I’m hoping the images I’m exhibiting will act as a bit of inspiration.  All the shots are on the larger size and look so much more impressive when seeing them ‘in the flesh’ instead of just viewing them on the internet.  The exhibition is one day only but it is all day, I’m going to be there so you can always just pop by for a chat about photography.  Should be quite busy as people will be doing their Christmas shopping and the light is a fantastic location to hold such an exhibition.  Hopefully see you there!
If you could share this blog post on twitter or facebook or any social media you use with anyone who is into their photography it would be much appreciated.  If you need any more details about this exhibition please drop me an email at petebarnes100@gmail.com