Disaster!!! or Weather, Weddings and the Lake District

Ok, so your worst fears have come true. You wake up on the morning of your wedding and the weather is terrible. And I don’t just mean a bit wet and breezy, I mean weather of biblical ferocity. It’s going to clear right? WRONG – It holds all day. Your dreams of the beautiful outside shots in the garden or by the lake are dashed. So what do you do?

Firstly, don’t panic, in the great scheme of things this really is not as bad as you think, honest . Second talk to your photographer. Any photographer worth their salt, particular any that have covered more than 3 or 4 weddings in the Lake District, will have encountered this before and will have already got a back up plan!

I have shot some VERY wet weddings this year and for all of them, bar one, we managed to get a break in the weather that was (just) long enough to get some great shots. It may mean that you have to be on standby to seize the opportunity but the shots are in the bag. Also there are very few venues where you cant get some fab shots indoors. Often these images might not be exactly what you were anticipating and have to be a bit more creative but they can be all the better for it! Quiet often you cant even tell in the photographs that the weather was anything other than perfect.

Also from my point of view wind is worse than rain when it comes to getting shots outside. There is normally always somewhere under cover that I can stand you while I get your images or we can use white brollys which look fab!  It doesn’t matter to me  if I get wet. Wind is more difficult because it tends to wreak havoc with hair, veils and dresses. But there is normally a sheltered spot around a corner somewhere thats works just fine.

Ok so there was the ‘bar one’ wedding I mentioned. This wedding was the exception, no break in the weather, it went dark quickly, the time frame was going to be tight between the ceremony and the wedding breakfast anyway.  We did some images inside and couple outside but we were beaten back in by the weather. The bride and groom desperately wanted some shots in the grounds and down by the lake as this was why they had chosen the venue and it just wasn’t possible to do them without them getting drenched, filthy and looking frozen and windswept.

So? We did a re shoot a little while later. I know its not ideal to have to do it this way but it will get you the images you wanted which weren’t possible at the time. Its also a good excuse to dress up in your beautiful dress again. So bear in mind this is the absolute  WORST case scenario and  has only happened once this year so it’s statistically  fairly unlikely to happen, but, if it is you and your wedding it isn’t the end of the world.

A big positive side of doing this is that, much like a Rock the Frock shoot, you have far more time to get more creative and a wider range of images than you do on a wedding day. A typical shoot like this or a Rock the Frock shoot will last a couple of hours. On a wedding day you generally only get 10-20 minutes to get your images. You also don’t have the stresses of the day and guilt of leaving your guests waiting for you so you can relax and really enjoy it. So there you go, its all going to be fine!

The image on here are from the shoot we did after the ‘bar one’ wedding. I hope you like them. x

End result……

It always gives me a buzz seeing my images being used. I did a shoot for a local deli and restaurant recently for their new website and marketing. Here  is what they did with them and below is a selection of the original images. x

Wedding photographers – pain in the arse or valuable asset?

I recently had a thank you card from the mother of a bride who’s wedding I photographed a few weeks ago (paraphrased slightly to save boring you rigid)

Dear Lorna, Thank you so much for being such a super photographer. You were so discreet, just flitting around taking photos and blending into the background. We have been to weddings where the photographer monopolises the event where as you were an absolute  joy to have. I was so appreciative for all your help when Sophie was delayed by the hairdresser, then you laced her into her dress and stalled for her when she got to church and you realised she had forgotten her flowers and had to go back to the house for them. So many guests spoke warmly about you and were very impressed. You made it so easy and relaxed. We are absolutely thrilled to see the pictures, they are terrific and you’ve done a fantastic job. They really do bring the whole occasion back to life, a wonderful record for a very special day. Thank you so much. We wish you all the success you so obviously deserve!

*smug smile to self*

So, apart from blowing my own trumpet and inflating my ego, why did I choose to share this with you?

I know that wedding photographer can have a bit of a reputation. Almost every wedding I shoot several people regale me with tales of a wedding they have been to where the photographer was a nightmare.

But I don’t really believed that we could be that bad on the whole. Surly not?

I have built up a network of fellow pro photographers who I greatly admire since I went into business and I can’t think of a single one of them, who when faced with a situation such as a bride struggling with her dress or forgetting her flowers, wouldn’t pitch in and help. Why wouldn’t you?

I fear it is the case, as in so many, it’s the minority spoiling it for the majority. Like in the news it’s always the horror stories that stick in your mind.

A good wedding photographer should be a really valuable asset to your day. We have been involved in wedding from “the inside” and know exactly how they work in reality and most of the potential problems and sticking points and how to overcome them. We aren’t as emotionally involved on your day and can quite often be a calming voice of reason when you need it most.

So when booking your photographer bear in mind that there are a minority of  divas who think the day is all about them and the pictures they take and not about you BUT also that there are also a lot of us good guys out there too!

Go with your gut instinct and I’m sure you wont go to far wrong!  x

Austwick Hall

Last year I got a message on twitter asking if I could photograph a bride on a staircase in a house in Yorkshire. I tweeted back that I was sure that it wouldn’t be a problem and then heard nothing back. Fast forward 9 months or so and Eric from Austwick Hall emails me. Turns out they have this amazing house which they have lovingly renovated and improved over the last 11 years and are currently run as a very upmarket B&B. Last year they got a licence to hold civil ceremonies in the house and are now starting to hold weddings there. Having just started doing weddings they asked if I could go up and do a shoot for them so they had some images to show prospective brides and grooms what they have to offer. I was incredibly impressed the house and gardens and think Austwick Hall makes a stunning venue for a wedding. Eric and his partner Michael are charming and very good company. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Austwick Hall. Here is a link to their site – Austwick Hall. Big thank you to models Grace and Mick! x

Training with Brett Harkness

A few months ago I thought it was about time I tackled my ineptitude with flash photography. So where better to go than the amazing Brett Harkenss. So I took out a second mortgage (only joking) and booked a one to one day. It was absolulty fantastic and I would recommend it to any one. I can not begin to tell you how much I got out of it. Here are some of the images I took…… (I’ll blog my first ‘solo’ attempt later!) Brett Harkness

How the hell do wedding photographers justify their price?

In the time I have been a photographer, which is relatively short (compared to how long the queens been on the throne etc)  I have had a reasonable number of conversations along the lines of “you charge HOW much to photograph a wedding? Blood hell. All you do it turn up for a few hours and take some photos…..” This is immediately followed my me slapping the offending party and sitting them down for a lecture on my pricing structure where I tutor them intensively on the true value of the service I offer (no one ever makes this mistake twice!)

So how do I, and other ‘good’ photographers, justify our prices?

Wedding photography is like a lot of thing in life, generally you get what you pay for. MOST (not all) expensive photographer are expensive for a reason and well worth their fee, there is a lot more that goes into being a photographer than may be immediately obvious.

I’ll start with the skill it takes to get really good images. I would love to say that I was born with a natural ability to be able to take great pictures but that simply isn’t true (I was however born with a natural ability to drink large amounts of prosecco so it not all bad!)

To get to where I am now has taken some quite intensive training from some of the best photographer in the country with some of the best training providers and top photographers in the country.

With the training you again get what you pay for. So while these courses are BRILLIANT, they certainly are not cheap.

And its not a one off expense. To be a PROFESSIONAL photographer you should, like most professionals, be undertaking continual professional development. So more expensive courses to make you good enough to begin to justify what your charging your clients.

Moving on, we then have a LOT of expensive equipment. We have the kit to take the pictures – cameras, lenses, speedlites (flash), bags etc that you see us carrying around. My kit is by no means absolutely top of the range but its pretty darn good. On an average wedding I will be carrying about on my person around at least four or five thousand pounds worth of equipment, not including back up kit. Please form an orderly queue to mug me……..

Next we have the computers, software, graphics tablets, monitor calibrators etc that are necessary to process your beautiful pictures. I use a very large Mac which is the envy of most adolescent school boys and geeks. It is fabulous…..and has a price tag to mach.

Now we need the equipment to allow you to view your pictures – projectors, iPad, website and online client galleries.

Then we have to have samples of the products that beautiful albums, framed prints etc that you might want to buy to show off you fantastic images.

I am well insured for my kit and public liability etc. I haven’t killed or injured any of my clients …….. yet. Better to be safe than sorry!

All more cash… you can see where this is going so I will move on.

So we have looks at basic expenditure now how about factoring in our time?

I recon on average each wedding I shoot is takes me at least 7 to 10 full days work, 8 hours a day,  to go full circle from initial meeting with client to delivering them their album – not just a few hours.

For each wedding I will have responded to an initial enquiry with the information requested, had an initial meeting with the bride and groom, taken their booking and organised payments/contracts etc, done a pre wedding shoot and planning meeting, processed and edited images from the pre wedding shoot, presented the images to the client, taken order for any signaure mounts/pearsonalised guests book/thank you card they my want using the pre wedding shoot images,  typed up and printed out notes prior to wedding (timings, group shot lists, important note on special shots they would like, important people etc), spent a full day at their wedding making they get images they are delighted with, selected and individual edited the photos (I will have taken several thousand), I then do a viewing with the newly weds, help them select their pictures and then individually design them a top quality album which can take a couple of drafts.

This is a time consuming process, not that i’m complaining because I love it!

So the price comes from a combination of the cost of the kit, training, products, processes that we have to have to offer our service and the actual time it takes us to photograph each couple and take them through the whole wedding process.

There is another factor that has to be considered too. And that is the desirability of the photographer. Im not talking about how sexy and attractive they are, although I did get wolf whistled by some white van men the other day so I can only assume that I am still fairly hot…..

This is the Fendi effect that top designers rely on. Their handbags, for example, are beautiful made, from top quality materials but you can buy similar quality handbag made from similar quality material from someone else for a lot less money.  The designers manage to command much higher prices for their handbags due to the desirability of the brand and the kudos associated with it. Its much the same for photographers. Now please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way trying to make out that I am the photographic equivalent of  a Fendi handbag, nor am I likening my self to a ten quid primark bag (maybe not the best analogy, primark do have some fab bargain bags!) but I do fit somewhere in the middle (may be a nice clutch bag from Karen Millen?) and the more desirable my brand becomes and the more in demand I get the higher my price will be (with in reason, I’m not a Sir Alan Sugar type, looking for world domination)

So there you go, that is my reasoning for why I charge what I do. And as I get even better and more in demand, I plan to charge more! *duck to miss projectiles*

While I genuinely adore what I do for a living I am not just in it for the love of it, I need to make money too at the end of the day. As I said before, generally, you get what you pay for. In fact having just read back though this I may go and put my prices up a bit ;-) x

A beautiful spring pre-wedding shoot……..

I have already blogged about why I think pre wedding shoots are so important here, so I wont start on about that again!I did want to share some images with you from my shoot with Briony and Adam who’s wedding I’m really looking forward to photographing this weekend. x

Comercial photography – is it worth paying someone to take photos for your business?

These days just about everyone has a digital camera and can take an ok photo and put it on their computer, even my Dad! So is it worth paying someone to come and do it for you?

I would say yes. (Well I would wouldn’t I?!)

These days it’s all about image and standing out from the crowd and your competitors, people want great products and services and are prepared to search around and do a lot of comparing to make sure they get the best value for money. This is particularly true in these uncertain and somewhat bleak economic times, you want to get the best for what little money you have to spend . Businesses are desperate to get as many clients as possible and are building websites, producing promotional material and advertising to try to get their name out there and clients to their door. People are investing massively in their business economically and emotionally so why would they go to all this trouble and then fall at the last hurdle by using poor images of what they are trying to sell?

I suppose in most cases its purely economical. I suspect that if given the opportunity of professional quality images for free most people would jump at it. It’s also an easy place to make a saving. You might not be able to build you own website but you can take a photograph right?

As a consumer I know how powerful images are. Every picture is worth a thousand words right? I know that when I am on the internet looking for a hotel to stop in, before I read any of the text on the website about the amazing views and talented chef they have I will have been looking at the pictures. If I don’t look at them and think ‘wow,  I want to stop there’ I wont even bother reading the blurb that you spent hours putting together.

It’s all about you companies image too. If I look at a site and the pictures are clearly amateur and low quality, I assume the product or service is amateur and low quality. When I then go to a competitors site and they have lovely, bright, quality images I assume they are better, even if they are offering exactly the same thing. A simple example of this is ebay, listings with good quality images always do far better than ones with poorer images.

So with all the time and effort  you have invested in your company and considering how important it is to get every possible customer through the door the investment in professional, quality images is generally worth it.

The images in this blog were taken on a commercial shoot I did for The Wordsworth Hotel in Grasmere last month. My commercial photography rates start from £245, get in touch for more details.

The bride was early, used a bright orange limo rib for transport and wore….erm….flip flops? (love you guys!)

This weekend I had the enormous pleasure of photographing one of my very best friends Jody’s wedding to Dan. The wedding was in Hamble, near Southampton, where the bride and groom live. They had a beautiful service in a gorgeous village hall then travelled to the reception, which was held at the RAF yacht club, by limo tender. A limo tender, for those of you uneducated in boat stuff, is a VERY posh rib (this one was in Lamborghini orange) that you might see in places such as St Tropez being used to transport people on and off the super yachts that are too big to come into the harbour. And I got to go on it with them!!!!  We then had a hog roast and danced into the night.

The wedding was incredibly special, it was long-awaited and keenly anticipated. We are sure that Dan is now breathing a sigh of relief that we will stop hastening him to get his finger, do the decent thing and marry Jody.

Jody and Dan have also had an incredibly tough time in the last year or so emotionally and financially I know there have been several times when trying to plan a wedding on top of Dan winning large demanding contracts that required him to work practically 24/7 and Jody job hunting and setting up her own consultancy business that they had considered cancelling the whole thing. But much to everyone’s delight, and their credit, they managed to pull it off in great style.

The wedding was not entirely traditional, starting with the proposal in which Dan asked Jody to marry him by presenting Jody, not with a ring, but with a pair of white flip-flops with an IOU for diamonds written on them. These flip-flops were the footwear of choice for the bride, much to the consternation of the ladies in the wedding dress shops we visited  whilst trying to find Jody her perfect dress.

The dress was an amazing find in the Oxfam bridal outlet in Southampton. It was perfect and she looked beautiful in it! The flowers for the wedding were done by the grooms, very talented, sister Dolly, ably assisted by Jodys mum and various other helpers. The family members were also responsible for the cake with Dolly once again decorating it.Karen (Jody’s brothers girlfriend) and a group of friends lovingly produced the huge cupcakes tower (which my children attempted to single-handedly consume!) The task of the  brides hair was volunteered for by the incredibly brave Vicky and Emma and I had taken Jody in hand on a trip home and made her visit a makeup counter for he first time in her life and have a full on make over then pick a selection of products to use on the day. The invitations were designed and produced by Debbie. The napkins were printed by Jody and Dan. Wedding cars and the rib were all provided by amazing friends. The bride and grooms family all rallied like troopers to decorate the marquee the day before and morning of the wedding. The table cloths were all spinnakers leant to them by a friend. All in all, an enormous amount of people (who I’m sure I haven’t named all of) made amazing contributions towards the wedding and made it an immensely special day. (I’m having a little cry while I type this)

The day went brilliantly, the sun was shining, everything went smoothly, everyone enjoyed them self. Jody looked fabulous. I put that mostly down to my make ups skills – only joking Jodes!

The ceremony was beautiful and simple and reflected the bride and groom perfectly.

And back to the limo tender…… A limo tender, for those of you uneducated in boat stuff, is a VERY posh rib (this one was in Lamborghini orange) that you might see in places such as St Tropez being used to transport people on and off the super yachts that are too big to come into the harbour. And I got to go on it with them!!!!  

We arrived back at the yacht club…..

We then had a hog roast and very amusing speeches, which at one point saw the bride wearing a ginger wig…..

Then we danced into the night.

Oh yes and just one more thing. In true Jody Slater (Sanders) fashion, even though it has been the tradition for time ad infinitum  for the bride to be late – Jody was early. This goes to show that you can take Jody out of being a ‘Slater’, but you can’t take the ‘Slater’ out of Jody! x

Why NOT to book me as your photographer…..

I could use this space to write a load of self indulgent text about what an amazing photographer I am, how I regularly train with some of the best professionals in the industry, that I have all the latest kit and tech etc (all of which is true by the way) but if you have got as far as finding my blog you are probably aware of my work and want to know more about the reality of what I do and might be wondering if you, or someone you know, should book me.

There are lots of photographers out there and quite a lot are really good, so who should you choose? Or more importantly NOT choose?

I love photography, I love my clients and I want to make a living but there are reasons why you defiantly shouldn’t book me to photograph you and, at the risk of doing myself out of potential bookings, I’ll tell you some of those reasons.

Firstly when you look at my work you should really like it, love it preferably – sorry if this sounds a bit obvious.

Every photographer has his or her own style that has developed over time and constantly evolves. The type of pictures that you see in their portfolio are the type of pictures that at you will get. Its virtually impossible for a photographer to change their style to suit your preferences. So if you don’t like their style, look for a photographer that has a style you do like.

If you are looking at a photographers work,  you love it and can imagine yourself in those pictures, and those pictures up on your wall, then thats about as good as it gets.

Then look at the photographers website, check them out on Facebook and twitter, read their blog. Get a feel for them as a person and as a company. See if you like the feel of their brand and if it meets your expectations. Rule out the ones that don’t.

Next MEET them. This is probably the single most important thing! There are some photographers that take your booking over the phone or internet, having never met you and then you don’t clap eyes on them till the morning of the wedding. I am not one of these photographers.

Ideally I want to meet my clients for an initial meeting, pre wedding shoot and planning meeting, photography on the day and then viewing their photos with them after. Do not underestimate how much time you will be spending with your photographer.It’s really important you actually like THEM and not just their photography.

Having an initial meeting with the photographer, face to face, before you book is important because it gives you a chance to get to know them a bit and also to discuss your plans and ideas for your wedding photography. If your ideas aren’t in tune with the photographers then its probably best to find one thats more on your wave length. For example I don’t really like the old fashioned, formal, posed, group photos. Thats not to say I don’t do them. I happily photograph the whole wedding party, brides family, grooms family, bridesmaids, groomsmen etc but if you want hundreds of shots of every combination of family you can possibly think of then I’m not the photographer for you because I will probably have lost interest after the first ten.

Likewise if I think a client has completely different ideas to me or I don’t get where they are coming from I will tell them because I cant be sure they will get the pictures they want and last thing in the world I want is a disappointed client. There is a wedding photographer out there for everyone and I am more than happy to say if I don’t think thats me.

So in summary you want a photographer who’s work you love, style you like, that you get on well with and who shares your vision for you’re wedding. Find that person and you’ve got it cracked! A bit like kissing frogs to find a prince, you might have to go through a few photographers before you find your perfect one……. x

NB while this post is aimed at wedding photography it’s equally true for any sort of photography you might be considering….