Wedding Photography

Here’s where I share beautiful wedding photographs, offer my opinions on the wedding photography industry or share hints and tips for planning your big day.

Getting Married?

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Alicia Hotel Liverpool Wedding Photography

If you’re getting married soon and you’re still looking for a photographer, I have a very special offer for you! If you book one of my wedding photography collections, I’ll include £300 worth of free gifts just for you. These include:

  • A Signing Frame – all of your wedding guests can write their warmest congratulations on this luxury signing frame, which will include a photography from your complementary pre-wedding photo session.
  • 15 Matted Prints and Print Box – I’m a firm believer that photographs only really come alive when they’re printed, so I’m including this gorgeous print box containing 15 matted prints, along with a stand to present your favourite photograph in your home
  • 50 Save The Date and 50 Thank You Cards – let guests know in style when to put your wedding day in their diary, and then send them a gorgeous card to thank them for attending!

Hurry though, this offer will only run until midnight on June 16th 2016, so email me at hello@howhighthemoon.uk and tell me all about your wedding as soon as possible. I’ll then be in touch to arrange a chat to talk about photography and your free gifts!

Dan

Rustic Wedding Workshop – Regents Park, London

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Rustic Wedding Workshop Regents Park London

When it’s just stopped raining, the ground is wet beneath your feet and the temperature has dropped to around freezing point, what do you do? You grab a camera and head for the nearest park, of course!

Us photographer’s are an odd bunch, let’s face it. Whenever there’s an opportunity to capture beauty we’re first in the queue, come wind, rain or shine. Yesterday had all three of those elements in abundance, but that didn’t stop a group of us enjoying the fantastic Rustic Wedding Workshop Meetup group, as hosted by the insanely talented Alex Borbilas and Lisa Lobanova, who together make up Wedding Fairytales. I’ve attended a Family Photography Workshop with Lisa before, so was really looking forward to this one.

The day was broken up into three parts, two of which were of particular interest to me. The first third covered setting up a wedding photography business (which I know a fair bit about, obviously, but there was still some valuable information contained in this part). The second was a photoshoot in Regents Park (brrrr) with two fabulous models who were absolute troopers. As you can see from the photos below, they weren’t adorned with the warmest clothing you’ve ever seen, but smiled all the way through the session (as did co-host Alex who didn’t have a jacket with him, and started to turn a rather strange shade of blue. I’m shivering just thinking about you mate…!) The third part was perhaps of most interest to me, and touched on branding and marketing with an hour covering Lightroom post-processing at the end.

I had a great time – it’s always fantastic meeting up with fellow photographers and discussing style, technique and lenses (yes, the Canon 135L f2 is a must-buy, fellow workshop attendees:)), and Alex and Lisa were brilliant; enthusiastic, inspiring, happy to share their knowledge and both had a great sense of humour too. Thanks to both of you, and hope to see you again soon!

 

Amy & Ben – Sneak Peek!

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Bromley Garden Room London Wedding Photography

East Dulwich, we meet again – how the devil are you?!

To be honest, if every wedding I photographed was in East Dulwich, I’d be a very happy bunny indeed. I spent five very happy years there, so when Amy and Ben asked me to photograph their wedding in Bromley and reception in East Dulwich, I jumped up and down on their sofa with glee, hugged one of their neighbours for over an hour before running down the street with my top off*

(*I made that last sentence up. But boy, was I happy).

I first met Amy & Ben back in May, and in July I photographed their engagement session in Crystal Palace Park.  We all got on really well that day and together we captured some lovely photographs, so I was literally champing at the bit to photograph their special day. And it certainly didn’t disappoint – they were both as lovely as I remembered them from back in July, and their two children Millie and William are absolutely gorgeous too!

I’d also like to thank all of their friends and family for being lovely and extremely friendly, and most of all Amy and Ben. Congratulations to you both and I hope you have many happy years together as Mr & Mrs Gidney!

 

Isobel and Tim – Sneak Peek!

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Bromley Registry Office London Wedding Photography

Forrest Gump once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates”. By that, he could have meant one of two things:

  • Life is wonderfully varied, full of different flavours and you’re never quite sure what’s going to come next, or
  • It may taste good, but eventually it’ll make you fat

I’m guessing it’s the former?

Anyway, I allude to Mr Gump because when selecting photographs for this very special sneak peek, I was literally spoiled for choice. There were so many wonderfully warm moments on the day that I was tempted to post the wedding in its entirety here, and be done with it. However, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait another week or two for that. In the meantime, here are some carefully selected chocolate box moments from the day.

 

Morag and James – Sneak Peek!

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Dulwich College london Wedding Sneak Peek

A few weeks ago I had the enormous pleasure of photographing Morag and James’ wedding in The Old Library at Dulwich College, and the reception at The Lodge above the East Dulwich Tavern. It was utterly fabulous for a number of reasons, and these are:

  • It was at Dulwich College, which is one of the most gorgeous buildings in the whole of the kingdom
  • The sun shone for (most of) the whole day
  • Morag and James were / are lovely
  • All Morag and James’ family and friends were / are lovely
  • It was wonderful to be back on my old stomping ground of East Dulwich again. Sigh.

Anyway, enough of my nostalgic reminiscing. Here are a few photographs from the day, with lots more to follow very soon. Oh, and once again enormous thanks to my erstwhile and very talented assistant Matt of Salt Photography who carried lots of stuff for me, as well as taking some cracking photos.

 

It’s All About The Emotion

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Bexley Registry Office Wedding Photographer

The venue? Important. The Dress? Vital also. Flowers? Oh yes. All these elements of a wedding are important, especially from a “I-must-make-sure-I-take-a-photograph-of-that!” perspective. However, the most essential part of the wedding day? That would have to be the emotions.

Let’s face it, weddings are chock-full of emotions. From the nervous anticipation of the groom awaiting the imminent arrival of his bride, to the tear-filled eyes of a father giving his daughter away. The day is packed with them, and it’s a real honour for me to be there to capture these emotions. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but being a wedding photographer is an enormous privilege, as I’m an honorary friend / member of the family for the day. I’m given unprecedented access to the couple’s inner circle, and I’m allowed to witness the most wonderful day of their lives. And that makes me feel very emotional indeed.

De Vere Selsdon Estate Wedding Photography

Ben & Nancy – Surrey Wedding of the Year 2013!

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Pembroke Lodge Wedding Photographer

Well, how fantastic is this?!! Last year I assisted Matt of Salt Photography for the wedding of Ben and Nancy at Richmond Park- well, their wedding has only gone and won Your Surrey Wedding magazine Wedding of the Year 2014!! HUGE congratulations to you both guys, and I feel honoured and privileged to have been one of the photographers capturing your special day. Cheers!

Pembroke Lodge Richmond Park Wedding Photography

4 Websites to Help Grooms Write Their Wedding Speech

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Shooting Winter Weddings Workshop

I like to think I’m a modern man (please, stop sniggering at the back). I can appreciate beauty in the world when I see it (and no, I don’t mean making somewhat inappropriate comments every time Holly Willoughby walks on the screen). I’m very much in touch with my emotions, and I’m not afraid to express them. For example, last week my beloved and I watched the Remembrance Day broadcast from the Cenotaph in London, and I’m not ashamed to admit I became very misty-eyed during the two minutes silence. I’ve  even been known to have the odd sniffle during heart-wrenching primetime television shows (such as Surprise Surprise, but only because I know that Holly will never be mine. Wail!)

Being a modern man also applies to weddings – traditionally, the bride would perhaps organise the finer details of the Big Day, such as the guestlist, where to buy the rings, the wedding stationery and so on and so forth. The groom’s role would be to (a) organise the stag-do and the stripper (b) ensure his bride-to-be never saw the photos of said stag do, and (c) turn up to church roughly on time on the wedding day. But oh, how things have changed, and rightly so. There are now a plethora of resources to help the groom chip in with the wedding organisation, and there’s a wealth of info to help him write his wedding speech as well. Here are four of the best sites out there:

The Man Registry

I find it impossible to read the title of this site out loud without resorting to a comedy East-End gangster voice (“The Maaaaaaaaaaan Registry!”) However, I can assure you that this site has nothing to do with dodgy goings-on in the Whitechapel area of London, but is a veritable smorgasbord of groom-related articles, such as what to look for when renting a tuxedo, how to buy an engagement and wedding ring, and even a guide to prenuptial agreements (for those of you with plenty of money, or perhaps more to lose than the rest of us). However, it’s the speech we’re specifically interested in, so follow the link below for more information:

Groom 411

To me, this sounds like the title of a particularly rubbish TV drama based around a groom working in the emergency services, where the main character isn’t very good at his job (i.e he’s a nurse and his patients keep popping off, he’s a fireman and is a poor timekeeper, so buildings have burned to the ground by the time he arrives etc). But hey, maybe that’s just me. Turns out, it is in fact an excellent resource to help grooms on their wedding day, even if they have nicked the design of their logo from the BBC. Naughty. Also, to be honest there isn’t actually a specific section related to the writing and making of a speech on Groom 411 (“Previously on Groom 411!”), but I’ve included it here so I could shoehorn in my somewhat pathetic analogy relating to an emergency service TV show. Sorry.

  • Groom 411

Staggered

Now this is a bit more like it. Coming from a web design background, I can certainly appreciate the consistency and style this website possesses, and it’s literally jam-packed with all sorts of fantastic info. For example, there are ideas for organising the honeymoon, an article about wedding sex (which I haven’t read, honest. Ahem), and most importantly there’s a whole section dedicated to writing a speech. Phew.

The Groomslist

Another excellent groom resource, and the main headline that particularly grabbed my attention was, “Kanye West Is An Involved Groom – Are you?” The article also says, “Kanye Is Also Completely Doolally Bonkers, And That’s Why We Love Him!”*, which is fine by me.

*It doesn’t really.

Backlighting the first dance with flash

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Alicia Hotel Liverpool Wedding Photography

At the recent wedding of Sarah and Gareth in Liverpool I decided to try a new technique that I’d seen other photographers do, but had never attempted myself (after all, a wedding is surely the best time to start experimenting with a new technique that you’ve never done before, and one that has the capacity to go completely tits up. Isn’t it? Gulp.)

The technique in question is backlighting the bride and groom for the first dance, to create an attractive rim light around the couple, instead of firing the flash (modified or otherwise) straight at them. At the top of the page is an example of this technique.

It’s a fairly straightforward technique, if truth be told. The ambient light in the room at the time was pretty much non-existent, so I worked with a shutter speed and aperture I was comfortable with and within my maximum sync speed, and adjusted flash power manually to taste (none of this swanky TTL malarkey here, oh no). Out of interest, the exposure settings for all the following photographs were as follows: f4, ISO3200, 1/200s, 85mm.

As for the flash, I placed a solitary unmodified speedlight on a flash stand shoulder height, and around 10-12 feet behind the couple. I then manually (phew, hardcore eh?) set it to 1/32 power and fired it using a wireless trigger. And Bob’s your Dad’s brother.

Of course, the couple have to be directly in the line of sight between your camera and the flash, otherwise things can go a bit Pete Tong (also notice incorrect sync speed in this photo, resulting in black band along the bottom. Naughty photographer.)

Backlighting the first wedding dance with flash

However, when you get it right magic ensues. Here are a couple of other examples from the same wedding:

Why is Wedding Photography Important?

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True Value of Wedding Photography

This is probably the most personal post I’ve ever written, and was inspired by Kathleen Trenske’s excellent article, “The Case Against Good Enough“, in which she extols the virtues of owning physical copies of your wedding photography, instead of allowing them to languish on a disc tucked away in a dusty draw. I recently saw the fantastic Jerry Ghionis at the SWPP convention back in January, and he echoed those sentiments by saying, “If your house was on fire, would you rush back in screaming, ‘Oh my God, we need to save our wedding jpegs!’ Of course you wouldn’t – whereas your wedding album would be one of the first items you’d rescue.”

And he’s right. Of course, some couples request a disc-only package  because they intend to print out the photographs themselves, either individually or as an album. Or they may come back in a year or so and ask me to design an album of their images for them, which is great. As wonderful as it is to be able to view your photos on a computer, laptop, iPad or smartphone, you simply can’t beat holding and connecting with an actual printed photograph.

Which brings me neatly to the crux of this article. My parents Pat and Alan celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this year, which is an absolutely incredible achievement. They also have physical copies of their photographs, taken by a Colchester wedding photographer (whose name I can’t recall but will find out) and they’re kept in a small card box. They still look as if they were printed yesterday, such is the love they’ve been afforded over the years.

Looking at them now, the true value of them shines through. There are photos of family members that are sadly no longer with us – most notably, my mother’s parents Bob and Violet, her sister Maureen, my father’s parents Albert and Hilda and my Dad’s brother Mick. In other words, everyone in that main photo except my parents.

It seems strange looking at this photograph now, knowing they’re no longer here. However, this image will always be a reminder of them, and as a result they’ll always be with us in our hearts.