Many things dictate how you shoot a wedding day. Weather is one factor and also after a consultation with the couple to be photographed, what they want to get from the photography of their wedding day. Del and Chris were very happy to let me call the shots on their day and also to let me decide on the locations for photography at the hotel.
Working at the North Lakes means that because of its location, you are always trying to avoid photographs that have the nearby M6 in the background and there are two ways to do this. The first involves shooting in the traditional locations at the hotel and the second involves blurring it out to the point where it is invisible. After a recce of the hotel which is the home of one of my favorite wedding fairs held each January (one for the diary) I decided that there was more to the gardens than meets the eye. I set about on the day exploring some newer angles in some well trodden locations and to good effect.
During the group shots Elliot (Chris and Dels’ son) ran into a tree giving himself a rather nice shiner in the process, so we had to pause for ten mins while we got something cold to put on his cheek. This gave me time to move my kit inside to avoid the rain and I shot some very nice groups in the dining room instead. Sometimes compromise can be a blessing.
It was another outing for my new Magneflash though which performed admirably. The first dance was Islands by the Amazing XX and for a couple that are all about the music they listen to and the festivals they attend I thought that this was the perfect choice. Here we go, a beautiful wedding for an old friend that ensured that we were older friends by the end of it. Thankyou for allowing me to capture the events of your wedding day, It was epic!
After a mess about with the girls I decided to get ahead of them and head around to the room where the civil ceremony was to be held. With friends in the audience it was great to see so many smiling faces. There were a few children there too which is great as they are much easier to photograph than adults. I got a great shot of Elliot pre-tree bash too.
As the nights events started I arrived back after picking up some giant sparklers from a friend. These were to be used to create a beautiful night lit image of Del and Chris. They worked a treat as you will see below.
Thanks again both, your wedding was amazing to cover and the fact that you were up for all of my mad ideas paid off in the end.
A lot of the weddings that I photograph come from afar to get married in the Lake District and Eden Valley. Photographing these weddings is great and always varied, but it is always nice to do a wedding for a local couple. Carrie and Matt originally booked me for one date and venue and then booked me for another date and another venue. It was luck or maybe even fate that allowed the second date to be free, but I think every photographer has a date that is free throughout the peak season that just doesn’t book… Almost like it is meant for a higher purpose but usually ends up being a day for a barbecue or a trip to the Metro. This day and this date was meant for Matt and Carrie.
Karma!
I do quite a few weddings at the Roundthorn each year and there are several sneaky places around within a couple of miles that lend themselves to moving a bit off piste with photography. This time I chose with Simon from Courting Whale an abandoned quarry, popular with dog walkers and the like… We prayed for sunshine and got it. The resulting images were perfect. The resulting film from Courting Whale was also perfect we were blown away with how it turned out, like schoolboys finding a massive conker… The link to Matt and Carries trailer is at the end of the images. Simon will have to teach me to embed things properly.
I am banging on about this a bit now, so here it is, The wedding of Carrie and Matt, on the fringe of the Lakes, On a dappled sunny day, up on a hill with plenty of champagne and dancing.
Wow, Emma can dance, a lot of the time it seems too. It also seems that the outside weddings at Inn on the Lake have really become popular. The pagoda come bandstand that Gary and the team have installed next to the Ullswater shoreline is fantastic. Not to mention the addition of a new Orangery, phase one of redevelopment at the Inn on the Lake which will make shooting weddings there much easier, as it is only for hotel guests not associated with the wedding, so no more ‘are they or aren’t they?’ at the wedding moments in the future.
Taking everything into account and reflecting on Emma and Phils’ wedding got me to thinking. Mainly about the people who I have photographed at the Inn before but also about the kind of people that Inn on the Lake may attract in the future. Every bride and groom there, have been easy going and relaxed on their wedding day. Now, I don’t know if this is down to the sort of couple that Inn on the Lake attracts or possibly some other phenomenon, (not barometric pressure or what they had for tea!) like location? There really is nowhere else like it and stacks of venues huddle into the Lake District and photographing at them is really amazing but Inn on the Lake seems to be the one that I come back to, like a worn in pair of loafers or my wifes’ spaghetti bolognese. Inn on the Lake is the only one where I compromise little and create lots.
Emma was slightly nervous on the morning and Phil was really really not. I wanted time alone on the morning of our wedding to take stock, but Emma and Phil wanted to be surrounded by those closest to them. Several events followed which made the day an awesome portfolio of photographs and a lot of fun to boot. To name but a few: An excellent best mans speech, a more than understanding registrar from the Penrith office, Some Jaegerbombs and a bride and groom who were as natural in front of the camera as they were with each other. Half way through the day I was happy with the results and by the end of the day I was ecstatic.
So… Emma danced lots, including as she was being married by the registrar. Everyone had an a-m-a-z-i-n-g time and confetti seemed to be thrown at every corner of the hotel. Phil got through his speech and the first dance involved everyone at the wedding and really made the walls of the Ramblers shake. Job done…
Neglect is a terrible thing and I have been so busy I have really neglected to post anything new. I will be swift to rectify this in the clear air that is the next fortnight. Helen and Steve, wow. What a brilliant day, so well themed and personal, made up of elements from where they first met to a garden party styling that suited their personalities perfectly. When someone puts their stamp on a wedding like this, you can’t fail to produce a brilliant portfolio.
Helen and Steve first met at Morland House, so as they now do weddings with space for a massive marquee, it seemed appropriate for their wedding to take place there. The grounds are staggering for a start, a beautiful walled garden and breathtaking winding paths that lead down to the river… It is a true photographers playground.
Thanks also go out to Simon Love at Courting Whale for producing a video that really is mind blowing to go alongside the images from the day which can be seen in an older blog post. Thanks also go out to Bakerwood for providing an awesome venue on a lovely spring day (thankfully), so enjoy the portfolio, big as it may be. Selecting the images to go into the blog was hard I shot so many on the day. These are my selection..
A conversation that I had on a blog recently with a friend of mine who has a studio in Bowness-on-Windermere set me off thinking about why I still shoot on film as well as digital. I thought I might clarify this for anyone wanting to book me to photograph their wedding and also add my two cents to the wider debate on film vs digital etc….
Digital images are synthetic versions of their film counterparts, so a digital image is one that seeks to replicate and improve upon the older film process that we used to use to create our photographs. Film is an organic or largely chemical process which works on the same principal as digital of having something behind a focused glass lens to capture an image of whatever your camera is pointed at.
I found that when post processing my digital images on the Mac that i was striving to achieve a filmic look from the effects that I was employing on the images, bearing in mind that this period was after I had already invested significantly into digital technology, learned how to use it and done my Adobe Photoshop accreditation.
The reality of the situation was that if I shot film, I would make my images look exactly how I wanted them to look in camera. This would mean that whatever came out of the dark room to be scanned would be the finished image, plus a little retouching for imperfections. However……….. There is no denying that digital has its advantages of which the chief advantage is cost. Memory cards can be used for an indefinite period as long as you format and keep them clean, to clean a sensor on a digital camera costs around £35 every two or three months of heavy usage.
Film costs around £7 for 36 images once chemicals to process the film and scanning time at the computer are taken into account.
I decided that I would work on a percentage at all of my weddings from 2010 up to the weddings that I will be shooting in 2012 and 2013. That split would be 80-20. 80% digital and 20% film, carrying two cameras at once with the digital backup in my bag so I can always shoot on either, freeing me up to shoot the images that I want to shoot on film and the bulk digitally.
There is no doubt that I am an oddity in this respect as far as how I work with the two mediums together and I can find no-one locally doing anything similar or even considering using film based alternatives to digital.
Digital rules the roost in wedding photography because the technology allows us to do things that with film were impossible, so film has been left behind with only Kodak pushing the technology and Ilford in financial trouble and Fuji struggling to justify opening its plant to produce the stuff.
The future for film looks grim……
Does this then mean that images like these will become a thing of the past? Shoe boxes of photos in the cupboard will no longer exist because they are all online in our cloud storage and film cameras will become obsolete with expensive ones going to museums and collectors and the cheap ones going to the dump? For all intents and purposes, yes is the answer. Film will die eventually, no matter how many resurgences it goes through as its production cost will become astronomical. A cost that will be passed onto us as photographers which we can little afford.
So we have resolved that film is expensive and because it is no longer a popular medium, the emulsions used to capture images on film are at least ten years old and it takes a lot of time to develop and get right……
But just look at it.
The range of tones that film can capture, the subtle way that with care you can make light fall off a subject, its muted but accurate colours and the sharpness and clarity with which it delivers black and white make film completely unique.
Its not about delivering an image that your clients are happy with but rather an image that your clients are ecstatic with, being able to reproduce images from negatives that are real and have a permanence, with a tactile finish to each negative and print.
From my own point of view the smell of chemicals used to develop the film at home will be a memory that my little girl can revisit hopefully when she is old enough to pick up a camera. Seeing the negatives soaped and coming off the reel for the first time and knowing that what is on that strip of negatives is going to look exactly how I saw it in my mind when I pressed the shutter on the camera.
The reason that my images look so different to everyone else’s is because I use techniques and processes that nobody else has the time or patience to use. My background is in modelling, editorial, fashion and studio work, so my influences are different to everyone else’s too and I take ideas from all over the media from MTV to Vogue, Harpers, ID and a pile of American wedding magazines that I subscribe to and love.
Film is perfect for vintage styled or themed weddings of which I have a few this year and am really looking forward to. The future is without any doubt digital and what I continue to use for at least 90% of my photography and 80%-90% of weddings, but as long as my clients still demand the type of images that only film can produce, it will always accompany the digital.
Some days you just get lucky with certain shots that you take and no matter how much preparation you put into setting up a perfect sunset shot on the front of a beautiful steamer, something random comes along to make that shot even better. As you can see in the shot below taken on Ullswater on an evening cruise, the surprise came in the form of two Eurofighter Typhoons screaming over our heads and directly into shot. You had to be there…. No really, you had to be there, so in many ways I have the RAF to thank just as much as Donna who remained composed throughout.
Donna and Scotts wedding was an absolute dream to shoot from start to finish. Jonathan and the staff at the Inn on the lake were impeccable as always and made things flow as smoothly as possible. Sailing with Ullswater steamers was a great way to finish the day that since Scott and Donna come from Scotland, had a distinctly scottish feel to it including piping and an addressing of the haggis by the excellent and Talented Roddy the Piper.
The makeup was applied by the amazing Lyndsey Findlay from the Girls’ home town of Glasgow who was also a guest at the wedding. I was mighty impressed with her makeup style. The girls looked very natural and the smokey look to Donnas eyes was perfect.
Donna and Scott chose to get married outside which was a great idea considering that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It rained all the way down and most of the morning, but the heavens ceased pouring and only started pouring again once we were all inside. Its like me and mother nature had a deal that day as the cruise was nice and sunny too.
All in all the day could not have been topped off in any other way. Scott and Donna chose the Lake District to get married in, they chose a beautiful location, had beautiful weather, did everything with a little style and panache and I was lucky enough to have been their photographer.
To see more images from their wedding, please view the your pictures section where, if you so wish, you can see the entire day at inn on the lake in full.
Just a few images from Shaun & Rachels wedding at Greystoke Country House near Penrith. Rachel looked amazing in a full length gown from Country Dreams bridal shop in Carlisle. The colour scheme was a deep red with a vintage bus supplied by Cumbria Classic Coaches of Ravenstonedale, Cumbria. The wedding was a laid back day with the beautiful backdrop of Greystoke, followed by Carlisle Golf Club, just outside Carlisle for the evening reception. Everyone getting on the bus got a cool ticket as a little momento of the day, which I thought was a lovely touch and we were treat to a lovely sunset over Carlisle with some lovely mist on the golf course. With Wedding Photography, consistency is the key to a successful set of images and amazing album as an end product, so I am putting quite a large selection up here for people to see how a day flows. All of the suppliers did a great job too so if anyone would like to contact them, just click on the highlighted links above. Thankyou Shaun & Rachel for allowing me to create some great images from your day.
Ade and Bex booked me to cover their wedding at Morland Church with a marquee as a follow up in one of Ades’ parents fields. The setting for this wedding could not have been better and everyone had a ball. The gates were tied in the traditional Cumbrian way at the church too and cost a few quid to cut free. Bakerwood supplied a massive marquee which was placed in a family owned field in Newby, just 5 mins drive from the church so we had lots of time for photographs and to catch people mingling.
This post is very image heavy, but this was a long day with a ton of great images as a result and I wanted to show everyone the great locations available to anyone getting married up this neck of the woods.
The sun shone, birds sang, people smiled and we went to work producing a portfolio of nearly 850 images. I would put the kettle on….
Bex’s dress was supplied by Jacinta Cooper and the team at Kokoa bride in Penrith. Jacinta even came along personally to fit Bex into the dress.
Once we were at the church in Morland, people were starting to come in from all over, so we used this time to capture some of the guests arriving down the church path. There must have been ten people looking out for the bridesmaids arriving!
The Vicar at Morland could not have been any better. Vicars that realise that you have a job to do too and know that you will be as unobtrusive as possible are worth their weight in gold. It falls to the inexperienced photographers in rural churches to turn the milk sour. We on the other hand were as quiet as mice.
Over the road from the church is a garage that is fairly beaten up and weather worn. It was a location from the moment that I clapped eyes on it as the huge green door would look great as a backdrop for a country wedding. Before I finish, the cars were supplied by Cars of Distinction, but not this one below!
Ades’ grandfather had a commemorative bench nearby and it was lovely to photograph the two of them sitting on it and around the pond. That aside, we went to Adrians grandmothers back garden which has some beautiful trees in the old quarry at the back. I was blown away by this location.
Sorry that this post is so long, but we managed to cram in a huge amount in the time that we spent at Adrian and Rebeccas wedding. There are fewer places in Cumbria with as much to photograph as in the Morland area. I have another wedding in Morland church next year and am looking forward to it immensley. Thankyou Adrian and Bex.. All of your images are online now and guess what? You are on the blog!!!!!
I have compiled a set of images from 2011 that I consider to be my personal favourites. This may give people who are looking at my site and blog a little more insight into what I am looking for as a photographer. In here there are a mix of set-up images and also some photojournalistic style images and I have put in only one from each wedding that I have attended and there are still more to come from weddings that haven’t even been blogged yet!
I chose this for the amazing setting, the fact that we fought to get to the location in the first place as it is actually at the Cragwood Hotel. After all that, this image really was worth the effort.
I chose this image of Shaun and Rachel from a mountain of images shot on the day because it really does sum them up. The colouring reflects the vintage feel of the wedding too. Rarely am I happier with a posed image than with this one.
Tom & Nicola had two photographers on the day and this was one of my favourites. We jumped back from the church in Grassmere to take this at St Johns in the Vale and is just off the road. We fought a bit of rain to get this shot but it was well worth it.
This is by far my favourite of Andrew and Jill and I think it is theirs too. The depth and height of the trees adds a real perspective to it and by muting the colours is is far less green than the original. Armathwaite hall has so many locations for all types of weather conditions and it is a real treat to photograph weddings there.
Some brides and grooms are up for anything.. Andrew and Kelly were no exception as they jumped at the chance to have images in the IMAX at Rheged. The screen wasn’t actually on and the light is coming from a flash positioned on a boom in front of the screen. Certainly one of the most unique shots from their wedding and a personal favourite. The rest of their images will follow in a blog post shortly.
I know that this is quite an odd choice for a favourite, but in a fraction of a second this moment was gone and this was the only time I could get a clean shot as everybody piled onto the dance floor. All of the elements that were required to take it came together for a 60th of a second. A firm firm favourite from this year.
This is again, just another moment. I will even admit that this image was not part of Hamish and Lucies’ final selection for their album, but it is one that really makes me smile. Maybe you had to be there to feel the nerves and excitement to appreciate this quiet moment, shot from the hallway. The room was bathed in beautiful sunlight and apart from a little colour correction, this image is largely untouched in photoshop.
Joanne said that she wanted something different as a portrait of herself to run alongside the more posed images of her from her wedding day. I love it because this window has been used a thousand times by nearly every photographer covering weddings in Cumbria and after a moment to think, I decided on a partial silhouette. Its a first from me and maybe a first for the Greenhill?
Victoria was luminous on her wedding day and photographed with ease from start to finish. This image stood out mainly because of how it flows from top to bottom and really shows off the vibrancy of her dress, even in mono.
As far as classic wedding imagery goes, this is it for me and I really could create images like this one all day long. This wedding was shot as part of our two photographer team at Icon Wedding Photography, where you get the option to have two full time professional photographers covering your wedding day. Abbey house is a beautiful venue and one of my favourites in south Lakeland too. There is so much to see there and its potential for great wedding images is huge. We were even shooting once it got dark which I will show you all in a later post.
Matt was getting a real roasting here from his best man, who’s wedding I also covered. Its not a traditional wedding picture and Adel isn’t even in it, but for me this image sums up these two to a tee. For more of Matt and Adels’ images search the blog as there are heaps on the blog. Armathwaite hall delivered us a lovely low sunset in their fantastic grounds.
Talk about smiling from start to finish and there was no telling them both to be natural either… They just did it. Inn on the lake is rapidly becoming my home venue as year on year my weddings there increase. Its no bad thing as it is without doubt one of the best hotels for photography in the lakes. This image is an alternative to the normal stand at the end of the jetty and have a snog or look longingly at each-other pictures… I tend to have an alternative for every stayed or overdone picture. Jonathan and Gary are some of the best planners around too and make every wedding run like a well oiled machine.
This shot of Melissa getting ready opens up Melissa and Lees’ album and spreads 24 inches across the page. Its a real knockout image taken on my Yashicamat 66 and is as smooth close up as it is from afar. I could have chose from hundreds of images of this wedding but I just love the expression on Mels face and the fact that she is in her dress and no-one else is ready. Carlisle racecourse is a fantastic place for a wedding and as an alternative venue to big country piles it makes for a very different setting and a very different style of photography.
Nick and Maggie seem to pop up on this blog a lot after having their wedding and pre wedding photoshoot done by Lake District. This image is timeless and has one of the most picturesque churches in the Lake District as the backdrop. Without doubt one of my favourites this year. Graysonside, Nicks family home is also now a wedding venue, so if you are looking at this and don’t have a venue yet, have a look at their site by clicking here.
Just over the road from the above venue at Graysonside is Hundith Hill, the chosen location of Stacey and Stephen. The rain really didn’t stop on the day, so I shot some bits inside while we waited for the weather to subside. The wall frames Stacey in this shot and makes the image really pop out. Staceys’ looks are flawless and make for a perfect bride who thankfully quite enjoyed being photographed.
Just remembering that I have to choose one image from each wedding for this exercise, this is Rachels’ favourite image and its mine too. The light is quite flat as we were in the shade but the dying embers of the evening summer sun can be seen lighting the staircase inside. The Greenhill Hotel, is where I shot my first big wedding after moving back from the North East, so is kind of a special place for me and I like to think that this is a nice portrait of the hotel too.
Caught this as we were setting up for a shot on the balcony outside Rachel and Ricks suite at Smiths. Its safe to say that this one had preference over the setup image by quite a long way.
Another wedding that is yet unblogged but expect to see it in the future. Sarah and peter had the worst mother nature could throw at us and still smiled all the way through. I stepped in a puddle but still managed to deliver over 400 images of a fantastic day for them both.
This has to be a wedding photograph that will live in infamy for me and one that I have clients ask about all of the time. This version is untreated with the union Jack left in. See the blog for more images from their beautiful wedding at Inn on the Lake.
So 2011 ends where it all started, at the Grange with Victor and Jennifer. This was a wedding that I felt really at home with. Vintage styling and a really lovely couple who have left me some very nice comments on their blog post. This shot was captured as they walked away from their wedding breakfast and really was a lucky shot. I love it.. Adam from Lake District Wedding Photography.
Photographing Mike and Katies’ wedding was a day of going with the flow of events and capturing a lot of things in a spontaneous way. It rained on and off for the whole day, so most of the shots taken were taken between showers. At the end of summer especially in one of the wettest places in the country, you have to expect a few light showers. The sunrise driving from Caldbeck to Ullswater that morning was biblically beautiful, which is quite apt considering that I was about to photograph one of my favourite weddings of the year.
The thing about photographing at Inn on the Lake is that there is almost too many locations and possibilities. Its one of those places that I never get tired of shooting at and I am there quite a lot. With Mike and Katies Wedding, I think that they set out to create a day that was about close family and friends and I think their images are quite intimate in that way. It was strange to approach a wedding at a venue that I cover so often in such an unusual way. This is by no means a bad thing as it gives their images an even more unique angle.
All of the groomsmen are rugby players and photographing them messing around in their room down the hall made me laugh out loud. It was quite a contrast to the lovely time that the Girls were having down the other end of the hotel. Mike got all of the boys survival bags filled with Lynx, cufflinks and most important of all Red Bull.
Mike and Katie were married at St Michaels Churchat Barton near Pooley Bridge, which is like no other church that I have seen before. The Church has a large tunnel leading through the centre and the altar is through the tunnel about 15 yards from the congregation. This did allow me to slip from front to back quite easily though and the Vicar was a gentleman.
What a great wedding to do. Mike and Katie were awesome on the day. Thanks go to Raif for ‘cracking the whip’ as he said when I was too short to shout through an open window and thanks to Mike and Katie for letting me capture a unique and close event, full of emotion and laughter.
Current Offer
A full day’s wedding coverage (8hrs)
Includes a USB drive of images.
Option of a half-price photobooth (£200)
All for only: £899
Lake District Wedding Photography, 21 Mill Road, Glasson, Cumbria, CA7 5EE
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