Kim and Richard’s Wedding Photography at The Holmfield, Wakefield

Now that the World Cup has come and gone we are finally getting into the wedding photography and video season proper. This is the first time in our 21 years in business that we have actually noticed a drop in bookings during a football competition and lots of other wedding photographers have reported a drop in bookings too, so I don’t know what that tells you. Maybe the grooms are actually getting their way at last and getting to watch the football – although somehow I don’t think so!! Maybe the girls just don’t want anything to take the focus off them (what a male comment that was – sorry girls!!). Anyway, it gave me the opportunity to have a holiday in June for the first time in 21 years, and I found myself watching Spain v. Holland in a restaurant in Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. What an experience that was!! (For any brides reading this, Spain got beat 5-1. The locals weren’t happy!).  Anyway, having returned from our holiday we had Kim and Richard’s wedding to look forward to at The Holmfield in Thornes Park in Wakefield. Kim is a graphic designer (no pressure on me when I come to design the album then!) and is a girl who really knows what she wants with regards to photos.  She sent me 6 sheets of A4 with photos on before the wedding so that I could re-create some of the shots. She even brought along a photo frame and props that she had bought for the wedding to get shots of all the couples and guests at the wedding – including their dog Khan! I do like it when a girl knows what she wants!

London Landscape Photography. The River Thames by Night from Westminster Palace to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Recently I took advantage of a really cheap offer from East Coast Trains  (£5 each way from Wakefield – unbelievable!) with Chris Chambers and a couple of other photographers to shoot some London landscape photography.  It might seem a bit sad that on a day off I choose to take photos but it gives me a chance to experiment with different styles and camera settings so it’s a lot different from photographing a wedding so it makes quite a change, although I do have a wedding in York soon with the York Eye right outside the Royal York Hotel, so this was also a bit of practice for that, so I suppose that there was a wedding connection with that.  Speaking of weddings I really must upload some more photos onto here from weddings from last year.  We arrived in London shortly after lunch and started with some photos of the London Eye.  These were fine but as the light started to drop we thought that we would get much better photos into the evening, so we had a coffee in Starbucks and waited for the light to drop.  We began at Westminster Bridge before slowing moving down the south bank of the Thames towards St. Paul’s cathedral.  The riverside in London is perhaps the best place in Britain for urban landscape photography and I just love it alongside the Thames at night.  However, we did recently visit the Dordogne in France and that was even more incredible for landscape photography – I’ll post some of those photographs soon.  In the meantime I hope you enjoy looking at these photos of London.

 

Weetwood Hall – A Chinese Wedding

It’s great when you do a wedding and you are then asked back to do the wedding of the brother of the bride, but when you are asked a third time to photograph and film the wedding of the third son then it’s just fantastic.  You almost begin to feel like family as you know so many people there.  In fact at the meal in Max’s restaurant in Leeds we were even invited to sit with the wedding party for the meal, so warm and welcoming is Chinese hospitality at a wedding.  It’s also perhaps this familiarity with the family that allowed me to get that great photo of the father of the groom, as he was joking with me about how many times I had photographed him.  Chinese weddings tend to start off much the same as a traditional English wedding, with the bride in a white dress and a civil ceremony.  On this occasion Yee got ready at Weetwood Hall in north Leeds, and had her civil ceremony and her photos taken in the gardens there, before we moved onto Maxi’s on Kirkstall Road in Leeds.  Once the wedding party moves onto the Chinese restaurant things tend to be very different, with much more colour (always red), firecrackers, dancing unicorns, games and quite often some fairly serious drinking, usually undertaken by the best man, who, I must say, undertook this role with considerable enthusiasm!  There is always so much going on that it is a fantastic opportunity to get some great wedding photos!  Here is a selection:

Woodlands Hotel Wedding

Jenny and Mark were one of the first couples to book us for this year after seeing us at the Oulton Hall Wedding Fair back in 2011.  Booking so far in advance were once the norm, but more recently people have been booking at fairly short notice.  Last month we took two bookings for May with just three weeks notice!  May was also an anniversary for Magic Moments, as we filmed our first wedding on 1 May 1993.  It’s so hard to believe that Anne-Marie and Andrew Shaw will have just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary!  Anyway, Jenny and Mark were married at St. Peter’s at Morley, before travelling the short distance to the Woodlands Hotel for their reception.  As soon as we started to take the guy shots at the church it started to rain, and as soon as we finished the sun came out – typical.  The sun was still out when we arrived at the Wooodlands and stayed out for the rest of the day.  We have been to the Woodlands many times over the years but it is now under new ownership and there have been many improvements for the better since it changed hands.

Dog Photography in Wakefield

Alex, our son and the youngest member of Magic Moments Photo and Video, spends most of his weekends at weddings in and around Yorkshire, working with either ourselves or Chris Chambers.  During the week, though, he is in the process of building up a photography business in his own name, specialising in one of his own “pet” loves, dog and equine photography.   I am clearly biased, but I do feel that he is becoming one of the top animal photographers in Yorkshire.  Here are some photos from the last shoot that he did, so that you can judge for yourself.  If you are a dog or horse owner and would like some fantastic photos taking then Alex can be contacted through Robert Alexander Photography.  This week-end it’s back to weddings for him, starting with a wedding at Woodlands in Leeds on Saturday followed by a Chinese wedding at Weetwood Hall and Maxi’s on Monday.

A Day Off – So we went to Whitby and took some Photographs!

So what does a wedding photographer do when he has a day off?  Well, in my case we went to Whitby for the day and what did I do?  Take a load of photographs!!  Well, at least it makes a change from wedding photography!  I just can’t stop myself from getting a camera out wherever I go.  But having said that, Whitby really has some fantastic places for great photos.  Here are some of my favourites.  Yorkshire really is a great place to live and work.  Tomorrow it’s back to normal.  I have a meeting with a couple getting married at Weetwood Hall in Leeds next Monday followed by a church wedding rehearsal in Morley for Saturday’s wedding at the Woodlands Hotel in Leeds.  After that I am seeing a couple who are getting married at Waterton Park in Wakefield later in the year, whilst Alex has an early start for a dog photo shoot at Newmillerdam.  It feels like summer already!

Commercial Photography in Wakefield

Most Saturdays I usually find myself at a nice hotel somewhere in Yorkshire photographing a wedding, but last Saturday was quite different.  It’s actually rather nice to do something a little different and I was very pleased when James Toomes asked me to take some corporate photos for their website.  I have actually done quite a bit of work for James,  photographing fantastic bathrooms that his company have installed throughout West Yorkshire.  I first met James when he installed a new downstairs cloakroom for me.  I was so happy with the work that I later had him back to install a complete new bathroom and wetroom.  If you need any plumbing work done, then I can certainly recommend James and his staff.  They do an absolutely fantastic job!  Next Saturday it’s back to normal.  Alex and I are photographing a wedding at Oakwell Hall, one of our favourite wedding venues for photographs, whilst Yvonne has a trip into North Yorkshire to video a wedding at Ripley Castle.

Oulton Hall Wedding Exhibition

We will be at the Oulton Hall wedding fair in Leeds tomorrow, so if you want to call in to see us and have a chat then we would be delighted to see you.  We have filmed and photographed dozens of weddings over the years at Oulton Hall and are proud to be one of their selected suppliers, as it’s a great venue both for your wedding ceremony and your wedding reception, with both fantastic grounds and beautiful rooms for your photographs.  We will also have with us a new Oulton Hall display album and presentation box, produced by Graphistudio in Italy.  Graphi have only recently started to produce these presentation boxes, which can hold both your album and a disc of wedding images.  They look absolutely fantastic, so if you have never seen one then come along and have a look!  Oulton Hall is just five minutes from junction 30 of the M62.  If you are using Satnav then the postcode is LS26 8HN.  See you there!

Wedding Photography at Holdsworth House

We were back at Holdsworth House in Halifax yesterday for the wedding of Leanne and James.  We’ve been to Holdsworth House many times over the years – in fact we were there just two weeks ago  videoing a wedding – but we have never been there in the snow.  I’m just starting to edit the photos from yesterday’s wedding and this was one of the first of the day. Holdsworth House always makes a very picturesque setting but even more so in the snow.  It actually came as quite a shock when we arrived as there was practically no snow in Wakefield when we left home, but it was about 4 inches deep at Holdsworth.  This was also the first wedding photo to be taken on the first of our brand new Canon 5DmkIII cameras.  As full-time professional wedding photographers we change all of our cameras every two years to ensure that we are always working with the latest and best cameras.  This is something that the week-end photographers cannot afford to do and is another good reason to employ a full-time and qualified wedding photographer.  Couples always assume that when they book a wedding photographer then he will have all of the equipment needed to complete the work.  Sadly this is very often not the case.  If every photo with the 5DMkIII looks as good as this, then I shall be very happy.

Bump Portraits at Cannon Hall

I usually meet wedding couples two or three times before the wedding but Maria and Andy booked me entirely by e-mail for a Mum and “Bump” portrait session before the big event, so we had never met which added an interesting dimension to the shoot.  As a photographer, it is essential to make your subject feel entirely comfortable in front of the camera. This is much easier if you have met each other beforehand and have established some form of rapport.  It is a touch harder if you have never met!.  However, I need not have worried as Maria and Andy were very natural and we very quickly felt comfortable working together.  Maria chose Cannon Hall near Barnsley as the venue for the shoot, as this is where Andy and her were married.  A low sun blazing out of a cloudless sky proved to be quite a challenge, but we found some shade and got some lovely shots.