The Naked and Famous – Young Blood
Every now and then a song or band just totally grabs my attention and has me wanting to tell the world about it.
I stumbled across this clip by The Naked & Famous thanks to Jory Cordy on Twitter and the video, combined with the tune, is the best music video I’ve seen in ages. It was directed by Special Problems.
I guarantee it’ll brighten you day….
The Naked And Famous – Young Blood from The Naked And Famous on Vimeo.
Jemma & Andy – Engagement Session in the Cotswolds
While I was editing Jemma & Andy’s engagement session I started thinking about how important these shoots really are.
Imagine having a whole set of photos of your own parents taken just before they got married. Pretty priceless I’d say. Many couples have never had professional photographs taken of them before and these shoots are totally different to what we’ll capture at their wedding. It’s also a good time for us to get to know each other a little better and for the couple to see that it doesn’t have to be stressful at all having their photo taken. In fact, most couples agree that it’s actually good fun and that helps them relax on the wedding day, and that leads to better wedding photos. Everyone’s a winner!
For Jemma & Andy’s session we met in the Cotswolds and went for a pub lunch first. As it was Mother’s Day, I decided to make a day of it and brought the family along too.
We ended up back at Broadway Tower just as the sun decided to do some pretty amazing shows..
Oh look! It’s Evelyne, Elliott & Isaac. This photo is already on our wall 
Elliott was determined to be in more photos!
There’s that cheeky little boy again!
The wedding is in 2 weeks. Photos here soon…
Rebecca, Chris & Neva – Family Portraits
One thing I’d like to do more of this year is family portraits and children’s portraits.
A few weeks ago I was up in Bolton to meet Rebecca, Chris and their gorgeous little girl, Neva. Their portrait session was a gift from their friend Mark and we had fun capturing images of the whole family inside their home and then braving the cold to get some fun photos outside near where they live.
If you need a new umbrella, b the way, you should check out their umbrella company here >>> www.umbrellaworld.co.uk We bought this one!
Seriously, how cute is Neva??!!
A Rainy Day Family Session… to be continued..
So… what do you do when, as you’re driving towards somebody’s home for a family shoot, the clouds move in, the sky darkens and the rain starts?!
You improvise.
I’ve photographed Nancy & Mark and their little boy before but now they have a new member of the family and wanted some new family portraits. We planned on doing these in Sutton Park but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. We’re rescheduling that for another day.
We did manage to get a few good images from the session but it was obvious that we were limited thanks to the miserable weather and lack of natural light.
Hopefully, next time the weather will be a little more on our side…
Brett Harkness & Damien Lovegrove – Photography Courses
Every now and then it’s good to seek inspiration from photographers we admire and go and get learned.
Recently I attended two one-day workshops with photographers Brett Harkness and Damien Lovegrove. Both were great and gave me some new ideas on creative ways to use flash on location.
Here are a few images I came back with…
Firstly, from Brett’s workshop.
and a few from the day with Damien (including the image at the top of this post)…
Big thanks to Brett, Kristie and Damien for their generous sharing of knowledge. Both workshops were great fun and totally inspiring.
Sunny Spain?
Sometimes being so busy as a photographer it’s easy to put off editing personal photos in favour of getting jobs done for clients. So it was nice this week to find some time to go through some images we took while on a recent visit to my parents’ house near Murcia in Spain.
There are a lot of Elliott!
A little late night light painting
Smell the flowers Elliott, don’t kiss them!
Elliott wasn’t so keen on paddling!
But he liked collecting shells…
Taken by my Mom…
And all too soon we were back in the airport in Birmingham…
But I had a surprise planned
Moving to England from Montreal means that Evelyne left behind a lot of family and friends who she doesn’t see anywhere near as much as she would like. And that’s my fault!!
So I contacted her best friend, Dominique, in secret and we planned a surprise visit. It worked out that her flight arrived just before ours so she was at the gate waiting as we arrived. Here’s Evelyne’s reaction…
A great little family trip but much too short. We’ll be back soon I hope but first we’ll be heading to Montreal for Christmas
Point Blank Fury – Band Photography
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to shoot the metal band, Point Blank Fury, as they were recording and gigging a lot but desperately needed new promo shots.
We met up at their rehearsal space in Birmingham and, over the space of an hour or so, set out to get a good selection of images for them to use. If you like your music on the heavy side, check out their MySpace page.
Here are just a few images from the session…
Purdeep & Beney – Asian Wedding Photography
A few weeks ago my glamorous assistant Anna & I were lucky enough to shoot a fantastic Sikh wedding south of London at Addington Palace.
Purdeep & Beney (you may recognise them from their engagement shoot in Brighton) booked us despite some people suggesting that only an Asian Wedding Photographer would truly understand the traditions and ceremonies involved in a Sikh wedding. I can understand this view point but, for me, I love shooting Asian weddings and, with all the colour, decor and amazing outfits, there’s so much to photograph. Purdeep & Beney have hundreds of final images to choose from and getting it down to a number to post on this blog was tricky. But here are just a selection of images from an amazing day… (there’s still alot!)
As an ex-club DJ myself I can tell you these guys knew what they were doing behind the decks and they had the floor jumping!
The rings…
Time to escape with the couple for some portraits…
After that it was off back to Purdeep’s parents’ house where Beney had to bribe his way past the girls to see his new wife
And then an emotional send off…
Thanks a lot to Anna for making the trip down to London with me for the wedding. It was worth it for sure. An amazing (and HUGE) wedding with a great group of people. We loved every minute and look forward to creating a wedding album to die for for Purdeep & Beney
Congratulations guys!
Pete & Glen – New Hall, Sutton Coldfield Wedding
It seems like years since Pete & Glen booked us for their wedding! Regular readers may remember their engagement shoot in Bradgate Park. But any wedding at New Hall in Sutton Coldfield is always an event worth waiting for and this was no exception.
An intimate wedding where their two kids played a major part and the attention to detail and colour was beautiful. Glen looked amazing in her dress and Pete brought his own style to the proceedings by turning up in his cab from his trucking job. Love it!
So cute!
A lovely moment with mom and daughter..
Ready to get married…
Table set for a groom who’s used to being on the road
Love this portrait of Glen
Only one wedding ring this time so we did something a bit different for the ring shot…
The family
Another great wedding in a spectacular venue. We wish Pete & Glen all the luck in the world for their future together. It’s going to be a very colourful wedding album (note – no black & white photos).
U2 in Cardiff
As a music photographer I’m quite often asked what band I’d most like to photograph. There are only 2 bands that spring to mind immediately. One is Pearl Jam – my favourite band. I saw them last week in Manchester but never had a photo pass unfortunately. The second band is U2.
I grew up listening to U2 after hearing Live Under A Blood Red Sky and then being blown away by songs like Bad (still my favourite U2 song) and then The Joshua Tree. I even share my birthday with Bono!
I haven’t loved recent albums as much but U2 will always be an important band for me and so it was a privilege to be one of a handful of photographers accredited to shoot their gig on Saturday at Cardiff’s humungous Millennium Stadium along with 70,000 fans.
Here are a few pictures from the gig..
