Lauren And Danny at The Priest House Hotel

It was a glorious sunny afternoon when we made a trip down the motorway to Castle Donington a couple of weekends ago. The exact same weekend as the Download festival was in town, bringing with it several thousand loud rocker types. One of which was me. But I was there for something altogether more refined, so, fighting the urge to slope off to watch AC-DC, we settled in for a quieter afternoon at the lovely Priest House country hotel with Lauren and Danny, and their families and friends.

Yes, that old Beetle was the Bride's mode of transport. Bless her for that - the shot above just wouldn't be the same without it!

It was a beautiful afternoon with a wonderful setting - the Priest House has been a favourite of ours for many years, and was renovated a few years ago after being flooded by the river it sits on the banks of.

Lauren was a great sport when we asked her to clamber to the top of said bank in order for us to get the best angle of the day for a shot.

Looks like a fairy tale castle doesn't it? Sadly reality hit home fast for Lauren when she realised she was going to have to get down from the bank again!

A good team effort. We rounded off by taking the Bride & Groom for a stroll around the grounds for a few casual, relaxed shots while their guests finished the champagne.

Congratulations all, we have some fantastic, memorable shots.

Our Visit To The Cathedral Quarter. With The Dogs.

A couple of weeks ago we got to make a visit to Derby's Cathedral Quarter, and more specifically the hotel of the same name. The hotel is the newest addition to the Finesse Collection and is stunning. (No, that is not the hotel above!)

We were there for the wedding ceremony of Joanne & Miguel, and we got invited to the bride's room ahead of proceedings, for a 'before' photograph.

The room that the ceremony was held in was truly magnificent, and decorated beautifully.

After the ceremony was finished and we spent some time shooting family photographs outside, Jo and Miguel let us be in charge for a while.

Now, to photographers everywhere, was anybody else out and about a couple of Saturdays ago shooting a bride & groom walking their dogs through the city centre? No? Just us then.

We've been having a great time recently with our urban settings and have enjoyed exploring new areas and making the most of them. Jo & Miguel were really happy to trudge around the city with us looking for interesting shots. They really were into anything different and funky we could come up with, and we couldn't really go wrong with the Cathedral Green Bridge, completed with our funky cross processed effect.

Let's end with a couple of shots of the hotel, we hope we'll be making many more return trips in the years to come.

Isobel, Neve, and the booboo.

Here are a few shots from a recent meeting with our little friends Isobel & Neve. We were aiming for something different from the studio shots on white backgrounds that are so popular, so we shot these outside, just in their back garden, with good old fashioned natural light.

We had a something of a problem presented to us by what Isobel sheepishly described as her 'chin boo boo'. So how do you shoot a portrait of somebody, when you can only show half of their face? Always up for a challenge, we decided to see how many images we could shoot with said boo boo hidden, and still make them work. We managed a few  :)

Absolutely stunning shots for only half a visible face. Neve, however, happily showed off her chin with wild abandon.

In case you're wondering, the troublesome chinbooboo did make an appearance for the sake of historical accuracy...

... But made a rapid disappearance for the finished print after some sneaky retouching.

Although this did feel a bit like cheating, it had the desired result. If only we could do it in real life...

We look forward to shooting the girls again one day soon, maybe scar free next time?

Sally & Mark's Sunny Afternoon in Derby

We've been on a run of quite urban, very stylish city centre weddings recently, and it was just a couple of weeks ago when we turned up at the very stylish and swish Masa Restaurant & Wine Bar in Derby to spend the afternoon with Sally & Mark at their civil ceremony. Masa is housed in an old converted Wesleyan Chapel, and it makes a unique, fabulous venue.

We started off proceedings with a visit to Sally's parents house to catch everybody finishing off getting ready, and to add a shot or two to our funky dressing gowns portfolio.

Sally wanted some still life type shots of all her pretty things before we were off to the venue to meet the chaps, and grab a few shots of them wandering up looking all cool.

 

After the ceremony we spent some time in the garden shooting family pictures, and finally sloped off for a walk around to get some nice relaxed shots of the bride and groom while everybody enjoyed their drinks.

It was only when we decided to push our luck and ask Sally to pose against a rusty, graffitti covered garage door shutter that she gave us a slightly odd look, but she was up for it anyway and we ended up with one of my favourites shots of the afternoon.

It just goes to prove that there are stylish shots to be had just about anywhere if you look at situations the right way!

Hopefully Sally & Mark had a great day, we certainly did, and we will be getting together some more cool city-style wedding shots to be showing off here in the next couple of weeks.

We'll end with a wonderful sentiment borrowed directly from the table settings at the wedding breakfast.

To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you are the world.

Fab.

Lyn & Andrew Drop in to Nottingham

One of the best things about this job is that we are constantly meeting new people from far and wide. Lyn (the Australian) & Andrew (the Brit) got in touch with us from their home in France recently to ask us to shoot at their wedding at the Lace Market Hotel in Nottingham.

Fabulous venue, lovely area, we jumped at the chance of course.

When they described what they wanted - laid back casual shots and not too much bossing around - we knew we were on to a winner.

After the lovely cosy ceremony, we simply took off for a walk around the city streets to capture the kind of shots they had in mind.

The Lace Market area of Nottingham is a little hidden gem, and it was great to be able to make some really unusual and personal shots for Lyn & Andrew. Although we had a good number of official 'smiling at the camera' shots, these are still a couple of my favourites.

Cindy at the Brown Paper Flower Company provided her usual amazing work to decorate the reception room.

So now Lyn & Andrew's book has been whizzed off by courier to France, and no doubt digital images have been emailed around the world to family & friends. We're still stuck in Derbyshire, but we hope everybody loves what we produced as a record of such a lovely, chilled out day.

Gemma & Andrew's Day At Horsley Lodge

It was a lovely warm sunny day for Gemma & Andrew's wedding at Horsley Lodge recently. They were kind enough to invite us over to Gemma's Mum's house to shoot some 'getting ready' pictures before everything got underway.

After leaving the house we covered the arrivals and the ceremony before getting to our favourite bit - a ride on the golf buggy (top speed 12 mph - we know, we tried for 13) down the drive for some shots of the couple with the building in the background.

As this was Matt's last day before going away, we had an innovative setup featuring Merv shooting, with Matt downloading the images directly to a laptop and editing them on site to get the proofs in the lab before holiday time! All in all it worked very well, especially as Joanne from Horsley Lodge was more than generous with sandwiches and drinks :)

Congratulations Gemma & Andrew, we had a lovely time!

Harrison's Shoot at Home, and Our First Blog Post!

So this is Harrison, who we recently had the pleasure of half an hour's playtime and photography with. We had a great time shooting at home with the lovely natural windowlight on an overcast, dull day, with nothing more than a pile of cushions from the sofa for props. We think he did just great, and we are very happy with the shots, even though some of them are, well, a bit less than sensible!

But you know what? We don't care! Hopefully this approach captures some of the fun and silliness of childhood, and our subject's personality, and that's surely the whole idea isn't it?

There will be plenty more up around here soon, please keep checking back with us for more photographs and a peep at some of the fantastic weddings we are shooting at the moment. You can also keep a check on us at www.facebook.com/fieldphotographic