Being Creative

The bride from a recent wedding requested if I could do something special with her and the bridesmaids flowers after the big day. She was after something which could be used as wall art and be personal in a very unique way.

I simply arranged & placed the flowers together so as to be aesthetically pleasing and then, to truly personalise the image, placed the bride & grooms wedding rings onto one of the flower cups.

A very simple idea which took longer to get the flowers correctly arranged than it did to actually photograph them.

They absolutely loved the finished image.

A proud moment.

As part of my BGA event commitments I am lucky enough to also capture my own daughter in competition. At only nine years of age she has just won the under eleven regional trampolining event held on Sunday.

This post and image is nothing more than a proud Dad relishing in his daughters achievement.

The portrait image was taken by myself and the action shot by my son.

Wedding Fun

Completed a couple of weddings over the weekend along with another BGA Gymnastics event on Sunday. Whilst it was another busy weekend for us it was also great fun at times with great brides and grooms along with fun families making great days for us to capture.

Our first wedding of the weekend, on Friday, was especially fun. The bride and groom were simply the most laid back and quite maddest couple I have ever met. Totally went against the grain with several items I would usually cover with the “Nah we’re not fussed about that” etc etc. I had to explain, around mid afternoon, that my image count was possibly the lowest ever for a wedding only to get the reply “Don’t worry just get what you can”. The entire day finished with me capturing less than 500 images which indeed turned out to be my lowest shutter count for a wedding to date. Met them this morning, before they left for honeymoon, for a quick edit of imagery and they were absolutely overjoyed with what I had captured. As expected I’m compiling an album of almost entirely funny images from the day. A few serious ones are included yet 90% are all funnies, including one of myself taken by a guest !!!!  This image was donated to them after it found its way onto Facebook so I have a jpeg that’s not even mine. What a mad pair they are.

The rest of the weekend went as expected and as always managed to drum up further work for 2016. It would seem that our approach to capturing images is well liked and long may that continue.

So the image, that someone else took, is below and shows me photobombing the bride. We had just come inside from doing a group photo and she was being cheeky, as my ladders had begun sinking into the sodden wet lawn of the venue causing much hilarity. TBH the lawn was almost like a bog with all the ladies wearing heels simply sinking too.

Got to love a bride with a sense of humour.

Image © P.Oliver

Wire Wool

Just love these darker evenings, an iconic structure and some lunacy with molten metal.

Alternate Edit

Going back to edit something from my university final major project, for the model in question, and decided to attack the original idea of a finished product. It was a different image to the one submitted for my FMP but she wanted an alternative pose for a reason.

Simple editing of overlays and masking soon gave me a most distinct alternate style and finish. Almost like a bust of an individual, rather than an almost fantasy projection of the individual the image is now de personalised.

The original style submitted was as follows –

My alternative edit, using a different image, from the same shoot –

The Vulcan XH558

This majestic beast from, the cold war era, flew over the BAE Systems works unit and runway this last weekend as part of its final flying displays.

Whilst it completed a complete 360 tour of the village at a speed where it looked as though it may just drop out of the sky, the awesome raw of its four Rolls Royce engines reminded you of the sheer power working away to keep it up there.

I got plenty of images as we, and 100’s of others, were located at the edge of the runway. The images however do not convey the palpable excitement of the aircraft enthusiasts around us nor the roar of the engines.

The image I will post does however have a somewhat symbiont connection between the aircraft and the dead tree. Both relics of a past and seemingly taken away by the need for modernisation and succession. The tree was killed so as not to encroach upon the railway lines next to it.

A bit of info on the Vulcan –

Introduced: July 20, 1956

Retired: March 1984

Wingspan: 30 m

Length: 30 m

Range: 4,171 km

Engine type: Rolls-Royce Olympus

First flight: August 30, 1952

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And the Tree –

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Height – 20ft

Age – Very old.

Status – dead.

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More work used by artist.

Another image of mine, taken at the Let’s Rock Leeds festival, being used by Mr Mark Shaw of band Then Jerico. The blurred hand is deliberate as I’d slowed my shutter speed hoping to capture his movement a little more, which this image does.

Always nice to see as I see so many ‘live music’ images from alleged ‘Pro Photographers’ which is simply appalling. You can certainly see why a small selection of certain photographers are always used by the big bands for their promotional work. Sadly even the dire photographers continue to be used within a genre that seems locked out to new talent.

I think the words ‘Exposure Triangle’ would confuse many of the alleged pro’s other than that top tier I referred to.

Studio giggles.

This just descended into chaos with the infectious giggles eventually affecting all of us. Just love happy kids.

Nothing else to say really….