Stacey & Peter

June gave me the rare opportunity to cover a wedding just 5 minutes from where I live. Most of my assignments typically involve hours of driving so this was a welcome change. Stacey and Peter married at St Nicholas Church in Bookham, Surrey. The church is fabulous and provided the perfect backdrop for their wedding day.

Here's some of my favorites from their day. All taken with my 2 Nikon D700's and prime lenses only. I used a 20mm, 35mm, 50mm and 105mm. R.I.P. those zooms !! Try it sometime.......................it's challenging.

Stephanie & Max

Stephanie & Max married on a beautiful day in August in Monkton, Kent. The sun shone all day, thus allowing me to retain my unbeaten record of 'no rain on a wedding day'. The day was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Here's some of my personal favourites from their day.

Celia & Jonathan

July saw me back in London at the wedding of Celia & Jonathan.

The day was fabulous with a church service in Islington and the reception in Soho. Here's some of my personal favorites from the day.

The B&W conversions are part of my own new CS4 actions, which I think make for some beautiful pictures and will be my preferred option for next years weddings.

Kit, MAC and CS4

Having recently made the jump from PC to MAC (and a great jump it was too), it's prompted me to review my vast array of equipment, software, plug-ins etc etc etc.

I currently shoot weddings with a Nikon D3, fitted with either my 17-35 f2.8 or a 28-70 f2.8, and a D700 fitted with a 70-200 f2.8. The truth is that there is nothing between the D3 and D700 as they both share the same FX CMOS sensor, except the D700 is lighter and more manageable. It leaves me with the question of whether or not I should just go with 2 D700 bodies and save my back?

I also use either a 50mm f1.4 or a 85mm f1.8 lens for my portrait work. Both are equally valuable and have secured their place in the case. I occasionally use a 60mm f2.8 macro lens for some very detailed work but that's about it. With this in mind I decided to sell of everything else on eBay.

I also took the opportunity whilst making the transition from PC to MAC to sort out my actions palette and upgraded to CS4 in the process. At one stage I had 243 different actions in Photoshop, of which I estimated that I used about 20 or so. After a ruthless clear out this is now more like 135......................but like a woman going through her shoe collection I just couldn't bring myself to throw anything else out.

My next wedding is in Soho, London next weekend and I'm really looking forward to it I have to say. Watch this space for a sneak preview of some of the pictures.

A heavy work load coupled with an impending house move have meant my plate has been full to overflowing for the past few months. With several weddings left to cover this year I think the pressure will be on until Christmas. Here's a small selection of some of the images from wedding that I covered in June in Wandsworth, London. In fact, most of the remainder of my weddings this year are all in London or Kent........................which is nice !

Uncle Kev !

With an ever increasing workload, I find it ever more difficult to get back up 't north' to visit the family.

A few weeks I shot a wedding in Warwickshire and I took the opportunity to stay over at my Mom & Dad's. My brother and sister brought their kids round and I grabbed this shot.........my fav of the set.

Kev.

Infrared Film

Now that Kodak have stopped producing their HIE B&W Infrared Film (and my fridge is finally empty of it) I've been trying out some of the other manufacturers offerings. I've started with the Rollei ASA400 and took the opportunity to get out and shoot some images using my trusty old N90S with a 28mm f/2.8 lens fitted with a medium orange filter. The negs were then hand developed and scanned in at 300dpi. Final adjustments were then made in CS3.

I've also bought some Adox IR film and Ilfords SFX pseudo IR film to see how they compare. The results were quite good, different from Kodak but still pretty cool.