Vanessa and Williams Wedding at the Chancery Court Hotel, Holburn

Pin It This Sunday I had the honour of photographing Vanessa and Williams wedding. The whole wedding took place at the Chancery Court Hotel in Holburn London. This hotel is fast becoming one of my favourite locations to work in the city and certainly ranks amongst the best (the Land mark followed by the Savoy are still my personal favourites).

As a special surprise for the couple, the brides father had booked the three waiters. This is the second event i've worked with these guys and both times they have been absolutely astounding, I honestly can't say enough about what they add to an event. Without wishing to give too much away the basics are these guys are hidden Opera singers, as always they brought an exceptional twist to the event.


A truly fantastic wedding with beautiful people who I'm sure all had a magnificent day.

Wedding at the Royal Majestic

On Sunday I had the honour of photographing Emma and Barrys wedding.

The venue they had chosen for the reception was the Royal majestic. I've photographed several functions at this location, as a photographer this is a great venue. There's a large area to the rear of the hotel with some interesting garden areas, across the road there's a lake and the actual venue is large enough to cope easily with large groups.

An added bonus for Sundays party was that they had booked fantastic band (mixed feelings). I've seen mixed feelings many times at functions all over the UK and I can honestly say they have never failed to ensure everyone packs the dancefloor all night, as you can see in the top image even the toast master (Howard Robbins) couldn't resist :-).

All in all a fantastic wedding and a great time was had by all.

Now I really, really must start packing for Saturdays wedding (6,000 miles away) ....

Winter Weddings

First things first if you're reading this today, happy new year!

As a pro photographer on of the biggest challenges of a winter wedding is the lack of light. Especially if like me you love to shoot out side. Capturing a good exposure in the dark can be extremely challenging and takes a lot more than putting the camera in programme mode and attaching a flash. At the same time the Bride and groom are normally freezing and all they want to do is get back into the warm.

I was lucky in the early part of my photography career there were no digital cameras and I used a manual Hasselblad. exposure and flash settings all had to be worked out manually which meant unless you didn't want to stay in the business long you soon learnt how to work out the best settings for different lighting. I guess with modern cameras we've all become a little bit spoilt, but it's occasions like the one above (taken last week) that can separate the people who take pictures and those that make them.

A piece of advice for anyone wanting to learn photography would be, go and buy a cheap film manual camera and learn how shutterspeeds and apertures work together. Modern cameras are fantastic at working out exposures but they can't think and can (and often do) get things wrong.