Wedding and Portrait Photogrpaher

Hello there, David here from www.davidpurslow.com

Bit of a different post from me tonight.  I was looking for some images tonight and came across a set of unprocessed shots that I did a little while back.  I had the great pleasure of shooting the gorgeous Gemma (dont panic, here mum came along to hold lights !).

I had shot some family portraits just before Christmas for presents etc.  Since I had worked for these guys before and I wanted some nice portfolio images I offered to shoot Gemma one day……….  Well a few months later on possibly the coldest day of the year, if not the windiest Gemma, Mrs B and myself took trip to Newgale Beach in Pembrokeshire.  Its not called Newgale for no reason, it was WINDY !!!! and did I mention cold ?  Well there I was all wrapped up, Mrs B was pretty well covered up too and poor Gemma well not really dressed for the cold is all I shall say.

So here we were on the beach being battered by the wind and freezing cold, Gemma had never done anything like this before and naturally a few people were just standing around watching (as always seems to happen every time you get a pretty girl on the beach no matter what the weather) and I was asking her to march up and down the beach.  Her hair had been blown about within seconds of getting out of the car and you can forget about posing nicely for the camera.

Taking all this in her  stride Gemma worked like a trooper and helped produce some great photos.  This is just a snippet of what we managed to get.

First shot – shows how windy it really was.  The north end of Newgale beach in the background.

Another shot from our session at Newgale Beach.  In this shot, Gemma is looking directly at the direction the wind is blowing from, her eyes were streaming within seconds.

From Newgale we decided that we would head to Swansea (last minute decision) and shoot a few pictures around the town.  Swansea is about an hour away from Haverfordwest so there was plenty of time to warm up.  Infact we popped to my house, and Gemma got changed while Nikki (my bride) warmed us all up with a cup of tea and if I remember correctly I board everyone to death with stories of our new pots and pans (Dont Ask!)

Once we finished at home, off we headed for Swansea (I should point out it was a Friday night) I had wanted to shoot some photos of Gemma in the fountain however we decided it was WAY too cold for that.  As it happens due to the Friday / Saturday night revelers we could not get the car anywhere near it so it did not matter anyhow.

Well with no backup plan (MYFAULT) we had a quick drive around and found a few places.   Down by SA1  the new dockland project in Swansea we shot some nicer photos with long the water front.  Normally during the summer the streets down there would be packed as there are some fantastic little restaurants around but tonight it was deserted.  Mrs B was holding the lights, I had the camera on a tripod playing with settings while poor Gemma  now all DRESSED up froze……….

We shot for about 35 minutes by the water front and got some great stuff, here is one of my favorites.

As you can see, Gemma was dressed for a Friday night in Swansea just not for the middle of winter

From there we marched around Swansea, we took some great photos, one of the funniest was outside of Eddie Rockets which happened to be open at the time.  They have one of those doors that opens automatically as you are about to enter.  Well not to arouse suspicion, I set up the camera without Gemma being “in place”  Mrs B kept a good eye out and did her normal great job of lighting.  Just when we were ready to take the photos, Gemma ran over by the door and posed for the camera.  If you look carefully at the photo you will actually see the door moving behind here.  I would love to know what the people were thinking inside because we did this a number of times !!!   Again just a little bit of photographers fun in the city.

Last but not least is probably one of my favorite photos from our session.  As we walked around Swansea we spotted an office temp office called Office Angels. The location was just perfect for a little play on words so to speak.

By this time Swansea was getting pretty busy so we had to be quick (the problem is we kept being accosted by drunk people wanting to have there photo taken) – anyway  Mrs B was on the lights again, Gemma was looking all sultry and perfect for the shot I had in mind.  I never noticed at the time the vodka bottle on the floor, I could have airbrushed it out but I think it adds to the shot.  We snapped this image in 1 take,  and then scooted off home.  A great time was had by all and some great images were the result of all our hard work.

I am looking for a few more girls who would like to get some images like these to help build my model portfolio up a bit,  so if your interested, drop me an email to david@davidpurlsow.com  and send along a recent photo.

Here is my favorite shot from the day.

Many thanks to Gemma for being such a trooper and suffering in the cold, thanks to Mrs B for helping with the bags and the lights.

Thanks to you for stopping by, hope you enjoy the bog – if you do why not leave a comment from time to time !

take care,

dp.

David Purslow Photography – www.davidpurslow.com

Hello there,

First things first, I am going to put my website address at the end of each blog entries from now on, this is because it has been pointed out to me that lots of you are finding the blog on the search engines and going to a specific post and not the start of the blog or the website – so sorry about missing it out before the blog is a learning curve for me.

Last year I had the great pleasure of photographing one of the nicest weddings I have covered in a long time. What made this wedding so nice was the couple themselves and also the fact the wedding was really small – only about 12-18 people. With such a small intimate wedding group, it was a little challenging thinking about producing an album, but it made it easy to document the day.

Hywel and Morena had there wedding at Celtic Haven, Nr Tenby in Pembrokeshire and had there wedding photos on Lydstep Beach.

I used Hywel and Morena’s wedding photos to produce a demo album for my own stock, the wedding album is 11×14 inches so its pretty bit, the reason I am telling you this is that in shrinking the images for the website, some may loose some of the wow factor – especially the black and white ones.

I hope you enjoy the album.

Thanks for stopping by

dp.

David Purslow Photography – http://www.davidpurslow.com

Hello there, Oh what a busy week !

Today I attended the fantastic wedding of Karen and William.  I am really glad these guys choose me to cover there wedding, it was a great day and yet again resulted in some great images for my portfolio.  The wedding took place at The Lamphey Court Hotel in Lamphey, Pembrokeshire.  The venue is stunning, a photographers dream come true and Karen adn William did the place proud.

I have cheated a little, I have noticed that if I post a Landscape or “View” image as us photographers like to call them – first, that it gets lost behind the stuff on the right of my blog page, so first, here is a photo that being this small wont do it justice, but here is  William a few minutes before he became a married man.

Here is a shot of The Lamphey Court Hotel

The interior of the hotel, as I said before is magnificent and lends itself to creating stunning portraits.  Here on the main staircase I snagged a shot of Karen and William.

The room the weddings takes place is pretty magical itself, it has a conservatory style roof.  Its a little bit of lighting problem for the photographers with bright sunlight streaming thru the top lights but Karen and William got married later in the day so it was not too bad !

And shortly after that photo was taken, the happy couple were Mr and Mrs and happily Married – You may KISS the bride

As you can probably tell, I am not my verbose self tonight, as its getting late and my beautiful wife is in bed waiting for me (Nikki likes a cuddle before she goes to sleep, I used to think it was romance, nope – its just I am her human hot water bottle and warm her up before she goes to sleep) so I am rushing through the explanations here.  I will post more in the next few days…..

In the meantime, I LOVE this photo of Karen, in the background is Mum holding Karen’s Flowers, this photo was quite possibly the last photo of her as a single girl, moments later she was walking down the isle.

One of the photos I always try to get is a really nice ring shot.  These guys had very pretty wedding rings and allowed me a few minutes with then just before I left.  I think shots of the wedding rings are very important and making sure you get sharp, clear detail shots is very important.  I will talk about this in the next few days and post a little tutorial up on getting detail shots with both big and pocket digital cameras.  – But until I do here is the ring shot.

The last shot, well this is a photo that makes me feel a little bit bad !!!!!

The weather was a little challenging today, but the rain held off – Well almost all day.  The Lamphey Court Hotel has a fabulous drive way with Palm trees and shrubs etc.  For the final shots while we were outside, I asked Will and Karen to ‘pop’ down the driveway (I am guessing about 300 – 500 yards)  then turn round and hold hand and slowly walk back to me while I take some “candid” un-staged photos if you know what I mean.  Well just as they got to the bottom of the drive way, the heavens opened up !  Seconds before it as pretty nice, a little windy but no signs of rain – Just one of those April Showers I guess.  The long and the short of it is they got a little bit wet – Sorry Guys I really felt bad about that one – Oh, just incase you think I was under cover – NOPE I got wet as well but I hate asking a B&G to do anything that gets them dirty, wet, messed up etc.

I still think the photo came out great, but with a great couple so much in love, a little bit of rain was not going to spoil there day.

All it leaves me to say is Congratulations Karen and William, thanks for choosing me to share you day with, I really enjoyed myself – see you soon !

dp.

Got home a little later today as I stopped off to see my bride and groom for this coming Friday.  So tonight I did not get as much done as I had wanted and that was compounded by me playing with an image from one of my weddings from last year.

This photo comes from a great little wedding I shot late last year, Hewel and Morena had a GREAT wedding (I am working on the slideshow now) and for photos after the wedding we went to one of our local beaches (I cant spell it but will edit this out tomorrow).

Add into the mix I have been learning a new photoshop technique and you end up with about 2 hours spent playing with this photo to get it how I wanted it.

I just wanted to share it as I really like this photo, it captures Hewel and Morena’s spirit along with Jack their dog,  This was alone time on the beach – The boots were a very special and important part of the day however the story behind them is private and I cannot say why.

As I said before, I am working on the images for a DEMO album and slide show and should have then done in the next couple of weeks (Its looking FANTASTIC) so watch this space.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do,

This is Hewel, Morena and Jack on the beach !

ta ta for on,

dp

Special thanks to Nikki Pope who helped me with my wedding on the 5th of April 2008.  I asked Nikki is she could shoot some behind the scenes shots of me shooting the wedding since I have dont really have any pics of me at work.

In the following photos you will see the bts photo first and then the outcome.  I will try to talk you through as much as possible what was going through my mind and how many shots I took to get the shot.  Some of the shots seem like pot luck but are actually the results of lots and lots of practice.

In this first shot Sian the bride (see post below) had just had her hair done and had turned up at the makeup place.  I like to get shots looking down for many reasons

1. The brides seem to like them
2. Shooting from this angle gets rid of any neck lines and shadows that form under the chin
3. The shots appear to come from an unusual angle so capture the eye of the viewer and stand out more
4. The shots make the most of a womans natural assets and for wedding prep pictures shows the bride in a sexy light.

I took 11 photos to get the shot below, I moved around from left to right and had the bride follow me with her eyes only.  Getting used to holding your camera like this takes a LOT of practice as judging the angle takes time to get right.  Out of the 11 pics, Sian was in focus and correctly positioned in 7 out of them.  I like sharp eye focus so thats what I was looking for.

Here is the result. -Another thing to note here is I used only natural daylight (the flash on the camera was turned off) and had positioned Sian directly under one of the spot lights to kick here hair.  If this was an album image I would add a little fill light to the face to make it “pop” just a little but its late and I want to get to bed !

In the next shot, its pretty much the same thing.  Bridal Prep pays a big part when preparing an album (if a bride chooses to have the prep covered) so getting all the action and the details are very important.  I would like to say I was very lucky with this shot being as I only took 1 photos to get the shot below but this picture was shot after a lot of other “birds eye” view pictures and by then I was nailing them pretty much most of the time.  The main difference between this shot and the one above is this one is list by flash light.  I had the camera set to ISO 640 to bring in the available light as much as possible and set the camera to Manual mode, 60th / sec at F5.6 – this was  pretty much just shooting from the hip with the settings but it all came out good.  The more shots you take, the more you study them and think hard about the settings used once you see the pictures, the quicker you can get away from shooting in Program mode and start creating images you want.

The BTS

The result

The next image needs no real explaining apart from I wanted the reflection in focus.  The Mirror was the Salon’s mirror and a little dirty (makeup) – I made a note and will carry my own mirror in future – Again, a popular shot and in one form or another one I like to get.

The BTS

The result

The last one of my BTS’s shots for today shows the importance of looking around at websites, watching videos etc. This shot was inspired by possibly one of the worlds greatest wedding photographers – Yervant  who’s website is found here Yervant was featured on a video called Masters of wedding photographers vols 1&2  and I just love his style.  One of the shots he showed being taken was pretty much what you can see below.  As I photographer I consider myself at the very early stages of my learning and know there is so much more I can and will achieve and its thanks to people like Yervant that people like me grow !  So if your reading this hoping to learn something, the most important lesson is keep your eyes open ALL the time and look for inspirational work from others – study them, learn from them and grow as a photographer.

The BTS

The result – What you will notice is I have taken off the stofen diffuser off the flash, The shot below was actually a couple of shots after this one, it took 7 shots to get the one I liked.  What I did was look at each one on the back of the camera, study it (the light) and make changed to correct what I didnt like.  In the final show (the one below)  I had turned the couple around slightly to face a window which provided the fill light in the front of the photo and then bounced the flash off the ceiling (which was white) to give me a nice soft even light.  I knew this image would be a black and white so pumped up the flash 2/3 of a stop to bring up the red channel light a little – (something to do with curves in photoshop) and maybe I will try to explain that better another day.  All I will say at this time is the red channel creates nice light angel looking black and whites if its pumped up a little and converted correctly.

I finished the image off (as I do with so many of my pics) with a slight vignette (dark border around the edges)

The final image

Simple huh ?

Enjoy,

DP.

Well I have been a little slack at getting back to the blogging since my return from the States but on Saturday 5th April I had the fantastic pleasure of shooting the wedding of Sian and Simon. This was my 2nd wedding of the year and was held at The Beggars Reach, Burton, Pembrokeshire. The Beggars is an amazing wedding venue, the owners William and Gillian attend to every detail personally and the day went as smooth as a Swiss Watch. I should also point out from a photographers point of view I have never been so well looked after at any venue – 10/10 for these guys – Thanks.

This wedding has been on my books for about 18 months and Sian opted coverage of not only the wedding and the reception but of herself getting ready before hand or bridal prep (bridal preparation) I think I will post up some of those images in a post by itself as there are SO MANY great bridal prep pics that you would be here for hours looking at them all.

Since its pretty late I have selected just a few photos from Sian & Simons day (and because they have not seen them yet, I dont want to spoil the surprise)  The weather was pretty kind to the happy couple and we managed to get some nice shots outside including the confetti shot.

Below are a couple more shots from the day.

Sian and Simon were a great couple to work with and have helped produce some great photos, one of which will be going into my portfolio collection on the website.  I think it could be my favorite from the day but with 700 pics to look through and having worked all day, I will reserve judgment until tomorrow !

Anyway it just leaves me to say congratulations to Sian and Simon and leave you with my favorite pic.

Bye for now

DP

Hello there,

Well I am back! – And what a bumpy landing back in the UK, I flew in Wednesday during the very very high winds. Not being a good flyer at the best of time, all I can say is this was the most frightening flight I have been on. The winds were so bad and the flight so bumpy that we could not land in Birmingham (we tried!) We got diverted to Gatwick L after 2 ½ hours however the winds died down enough to let us as the captain said “try to make a landing at Birmingham” – lucky for me we made it.

Anyway my reason for popping over the States was to visit my best man (my wedding) and my best friend Warren. Unfortunately Warren’s Girlfriend passed away the week before, Lisa was very ill, this was expected but just not this soon, I never got to say goodbye in person as I was going out to say my goodbye’s in a few weeks time. I did not go for the actually Funeral but went over to keep my friend company after all the family had returned home. Warren as usual was the most gracious host and came home feeling he had done a better job of looking after me than I did for him.

While I was away Nikki (my bride) kept me up to date with Joshua’s daily activities and sent over some fantastic photos to keep my daily ‘FIX’ satisfied.

This is my favourite from the photos Nikki sent to me, it’s JD in my chair, looking after the office phone whilst I was away.

The value of photos is priceless to me, because they act as triggers to memories and memories remind me of the people I have loved, had fun with, lost, and enjoyed good times with, shared bad times with and all the other moments that have made up my life so far.

This photo will always remind me of Lisa, my friend Warren, Joshua, my darling wife and that horrible flight back.

I can’t wait to return to New Jersey to visit my friend but will miss Lisa as she was such a great character.

Dp.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting Laurie, the winner of Pembrokeshire Idol 2007. The shoot was going to take place in and around Swansea however for reasons beyond her control Laurie arrived a little late and that ended the chance of Swansea.

We decided to shoot for a little while in and around Haverfordwest and Newgale (beach location) however it was a very cold and windy day. They say nothing stops a professional and Laurie was a trooper to the very end, she ended up with freezing cold, wet feet as her boots got soaked ! – Then she had to walk through Haverfordwest town half naked on a busy Friday night – Lucky for me we had Wayne to act as her bodyguard

Well we really just shot a few pics at a few locations having decided that we would reschedule for Swansea a little later in the month.

Here are a few pictures from the day – hope you enjoy.