Category Archives: West Midlands

What is this slide show at my wedding all about ?

January 31, 2011

Hello there,

Its a strange thing but I actually only meet about 25 – 30 % of the people who book me BEFORE the booking takes place, the rest book me based on the website, the blog and after extensive telephone or email conversations – or my soon to be added, pre wedding video conferencing.

The number one thing people ask about is the slideshow, how we do it, who chooses the photos, what equipment we use, how long it takes etc, etc,etc.

So I thought I would take a little time out to tell you a bit more about it.

I am going to use the Wedding of Liz and Hayden as my example, why ? – well it was my last wedding so everything is at hand, plus Liz did a great little video testimonial while Hayden was busy dancing the night away on the dancefloor.

If you look at this photo – completely unedited

This shows all the equipment we use. On the floor is an Apple Mac Book Pro computer connected to a travel projector mounted on a Tripod. The screen is a pop up screen that sits in the little black box you see at the bottom of the screen, we take the box, pop it on the floor, open the feet to stop it falling over and then just pop up the screen – setup time for the screen is around 20 seconds !!!! – putting away is quicker.

While your having your wedding breakfast we set up the laptop, offload (and backup) the photos so far, sort through them and choose around 1– – 150 of them, we then put them into a slideshow program called Iphoto and use this to run the show. It takes us about an hour to do that so we have plenty of time.

Then just before your first dance we set the screen and projector up (5 mins or less) and run the show – the show typically runs for around 8 – 10 minutes and the DJ normally plays some nice background music. After the slide show is over it takes us about 60 seconds to move the projector and computer and put away the screen – then its straight into your first dance. – Since EVERYONE wants to see your wedding photos the are in the room watching, so that means when you do your first dance everyone is there.

The photos in the slide show are UN EDITED – they are just as they come out of the camera (apart from a couple converted to b/w)

The slide shows let the couple see the kinds of photos taken of their wedding. It also lets them choose the photos they would like to use for their thank you cards so when they get back from Honeymoon they are ready.

As you will see from my blog posts, the slide shows have a lot more photos but its more for the bride and groom since they spent months or even years planning the wedding – we shoot a whole range of photos that may not make the blog story but which still have very special memories for the couple.

Below is a video of the slideshow from Lia and Haydens wedding, the quality is not as good as the slideshow on the day as its had to be compressed to get it up online for you.

THIS VIDEO CONTAINS MUSIC, SO IF AT WORK TURN YOUR SPEAKERS OFF !!!!!

Untitled from David Purslow on Vimeo.

Hope you like,

ciao

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer
http://www.davidpurslow.com
Phone 01299 250 114

Tags: Birmingham Wedding Potography, latest wedding, pembrokeshire wedding photography, wedding slideshow

Winter Wedding photography – lessons from the boy scouts !

December 19, 2010

Snowy Wedding & Portrait Photography

Be prepared !

Okay this is going to be a bit of a different post from me today. This time last year I had 3 or 4 weddings coming up and the weather started to get a little nasty (snow and ice) so I decided to buy myself a 4×4. As you may know I lived in America for 10 years, The North East – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut where we would regularly get 20 inches of snow. In the states I owned a Jeep Grand Cherokee and this car would go anywhere and thru anything. So this is what I brought. Because this was going to be a WINTER car only, and one to get me too and from winter weddings we spent a grand total of £1400 and brought a 10 year old model. Its not pretty, it drinks fuel but it gets me to where I need to be WHEN I need to be.

As a wedding photographer winter weddings are becoming more and more popular and I actually LOVE photographing wedding in the snow – it reminds me of my time in the states so much. When a couple are thinking about getting married in the winter I am sure one of the last things they think about is, is my photographer going to be able to get to my wedding ?

This is a shot from a wedding 10 days ago when we had the last lot of snow (see blog post below)

Birmingham wedding photography snow winter

And this is me working away – nothing stops me getting the shot, not even a few inches of snow

Winter weddings offer the chance of GREAT photos, this shot would have looked nice normally but when its all covered in snow, it looks great – its an outtake, here is my assistant taking shots at another winter wedding.

So back to the reason for the story today

This was the scene outside my house yesterday.

and this is the street we live on

As you can see the road is totally covered, the cars at the bottom of the road cant get out and it was beautiful to look out on all that snow. We only had 4 inches of snow but most of the village and nearby towns came to a halt.

So I called a very good friend of ours (Zena) and asked if she would like to bring her two kids out for some snowy winter portraits, Z lives right across the road from the park ! She said yes, so Nikki and I loaded up our kids and took off.

This is my winter wedding car

Nikki loaded the kids into the car while I dug out cameras etc and off we went to met up and spend a little time shooting a few nice winter portraits of the kids.

Anway back to what its all about,

I have NEVER missed a wedding yet, and if its in my power to do so come hell, high water or deep deep snow, I want to make sure I have the tools at hand to get me there and get the shots for my couples.

If your planning a on getting married in the winter (November – February) one of the questions you should ask your photographer is, if it snows how will you get to my wedding ?

and remember at this time of year you CANT hire a 4×4 they are all booked out ahead of time – thats why we brought one.

Getting married in the winter can be great and can result in wonderful photos, having the right equipment is more than just a good camera, you need to have everything you can to make sure as a professional you wont fail and let down your clients.

For most of the year our jeep is off the road, but as soon as the first floods or snow fall comes, we pop it right on the road

Have a GREAT Christmas and really good new year.

ciao for now.

Tags: getting married in the winter, snow wedding photos, wedding photographer winter, winter weddings

Vintage Wedding Photography

October 7, 2010

Vintage Looking Wedding Photographs

Hello there, something a little different from me today.

Every few years something ‘new’ comes along, a style you may call it, a craze or just something that everyone loves and wants. Several years ago it was what photographers call Spot Colour which is when you take a colour photograph and make it black and white. Then you paint back parts of the photo in colour leaving a black and white image with just hints of colour.

Well 2010 saw a new trend taking off in leaps and bounds – The new look everyone is talking about is the Vintage Look. This is where you using various Photoshop / Lightroom (the digital dark room photographers work in) tools and trick otherwise known as Actions and Presets – and using these actions & presets you turn the photo into something more vintage looking.

There is no doubt that Vintage Wedding Photography is in high demand and vintage looking wedding photos have a dream like quality to them.

In the following examples below I show a before and after, the original image is exactly as taken and has not been touched up in Photoshop – The vintage wedding photo version has been processed in both Lightroom and then Photoshop to create the final Vintage look.

Original Photo #1 – Straight out of Camera

The Vintage Version

.
Original Photo #2 – Straight out of Camera

The vintage wedding look

One of the big advantages of modern digital wedding photography is the ability to change the look of a photograph relatively quickly and we can add the vintage look to any, all or none of the photos we take at a wedding.

Vintage wedding photography (actually its a look rather than a style) is available at the push of a button so if you are interested in having any of your photos processed this way be sure to let us know. If you are thinking of having a Vintage themed style wedding then naturally the look of vintage wedding photos would fit you wedding perfectly.

For more information on Vintage Wedding Photography drop me an email by visiting our contact me page

Ciao for now,

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer

http://www.davidpurslow.com

Phone 01299 250114
Moible 0759 007 6666

Beautiful Wedding Photography

September 15, 2010

Practice makes perfect – A Wedding Photographers Day off……

Every now and then you get to shoot some fantastic wedding images, I am not talking about great ‘wedding photos’ – thats what the bride and groom want but once in a while a couple will come along and will let you take a couple of hours in their wedding day to take them off and shoot some really dramatic shots – Sometimes it even happens on the day after the wedding or weeks or months later.

So to make your up to the task you need to practice these skills and thats where days like last Tuesday come in. It was not a workshop and it was a very exclusive little group – 10 of us in total. We had exclusive use of Newstead Abbey nr Nottingham, he also arranged for seven models and an amazing makeup artist (who also models) and one of his good friends is a wedding dress designer who came along with a stunning collection of gowns.

The idea was simple – we took the models off either a bride by herself or a bride and groom and spent an hour shooting whatever we wanted to shoot. Some of the other photographers brought along picnics or parasol’s etc, etc, etc. I just wanted to practice shooting ‘Stunning Wall Portraits’ I also wanted to shoot directly into the sun and see if I could over power it using little Nikon speedlight flashe’s that I carry. Another thing I wanted to do was play with lighting Gel’s – this is where you change the colour of your flash to ‘Tungsten’ and put the camera into a tungsten setting, this turns daylight very blue as you will see.

So with my very good friend Tim Driver from Driver Photography – http://www.driverphotography.co.uk we set off and spent 6 hours shooting lots of photos just for our own portfolio’s

Below are a few of my favorites from the day – I hope you like

I would love more brides and grooms to set aside an hour or so in the day just for Bridal Portraits – as you can see the results could be STUNNING.

In this photo the blue light coming thru the windows is just daylight – its colour is changed by the use of a CTS (colour temperature straw) gel on the flash

I am using the same technique here but only using a 1/2 CTS gel and have dialed in a WB 1/2 way between Tungsten and daylight

In this shot, Emma (our makeup artist) sits by the lake, this is kind of an outtake shot while I set up lights

and I love this shot, it was just Emma playing with the water !

In this shot, I am overpowering the sunlight which is behind the couple – I love this shot

and my last shot of the day is one I had planned all day long – I asked the second I saw the black dress if I could have it last and if they minded if I got it wet !

I hope you agree not a bad way to spend your day off !

caio

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer
http://www.davidpurslow.com
Phone 01299 250 114
Mobile 0759 007 6666

Tags: cotswold wedding photographers, gloucestershire wedding photographers

Welcome to the all new Magnificent Seven !

September 10, 2010

Hello there, David here from www.davidpurslow.com

Today I changed the way I do the blog stories – from now on I am going to be doing a ‘Directors Cut’ This is a montage of around 50 – 70 photos from each wedding (see the post below this one) and then I will choose my favorite 7 photos and post them – these will be called The Magnificent Seven.

Kimberly and Jack – The Magnificent Seven

I hope you like the photos above, they are from the wedding of Kimberly and Jack at Eastington Hall in the Cotswolds.

ciao

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer
www.davidpurslow.com
Phone: 01299 250114
Mobile: 0750 007 6666

We provide wedding photography for Worcestershire, The Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, The West Midlands, Birmimgham, Warwickshire and Pembrokeshire in West Wales.

Our style is a cross between Documentary wedding photography and reportage wedding photography with a touch of fashion thrown in for good measure !

The Wedding of Kimberly and Jack

September 10, 2010

A Stunning Cotswolds Wedding

An Eastington Hall Wedding, photography by David Puslow

Hello there, a few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of photographing the wedding of Kimberly and Jack – Captain Jack as he is known to his friends I have since found out

The couple were getting married at Eastington Hall, a stunning wedding venue in the Cotswolds. Eastington Hall is a very impressive exclusive use wedding venue so the whole day took place in one location and the only people around were wedding guests. Unfortunately the weather was not the best and I have to thank each and every guest who managed to get soaked the first time we tried to shoot the big group shot – luckily enough we did try again and we got the shot this time. So thanks guys for all you efforts and for having another go.

Helen and I arrived at Eastington Hall and were greeted by the boys playing Cricket on the front lawn, the first thing we always do is a quick recce of the venue to scout out locations for photos in the event the weather turns – good job we did as it rained pretty hard at time. We were lucky enough to get some great establishing shots of Eastington Hall after we had let the bride know we had arrived. Kimberly and ‘The girls’ were up stairs in the magnificent bridal suite with its large bay windows and stunning views over the Cotswolds Countryside.

The day was fantastic despite the rain which in truth was on and off, we could not shoot the romantic shots around the grounds due to the grass being soaked so we made good use of the house and the features around.

As we entered the bridal suite I was so excited by the grandness of the whole thing and at just how beautiful Kimberly’s wedding dress was – I knew it would make for a fantastic wedding dress photo so we carefully (after asking to do so) moved it and hung it in the bay window. We had arranged that NO ONE would be around the back to see it and we quickly shot a few photos of it. – Stunning.

The wedding was packed which is a credit to Kimberly and Jack and the whole day flew by in the blink of an eye and then the evening festivities kicked off – We ran a Wedding Slide show (photos from before the wedding breakfast set to music and projected onto a large screen) which was followed by the first dance and then the crazy dancing took over – we ended the night with what is rapidly becoming a very requested photo – the LOVE PHOTO I call it, where the couple choose 4 very special people to write the word love with torches while they hug and kiss ( a long exposure – see the photo) and then it was time for us to leave the party.

Below is a selection of photos from Kimberly and Jack’s wedding at Eastington Hall – Enjoy. As you can see the weather did nothing to spoil the enjoyment of the day.

We would like to wish Kimberly and Jack all the best and to say congratulation – Your wedding was amazing and we were happy to be a part of it.

take care, god bless,

ciao

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer
http://www.davidpurslow.com
Phone: 01299 250114
Mobile 0759 007 6666

Church Wedding – An HDR Image

August 30, 2010

Hello there,

Just playing with a couple of pictures from the wedding of Kate and Mark – I shot this one during the singing as its a 7 photo image – its a composite of 7 photos from almost black to totally white – then the computer makes an images that pulls date from each layer – its called HDR – which stands for High Dynamic Range.

I love this one

Looks pretty cool hey

ciao

David Purslow
Wedding and Portrait (pets as well) Photographer
http://www.davidpurslow.com
Phone 01299 250114
Mobile 0759 0076666

Wedding Photography Engagement Session

August 16, 2010

An Engagement Shoot

Sara & Karl at Freshwater East, Pembrokeshire, West Wales

Hey guys, David Purslow here from www.davidpurslow.com – Wedding and Portrait photographer covering the whole of the UK.

About a month ago (I am a little behind as its full on wedding season at the moment) I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Sara and Karl for their pre wedding engagement shoot. We arranged to meet at Freshwater East, a stunning photo location on the west coast of Wales.

The whole shoot lasted around an hour but we CRANKED out some seriously good photos (at least in my humble opinion)

The purpose of the shoot was to put together a guest signing book (If you have not seen one of these then check out my albums page by clicking here)

Below is a selection of some of the pages from the shoot.

The beach was not as empty as it looks, I airbrushed a lot of people and dogs off the beach – I love the feel of Sara and Karl’s engagement album it could easily be any beach in the world.

Hope you like,

The idea is simple, plenty of white space for guests to write messages of love to the happy couple.

Enjoy,

Ciao

David Purslow
Wedding and Portrait Photographer
http://www.davidpurslow.com
Phone 0759 007 6666
David@davidpurslow.com

Tags: engagement photography, engagement session, engagement shoot

New Product ! – Framed Collage Prints

June 7, 2010

Hi everyone,

Just a very quickie today, I had a fabulous wedding on Saturday and will be posting pictures in a few days, then Yesterday I was at the Wedding Fayre at the Hotel Plas Hyfryd in Narberth where I unveiled my latest offering.

I chose the Plas to unveil it as the pictures were from last weekend (10 days ago now) wedding of Barry and Becci, Barry runs the Plas so it seemed the perfect wedding to use for the show piece.

As you can see, this version if the later of the two I will be offering. The Finished size of this piece is 51 inches by 41 inches and the photo is 30 inches by 40 inches. This version has 65 photos in it.

I will also be offering a smaller version with 50 photos, this version will be 20×30 inch print in a 30 x 40 inch frame when finished.

There will be a selection of contemporary and traditional frames available and all are printed, mounted and framed by a professional framer not by me– its too much work for me to do that.

The 30×40 inch mounted print (41×51 inch frame) will cost £695.00

The 20×30 inch mounted print (30×40) inch frame will cost £495.00

Hope you like,

ciao

David Purslow
Wedding Photographer for Birmingham, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, South and West Wales
Phone 01299 250 114
Mobile 0759 007 6666
David@davidpurslow.com
http://www.davidpurslow.com

Tags: birmingham wedding photographer, Framed wedding photos, montage wedding photos, pembrokeshire wedding photographer, society wedding photographer, top wedding photographer, worcestershire wedding photographer

Late availability wedding photography

April 26, 2010

July Wedding Photography

Late Availability

Today Nikki and took the decision to cancel our 3 week holiday to The United States. Since Soukie is turning 1 this months, we had booked up to make a surprise visit to the States for the most of July and drop in a our friends from over there.

We had closed availability to the whole of July however due to the Volcano in Iceland and the travel chaos it has caused and the reports on the news this this could be going on all year we thought it best to stay over here this year and go visiting next year. I would feel really really bad if we got stranded in the States as August is my busiest month of weddings and letting down couples is not worth the risk.

What this means is that if your suddenly stuck for a wedding photographer for July and think its too late to find one, I have lots of late availability wedding photography dates open in July.

I have also been redoing my website over from top to bottom – you can see my whole new website by visiting my site at www.davidpurslow.com

I specialize in Wedding photography for Birmingham, wedding photography in Worcestershire, Wedding photography in Gloucestershire and wedding photography in the West Midlands.

Before our move to the Midlands in February this year we had lived in Pembrokeshire West Wales and as such we have lots of places to stay so we love photographing wedding in Pembrokeshire.

Please visit my website for more details, complete price information, to check availability or to view my portfolio.

Take care,

Ciao

David Purslow
West Midlands & Birmingham Wedding Photographer
www.davidpurslow.com
01299 250114

Tags: late availability wedding photography