Paul Wilkinson Photography Blog

Well, it’s Sunday night and I’ve just finished tagging and backing up the files from a fantastic wedding we shot on Friday. This is the first wedding of 2008 and what a way to kick things off – a couple of beautiful venues and a really lovely crowd.

The day did begin with with just possibly a few more nerves than normal – not least because Eurostar managed to come in a couple of hours later than timetabled and it had some key people on board – notably the bridesmaids! You can always rely on the train can’t you? Still, they did arrive in the nick of time and everything eventually went to plan.

We shall have to gloss over the weather, though. In my humble opinion, such words as “dull, grey, cold, damp and miserable” have absolutely no part to play in the romance of a wedding. As far as anyone should be concerned, the sun shone and any dampness reflected in the photos was merely the fact the paths had recently been hosed down!

Anyway, the church at Hughenden is absolutely lovely and their attention to detail is like no other venue (even down to ensuring the bells only started to ring out the split second the bride stepped out of the door to a barrage of flashes from digital cameras and phones!) By way of illustration, the verger did kindly impart some interesting stories about other photographers though. You shouldn’t laugh but why would anyone think it’s OK to use the font to stand on to get a shot?!! You have to wonder don’t you? As an industry, photographers really don’t help themselves. With a big grin, the Verger’s parting words before the ceremony began were “so don’t get any ideas”. So I didn’t. Besides, he was a lot bigger than me and had a somewhat greater power on his side (the old “my father is bigger than your father” routine was possibly not going to work here). So we had to make do with getting the shots without balancing on anything old/precious/sacred/human and without interrupting the service. Hrumph – anyone would think the service is important. Only joking of course, we have always worked on the principle that we are there to document the proceedings and not to get in everyone’s way. At least, not too much…

The reception was at the De Vere Uplands. The guys up there were great (no, really – I do mean great. They had to move quite a bit of stuff around for us to take photos indoors and it all happened smoothly and without anyone giving me grief. Believe me, I take a lot from that!)

The lighting in their main room is possibly a little (a lot!) on the warm side though which did mean quite a lot of effort keeping the image colours looking natural – however, once the room was darkened and the candles lit it was a paradise for those dark, atmospheric black & whites that I really used to enjoy when using film. Our Nikon D2Xs’s are phenomenal cameras but in really low light, digital images lack some of that indefinable quality of black and white film – the grain is just a bit too harsh. However, we’ve just pressed the brand new Nikon D3 into action and this thing is absolutely awesome when it comes to working in low light levels. The colour rendition is unbelievable – capturing the atmosphere in difficult shooting conditions is now firmly back on the agenda!

Anyway, I’d just like to say thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome – particularly Lucy & Steve and their respective families who were, without a fault, the ultimate hosts. I should also mention the guests on the table at which I was also sat who all fetched out their cameras and fired off a load of images as I went to sit down, just to let me know how it felt. All good fun!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008, 11:42 pm and is filed under For Website, Weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.