No more bookings.

Please be aware that Eyecandy Photographic are taking no more wedding bookings for the foreseeable future.  We are still available for commissions and other interesting freelance work.

Many Thanks, Mark

Other photographic pursuits.

Along with my nature photography - I have also taken up AstroPhotography - having an interest in all things astro-related for a number of years, I finally decided to splash out on a Telescope, computerised tracking mount and a few other gizmos and try my hand at this rather niche section of photography.  You have to throw away the rule book when shooting the stars as things are a lot trickier. However with a bit of perseverance & lots of reading I have finally managed to grab a few images I am very pleased with - indeed - I submitted one of my images to BBC Sky at Night magazine last year and managed to get published in the February 2012 edition! I attach a few of my images here for your viewing pleasure.

2013 bookings full.

Please be aware, due to our current workload we are no longer taking anymore bookings for 2013 at this time. We will be opening our diary for a limited time for 2013 bookings from September to January 2012/13 but will only be offering a DVD package during this period.

We will make exceptions for couples referred to us by our existing clients as long as we have the date available.

Also, we are still exhibiting at the Heart FM Wedding fair at the Brentwood Center in September 2012.

Please contact us via email for more information.

First!!

As many of you know a great passion of mine is nature photography and from time to time I enter my images into competitions just to see how they will fair against some of the big hitters out there. One of the national competitions I entered last year was for the website "Wildlife Extra" - and not only did I win the mammals category (I actually had a 3 photos shortlisted) I eventually went on to win the overall competition! My prize was a £500 donation to the wildlife charity of my choice (South Essex Wildlife Hospital), and I also won a Bronze sculpture by wildlife artist David Mayer and an Olympus Digital Camera.  Sadly I missed the deadline to enter this years competition so will not be able to defend my title, but hopefully when I get myself down to Epping Forest or Richmond park in the next few weeks I will be able to start capturing some images for next years competition.

Here is the link to the winners page on Wildlife Extra - also take the time to have a look around their website, definitely one of the best out there at the moment.

Here is my winning shot.

The beauty of the Juxtaposition!

Click to enbiggen!

Comlongon Castle, Scotland.

July is (umm, was) upon us so that means Kevin & I ventured North to Scotland to shoot Sophie & Gregs wedding at Comlongon Castle.

Now a question I get asked a lot is "Which is your favourite venue to shoot weddings at?" and usually I would answer St Audries in Somerset, however, now I have shot a wedding at Comlongon I am rather torn between the two - its a cracking example of a medieval castle on the Scottish borders - with great staff and an ambience that only comes with a Scottish wedding venue.

Even though we had rain pretty much most of the day, we still managed to get a few dry spells to get outside and  grab a few formals. I just wish I could get a few more weddings up there!

Anyway, we still had an amazing day and shooting Sophie & Greg was a real pleasure.

Shoe Fetish..

...I don`t have one, I just love some of the shoe shots I`ve been getting.  I daresay the title of this post will bring in the oddballs though!!

Canon 5D with 85mm f1.2 mk2

Leez Priory - November 2010

Just a quick shot from Autumn of 2010 - Carly & Kieran were married at Leez Priory in Essex. Incredibly we had warm sunshine and great weather all day - which allowed us to get outside and get some great images. I`m shooting there again this year, looking forward to that one!

Canon 5D with 135 F2L

Canon 5D with 16-35 F2.8L

YES!!!

Sometimes a picture can literally tell the story for you. I can`t begin to tell you how much I love this image.

Canon 1Dmk3 with 85mm F1.2mk2

Matthew & Helena - April 2011

Rebranding.

Canon 1Dmk3 with 50mm 1.4

As you can see from my previous post - the logo and name has changed somewhat- Not a huge change, just bringing my name more to the forefront but the Eyecandy brand still remains.  We are designing a new website to compliment the change, but this isn't due to go live until 2012 - it will also mean us redesigning our brochures and stationary so obviously its not something that will happen overnight.. For those who didn`t see it in the previous post, its displayed here along with a rather natty pair of shoes.

And so I`m back, from outer space! You just walked in to find me here with a look of shame upon my face.

Yes, here I am, shuffling shamefaced back onto my blog page after 5 long months without a post. I`ve been away too long. Things have just been hectic here for the past 12 months in terms of business and Realife© "stuff". But this is the first post of the year and I hope to make it the first of many!

So lets play catchup and go back to October 2010 and visit my most favourite venue in the UK. St Audries Park in Somerset. This venue is without doubt one of the best places I have ever shot a wedding - this was my second trip to St Audries - having shot a wedding there back in 2008 - it's a beautiful country house tucked away in the Quantock Hills. To me its a blank canvas - most country houses have lots of gaudy decoration on the wall, but at St Audries they have kept it simple - its hard to take a bad photo there!

I was shooting the wedding of Ivy & Richard, a fun young couple from London. The weather was a real mixed bag - it started out gloomy and misty with a drizzling rain. Just before the ceremony it tipped down, but by the evening things had brightened up and we managed to get outside for the portraits.

All images are clickable for a larger version! As always, comments welcome!

New years honors list announced!!!

Sadly I didn't make it this year.. Next year maybe.

A real blog post coming up soon. Promise.

Two months without a post? It must be the height of the wedding season!

BIG update coming soon. Its just I`m a really really busy boy at the moment - and I am sure my clients would be happier me putting my spare time towards designing their album than waxing lyrical about rather tenuously related subjects.

But a quick brief on whats new.

Rebranding.
Phototeach.
New team members.
Queensberry updates.
Wedding exhibitions
THAT back injury.. again.
Adobe Lightroom 3 and how I have pretty much kissed goodbye to Photoshop! (not quite, but its been feeling a bit left out recently) - with examples of its awesomeness.
Lots and lots of lovely photos! I know I have said that before, but seriously - these are very pretty indeed.

I also recently succumbed to the marketing-men and Steve Jobs relentless drive to make me indulge in all sorts of tax-deductible purchases.

I`m actually rather looking forward to writing it now.

Words fail me....

No comments needed really!!

More wedding shots.

First off apologies for the terrible formatting of the last post - not sure what happened but some of the text got a bit squashed up alongside some of the photos - I`ll try not to let it happen again.

So this weekend we was over in West Wales (Aberystwch) for the wedding of Jenny and Dylan. Had a great time and managed to get some lovely shots. I actually experimented a bit with something a wee bit different and tried to capture a few of the formals in a  1970s lazy summer quality. So the lens flare* in the following image is wholly intentional and the post-processing is kept to a minimum.

We (Kevin & I) stayed until 11pm for some great fireworks shots then decided we would chance the drive home instead of checking into a Travelodge or similar five-star establishment. So I finally rolled into bed at around 04:20 this morning - very tired but dosed upto the eyeballs on Redbull and ProPlus.

I also notice in the last thread that I said I was going to show you an example from Susan & Jonas wedding at Crondon Park Golf Club. As mentioned we didn't have favorable conditions to replicate the silhouette, however with a bit of creative thinking and off camera flash we did manage to pull of this little beauty.

All it takes is an (under)exposure off the sky, a couple of 580ex MKII flashguns and use of the spot meter to tease just enough flash onto subjects. A great effect achieved with the minimum of ease!

*Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image rays. For good optical systems and most images, flare is a secondary effect that is widely distributed across the image and thus not visible. But when an image includes a very bright lightsource, flare generated by a bright image region can have enough intensity to become very visible. The light produced by flare mechanisms superimposes broadly across the image, adding light to dark image regions and reducing image contrast.

Lenses with large numbers of elements such as zooms tend to exhibit greater lens flare, as they contain multiple surfaces at which unwanted internal scattering occurs.

Quick update.

Just a post to show off a few of my favorite images over the past few weeks. All images are clickable to see larger versions.

OK, First we have this great silhouette from Crondon Park Golf Club in Essex, this is actually an image from a pre-wedding shoot for Susan & Jona (married on the 5th June) - taken at around 7pm the sun was just in the right position to use their head to block it out, creating a wonderful halo of light around them.

 Using a small aperture and fast shutter speed allowed me to shoot directly into the sun bringing out all the details in the sky you can't usually see - contrary to several comments from friends, the couple were not superimposed over the sky afterwards - in fact there is minimal photoshop work on this image - the main thing I had to do was tilt the image slightly as Susan & Jona were standing on a hill - this is evident in the slight slant of the clouds. This is a lovely shot and something we wanted to replicate on the wedding day - we didnt manage it, but we got something a whole lot better! More on that later.

Next up are a few shots from a recent Wedding at Mulberry House in Ongar. Marelize & Colin were married on the  29th May and the weather inthe morning was frightful - the heavens opened at 10am and it continued on until about 3pm that afternoon - thankfully we managed to get enough of a dry spell to get outside and grab some lovely portraits - we even had a chance to try some off camera flash for something a bit more dramatic. Here are a few shots from the day. 

The following day I had another wedding in East Sussex, a smaller affair so I was on my own for this one (I usually have an assistant on hand to get drinks, take abuse, stroke my delicate ego, carry cameras and even take some photos). Whilst there I bumped into Emily whose wedding I shot last year and as I mentioned before in this blog, Emily has her own company designing and create custom bridalwear.  She was wearing one of her own creations (as was the bride) so we took a few minutes out for a quick impromptu photoshoot in a quiet corner of the garden. I have attached two images from the day, one of Gemma & Mike (Bride & Groom) and one of Emily looking FABULOUS DAHLING! I guess I should link to the Emily MacDonald Bridal website here..

Album proofing.

Again, another apology for being so quiet, but the wedding season is upon us and I am inundated with work - I have three albums I need to design and get out to clients - I have photos from two weddings and a corporate event that I need to sort and colour correct - and I also have changes to make to a number of other albums before they are sent to Queensberry.

When it comes to proofing albums the way I used to work was to run off the album layouts as JPG files and email them across to my clients - which worked well but sometimes things seemed to get lost in translation and it would take extra time to fully understand what changes were required. However, recently I signed upto a new service called Album Exposure which allows me to publish the layout on the web and the couple add their comments directly onto the page where the changes are required. The comments are then downloaded into my album layout software (Photojunction) which makes things a lot clearer and allows me to make the changes a lot quicker.

You can view how this works as Laura & Alex (Wedding at Bradbourne House, Kent, October 2009) have very graciously allowed me to use their album layout as an example to show people. To see how it works, navigate to http://albumexposure.com/EyecandyPhotographic/laura-alex-sample-album  and when asked for a password type in `eyecandy`.

As you can see, this makes the whole process a lot smoother and it integrates into my workflow seamlessly.

Anyway, I have loads of images to post on here, some really fab stuff from the past few weeks, so I might get around to putting some up later today.

Adios mi amigos!

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd, Screamadelica - Primal Scream..

Abbey Road - The Beatles, Nevermind - Nirvana, Sgt Peppers - The Beatles, Born in the USA - Springsteen...

What have these all got in common? They are all classic albums memorable not only for their music, but also for their album covers. However, none of the above hold a candle to the musical extravaganza that is

 20 REDNECK COUNTRY HITS!!!!

Oh yes, I hear you laugh, but really this is possibly the finest example of album cover design I have ever found...

Ahem..  OK, this is actually one of my images that has been used in the US for this memorable compilation - I took the shots many years ago when I used to photograph bands - these guys signed a model release which allowed me to use the image on several Stock Photography sites. Using a website called `Tineye` you can actually trawl the internet looking for  images that you own to find out where they are being used (and if they are being used illegally) - it works pretty well and you can imagine my surprise when this little beauty popped up here on the Walmarts site. I feel it has all the makings of a classic album cover and fully expect it to feature in any future "100 best album cover" listings.. Remember, you saw it here first!

It is selling for a whopping $3.96, so might be worth me buying a copy just for the fun of it!

New project takes shape... finally!

OK I have loads of updates today, however I will probably spread them over a number of postings as I am sooo busy at the moment.

OK, first off is that our new project PHOTOTEACH has finally reared its head. This is a collaboration between Kevin and I that we laid the groundwork for over the past year with a number of our Wedding Photography Workshops - however we have now moved this forward into an official business venture. Our website is not yet complete but taking shape nicely. Initially we are only going to offer three or four courses, but as we gear up and possibly bring more people on-board then we will really push the boat out - we already have heaps of ideas about what we want to do but they need to be bought online gradually. Please note this will not be affecting my wedding work at all - the two sit very comfortably next to each other.

So, pop over to the new website and take a look, like I said, its still early days but we have been asked to exhibit at Fords in Dagenham next week for their EDAP project (staff self improvement initiative) and will be offering a number of courses there - which will certainly get us a lot of exposure and hopefully business.

Jump to Phototeach Website

Dates for courses should be posted in the next few weeks.

Designing albums.

No news really today - broke ground on Ellie & Marcus` album (one of my Weddings at Mannings Heath Golf Club 20th Feb 2010) Managed to get five layouts done which is pretty good going, however they are, as always, subject to change - I find when designing albums I will start with a very rough proof, no more than laying out the key shots in a chronological order, then flesh them out with the other shots of the day. However the OCD in me will usually come rearing to the surface and I will end up scrapping multiple layouts as the album progresses and starting them over - its possibly the most time consuming part of the job for me to be honest.

Anyway, attached quite a cutesy shot from the day (click to view a bit larger).

ABIPP Panel

Just a quick update - I have an appointment at BIPP HQ on the 23rd of this month to present a preview of my potential ABIPP panel - its not the actual assessment, more of a chance to get some feedback from some of the guys who are on the grading panel and hopefully they will be able to tell me if its worth me putting a print panel together for one of the real assessments later this year.  The problem is, I am not entirely sure what they are looking for - I think its more a case of defining a style, both compositionally and the actual processing of the image - I like to think my work is quite distinctive in its general "ambience and feel" but its hard to second guess what`s `en vogue` with the panel this year - I don't tend to go for what is `current` - I`d rather my images look and feel timeless - nothing too quirky, images that couples will look back at in 10 or 20 years time and not feel embarrassed about.  Who knows?!    Saying that I have some great ideas I want to try this year - one idea in particular involves a unique group shot, but its going to be a big ask - it needs a large group of people who are willing to take 5 mins to pull off what could be an awesome shot - not giving anymore away in case I never get to do it.

However I will leave you with a shot I took in December at the wedding of Mr Pip & Lady Boo - the styling of the clothing on the day was very Edwardian, so for this shot I tried to process it to look like a hand-coloured photo of yesteryear - I had to do a bit of research on the whole colourised B&W style, but I think I came pretty close with this.  Awesome couple as well!  

Subnote - the dress was designed and made by one of my brides from earlier last year (Emily) who has now started out in the wedding dress business - all are original designs by Emily and look amazing - check out her website 

www.emilymacdonaldbridal.co.uk

Gallery updated!

A HUGE update to our gallery page with lots of new images to view. Lots of our 2009 shots (and some of my older favourites) , have a look and be sure to tell us what you think! I dropped around 200 other images I had picked to keep the gallery at a manageable size - so much great material from last year, it was so hard to pick what to keep and what to reject - however I think this body of work better demonstrates what we at Eyecandy are all about - 100% reportage is soooo 2000 - 2009. Thanks to all our couples - we had so much fun when taking these photos - this job ROCKS!!

If you have viewed the gallery before you may need to refresh your cache before the new gallery will show - to do this, hold down shift and press F5.

Click here to be magically* transported to the gallery.

(*disclaimer - its not actually magic, its just a standard HTML link... I get carried away sometimes..)

UK Wedding Show 2010

Just got back from the UK Wedding Show at Excel in Docklands- a very busy weekend and now my legs feel like they should drop off and my voice is all but gone - still - we met loads of great people (and other photographers) and the new albums got loads of interest. Will no doubt be spending the next few months going out to see couples at home to discuss things and get some bookings.  Next wedding is Ellie & Marcus at Mannings Heath Golf Club on the 20th February - really looking forward to it.

The new gallery is due on-line in the next few days - the redesigning of the website is on hold - because you know what - I don't think there is really anything wrong with the current one. It just needs a bit of a makeover than a redesign - some new sections and a bit more functionality - but I think the beauty is in its simplicity.

Picture below is of a wedding at Gosfield Hall in Essex that I shot back in January, the very lovely Kim & Sandeep - managed to grab some great images - its a beautiful venue with the most amazing bridal suite - its HUGE!!!
(oh and blogger have finally sorted out their `add image` facility so its a lot more useful now - so expect more photos soon!)

AWOL.

I am still about - just REALLY REALLY busy with albums, preparations for the show and generally businessy  stuff.

There really will be a proper update in the next week or so.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Let it snow!

Wow, a week before Christmas and here in Essex snow is laying everywhere - it looks amazing and gave me a chance to get out with the camera and shoot for myself for a change.  I took the image below near Brentwood.

Almost caught up on all my work, added some more to the new website, although still trying to work out which gallery to use for my examples - flash galleries look nice, but I like the customisation that HTML galleries allow me.
Also putting together my review of 2009 which is harder than I thought because trying to decide which photos to include is really hard - I will probably have to do it in two parts to allow me to use more images.
Other than that, not much to report - things slow down a lot at this time of year - giving me a chance to catch up on the accounts, send equipment off to be serviced etc.
Anyway, there will probably be one more entry before the New Year (and the review) and then we will be into 2010!  So I will take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Flickr updates.

Hi all, just a quick post whilst drinking my coffee and having a break. As some of you may or may not of noticed, I have updated my Flickr account with a number of images from this years weddings. To access my Flickr photostream just click on one of the tiny slideshows to the right. This is by no means an exhaustive list of my favourite wedding shots of the year (I have taken over 30000 photos this year, well, between me and my assistants that is) but just a few I had laying around on my hard drive or in my "photoshopped stuff" folder on my desktop. I plan to post another 100 or so before the end of the year - and also some of my favourite shots from venue visits, corporate events and just my hobby shots ( I have a great shot I took of the Home Secretary Alan Johnson surrounded by crying babies!)
However I will still be putting together an end of year review and posting it on here - I can see from my stats I now have a fair number of regular readers which is great! I can also see the blog is bringing people to my site due to certain keywords I drop in here and there as well which was the original plan of the blog, although since then its become a lot more than an SEO tool.
Anyway, finished my coffee now and lots of work to be getting on with. Be sure to leave comments if you get a few minutes - you dont need a blogger account and they can be left anonymously.

Chat later!

Last wedding of 2009. DONE!

Well a cause for celebration as I managed to get to the end of a very tough year. I shot my last wedding of 2009 yesterday for Sarah & Phil - I didn't get home until 1am this morning but we had a great time and I am looking forward to sorting the photos in the next week or so. However, now the catchup work begins, I still have a number of albums to get out of the door and even a few from October/November to complete and send the proofs out so no chance to take my foot off the peddle just yet - but its looking like I will have everything done by Christmas week which will be great as it will give me a chance to take a well earned break. I will be tinkering with the new website a bit more, but I wont start that in earnest until after Christmas. I will also be writing a few more blog entries and will possibly write a review of 2009 featuring my favourite photos from all my weddings of the year.

Next up is working on another website with Kevin to push our photography training days which we are looking to expand a lot next year. We own the website name which considering how many photography teaching websites there are out there we managed to grab a really good one, however more on that early next year, but after two successful `Introduction to Wedding Photography` courses now we have a feeling this is a venture that could really take off!

Also I need to start looking at mounting an attempt of my Associateship with the BIPP, I am still toying with this idea, I feel I have some incredible work from this year, but debating whether or not to leave it another year to refine my style somewhat.

My last actual photography job of the year is on the 18th December which is a Christmas party at West Ham Football Club. I shot the party last year and had a great time so really looking forward to this years bash.

Then it all starts again with a venue visit on January 1st with Vicky & Alan!

Ooooooh! Exciting...

Flag counter

Added a wee flag counter widget to my sidebar - this will show me where my visitors are coming from - it replaces the twitter feed which didn`t really belong there.

Not really an update I guess - just me playing around. Currently working on a redesign of the website - probably wont go live for a good 3 or 4 months yet - hopefully get a lot done over the winter.

Hopefully the next update will be a bit more substantial.

Adios!

Phil & Sarah - Venue Visit

Out today to visit Sarah & Phil who are getting married in December. Phil was Bestman at a wedding I shot earlier this year at Walcott Hall (pre-blog days) - he holds the eyecandy record for the most EPIC bestmans speech ever.

Anyway, we had the venue all to ourselves today and had a bit of time & privacy to get some cracking shots, this is one of my personal favourites - all shot with my new sparkly Canon 85mm 1.2L lens.. its a bit of a beast and sucks photons out of the air like a blackhole.

Comments please!

Special blog entry for Mel, Keith & Friends.

...I know they are eagerly awaiting their photos and I know they read the blog - so a few to whet their appetites whilst they wait just a couple of more days.

Too busy to update!

Currently working through the backlog of albums I have - I managed to get three sent off to Queensberry this week which is a HUGE weight of my chest - hopefully sending another two more over this weekend. I know I have been neglecting my blog, but I really am far too busy for mindless chit chat.

Next week I should have a nice big update for you all, with pictures and everything!

I did get a chance to go to a fireworks display tonight here in Basildon. My biggest bugbear with the local one is that they always do it on the 5th of November, which whilst traditional isn't the best of ideas when you have a five year old who normally is in bed at 7pm standing around in a field at 19:45 waiting for the display to kick off. Why can't they hold it on the nearest Friday or Saturday? - they would probably get a lot more people as well.

A strongly worded letter to the Basildon Round Table group is required methinks!!

Nothing going on at Eyecandy Towers....

.. at the moment - back is getting better - been up and about this week and seem to be more comfortable with everyday tasks. Looking at refreshing the main gallery so it better represents the work we are now producing - will also update the album pages to show off the new materials available from Queensberry. There may be a blog post coming up in the near future about Queensberry (our Album suppliers) and how we go about designing our albums.

But I will leave you with this gorgeous image of Shoma who recently got married at Pembroke Lodge in beautiful Richmond Park.

Halloween fast approaches.

...and my inbox starts filling up with people commenting on my `Zombie` tutorial on Youtube. For those of you who haven`t seen it, its something I knocked up a few years back to show off some photoshop techniques I had been working on. After a number of requests I wrote a text tutorial for a couple of websites who took an interest in it, then created a short video of the whole creation process - the whole thing only took me 12 minutes to create (which is why the teeth dont line up correctly - watch the video, you`ll see what I mean) but I speeded it up 3x to keep it at a youtube friendly 4 minutes.

Anyway, I always get a steady stream of emails and comments on the video, but they always start picking up around October time as people start searching out creepy things to do with photoshop. I just thought I would share it here with my readers. I havent quite worked out a way I could combine these photoshop skills with my wedding photography - maybe if I get a Goth wedding in the future I might get a chance!

And yes, that is an image of me that I start with - form an orderly queue please ladies!

Twittered up.

I bit the bullet I'm afraid - got on the twitter bandwagon earlier today. Now got to try and work out how to use and/or exploit it to my advantage.

However, you can imagine my surprise when I found one can only "Tweet" (picking up the lingo already - impressive eh?) a maximum of 160 characters - including spaces!? Whats that all about then?

It then did something to my iPhone which allows me to "tweet" from wherever I am - so I can join the legions of people who post their every move for anyone bored enough to read.

However, that means you can all `follow` me now, which sounds rather ominous and stalkerish, but likewise I can `follow` other people as well, which sounds tremendously exciting.

Anyway, for those of you who would like to add me to your `following` list then you can find my twitter profile at

http://twitter.com/icandyphoto

Will no doubt update it regularly for a few days, then end up getting bored of it. However, I thought this Blog would be a `five minute wonder`, but I have kept it up pretty well, so who knows.

UPDATE - just added a Twitter gadget to the sidebar.

This is how wedding videos should be shot.

Never been a big fan of videography at weddings, but this is nothing short of amazing. It's great to see individuals out there pushing the boundaries of this medium - however at around $20000 to fly them over from Canada, it isn't a cheap option. But this work is phenomenal. Everything about it is perfect, from the choice of soundtrack, to that amazingly brave shot at 2:08 where they pan inside the church, looking up at the ceiling and finally settling on the bride walking up the aisle, to the voiceovers - the editing is so tight and fits perfectly. 10 out of 10. Enjoy.

Injured little soldier.

Picked up an injury at the weekend - put my back out, only just got back from chiropractor - thank god I dont have a wedding this weekend - cant walk - bored of laying in bed with ice packs on my back - thank god for the iPhone my only link to the outside world - and great for playing online poker.

Must buy new laptop.

I am so bored I even toyed with the idea of getting on `twitter`.

Can't type any more. Hopefully back in action by the weekend.

All sympathy greatly received.

BIPP and beyond!

OK, as you may or may not know I am a Licenciate of the British Institute of Professional Photography - this is THE qualification to have if one is serious about their work - when I worked for Max I realised how professional it looked to have the letters LBIPP (ABIPP or FBIPP) after ones name - maybe not to Joe Public who might not of heard of the BIPP, but certainly to other photographers. It's not just about fancy letters after your name, its a sign that you have reached a certain standard in your photography - they dont let any old Tom, Dick or Harry in y`know!

However, I am now looking at progressing onto my Associateship, the second level of qualification. With some of the work I have produced this year, I am quietly confident that I can at least make a good impression with the judges.

The BIPP have already run an interview/case study with me earlier this year - which brings a surprising amount of traffic to my website.

I think towards the end of the year I will post a `best of` gallery to get everyone else's opinion. With the grading interviews in April of next year, I have to start thinking which ones to use.

Wish me luck!

Time is on my side... sometimes.

After another fantastic day this time shooting a Wedding in Thurlston, Devon, I have a few comments regarding time given to the photographer to create the formals - now as you know when I talk about formals I am referring to the intimate shots with just the bride & groom - the money shots, the showstoppers, the ones that your friends & family will see and just say. "Wow!". Now these will not be the `reportage` (urgh, I hate that word) style shots, these will be the ones where I am allowed to flex my artistic muscles and create images that really will be the envy of all your work colleagues when you show them your album/gallery etc. These are the ones I will need some time to work on to get just right... I have so many ideas when it comes to the formals, but they do require a little time to pose, compose and shoot - it may mean I have to set up a couple of flashes on stands so that I can tease light onto the subjects face - it usually requires me to lay down on the floor to work depth and texture into a shot using foreground subjects - but I will guarantee you that if I am given time I will create work that really will stun you, remind you why you hired me and make you feel & look like a million dollars (about £631226 taking the current exchange rate into consideration - but I digress). My style is not and never will be 100% reportage - I hope my clients never hire me thinking that is the case.

The one most important thing I try to achieve every time I shoot a wedding is to capture the emotion between the B&G, but in a way that looks stylish - not tacky. Maybe selfishly I try to create amazing images for my own reasons - anyone who knows me knows how goddamn passionate I am about this job - to not be able to capture YOU in amazing and stylish ways frustrates me so much - I want to progress in my chosen career - I want to deliver images my clients deserve - I don't want to be some hack churning out the same old formulaic rubbish time after time - I know my clients know this and hopefully its some of that passion that endears me to them.

All I ask is for a little bit of time to capture all that magic and bottle it up for you.

Thanks so much for reading again

Cheers, Mark

PS - we was given time for the image below - I love it to pieces. Its the first one I grabbed from loads we took - I cant wait to get started on the others, but they need to wait until next week - I have a LOT of catching up to do!

PPS - the next post will be far more upbeat and less whiny - I promise!!!

New projects.

OK, as some of you may know, I am currently setting up a number of training courses and photographic workshops along with one of my freelance photographers Kevin, the first one of which was a wedding workshop last month that went really well. Due to demand we have now scheduled another one for November.

As a result, Kevin & I have decided to work on this together which includes setting the whole project up as a separate enterprise to Eyecandy. We are still working on names etc. but today we registered a whole bunch of domain names so we can setup a website in the very near future.

Eventually we hope to be able to cover a wide range of photographic disciplines from Basic D-SLR training courses, wedding seminars and even studio lighting & nature photography workshops. Further down the line we are looking at holding seminars and talks and may look into inviting prestigious photographers along for Q&A sessions. Its early days yet but we are both very excited with some of the other ideas we are coming up with. It will certainly help those quieter winter months fly by (and help keep the bank account healthy).

Once I have some more news and can share some of our even better ideas I will post here. Keep checking back often, I know from my webstats I have around 15-20 regular visitors (and I also know who two of them are now - right girls? ;-) - and feel free to leave comments.

One last thing - a few weeks back I mentioned that I was designing my new brochure and couldn't decide between two covers. Well in the end I opted for a completely different cover - but I am very happy with the choice - it is a far more classic shot and should look amazing on the super-high glossy paper we have opted for. Hopefully I will find out in the next few days when 2500 of them are delivered to Eyecandy Towers.

You can view it by clicking HERE - however be warned it is a large PDF file weighing in at around 50mb - so will take a few minutes to download even on a relatively fast connection.

Hablamos mas tarde!

Not much really happening...

Just a quick update to please those search engines, not much happeneing, still shooting a wedding every week at the moment, although I did have this Saturday off ,well, I did have a venue visit in beautiful autumnal Richmond Park and another on Sunday at Mannings Heath Golf Club again - but my first Saturday evening at home in about the last thirteen weeks - I did shoot a wedding at Forbes House in swanky Kensington/Belgravia on Friday though, so still keeping busy on the wedding front. Attached a few pictures from that day here - shot most of the formals inside as we had the most amazing light filtering in through the windows we just HAD to use it. I guess as we move more towards the darker afternoons/evenings we will be shooting more and more formals inside - but lets enjoy that amazing autumn late afternoon light whilst we have it.

Some from last week.

Just a couple of my favourites from last weeks shoot. I love the 1950s hollywood feel to both of these. The couple are Pip & Ash married at Rivervale Barn near Sandhurst. Its a great example of what is possible given enough time to shoot some formals. These are going to look so good in their album. Click on the images to view larger versions.

Wedding at Rivervale Barn

Reportage vs Formals vs Art

One thing this year that has been playing on my mind a bit is regarding Reportage v Formals - now I am not a big fan of the word `reportage`, its been thrown around amongst wedding photographers both good and bad and during the past few years & the whole concept has become somewhat diluted - clients or potential clients will approach me, whether it be after meeting me at an exhibition, finding my website or being referred to me from another couple whose wedding I have shot and they say they want the reportage style of wedding shoot - but when I say "fine, that means you dont want any group shots or posed formals" they generally say "oh yes, we want those as well" - which isn`t really a reportage wedding.

If you'll allow me to expand on that a bit -

The problem stems from photographers and their web galleries - when a bride (or groom, but usually the bride) is reading up on wedding photography they visit all these websites and see these wonderful `reportage` slideshows showing about 15 or so images from a single wedding, backed with a nice snip of emotive piano music and the initial impact is usually "WOW!" - and they do look great, simple & effective, showing tiny snapshots of the day and making the whole slideshow `pop` with some nifty photoshopping and cool black and white effects. The only problem with that is the prospective client wouldn't only want to be presented with 30 or so `reportage` images for their many hundreds or even thousands of pounds spent. It’s a problem I have been wrestling with all year - do I present less images? do I cut out my DVD package and not allow the client to see,literally, hundreds of shots of the day and just send the couple a proof of the album and my interpretation of the day? Or do I post 600 shots on my website so they can see every tiny thing we captured? I like to think of my style as 65% "reportage", 35% formals - and by formals I don't mean lots of group shots, I am talking about the artistic couple shots which are posed but not in a contrived 1980s style - I like to bring the essence of the couple into my formals, integrating the venue, the weather, the lighting and some love and personality - but when that’s tied in with some nice reportage it can make for an amazing album, something you can pull out on a cold winters night whilst sitting in your lounge and relive the day through 20 pages of well picked, tastefully laid out photographs, in fact, something you can pull out in ten years time with your kids on your lap and they will say "wow Mummy you look so pretty".

I think within the next few years I will drop the number of images shown in my online galleries from 500 or so now, down to 250 - I certainly don`t want to end up turning into some `hack` photographer treating every wedding like a souless product on a production line just so I get my paydirt - thankfully I know I will never get to that stage , but looking at a lot of photographers out there it seems, sadly, that the way it is going for some of them. Anyone who knows me, friend, family or client will know I have an absolute passion for photography, whilst this is a job for me, I still have that fire in my belly to become great within my field and respected by my peers. I just want to produce work that will tingle emotions in ten, twenty or even thirty years from now when my clients look at their wedding album.

Thanks for reading.

A dilemma!

I have hit a bit of a problem regarding the design of my new brochure. It's regarding the frontcover - I am torn between two images both of which are rather similar but equally pretty.

Bearing in mind this year we are going for very glossy A4 brochures to really make an impact at the exhibitions and so it stands out in amongst all the other pamphlets that will no doubt being filling the vistors bags to bursting. So, here are my two choices - I know I have a number of regular visitors to the blog (I can tell from my web-logs, although I have no idea who you are!) so it would be great if you could just leave a comment telling me what you think- you dont even need a blogspot account to leave comments, just leave them anonymously.

Thanks!!

School days.

Well yesterday was the day that we held our first "Introduction to Wedding Photography" training course. We hired out the facilities at Crondon Park Golf Course in Essex and we had four students in our initial `intake` and we had a great day! In the morning we talked about the wedding day as it happens, the do and don'ts, how to prepare and be ready, essential equipment and we also took some questions relating to the business aspects of wedding photography (although the business side is another course we are planning). After a lovely hot buffet lunch we introduced a couple of models for the practical aspects of the course - covering areas such as posing, direction, communication and looking for and utilising intersting areas for the bride & groom portraits.

We also used the Function Suite area to discuss flash lighting - both on-camera and off-camera - natural lighting and how to add movement to otherwise dull and flat images. I believe everyone went away with lots of information to mull over - I certainly had to learn how to teach as I had never done anything like that before, but its certainly something we will be expanding upon in the near future - in fact the next course may well be "An introduction to DSLR photography" and even a couple of nature workshops!

I have attached a few shots that I fired off inbetween advising the students - thanks to our models Emily and Lee for working so hard and being incredibly patient.

Have golf cart - will play!

Saturday found Kevin and I at Mannings Heath Golf Club in Surrey - as always I had met the couple beforehand at the venue which gave me a chance to scout out the best areas for the formals and maybe a touch of inspiration - Hazel & Andy (the happy couple) had said they would be able to commandeer a couple of golf buggies for the afternoon/evening and that we could maybe use them to get around.. this led me to thinking how we could use them and maybe incorporate them into some photos - this would work on a couple of levels as 1. they would be fun shots and 2. it would give the images a sense of location. So the initial idea I had was to capture the golf buggy driving past me at speed and I could pan alongside to give the images a sense of motion. However these mighty machines have had a speed limiter installed which allows them to move at about a fast running pace - not ideal for motion panning shots unless we left the shutter open a bit longer, but that runs the risk of camera shake and blurriness (and not the good type!). Then Kev struck upon the idea of having the Cart drive around us in circles, allowing us more chances to capture a pin sharp photo. The idea worked a treat and the photo came out really well as you can see below.

We also took a few shots on the course, including one with me laying in a bunker whilst the bride hacked sand over me with a hockey stick - sounds weird eh? Again - photo below.

I did get one other shot during the bridal preps that I liked so much it is onthe frontpage of the website now (we rotate the image displayed on the frontpage each time the site is reloaded so you may have to reload the page several times until it appears).. I will have to be honest here, I did copy the idea from a portrait of Noel Gallagher I saw in a gallery a few weeks back, but I loved it so much I just had to pinch the idea for my own needs.