I had a great time in April travelling down to London with a backpack full of flashes to do some promotional shots for the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, who contacted me wanting a modern and urban, “obviously London” look for their press kit. A pretty cool brief, especially since the instruments these guys play date from around the 16th century! I went a bit Nick Turpin, shooting lightweight and handheld on the streets of central London, underexposing the ambient with an assistant holding a bare speedlight to pick out the band. The shot above, taken on Waterloo Bridge, ran full page in the June 2009 issue of Classical Music magazine, although they swapped my lovely underexposed blue sky for one with some comedy lens flare in it! Oh well, such is life…

I had a great time in April shooting the wedding of my good friend (and band-mate in The Hundred Metre Club) John, and his new wife Becky. It was an intimate wedding, just 14 guests. We all travelled up in convoy from Edinburgh to the stunning Ardanaisaig Hotel at Loch Awe. I love a beautiful country house wedding! More pictures after the jump.

Scottish weather played its part…

I was, I have to confess, a bit worried about the weather when we arrived at the loch – it was tipping down! The original plan had been to hold the ceremony outdoors (the Ardanaisaig hotel has a specially constructed mini-amphitheatre by the shore of the lake just for that), but, even though the rain had stopped, it was decided that the bridal party’s high heels would sink in the wet turf! I’d rigged a remote camera to capture a wide shot of the ceremony and the loch, but we had to scrap that idea. Fortunately the Hotel’s drawing room was absolutely stunning, and lined with huge windows!

John and Becky started getting themselves ready, and I flitted about between their rooms and around the grounds getting a feel for the place!

Most of what I shoot at weddings is available light, but a technique I really enjoy for mirror shots like this is a small hot-shoe strobe with a shoot through umbrella behind the bride, bouncing off the mirror to light her face – I think it looks pretty natural, but throws a nice subtle, flattering light in situations where it usually isn’t that good!

This one of John is all natural light again – he has the window to camera right throwing tons of gorgeous light from the slightly overcast sky into the room, and a big mirror to camera left which is throwing the highlight onto that side of his face.

I took the opportunity at this point to shoot a few posed bridal portraits of Becky – she made my job very easy! Coupled with beautiful simple window light, my 50mm f1.4 lens and a simple reflector for a bit of fill was all I needed here!

The strong light and the beautiful views from the drawing room windows gave me the opportunity to shoot some fun silhouettes:

Tiptoeing round the other side and I had just enough room for a nice angle to get the kiss – beautiful light from those big windows again!

Ceremony over, and we decided to risk going outside for the formals and some shots with the bride and groom on their own. We were lucky – the sun came out for us and no one sank!

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got married in stunning locations like this? This sort of thing makes me very happy!

I broke out the trusty hot-shoe flash and shoot-through umbrella for the next couple – I was working alone with the couple, no assistant, and we were exploring a little forest path with about 10 minutes to go before we had to be back in the hotel in time for dinner. We managed to find a few nice locations and capture some lovely moments.

I’m really thrilled with this picture, which is why I’ve put it in this post twice! I hope you’ll forgive me. A long lens, a shoot through brolly, and a quick meter reading, and this was the first frame we made in this location. Sometimes it works like that!

I’ll leave you with the rings, shot in the same fairytale forest glade as the last couple. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little selection!

I popped down South earlier in the year to photograph energetic Guildford-based electro-rock merchants Lets Talk Tactics. We hung out and shot over a full weekend, and had a great time! Some of my favourites from the weekend after the jump

The cliff in this shot is Salisbury Crags, in my home city of Edinburgh. I shot it before I headed down to Guildford and then shot each band member jumping in front of a white wall. I went a bit composite crazy with LTT – the shot at the top of the post is a four shot job, with each band member lit individually and combined in post.

Lots of fun was had, various late-night shenanigans with a smoke machine included. Thanks boys, hope to see you back in Scotland soon!

]]> http://www.hughbeauchamp.com/blog/photography/lets-talk-tactics/feed 0 http://www.hughbeauchamp.com/blog/photography/hannah-and-andy-tie-the-knot-in-bangor http://www.hughbeauchamp.com/blog/photography/hannah-and-andy-tie-the-knot-in-bangor#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:24:40 +0000 Hugh http://www.hughbeauchamp.com/?p=71

I had a great time in Bangor, Northern Ireland photographing the wedding of Hannah and Andy Kitchen back in December. We flew out the day before, and back to Edinburgh the day afterwards. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to get back for New Year’s Eve, but we did it, and the December weather was good to us! More photos after the jump.

We very nearly had an extra member of the wedding party!

The getaway car…

I had around 40 minutes with the bride and groom at the beautiful historic village at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, where the photo at the top of the page was also shot. Being the middle of winter, the light was fading fast, so we had to work quickly! Andy did the chivalrous thing and gave Hannah his jacket to keep out the cold.

Back to Cultra Manor for the wedding reception. I loved the gingerbread wedding favours at each place setting!

I managed to persuade the newlyweds to lend me their rings for a couple of minutes during the reception, and found a nice shiny grand piano to put them on for my final photo.

Hope you enjoyed these, I certainly had fun shooting them! More wedding stuff to come soon.

Pictured above is my friend and colleague Simon Ellis, who is off from the frozen wastes of late-summer Scotland next week to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He’s been on a strict training diet of lager, cigarettes, and Greggs sausage rolls, so wish him luck, anonymous internet!

The portrait was shot at a charity event a few weeks ago, for the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland. More on that to come…