I don’t quite know what to say about these. Sometimes the planets align just right and you get an absolutely amazing photoshoot. This was one of those times.
Steph and Nick flew in from Hong Kong for their engagement shoot. We’d chatted about it a bit in advance and I pitched the idea of taking them to an old abandoned RAF base. I’ve been there a few times before for various photoshoots, but never with a couple. Steph and Nick agreed to my crazy idea and I picked them up off the train on a sunny Sunday afternoon to begin the shoot…
Trust me, you really want to see the rest of the photos. Either click on the photo above or hit the link below to see them…
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Durham, well what can I say? It’s got to be one of my favorite cities in the world to photograph. Between the cloisters of the Cathedral (actually used as part of Hogwarts) and the narrow cobble streets, if you can’t get a good photo here it’s definitely time to hang up the camera. This one really did promise to be a mini adventure. On the drive up from Bristol we passed 5 car accidents before the guy behind me decided I was prime for number 6. No major damage done but we did have a mini heart attack until we’d checked all our cameras were still functioning a-ok).
Gemma and Matt tied the knot in St Chad’s college, where Gemma used to study – she even spent the morning of the wedding (and the night before) back in one of her old uni rooms. Very cool room on the 4th floor with a great view (not so good for carrying camera gear up though!). Very cool wedding and obviously with the pair both being officers there were uniforms aplenty. Gemma even had her own sword, how cool is that? (I really need to find an excuse to be able to wear a sword…)
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Anyway, contrary to the common convention I’m actually going to start at the end with this one of Gemma and Matt outside Durham Cathedral. After their first dance we decided to get some air and go for a wander. Seeing the magnificent cathedral lit up and casting amazing shadows over the nearby trees I just couldn’t resist.
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Set in leafy Kent, surrounded by acres of green countryside is Combe Bank School. It’s a really beautiful place, perfectly kept and seriously impressive to boot. Perfect for a wedding you might think and, well, you’d be right. Normally a public girls school, Amy and Justin put their creative talents to good use and transformed the place with everything from love hearts to a picture frame table layout.
By a strange coincidence (well OK not all that strange) Amy’s Dad is also the site manager, quite handy when you’re trying to find places to take photos: he quite literally opens all sorts of doors (oh and gives a damn fine speech)!
I first met Amy and Justin at St Pancras station in London (a common meeting place for me with out of town couples) where we shared a few drinks and talked things over. Justin’s also quite into his photography and I later heard rumours that he has a team of photographers and retouchers working under him at Sky. I have to admit to being a touch scared in advance but I think we pulled off some really great images and it really helps working with somebody who knows where I’m going with the photos. Amy was an amazing sport putting up with all my wackball ideas and allowing me to take her into a dark, dark, smoke-filled forest (just after the first dance…)
More photos after the jump…
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Wow, what can I say? Two firsts in one day: my first Greek wedding and my first Jehovah’s Witness wedding. Second time at <a href="http://www.alexbeckett.co.uk/2009/12/28/wedding-down-hall-country-house-alana-and-david/"Down Hall though after Alana and David's wedding at Christmas (actually that’s how Jon and Elaine found me – through Alana and David’s blog post here…). I must admit I was a touch daunted going into this one but my fear was misplaced. This was quite simply one of the most fun weddings I’ve ever photographed. Jon and Elaine are a really fab couple and I can’t thank them enough for supplying such a great set of photo opportunities and trusting me on the day – yes those Minis were doing about 30mph less then a couple of feet away! A truly epic wedding and an epic set of wedding photos to boot.
Not sure I can say much more than that. I think this is one of the most photo heavy posts I’ve ever made but I just couldn’t whittle them down. Somehow I ended up with 75% more selects than normal. So many fab shots are still waiting to see the light of day; I had to be really hard with the editing! Anyway without any further ado, I’ll say thanks to Chris Beaumont from Gryphon Photography for helping me out on the day and leave you all with the photos…
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Thought I’d take a break from posting (and processing) wedding to put this one up. Took it a couple of months back in Mongolia by the side of the road. If you haven’t been to Mongolia, it really is an experience. You can quite literally take a photograph composed of green grassland, sand dunes and mountains all at the same time. I challenge you to find somewhere like that anywhere else in the world!
Anyway, yes this was taken on the way out west, about 8hrs drive from Ulaanbaatar, we pulled over and Holly actually went for a ride on the Camel. I was planning on stopping her since our medial insurance covered everything except camel rides, but hey how can you stop a girl with an idea in her head? After the ride I asked the nomads who owned them if they’d mind me taking a photo for prosperity. Needless to say this being the land of friendly people it was no problem and they were over-the-moon with the mini Polaroid print I gave them. Wish people around the rest of the world would be seduced by an English accent and a print of them with a camel!
Strobist info: Lit with an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra into an extra small Chimera softbox.
Right well that’s my break taken, back to the world of weddings!
More adventures soon,
Alex
Wow it’s been a long time since I last blogged and good lord has a lot happened! To summarise:
- Went to Mongolia
- Met some Monks
- Got engaged
- Went horse riding
- Tamed my horse
- Woke up with a tick sucking blood out of my stomach
- Got a jeep
- Drove for days with no roads
- Trashed my cameras
- Found some cool people
- Got delayed for 8 hours in Moscow due to Aeroflot
- Holly got Siberian Tick Typhus
- Spent a week in and out of hospital
- Got cameras fixed
- Shot an amazing wedding.
Yep I think that just about sums it up. Needless to say I’m a touch behind with photos but here’s one from Mongolia.
Found this little boy out to the west living in a Ger with his parents. Really great family, very friendly. Found out talking to them though that they lost 30% of their animals over the winter, really heartbreaking to hear and see all the bodies. 
More adventures soon though along with a bigger write up of the trip.
Alex 
Forty Models, Photographers and makeup artists, one amazing site, one amazing day.
Packing for Mongolia now. More adventures soon!
Alex
Well folks it took a lot of organising but we made it. On sunday the big photo shootout finally happened at a derelict RAF base just north of Cambridge.
Really great day, we had some amazing models, photographers and makeup artists on hand. Really can’t wait to see what everybody made of it. Unfortunately I spent most of my day sorting things out and not shooting (damn I missed out on some AMAZING models ) but here’s a couple of mine from the lighting seminar I gave.
Hope you all enjoyed it and add us to your RSS reader if you want to know when and where the next shoot will be!
More adventures soon,
Alex
So for those of you that haven’t heard before, I’m organising a big photo pow wow/shootout for the 25th of April. The location is a derelict RAF base just North of Cambridge. The base is huge with plenty of space for us all to work and create some really unique photos. Just to whet your appetite, here’s one I took at the location before:
Sign up form and more details after the jump…
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Having not learned my lesson with the horses I decided to up my game and this time try a photograph including not one but two dogs. The vision for this one was a very highly stylised almost Chanel like photo of Carys with her two dogs. I’ve put the photo up on the blog before but here it is again along with a couple of others we snagged to jog your memory.
Well if you want to know some of the secret sauce which went into this photo hit the read more link…
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