Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl named Steph. She was an adventurous sort and when she reached the age of 18 she decided that rather than following her friends and going to university in Hong Kong she’d be different and travel all the way to Cambridge, England.

Unbeknownst to Steph, a charming, witty and intelligent boy named Nick had decided to be similarly adventurous and embark on a degree in London. As fate would have it, Steph and Nick’s families were good friends back in Hong Kong so the couple-to-be decided to meet up and swap stories of their adventures over rather tasty burgers.

Nick’s charm and wit was not lost on Steph and she soon ended up falling madly in love. Luckily from the first minute Nick had set eyes on Steph, he had gone weak at the knees and it wasn’t long before he also fell under her spell.

And so the story of Steph and Nick began. Somewhere along the line Steph decided it might be prudent to start looking for photographers and came across a mad, eccentric Brit called Alex. Months later Nick proposed to Steph and they decided to have a fairy tale wedding back in their family home in Hong Kong. Steph searched long and hard for other photographers but kept coming back to the eccentric Englishman. Luckily it didn’t take much convincing for him to agree to fly half way around the world and photograph the most epic wedding he had ever laid eyes on (and he’d laid his eyes on quite a few!).

To see all the shenanigans, hit the jump…
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Well that’s all folks, time for a quick commercial break. For the next little while Holly and I are going to be a touch AWOL travelling through the USA, Costa Rica and Panama. Don’t worry though, I’ll be back soon and I’m taking the iPad with me so should still have Internet access. If you’re interested in having me photograph your wedding, please do get in touch and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.

In the meantime, if you want to check out my progress, you can follow my other non-wedding photography blog here:
Http://www.alexanderbeckett.com/adventures

More soon!
Alex

Update: I’ve been banned from taking my big camera but here’s the view from the upper deck courtesy of my little X100.

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

Well what can I say? One of the most chilled out, fun, relaxed and loving weddings I’ve been to in a long time. It’s clear to see that both Rosie and Chris are in love, from the tears during rehearsals as it dawned upon them to the truly moving after dinner speeches you really couldn’t ask for more. I’m not entirely sure how she does it but Rosie also has an ability to just lift a room with her smile and she quite literally brought sunshine to the day.

Anyway, enough of all that, on with the photos. Here’s one from outside the water tower at Trelissick, if you want to see more from the day just click on the photo.

(Click here to see more…)

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

It’s really not turning out to be a good Quadra week for me. Just managed to get through the airport in Dubai but only by a cat’s whisker.
When I travel I pack all my vital camera gear into a Peli case which is just the right size for carry-on. That way if my hold luggage goes missing I’m still in business the other end and able to shoot.

The Quadra is one of those items I consider essential (despite trying to toast one of my models yesterday) and as such I had it in my hand luggage. Well it turns out Dubai airport security (possibly hearing of yesterday’s escapades) really weren’t happy with that idea. I’d already been through security once but the second set insisted no Quadra in hand luggage (despite the label on it which says it’s fine) Damn. I had already checked in my hold baggage and technically left Dubai (passport stamped out etc).

So what happens then? Well that’s where it starts to get fun, and goes to show why you should arrive at the airport early. I got escorted back through security, however I couldn’t pass the passport people again with my passport. I’d been stamped as having left the country and as such if I tried to leave again they’d arrest me for entering illegally. Drat.

I ended up having to leave my passport with one of the immigration guys (a very scary thing to do) and be escorted back to check-in. There they continued to insist that I really had to check the battery and as such decided to reclaim my already checked bag. This is where I started to sweat. The only other time I’ve tried to reclaim a bag before flying it resulted in an awful headache of me trying to understand a Frenchman, jumping into a security restricted zone and ultimately almost losing the bag. I got escorted down again almost airside until being stopped at a barrier. “Wait here, it’ll only be 5 minutes,” reassured a security guy as he went to rummage for my bag, “Just give me your boarding pass.”

Okay so 30 minutes later I’m sitting in the bowels of the airport on my own. I’ve lost my passport to upstairs and now somebody has taken my boarding pass. I have no clue where anybody is and technically I’m not actually even meant to be in the country anymore. Hum. Another 10 minutes pass and yes I’ll admit I’m starting to get a little nervous. But finally, voila my bag appears. In goes the Quadra and back though security I get escorted. Luckily I managed to pick up my passport again (just hoping Mosad didn’t manage to clone it) and off I went through a few more sets of security.

After all that I was a touch dehydrated (yeah okay I admit it, I might have been sweating a little at the point they took my passport off me) so I went to Costa. Guess what? Seconds later I get the boarding call for my flight (which requires yet another set of security) and there they remove my nice, cold, airport bought beverage from me

Flying sucks! Well actually I’m lying, I love it really, here’s a few quick snaps a-la-iPhone of my journey. Really amazing what that thing can do. Recognise the view from the plane? It’s actually Iraq and Baghdad. Better hope those engines keep on running and the elections go well!

More adventures soon,
Alex

Wow what a day. Today I got set an assignment by Joe McNally to photograph the lovely Alessia – an up and coming musician. The goal was to get two photographs suitable for a magazine (one landscape and one portrait as a cover) in order to show Alessia as a very quirky but likeable person (think Biorke). How on earth do you do that? And more to the point, how on earth do you shoot and edit those in under 3 hours? Keep on reading to find out how and how this turned out to be one of my most expensive photos to date…

Story and more photos after the jump…
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Well it’s been one hell of a week here in Dubai. Last Monday I took the (somewhat suicidal) decision to fly half way around the world and spend a week hanging out and shooting with some of the best modern photographers in the world. Coming up to the end of it, all I can say is “wow”.

I started the week by being the first unwitting subject of a certain Mr Joe McNally. For those of you that don’t know, Joe has been a pro for about 40 years, was the last Life staff photographer and has worked for more publications than I care to shake a very long stick at (think National Geographic, Sports Illustrated etc etc). Crazy being on the other side of his lens! Joe’s a really awesome guy: at 58 he still spends 95% of his life tearing around the world shooting. After he got done shooting me, I really enjoyed having him rip into my photos and tell me just how badly I’d got it all wrong (I guess whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!). As it turns out, most of the time I seem to be pretty good at ripping my images apart even before Joe starts

After a few days of that I decided to head down to the Burj Arab for some sunset photos. I caught the one below just as the sun was hitting the horizon.

Hit the read more link for some more photos and the rest of part 1…

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So life has been a touch hectic of late. More weddings than I can shake a stick at and then everything else in between. As such Holly and I decided to take a quick break and visit her Grandfather in Gibraltar (Holly’s also been working like crazy on the fourth plinth project in Trafalgar Square…). We also decided to take a quick bus trip to Seville (well OK we thought it was going to be quick, turns out it’s 5hrs and as such I rescind my earlier statement). Anyway, since I’d been doing so much photography recently I decided to limit my picture taking and try to relax. I’ve been meaning to get some new photos of Holly though so this promised to be the perfect opportunity…

Yes I took my D3 into the pool. Shot with the D3, and a 24-70mm lens. Light is from an Elinchrom Quadra back left providing the ‘sunlight’ and an overcast day providing the fill. Oh and yes, the water was *a touch chilly*

Hit the link to see more…

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So after the success of the Uganda film I’ve had loads of requests from people to put up some of the photographs. Here’s just a few to whet your appetite some more

While out for a walk we came across a Primary school, before we knew what was happening we were dragged over to be introduced and watch them dance. They really were amazing kids so full of life an energy. We gave them all we had, one bar of chocolate, 2 granola bars, some maze and a bottle of water. Here’s the teacher giving out pieces of the granola bars.

(Click here to see more…)