Wedding Photography Workshop

Yesterday I ran a workshop for other photographers helping them to learn how to control and co-ordinate weddings so that couples can have the best possible images from their wedding day without too much impact on them or their guests. The workshop was a huge success, everyone enjoyed themselves and took something useful away with them. For more information on future photography workshops take a look at our training blog - www.dovecotetraining.blogspot.com

Here are a few of my images from the part of the day where I took the participants out and about to show them how to create amazing images in a short period of time.

BIPP / MPA North West Awards 2009

Every year the BIPP and the MPA (2 professional bodies for photographers) in the North West hold a highly competitive awards. This year there were more than 600 entries in total, and so I was really pleased to discover that out of a really strong field I have won 3 awards. The awards are Silver in Fashion, Gold in Fashion and Gold in Studio Portraiture. With the awards comes the title North West Fashion Photographer of the Year 2009 and North West Studio Portrait Photographer of the Year 2009.

These are the winning images:
Silver, Fashion
Gold, Fashion
Gold, Studio Portraiture
I also won Merit awards in Fashion, Studio Portrait and Environmental Portrait. This fabulous recognition from the judges comes on top of last year's Gold Award for Environmental Portrait Photographer of the year along with 7 merits.

A family portrait session at Knowsley

I love doing family portraits outdoors - and I have the perfect location for it too! It was great working with Denis and Mary and their two grown up children. And with us having a pretty good spring, we were able to get outside without feeling the cold too much. In fact, I think we've had colder days in the middle of summer!

Knowsley Hall Wedding Shoot

I don't normally upload so many images from one shoot, but I am seriously pleased with these images! So I guess I couldn't stop! Oh, well, I hope you enjoy looking through them as much as I have enjoyed working on them, from the pre-visualising stage, through taking them to processing them.

These photographs are all from a commercial shoot for Knowsley Hall last week - I worked with the Hall to create images that complement the location, whilst also showing how it can be used for wedding photography. We were really fortunate to be loaned some amazing props - the suits for Greg, our 'groom' were from Hugo Boss in the Met Quarter in Liverpool, the dresses were from Charlotte Balbier and The Liverpool Bridal House, and the amazing jewellery was from Boodles. You can't see them in any of these images, but we were also provided with a gorgeous bouquet from Earth Flowers in Heswall, and 2 cakes from Daisy Hill Cakes in Thornton Hough. A huge thanks goes out to all involved for their generosity.

And then there were the wonderful models, Greg Osborne, Amy Finnimore and Amanda Hamilton, who worked really hard on the 14 or 15 hours shoot, with their make-up done by Sian-Louise Auld and hair by Becci from Shush Hair Company in Southport.

Updating and Photography Training in Liverpool

OK, I know I said I would get back into updating the blog, but so much has been happening that I have just been too busy! I will endeavour to get some of my work from the last few months uploaded over Easter.

Some exciting stuff has been going on including photography training at our new base near Liverpool, and workshops have been filling up in April, May and June this year - follow this link to our Dovecote Training blog to read more about what's going on.