A sneaky peek at a wedding I photographed last week in Bohernabreena church and Rathsallagh Country House. The bride and groom are off in Kenya now (lucky things!) but I’m hoping they’ll let me share a few more photos on here when they get back.
This church is on Twitter! Very cool Father Trendy 😉
Have a great time in Kenya you two!
Summertime is nearly over and Eve is starting school next week! Time to get caught up and back into the blogging groove.
Processing can be a bit mind-numbing sometimes but I was smiling the whole time I was working on these. This is the Flynn family of Greystones Happy Pear fame, they’re such a happy, positive, lovely family and they infect everyone around them with the same. Isme, their mum wanted some photos when the whole family was back in town for her birthday so we took these in the garden of the cottage where the twins live.
Mum and Dad joined in too:
I’m back from two weeks camping and slowly getting back into the swing of things. We had a brilliant time and we didn’t want to leave but coming home to a little gift from the eBay fairy made up for it. Just before I left I won this Kodak Duaflex, I’ve been looking for one for awhile so I could try some Through The Viewfinder photography:
Through the Viewfinder photography refers to taking photos through the viewfinder of old cameras using modern digital cameras, this means you can get the effect of the old camera but without having to find the right film or developing it. It’s the best of both worlds. You do have to do a bit of DIY contraption building to block out the light but there are groups on Flickr dedicated to TTV photography and I followed the tutorial here and built my contraption from a cereal box and duct tape:
I only had a little bit of light left for my first experiment but I can’t wait to try it out when I have a bit more time.
A few weeks ago we headed up to County Fermanagh to do a bit of housesitting, except this was no ordinary house. The family that live here built the house themselves and it is completely “Off Grid” so there is no electricity, no gas and no running water. They also have animals: chickens, geese, ducks, goats, dogs, cats and a couple of ponies. So this was a little bit different from how we would normally live but Matt and I jumped at the chance to unplug and get away from it all. I admit I was a little nervous to be responsible for this house and all those animals but it was actually a very laid back easy few days.
Eve loved feeding the chickens and the ducks, she’s always been fascinated with animals so she had no fear at all and jumped right in. Boomie the big Bull Mastiff became her best friend.
The house is so beautiful and cosy, we drew water from the well outside and heated it on a big stove to wash. The loo is a compost toilet outside and it was probably the source of most concern for me when we agreed to go. It was in fact very clean and not in the least bit smelly. Steve Flynn from the Happy Pear was with us too and he laid on the most delicious meals every night, we spent most of the afternoon preparing and cooking our big meal with all natural, fresh ingredients. It was a proper event. Then when the sun went down we’d light candles and read or chat until bedtime.
When the time came to go it was a wrench to leave. For all that I enjoy technology and the internet and everything that comes with the modern world, I’m more than happy to leave it if I can. In fact, tomorrow we’re going camping in Northern Ireland for ten days. I have no idea if I’ll have any access to the internet to update this blog. I can’t wait to just unplug and go sit in a field!
I have a few thoughts I want to share about photographing weddings. I’ve done seven now, with another three to come this summer. I’m happy to do about one a month because they are exhausting on every level. Fun and exciting and a huge buzz, but they drain me of every ounce of creativity, so I like to give myself time in between to recharge. To those who can shoot one a week, I tip my hat.
Take the shot above for example, it was taken at a brilliant wedding I got to shoot in Ballybeg House (fast becoming a favourite venue for me) at the end of May and the ceremony took place outside where the sun was shining down from a deep blue sky. This section of the day is probably the most intense, there are so many shots you have to get and you almost need to be in a few places at once. Either that or have some kind of telepathy to know exactly what’s coming next and so where you need to be to catch the best angle. In this wedding, instead of the traditional walk down the aisle, the bride and her father walked through the old house down a narrow dark hallway and out into the blazing sunshine. As it’s happening here’s a sample of how my mind is whirring:
OK, they’re getting ready to start walking, will I expose for her dress or do I want to try something different? Maybe if her dress was backlit (the light coming through the lace could look beautiful) and if she and her father are silhouetted against the light from the doorway ahead of them, yea I can see it in my head…how do I expose for that!? OK, I need silhouette but not completely blacked out, so underexpose the dress but not too much and click, click, click because they’re walking and the hallway’s not that long and I need to be ready to quickly change exposure when we hit that sunlight, so I’m clicking and crouching and walking and trying not to step on the dress and spinning the shutter and some of it is probably blurry but maybe that’s ok. And we’re out.
All that in a matter of seconds and the whole day is kind of like that.
And I love these two photos, I know the second one’s got movement in it (yea, yea, I mean it’s blurry) but I kind of like that and it’s what I pictured in my head in those seconds beforehand and that makes me feel good. Happy accidents are wonderful but to actually get a shot you pictured…there’s something satisfying about that. But what would have happened if it hadn’t worked? I couldn’t ask them for a redo, not to mention that when we did get out into the sunlight I was still looking, clicking and walking so I tripped on the door jam and only just stopped myself from tumbling all the way down a flight of concrete steps taking the bride and her father out like skittles and landing in a tangled heap at the groom’s feet. Thankfully I somehow managed to stay upright and although my heart was pounding the ceremony was only just beginning so I had to keep shooting. And therein lies the rush and the stress of shooting weddings, they wreak havoc on the faint of heart…and the clumsy.