Vanessa and Jason
Vanessa was my type of girl, completely hyper! She’s already planning to wear trainers on her wedding day so she can get around for the morning portraits without fussing about her dress. My ideal bride! Jason is her compliment with his grounded strength…but he succumbs well to her playful teasing! With all that energy, Vanessa and Jason were a great couple to photograph…
Petra and Tom
Petra and Tom got married at Petra’s family home way up north of Glasgow. Her family were so hospitable and I loved staying in their amazing house/castle by the loch. I arrived the night before for the family dinner and a hilarious game of ‘who’s in the hat’. I even got to share a bed with the bride for a her last night as a singleton for late night gossip…don’t worry, don’t get that cosy with all my brides, Petra and me used to share a house!
Kiley and Jamie’s wedding
Back on home turf at Hampton Manor, we had a blazing hot day in the sun. Kiley and Jamie were so chilled (apart from the cravate tying, Jamie!) so were a pleasure to photograph. We had a lovely time in the lazy afternoon sunshine playing with their son Riley, who stole the show!
Tom and Lottie
These guys are old friends, having witnessed their romance blossom, so I knew I could have a play with them and they would let me have a go with my zany ideas. So after having caused a spectacle by lugging bits of truly retro granny furniture into a field and a bit of big flash, we had our own desperate housewives wedded bliss! Hopefully this won’t be what life is like to come cos Tom tells me that Lottie has finally learnt how to cook! Although I suspect he is still master in the kitchen, I seem to remember I had trouble getting Lottie to stir something efficiently once at a dinner party..! (No worries, Lottie, theres no cooking for the famous lemon cheesecake)
And of course, we had some romantic ones as well…
Emma and Adrian Engagement shoot
Emma and Adrian came for their engagement shoot at Hampton Manor. I’m so looking forward to their wedding as they are really into reportage style photography and are having a lovely informal wedding in their back garden. They’re going to start their day having breakfast together and everyone is getting ready on different floors of their victorian tower house – I think I’m going to be in for a documentary treat. It was the first day of Spring for our shoot so countryside and daffodils were very much in order. I just loved Emma’s peak cap! A very English affair….
On holiday in Kenya
My exhausted husband needed a well earned break so we skipped off on a last minute package deal to Kenya which was amazingly cheap! James is just about managing to tame me to a lazy holiday, I barely disturbed at all with my childish requests of ‘lets do something!’ We’ve already travelled around this area so there was no pressure to see everything, just a nice windy route around the beaches and lots of good reading and eating icecream. As we’re always doing ‘research’ for our hotel design, we stayed in a few unique places. I highly recommend Che Shale in Malindi, Kilili Baharini in Malindi and the lovely Serena hotel in Shanzu which we think is one of the best hotels on the Kenyan coast.
This is Che Shale – the only place we found with no other hotel on the beach! Its all very ecofriendly, everything is made with natural resources and at the moment the owner is having a go at building his own wind turbine tower.
Marafa Depression
Next, onto Mida Creek, another beautifully deserted place…
Hannah Atkins
A few months ago, we had the pleasure of hosting Damien Lovegrove and Chris Hanley to run one of their famous workshops at Hampton Manor, where I work from. They have been promoting radio controlled communication between flashes, using the new Pocket Wizard system. Having limited my use of off camera flash at weddings because of the poor infrared communication, this bit of kit has solved all the problems, freeing me up to a whole new genre of photography.
You may well know the beautiful Hannah as she is one of recording artists on my main website. As a performer, she made the perfect model. We had such fun despite photographing at zero degrees in the snow! But perfect for her christmas album next year – we’re planning well ahead. You can buy her album on www.hannahatkins.com.
For the photographers, I’ve mentioned how I lit each one. This is the first time using this gear so hopefully things will only get better!
Lit with lowel at 45 degrees in front and a speedlight 45 degrees behind
Single off camera flash
Flash directly behind Hannah and flash gun on floor in front of her bouncing off ceiling
Lowel light
Lit by one flash to side and one flash behind
Backlight by natural daylight
Direct sunlight onto Hannah’s face, backlit at 45 degrees by speedlight
Lit by natural dappled sunlight through the trees and a speedlight off to the right, zoomed into 105mm to create the accent light.
Anne Sophie and Hakon’s Wedding Weekend
This is going to be a big post! Partly because there were too many fantastic images to choose from and partly because the happy couple are now travelling around Asia for the next 3 months and thats a long time to wait to see your wedding pictures!
Anne Sophie and Hakon are from Norway and flew their guests over for a wonderful treat, a wedding weekend at the luxury spa hotel, Chewton Glen. The weekend kicked off with afternoon tea on the croquet lawn terrace with their own brewed beer, courtesy of Anne Sophie’s dad. A dress change to cocktail attire and the evening was whiled away with opera singing waiters and candelit hogroast dinner.
No lazing around on the wedding morning! Guests enjoyed a spa, archery, cycling or clay pigeon shooting.
Princess Anne Sophie, as her au pair calls her, looked the part in her Caroline Castigliano dress. But she’s not all dainty, she introduced a new tradition to Chewton Glen with a welly throwing competition as part of the celebrations. On the more traditional side, the mothers planned a surprise for the couple – 2 doves to release. The 2 mysteriously became 3 after one circle of flight – maybe a sign of things to come…! Fireworks were a grand finale and the dancers were rewarded with fish and chips, bacon butties and hot dogs at midnight.
These first images are spot the clay piegon/football!
The Norwegian tradition – when the groom goes out the room, all the men have to cue up to kiss the bride!
Sharon and Will’s Wedding
Sharon and Will were blessed with a beautiful summers day. They had their wedding at Quendon Park, overlooking the deer park. Will’s family are from Nigeria so they introduced everyone to the Nigerian tradition of breaking the kola nut before the wedding breakfast. The evening entertainment was fantastic…see below!
Anne Sophie and Hakon Pre wedding shoot
Anne Sophie and Hakon are a lovely Norwegian couple getting married in 2 weeks at Chewton Glen. I had great fun with them today in the sunshine. Anne Sophie had a terrific 50s style dress which I got her twirling in. Hakon helped her choregraph her moves… standing behind me and making up ridiculous poses for her to copy!
The Belfields
Andy and Ruth, these guys’ parents, had the idea of giving each of their kids props according to their personalities. Ben’s prop was easy – hes heading towards becoming a pro golfer. Esther is a beautician and loves her OK magazine and the youngest, Amy, is the drama queen of the bunch, always centre of attention. They were great fun as they played up to their own stereotypes with good humour. Ben made a rather fetching make up artist as he attempted to brush Esther orange as she played the celeb’it’ girl (we confiscated the powder before it was too late)
Sara and Pete
Sara and Pete will be having a true city wedding so we got out in the country for a different look to their engagement photos…
Stephanie and John
We had our first wedding at Hampton Manor a few weeks back. It was really special because it was one of my husband’s bestfriends getting married. Over a year ago, John told his girlfriend Stephanie that he wanted to show her around his friends new project. Hampton Manor was still a shell at the time except for one small oak panelled room which had escaped the chaos. John covered it with candles and flowers and he and my husband slaved over a hot stove (lasagne, they didn’t get too inventive!) to prepare a candlelit dinner for John and Steph. My husband James was the waiter! They had a lovely evening and he proposed to her there. It was touching for them to have such a precious moment there at the beginning of our journey and complete it by being the first couple to get married at Hampton Manor. Of course, I was there to record all the action on the big day….
A look back, introducing Hampton Manor
Its been an exciting month for my husband and I…. Having spent a full 18 months renovating a 19th century manor house, my husband has just launched a new boutique hotel, Hampton Manor. 12 individually designed rooms, contemporary and elegant. Stone arches, oak panelling, Michelin rated chef, www.hamptonmanor.eu, check it out! And 45 acres of mature parkland for me to do my engagement shoots in, how convenient! My husband, James, has been managing the project and I’ve been doing the interior design. Having lived through the dust and sleeping in bare rooms, its so satisfying to see it all finished and almost complete (6 more rooms to open yet!). We’ve just been hanging some large photos of how the manor looked during the refurb so I thought I’d show you how it used to look. When I’ve finished the photos of them all nice and new, I’ll post them and do some more shameless advertising!
