Two weeks ago I got to cover a wedding at a great local venue, Himley Hall. It’s a great, imposing venue surrounded by park land to the west of Dudley. I have covered weddings there before but not since it has been renovated. If you’re considering a wedding venue in this area it’s well worth a look.
I was the photographer for Rachel and Andrew; I had shot the wedding of Rachel’s best friend last year (images here) and after they saw our slideshow that we display on a large projector in the evening, Rachel cancelled the photographer she had already booked in favour of us, a compliment indeed! Its always great working from a referral as it reflects not only that my past clients were more than happy with their photographs but also how we conduct ourselves on the day. This was actually the third wedding from this friend group and we have another already booked for next year!
As with a lot of weddings in the UK, the threat of rain was never far away but the few spots that we did have timed themselves very nicely and never caused a problem; in fact they seemed to make the entire group enjoy the sunny spells even more. I would also like to mention the church where the ceremony was conducted, I had never been inside the church at Burntwood before but both the layout, lighting and indeed the Vicar were a joy to work with. It seems almost unusual these days to be given a free rein as far as photographs inside the church are concerned but its always a nice surprise. I can see why some Vicars are restrictive with photographs as the few who take advantage spoil it for the rest of us but I don’t think it would hurt to at least ask us what we would like to do and then make a judgment from there. Even with free rein we want to be as unnoticed as possible so we always use long lenses and never use flash, this way we do not draw attention to ourselves and let the ceremony progress naturally.
The images I have chosen for the blog are more stylised than normal, mainly due the the standout image taken at dusk outside of Himley Hall with our remote flash system. This is a technique we have been working on a lot this year and I think the results speak for themselves.
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