Chris and Laura got married at the end of May at Lane End Conference centre, near Stokenchurch. I’d met them about 6 months previously at the venue to discuss their requirements and see the site. Their intention was to get married outside (well in a gazebo, since the law in the UK requires weddings to take place in a structure) with the indoor venue being available as a backup plan in the event of poor weather.

Meeting the photographer before a wedding is important to ensure that you like your photographer, and for the photographer to be sure he likes you. Chris and Laura are friends of my sister-in-law, and as she observed in a mildly drunk state at the wedding, “nobody can not like Laura, she’s lovely”. Chris and Laura are both exceptionally friendly and easy going, so it was a pleasure to do their photography.

They had hired an awesome vehicle for Laura’s wedding transport to the wedding – one of the oldest, if not the oldest, VW camper van in the UK. It made my MGB that I was travelling look quite modern. The chauffer and I shared one concern – the heavy rain. For me, it meant limited visibility while driving as my windscreen wipers are rubbish. For him, it meant polishing the white exterior every time he stopped.

Did I mention the outdoor wedding plan? With about an hour to go to the wedding, the sun started breaking through and Chris and Laura (by phone) made the brave decision to go ahead with the outdoor plan, knowing that once the wedding started their was no relocating for them (although their guests would have been free to run away to shelter.) The decision paid off, and it was glorious weather. Perhaps a bit too nice really. Every photographer would prefer an overcast day – it makes for better portraits as their are less strong shadows.

Talking of portaits, Chris and Laura had a very relaxed time table to their wedding day. This meant that there was space, on their request, for us to wander a bit away from the guests to do some more interesting portraits of them as a couple. I’m not one to impose in this way, so make it clear to the couple that if that is what they want then they need to request it. Consequently, it doesn’t normally find its way into the day. As a photographer, it was fantastic to have this opportunity to spend some time getting the couple some lovely portraits, and I hope for them it was a chance to have a break from the hubub of the day. I have seen at wedding the photographer drag the couple away for such shots. As this was after the ceremony, Laura was also more relaxed about her dress, which opened up the opportunity for some fun shots.

Chris and Laura’s wedding was my first wedding working with a second photographer. I always offer a second photographer services, as it has a number of benefits; Their is someone to cover the groom getting ready while I photograph the bride’s preparations, I don’t need to rush to the venue much ahead of the bride to get shot of the groom waiting, someone can focus on mother’s reactions during the wedding without the main action being missed etc. I’ve not had anyone decide that these benefits are worth the extra I would have to charge for the service, but it’s there as a possibility.

On this occasion, Chris and Laura had a friend, Marisa, who was a keen photographer and had asked to be involved. After a few initial emails to estabilish the ground rules to the working relationship, I was happy that we could work together. If I was being paid for the second photographer, I would use an assistant who I had worked with previously, but on this occasion Marisa was unpaid and doing the photography as their friend. This meant I wasn’t in a position to fully trust her with the important shots, but at the same time it was nice to have someone to work with to improve the level of photographic coverage.

On of Marisa's

What I learnt from the experience is that it is very useful having a second photographer. Marisa got some great shots that I would have been able to do while I focused on my main photographic duties. Its very hard to credit her individually for her shots, but many have been included in the final selection. Most importantly, I’ve learnt that synchronising camera clocks prior to the event would make editing after the event a lot less painful!

Emma and Dave got married at the beginning of June at St Micheal’s and All Angels, Hughenden valley. Their wedding was pretty special to me as their wedding also took place at the church where I got married, and the reception venue was the same too. Emma and Dave are also lovely people and it was great to be a part of their day regardless of venue.

Hughenden church is on the more restrictive end of the scale when it comes to photos, but they do allow the photographer a little time with the bride and groom while the congregation wait outside., and means the bride and groom can leave the church to a warm welcome. We did a few formal photos outside of the church, but Emma and Dave rather wisely limited the number their guests would have to endure.

After the service it was a short drive to Notley Tythe Barn, near Long Crendon. The old barn is a lovely venue. After the formal photos are over, I try to be reasonably discrete for the rest of the day. Emma and Dave milled around with their guests while canapés were served, and I tried my best not to play with the croquet set that had been brought along to amuse the guests.

At the line up I endeavour to get shots of everyone, but that leaves me editing a whole bunch of fairly uninspiring shots that all look the same (with a variation is people). Not the most beautiful photography, but I hope that the bride and groom like it. Then to dinner. And speeches. Notley Tythe Barn left me with little flexibility for positioning myself for the speeches, but I managed to get some nice shots. Particularly, my sister-in-law with her head in her hands as the father-of-the-bride recalled her and the bride running away from school when they were 7.

I don’t drag the bride and groom away from their guests after for a more private photo shoot, unless they have  specifically requested I do so. I don’t want to make their wedding day about my photography, it’s about their wedding and them spending time with their guests. However, at Emma and Dave’s wedding one of their friends was keen do so for some of his photos, so I took the opportunity to join him. Shortly after that was the cake cutting and first dance, and then home time for me.

Did I mention the horses? No, I thought not. Well, Notley is also a bit of a farm, and and outdoor activity centre. They have horses. In my experience women generally like horses. Regularly guests would wander off and find some of the horses to talk to. Even the bride and groom went to say hello.

Looking at the photo above, you can probably figure out from the snow that I did Clare and Paul’s engagement shoot back in February. We went to Wroxton Abbey, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, which is now an overseas campus for some US university/college, but the grounds are open to the public. That is where Clare and Paul got engaged originally, so it seemed an appropriate place to do the photo shoot. The purpose of the engagement photo shoot, other than creating beautiful pictures, is so that couples can assess whether they get on with me as a photographer prior to booking their wedding photography. Worth doing if you are thinking of booking your wedding photography in the near future. I offer this service at very low cost, and you get a refund on the shoot cost if you subsequently book your wedding with me.

Although Clare and Paul loved the photos and booked me for their wedding photography, they have no postponed/cancelled their wedding due to costs/recession etc But looking on the bright side, it now means I get to spend my wedding anniversary with my wife, so that will keep her happy.

Brit and Chris got married at St Aloysius church in Oxford. This church has one of the most beautiful interiors in Oxford, and a Priest who was reasonably relaxed about photography during the service. The ceremony was followed by a reception at Somerville college. While the college isn’t completely unattractive, they did have a few achitectural disasters there in the 60′s which crept into the background of a few of the candid photos. The wedding breakfast itself was in the college hall, while the disco afterwards was in a marquee within the college groups.

The interior of St Aloysius

The day went very smoothly, and on time. Brit had everything planned amazingly well and is one of the most relax, yet organised, brides whose wedding I’ve had the privilege of photographing. At this wedding I also had the privilege of accompanying the mother-of-the-bride in the Rolls-Royce from where the Brit was getting ready (The Randolph Hotel, Oxford) to the church, not something the photographer would normally expect. The speeches were very entertaining, particularly the beginnings of a Manga comic about the groom that the best-man had commissioned. The remainder of the comic was going to be completed based on tales collated from the guests. A very novel and fun wedding gift.

I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m spying on you! Well, sort of, in a very anonymous kind of way. It’s helpful for me to know what visitors are looking for when they come to my website, and how many visitors I’m getting. That kind of thing. So to help with that, I use Google Analytics. That tells me most of the things I’d want to know about visitors to this website.

The number of visitor is always  quite interesting. Peaks in the visitor rate, as shown above, can normally be correlated to events or Oxford college balls that I have photographed, and are people who have coming looking for their ball photos. These peaks often start building during the ball – people expect me to work fast to get the photos online!

The more amusing details that Google Analytics tells me are search terms used to find my website. As expected there are are lot of “acooldryplace” and variations on that them. My favourite of those was “the pretty cool place photography” – obviously I don’t come across as very cool. My site is also popular for those searching for “trash the dress” photography, “ball photography oxford” and even engagement and wedding photography in Oxford, but the rarer hits are the more interesting  – “screen printing wedding stationary”, “bean time lapse” & “tutors at Oxilp” have all been used and followed to my website. I know why I have come up for all of them, but I can’t imagine I rank that highly in any search engine for those terms.

If you’re looking for screen printing wedding stationery or bean time lapse I can help. I have no idea of the tutors at Oxilp, but I hope to see you at one of their balls.

I briefly thought about adding “storing your memories” as a tag line to the header until I realise quite how cheesy it was.  And it might, or might not, give you a clue to my on going competition to win a free portrait shoot by guessing “why aCoolDryPlace?” This article isn’t going to help in the slightest on that front.

If you book me as your wedding photographer, you will want to know that when you get home from honeymoon I will still have all your wedding photos. Keeping your photos safe is important. In this post I thought I would share what I do to keep both my professional and my personal photos safe, and offer you some advice of fairly inexpensive back up solutions for use at home. I am going to assume digital photos are the order of the day, since most photography, both amateur and professional/wedding has gone that way. Film is an altogether different monster.

Warning: This article is very geeky. Please don’t take apart your computer unless you know what you are doing! Contact me if you are desperate for a little help. Contact a professional support service if you are in need of a LOT of help!

Harddrives fail!

I know from personal experience that harddrives fail. Assuming anything else is to take a risk. Copying to CD/DVD is often thought of as a straightforward approach, but you’ll quickly end up with a lot of Cd/DVDs and be unable to find anything. CD/DVDs also fail given time, not that I’ve experienced that yet. The simplest back up solution is to get a second harddrive, whether internal to the computer, or an external USB harddrive.The problem with this approach is remembering to copy everything onto the second harddrive, and keeping it consistent with the main harddrive. Backup software can help with that, but a hardware solution should be more reliable. RAID (Redundant array of inexpensive disks), more specifically RAID 1, enables you to set up two physical drives as if they are a single harddrive in the computer. The hardware (hardware raid is a better bet than software raid) automatically copies everything to both disks. If one disk fails, it can be replaced and all the data on the surviving on copied across to restore the redundacy. Some computers’ motherboard‘s have that feature built in, or you can get a PCI RAID card to do the job. I used an internal RAID solution for quite some time until I needed to upgrade harddrives and ran out of space in my machine. I’m now using a network RAID box so that multiple computers can access the photos in my home network.

Houses burn down!

Having a backup readily available at home is great, but what if my house burns down or some not so friendly individual steals my computer when I’m away? It is important to also have a backup offsite. For some people paying a service like Flickr to store their important photos should be sufficient. Personally I don’t have the broadband bandwidth to upload so much data, and I have opted to have a removeable harddrive rack in my computer. From time to time I can bring the harddrive from its secret storage location, backup everything, and return it to that location (your parents house is always a good place to store stuff!). Backups aren’t as frequent, but most of my data will be safe in the event of a disaster at home. There are network solutions available which enable you to host a box offsite to upload data too, but you’d need a very good internet link.

Having the original and two backups is a fairly standard approach to managing this risk. More backups would be safer, but less manageable, and it is very unlikely that both my home and offsite backups will fail at the same time.

On the job backup

For added peace of mind, I also have a photo drive to allow me to back up my memory cards while out on the job. This means that I have at least one backup of any really important photos (like wedding photos) prior to getting home.

Recommendations for the non-professional

For the non-professional photographer I would still recommend the double backup solution for keeping your memories safe. And the backups should be stored at different locations. The links above are to example products and not ones I have tried or necessarily recommend. I’m not going to make a precise recommendation because the best solution for you will very much depend on your technical skill, number of photos, and financial situation. As an initial solution you probably can’t go too far wrong with keeping a backup on Flickr. They don’t guarantee your data’s safety (other online services will), but I don’t think they’ll loose it in a hurry, and you can share your photos with the world (if you want to they can also be kept private). And when you sign up you might get 3 months free which you can give as a gift, to a friend, or to me perhaps!

My friend, Kate, has just put details of her wedding video on her blog. Whilst I’ve never worked with the chap, Kate would highly recommend him and I trust her judgement. I’ve also seen the video, which was made using Super 8, and it is very cool. So if you are getting married in Oxford, you may wish to take a look at her wedding video and contact her for more details if you are interest.