Gean House is located on the Eastern fringe of Alloa off the B9096 Tullibody to Alloa road.   The stunning mansion house was constructed in 1912 as a wedding gift for his son by a member of the famous Patons family, owners of many of the local woollen mills in the area at that time.

The Gean simply oozes with character with its huge fireplaces, warm wooden panelling and its distinctive Edwardian architecture.

The Wedding Fayre kicks off at 11am and runs on until 4pm. There is a bridal fashion show at 1:30pm and last year it was standing room only – so please arrive early to make sure you get a good seat.  Entry to the Wedding Fayre is free of charge.

Come visit our stand and you could win a lovely bottle of champagne and you may also leave with a nice little gift.

We will also be launching our exciting new album range so please be sure to stop by our stand and say hello.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

In the meantime I will leave you with this photograph I took at Gean House just this past weekend, featuring the lovely Fiona Bruce wearing a Watters gown supplied by Ivory Whites in Perth and jewellery by Gioia Mia.

For me this image captures The Gean’s warmth and character – I hope you agree.

P.S. Okay, you may not know here Gean House is?  Here’s a Google maps link to Gean House.

P.P.S.  Like the above photograph and want to see more – please view our portfolio

1. Take the creative mind of a certain Mr John Denton (photographer extraordinaire)
2. Roll one wooden floor to an even thickness
3. Add one attractive model (thank you Ms Ashleigh Hewitt)
4. Garnish with some recycled Christmas Fairy Lights
5. Lastly sprinkle some digital processing to taste

This is a quick shot I took at John Denton’s mini Lighting Workshop that I organised at Stirling Camera Club on Wednesday night.

John very kindly drove all the way up from Yorkshire to present a mini workshop on lighting techniques to the members of the club.  John presented an extremely enjoyable evening and it was a real pleasure to meet him.

Coincidentally this shot reminds me that I don’t have any time to lie down at the moment as it’s all go.  I’m currently finishing off Joyce and Doug’s photographs from their recent wedding at Broomhall Castle in Menstrie. On Saturday Morag and I head off along the River Forth to Orocco Pier in South Queensferry for Nicola and Paul’s wedding.

On Sunday we have three client meetings and then a visit to the stunning Balbirnie House in Markinch to chat through final arrangements for an upcoming Civil Partnership.

Next weekend we will be at Gean House in Alloa working with a local model on a bridal photoshoot. We’ll be experimenting with some new lighting equipment recommended by Gordon MacGowan during his SWPP Convention Masterclass.

Then its back to editing and preparing some new sample albums just in time for an upcoming Wedding Fayre also at Gean House on the 21st of March.  Oh, and a little trip up to the Winter Gardens and Palm Court Hotel in Aberdeen on the 20th for Sharleene and Barry’s wedding.

Keep an eye open for some sneak peak images from Nicola and Paul’s wedding early next week.

Like what you see? Want to see more? Please take a minute to view our portfolio.

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The convention is a mix of trade show and educational seminars and we had a very busy weekend trying to absorb as much information as possible.

Morag focused on the product side of things whilst I tried to rub shoulders with some of the best photographers in the business and glean as much information from them as I could.  Morag picked up on a number of potential new products for us and we’ll be investigating these further in the next few months.

I attended a number of seminars and the stand-outs for me were the seminar with Gordon MacGowan and the practical workshop I did with Trevor and Faye Yerbury. Together they represent the very cream of Scottish (and UK) Wedding Photography so it was a great opportunity for me to learn from the masters.

Gordon’s seminar focused on the fine details to look for when posing couples for their bridal portraits – as I’m primarily a photojournalist I was interested in gaining any tips I could to improve the more artistic side of my photography. Gordon is very down to earth and even describes himself as the “Gordon Ramsay of Wedding Photography”, so it was a very entertaining seminar.

Sunday morning I spent in the company of the very charismatic Trevor and Faye Yerbury – the Yerbury’s are almost a Scottish institution, with the family photography business dating back to the 1800′s.  You might think that a company with such a history may be steeped in the more traditional side of photography, well how wrong you would be – Trevor and Faye’s work is at the very cutting edge and they provide great inspiration.

The workshop I attended was entitled “Shoot in the City” and focused on the scenario of working with a couple to take their bridal portraits in a strange city with little preparation – Trevor focused on how to rapidly seek out interesting backgrounds and how to quickly interact with the couple to get some real passion in the images. Trevor and Faye’s photographs are simply works of art, so it was a real joy to get some insight into how they work.

The shot on the right is from that workshop and features the delightful models Nicola Johnston and Steven Duffy. As well as being models, they are both trained actors, so they very quickly adopted their roles as the “newly-wed couple”.  Trevor and Faye directed the models and setup the shot for us, so I take no credit for how stunning this shot turned out – but I have learned how to look for similar setups in the future – so watch out for the occasional bit of “artistic” rather than “photojournalistic” work from me in the future.

The SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait Professionals) runs a national competion each month over a range of different categories.  The Gold Award winning images will go forward to the SWPP’s Annual competition to be held at their Convention in London during January.

I was particularly delighted to note that one of the Gold’s was in the category for Wedding Photojournalism which is my chosen discipline of wedding photography.

According to the SWPP’s judging criteria, images awarded Gold are deemed to be “images of the highest standard”.  The images are also showcased in the Society’s monthly magazine, Professional Imagemaker.

The Wedding Photojournalism image was from Dean and Nina’s recent wedding and is entitled “Three Layers of Love”.

The other winning Gold image was for some personal work of mine and this was in the Travel Category.

Both images are particular favourites of mine so it was great to see that the judges agreed.

I also won a further two silver awards in the portrait categories and another silver for my landscape work.

So all in all a nice way to start the weekend!

The unhappy couple, Marc and Sylvia Day, took photographer Gareth Bowers to court for £1450 in compensation for breach of contract.   The photographer, has quite rightly since been removed as a member of the SWPP.

It would appear Bowers offered a combined photography and video package and the video clip that the couple produced in evidence to the court was like something out of Fawlty Towers.

The example photographs were truly dreadful and it was clearly an open and shut case.

If any couple needed a reminder on the importance of selecting the right photographer this was it – the couple’s wedding day was ruined.

To help avoid situations like this, we recently produced a list of questions to ask any prospective photographer – this recent case highlights the reasons why you need to properly interview your photographer before engaging them to photograph the most important day of your life.

Meet the photographer face to face.

Check out their images in detail.

Ask to see the photographs from a complete wedding, not just their “selected” portfolio.

Don’t let this happen to you!