The Second week in January each year sees the biggest event in the UK and European Professional Photographers’ Calendar – The Societies Annual Convention and Awards at the Novotel Hotel in London.

This is a week-long event, consisting of numerous Business and Photography masterclasses, a very busy trade show, and culminates in the Societies Annual Awards presentation. Keynote speakers at the show this year were the immensely talented Adam Alex and Nick Ghionis of XSight Studios.

My wife Morag and I attended the full week of the show, and I was very honoured to be invited to speak at the event this year on the subject of Marketing a Wedding Photography Business. With it being my first time speaking at the Convention I wasn’t sure how much of a turnout I would have, but fortunately the room was completely packed and it was standing room only – people were even sitting in the aisles to hear my presentation, so I was absolutely delighted.

As usual it was a fantastic social event and we met many friends old and new and it was great to catch up with everyone and compare notes. And Drink. The odd cocktail or three.

During the week one of the big events is the judging of the Annual Print competition – the standard of this competition is extremely high and attracts entries from all round the world. I was therefore delighted to gain three Merit awards and see my images on the exhibition stand at the end of the week. It was the first time I’d entered the print competition, so I was absolutely delighted with the result.

Here are the three images that gained Merit Awards:-

Sunday night was the big Awards presentation and I knew I was in the final selection for “Members Choice General Photographer of the Year” – the previous year I had won the “Members Choice Wedding Photographer of the Year”, so I was delighted to be in the final round again this year – however there were over 50 other photographers in the final round of judging – including my own Daughter Nicola – so competition was fierce. Nicola runs her own family portrait business called Bumps Babies Beyond specialising in photographing New Borns in the first weeks of their life.

So imagine our surprise when it was announced that the voting for the Members Choice General Photographer had resulted in a three way tie, with two of the winners being myself and my daughter Nicola! It was a very proud moment to walk up onstage alongside my Daughter to collect the award. The other recipient of the award was South African Photographer Alec Davies.

Of course, Nicola couldn’t help but try and upstage me by dropping the award to much hilarity – fortunately a moment captured forever on YouTube LOL

Nicola’s winning photograph (shown below) was of little Layla who was just over one week old and had went on quite the journey all the way from the South of England just to have Nicola photograph her after her Mum had seen a Dundee friend’s newborn images.  Nicola said “The pressure was on with this session purely for the fact that mum Hayley and little Layla had travelled so far and of course I wanted to do my very best, so for this image to be the one to receive the award makes it all the more special for me.”

My own photograph was the result of a challenge by another photographer to come up with an image that evoked the work of the great George Hurrell, who photographed the great Hollywood icons of the 1940′s.

Myself and Nicola’s Winning Images in the Members Choice General Photographer of the Year:-

Myself (that’s the handsome Dude on the right) and Nicola (the one that shares her good looks from the handsome Dude on the right) being presented with the award by Ben Jones (not the handsome Dude on the right)

So a great start to 2012 – a year which is looking to be just as busy and exciting as last year.  If we’re photographing  your Wedding this year – we can’t wait to work with you to create some fantastic wedding images.

2011 has been a great year for our Wedding Photography business. Although based near Stirling in Central Scotland, our Wedding Photography has taken us as far South as Southport in England, and all the way up to the North of Scotland near Inverness.

Our Scottish Wedding Photography season, began very early at the end of January for the Wedding of Claire and Scott Oram in Blairgowrie and finished just a couple of weeks ago on the 17th December for the very Winter Wedding of Claire and Adam Sparks’ at Coul House near Strathpeffer.

During this calendar year we have photographed 53 Wonderful Weddings at 42 great wedding venues, including some new venues for is including Wedderburn Castle, Pollok House, the Fairmont at St Andrews, and the stunning Hopetoun House, as well as old favourites like Dalmunzie Castle, Balbirnie House, Airth Castle and Glenbervie House Hotel.

Our particular brand of wedding photography has continued to attract attention winning 4 major National and International Awards this past year. The achievement we were most proud of was not one for our photographs however. It was being nominated as finalists in the Scottish Wedding Industry VOWS Awards – a recognition for outstanding customer service voted on by our own clients. I was also very honoured to achieve an Associateship (ASWPP) accreditation with the Society of Wedding and Portrait Professionals (SWPP) – a standard achieved by only a small percentage of professional photographers.

So from Morag and I, may we wish all of our 2011 Couples a huge thank you for being such wonderful clients and here’s wishing you all a Wonderful Happy New Year – your first together as a happy couple!

May we also wish our past couples, customers, industry partners, colleagues and friends a happy and successful 2012!

Here is a short video showcasing a favourite image from each of our 53 2011 Weddings – we hope you enjoy it. Please let us know if you did by leaving us a little comment below – that would make our day! Thank you.

Happy New Year!

Balbirnie House is one of our favourite Scottish Wedding Venues in the depths of the Fife countryside. It is a fabulous location for romantic Scottish wedding photography offering wonderful opportunities for some stunning photographs.

In the middle of December we found ourselves back for another Scottish Wedding at Balbirnie House to photograph the Wedding of Gemma and Colin Fleming.

Gemma looked absolutely stunning wearing a ivory lace gown that showed off her petite figure to perfection. Her bridesmaid wore a champagne coloured chiffon gown which worked perfectly with the red and gold colour theme for the flowers and chair coverings.

There was wonderful piano music playing throughout the day provided by the fantastic pianist Alex Graham who encouraged guests to ask for requests! He was brilliant.

Tennis fans will no doubt recognise our Groom, Colin Fleming, as he is the Commonwealth Gold medal holder (along with Doubles partner Jocelyn Rae) and ranked number 33 in the World for Doubles. He often partners alongside another of our previous grooms, Jamie Murray.

So with Colin playing tennis at international level and Gemma being a primary school teacher, what better fodder for the wedding speeches!! Colin’s older brother, Michael, (with the aid of a projector) poked loads of fun at Colin recounting many sibling rivalry stories throughout their tennis careers (secretly you could see he is really proud of him). Not to be outdone, Gemma’s Dad, Graham, told many amusing stories about being mistaken for Gemma’s fiancé while picking stuff for their new house (as Colin is frequently away on tour). There was much hilarity when he told us what Gemma’s pupils had to say about her: “she brought in Irn Bru for health food day”. Very funny!

When we left our home near Stirling that morning there was a fair amount of snow underfoot so we dressed appropriately in our good snow boots and heavy coats and looked forward to some snowy white wedding shots! When we got to Balbirnie House there was not a bit of snow to be seen. How daft did I look in my snow boots?! We did capture some stunning cold crisp outdoor shots though as you will see below.

As soon as the room was set up for the evening’s entertainment and the band played their first note, the dance floor was packed and looked liked staying that way for the rest of the night. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable day for all involved….

Weddings at Balbirnie House are always fabulous, but Alan says that “Carlsberg must have organised this wedding though” as it was just so perfect resulting in a huge amount of images that we just have to share with you. So as usual here are out favourite wedding photographs from the day.

Friends and family can view the rest of the wedding photographs in our Client’s gallery.

P.S.

Photographers may like to note that we’ve changed our processing regime and have started using VSCO Film instead of Alien Skin Exposure to emulate our favourite films Kodak Porta and Tri-X – we’re delighted with the results.

P.P.S.

Tennis fans can follow Colin’s tour successes on his website at www.colinflemingtennis.com or follow him on Twitter @colin_fleming

Band Photography or Music Photography is an area of portrait photography that I’ve always thought would be good fun – working alongside another creative where the prime objective is to come up with something cool sounds like a lot of fun.

I had a taste of this genre of portrait photography a few months ago when musician Robbie Leeson contacted me to do one of our Street Fashion Photoshoots in Stirling.  As is obvious from the photographs Robbie is a Saxophonist and he wanted some cool images that would resemble the typical kind of images that you would find on a rock band’s album cover.   I’ve featured some of the photographs from this shoot before on my blog, but I thought it deserved a blog post of its own.

So with the brief in hand I headed off to meet Robbie to do some portrait photography in Stirling. We met at Forthside in Stirling which is one of my favourite shooting locations in Central Scotland for this type of work. Forthside is the new part of Stirling that the local council are developing (very slowly I might add) to extend the City Centre across the rail tracks and closer to the River Forth.

Most of these photographs were taken using off-camera flash triggered by the fabulous RadioPopper system, and we were very lucky to have some fabulous sunlight creating a great “ray” effect under the new Stirling bridge.

As a Scottish Wedding Photographer I’m known for my style of contemporary and “cool” wedding photographs, so it was nice to extend that style out of the wedding photography arena.

Thanks Robbie and the best of success in your music career.

If you are interested in an on-location photoshoot or contemporary fashion portrait shoot, or even a modelling portfolio – give me a call on 01259 210299 or contact me here. We also have a very special offer on at the moment for a Fashion Photoshoot that also makes a fantastic Christmas Gift idea.

Edinburgh Corn Exchange is well known as a popular Venue amongst Wedding Photographers in Edinburgh as they also run a very popular Wedding Fayre.  Back in August I found myself at the Edinburgh wedding venue for the first time and I can see why it is so popular, as it is very contemporary inside with some fabulous lighting.

However, lighting like this can cause problems for photographers as it can fool your camera’s sensor and give very strange results.

In such circumstances wedding photographers have two options – cancel out the ambient lighting buy using flash – thereby providing your own lighting OR capture the ambient lighting, but you then run the risk of colour inconsistencies.

I would personally never use flash in a Wedding Ceremony situation as it is extremely obtrusive, so my choice would always be to capture the ambient light. So how do I ensure I get accurate colour results when you have “mood lighting” that renders a scene almost totally purple?

Fortunately I am always well prepared for such situations as I use the X-Rite Colour Checker Passport system to ensure I can get accurate colour reproduction no matter what the lighting conditions. The camera captures an image of the colour checker passport and when back at base I run the image through some software to calibrate the camera to those exact lighting conditions – it works extremely well and has saved me from hours of trying to correct colour correction due to a strange lighting mix at a venue.

Today’s event at Edinburgh Corn Exchange was the Wedding of Lynsey and John Deans – we started at Lynsey’s parents house on the outskirts of Edinburgh, before heading into the City Centre. Edinburgh Corn Exchange lends itself to some very contemporary wedding photography and Lynsey and John were great to work with, so I had great fun exploring the back alleys behind the venue looking for a different take on a Wedding Photography image – Lynsey and John “dared to be different” and as a result ended up with some stunning wedding photographs that made it into our Weddings with WOW showreel and have also been featured in some of our advertising.

Thank you Lynsey and John for being such a fabulous couple to work with on your Wedding Day. Here are some of my favourite Wedding Photography images from the day:-

Another of our favourite Scottish Wedding Venues this year has got to be Lochgreen House Hotel in Troon. It’s a joy to photograph Weddings at Lochgreen House Hotel as it’s an absolutely gorgeous hotel with some lovely gardens for capturing some really wonderful wedding photographs.

We found ourselves back in Troon for another Wedding at Lochgreen House in mid-September for the Wedding of Jacqueline and David Hay. This wedding proved to be doubly exciting as the bride and groom also asked if we could take a few Wedding Photographs on the beach! Now when we think of Wedding Photography in Scotland, we think mountains, glens, castles and bonnie purple heather. (That’s the plant not the Bride!). Not many Wedding Photographers in Scotland get a chance to take wedding photographs on a beach in Scotland, so we jumped at the opportunity! The wedding party donned their wellies and off we went down to Troon Beach. It was a very grey day, with a wee bit of a cold breeze off the sea but thankfully no rain.

The fun started earlier in the day with Jacqui and her bridesmaids in their Lochgreen Hotel room getting ready, where we can safely say the bride was man-handled into her beautiful lace up dress (Jacqui will know exactly what we mean!). Everyone was perspiring profusely getting the pesky laces to stay straight and make sure it was tight enough, including the two make up artists and the photographer (Morag not Alan)!

It was a very informal Humanist Wedding Ceremony where the cheeky chap Steven Bunch (Bunchie) was mentioned a few times as he was responsible for firing the cupid’s arrow which first brought Jacqueline and David together 6 years ago.

Jacqui and David asked us to bring along a “photo booth” for later in the evening and I’m delighted to say that everyone had loads of fun striking all sorts of poses and pulling some weird faces!

Oh and one last thing…. I’ll never forget the 15 EXTREMELY LOUD confetti bombs that went off AFTER the group photograph in the gardens. The Bride and Groom got such a fright they nearly landed in Prestwick and Alan nearly got blown off the roof but managed to stagger back in time to get a couple of shots.

What a fantastic wedding!

As usual here are our favourite photographs from Jacqui and David’s Wedding at LochGreen House Hotel:-

In mid October, we had a gorgeous, but cold weekend for Wedding Photography in Scotland and found ourselves in St Andrews for a Wedding at the spectacular Fairmont Hotel, St Andrews Bay.  Strictly speaking though, it wasn’t a full wedding, it was only half of it.  It was in fact our first Asian Wedding and we were to photograph the “Walima” Celebration for Saeed and Laraeb.  The “Wallima” is the second of the two traditional parts of an Islamic Wedding is the groom’s family’s reception for their guests and friend to meet the bride’s family and their son’s new wife.

Being our first Asian Wedding, we had a lot to learn and Saeed and his cousin Shabaz were very helpful in educating me in what needs to be photographed and when.  Shahbaz is a fabulous photographer in his own right, so I was very honoured to hear that he had recommended me to the couple. The actual wedding ceremony was held a week before, but what happens at a Walima is not dissimilar to what happens immediately after a European Wedding ceremony.  Basically we have the opportunity to photograph the couple first before all their guests arrive, then we photograph the family groups and then photograph the banquet itself and receiving of gifts, before finally finishing off with some fabulous dancing.

This was also our first Wedding at the Fairmont Hotel in St Andrews, so it was great to have an opportunity to photograph there with less of the time pressures of a European Wedding.  We had over two hours with Saeed and Laraeb before their guests arrived (and there were a lot – over 350 guests by my headcount) – so it was great to be able to do the Couples portraits in such a relaxed manner.

Laraeb looked stunning on her beautiful gowns and Morag was particularly envious of her eye make-up.

Here are some of our own favourite photographs from the day:-

Thank you to Saeed and Laraeb (and Shahbaz) for trusting us to photograph your Wedding Celebration – it was great fun, and great to work with such a nice couple.

Over the Summer and Autumn months we’ve been very busy with our Fashion Photoshoot Experience sessions that we launched back in May with a special promotion we ran alongside Groupon. This was a bit of a marketing trial for us, but it has been very successful, so we are going to continue the Fashion Portrait shoots as a key part of our business alongside our very successful Wedding Photography services. With Christmas now only a month away we believe they make a fabulous Christmas Gift Idea for your significant other, a loved one, or a special treat for a teenager.

We photograph all of our fashion shoots on location in and around the Stirling area. We believe they offer something very different from a typical family portrait shoot and our aim is to create fashion inspired images that you would associate with a magazine style shoot.

The fashion portrait shoots also give us the opportunity to experiment with new lighting setups which often then find themselves feeding over into our Wedding Photography – once of the key reasons why we believe our wedding photography looks just a little bit different and sets our work apart.

Here are a few images from a recent Fashion Photoshoot we did with Francesca – wouldn’t this make a great Christmas Gift Idea for one of your loved ones?:-

And just to prove it’s not just for Girls! – Here’s a shoot we did for Robbie who wanted to incorporate his hobby into the shoot – wouldn’t this make a great Christmas Gift Idea for a budding musician?

With Christmas fast approaching we believe our Fashion Portrait Experience will make a fabulous Christmas Gift for a  loved one.

Our Fashion Portrait Experience normally costs £195 but for a limited time only, we are offering Gift Vouchers for a Fashion Photoshoot Experience for just £59 – a fantastic 70% saving off our normal price.

This includes a one hour shoot and a stunning 8″ x 10″ framed image of your favourite photograph from the shoot PLUS a Facebook-sized digital copy of share with friends and family.

To Purchase A Gift Voucher for a Fashion Photoshoot Experience – Click Here

With Hopetoun House being such a gorgeous location there were lots of opportunities for fantastic photographs. From the historical ‘red room’, to the old stairwell with the murals on the walls under the glass atrium, to the magnificent stairs at the front, to the wonderful tree lined avenue with leaves in every autumn shade imaginable and to the fabulous lake and fountain at the rear of the house complete with two swans! Weddings at Hopetoun House are an absolute paradise for any Scottish Wedding Photographer.

For their Wedding at Hopetoun House, Zoe and Duncan chose autumnal colours for their colour scheme, giving the wedding a real Halloween feel. Perfect for the date they chose for their wedding. They even had all of their parents growing gourds and pumpkins for the table decorations! Planet Flowers  did them really proud with some of the most beautiful floral decorations we’ve ever seen.

Once again we were blessed with dry weather while everyone arrived and afterwards for the photos. We literally just stepped inside for the reception when the heavens opened!

Thank you Zoe and Duncan for allowing us to be part of your special day at Hopetoun House.

Friends and Family can of course view the full wedding gallery in our Clients Area of the website, but in the meantime, here are some of our favourite wedding photographs from the day:-

It is definitely one of our favourites and it was great to be back at Dalmunzie for the Wedding of Kate and Tyron.  Once again at Dalmunzie we were lucky enough to have a dry day – this meant that the romantic wedding ceremony and champagne reception could take place on the front lawn.

The bride chose a dusky pink figure hugging satin wedding dress and veil, with a vintage rose bouquet for herself and black figure hugging satin dresses for the two bridesmaids, who were also her Sisters. The style suited them beautifully as the Sisters were all blessed with the same fabulously slim genes! The groomsmen also wore matching vintage roses as their buttonholes.

The Groom, Tyron is South African and many of his friends and relatives travelled to Scotland for the wedding and with his Master of Ceremonies from Australia it made for some interesting and hilarious conversations throughout the day.

The food, as always at Dalmunzie, was absolutely amazing with Wild Mushroom Risotto, Venison, and Wild Berry desserts included in the wedding breakfast menu. Alan was even served up his own little slice of chocolate cake with a candle to mark his birthday courtesy of the Dalmunzie staff!

The evening entertainment began with the Dave Mackay Band  who we’ve heard before and they are brilliant. The dancing was in full swing by the time we left and everyone was having an absolute ball.

Once again a fantastic wedding again hosted by the wonderful Dalmunzie team.

Here are some of our favourite wedding photographs from the day – as usual the full wedding gallery can be found in the Clients area of our website.

We call it “Weddings with WOW” and we’re really quite pleased with it – we hope you’ll agree.

Debbie and Derek’s Speckamp’s Wedding Ceremony was held in the magnificent Holy Rude Church in Stirling, founded in 1129 by David I and where King James VI was crowned as a child! 

Debbie and Derek’s Wedding Day started for us at Debbie’s parents house in Maddiston, Falkirk with Debbie and her bridesmaids. Debbie and her Mum were some of the most efficient wedding organisers we’ve ever seen. Every individual item of each person’s wedding attire was hung on a clothes rack in the spare room, including their under garments (even her Dad, Steven’s!), whilst the dresses were hung on picture hooks on the walls. We were reliably informed everything had been laid out like that for over six weeks. Fabulous.

Then it was off to the Holy Rude Church to meet Derek to grab some photographs of the guys.  Shortly afterwards Debbie and her entourage arrived in brilliant sunshine and strolled down the very long aisle of the splendid historic church for the wedding ceremony.

After the ceremony, we all then moved over to another historic location, Cowane’s Hospital bowling green, for some family group photos and then back into the Church for some Bridal portraits. With the bride in a gorgeous cream lace wedding dress with long veil and the bridesmaids’ coral Grecian style dresses, we were sure to capture some fantastic wedding photographs.

The wedding breakfast and celebrations were in the local Golden Lion Hotel in King Street Stirling, yet another local historic landmark.

Later that evening we were able to get some fun shots in the middle of the historic main thoroughfare of Stirling.

A beautiful wedding day with some lovely people.

Here are a few of Alan’s favourite wedding photographs from the day.

This wedding day started with bridal preparations at the bride’s parents’ house in Camelon, Falkirk. With a bride, three bridesmaids (including a set of twins), two flowergirls, two Mums and a Dad, there was plenty of excitement in the house. At one point most of us were in one bedroom with the bride sprawled on the bed in all her finery to get her into her shoes. Great pictures.

Debbie had chosen a fantastic T-length dress for herself with loads of lace and diamante detail topped off with a cute little birdcage veil. Deep purple was the chosen colour for the bridesmaids’ Grecian style dresses and white for the smaller ones. The flowers were amazing too picking up the colours in the dresses to perfection.

Then it was off to The Vu at Bathgate for the Ceremony and Reception. We had heard a lot from our fellow Scottish Wedding Photographers about the stunning location of The Vu and I have to say we were not disappointed. The ceremony was held in the ‘Water Lily’ building then it was across to the restaurant for the wedding breakfast and dancing. There is loads of space outside and a beautiful lake complete with a little jetty for some lovely wedding photographs of the happy couple and their family and friends.

Time for photography was a little limited due to the precision timings that The Vu operate but Debbie and Gary were happy to come out to play for a wee while after dinner to get more gorgeous shots around the lake.

Once again Alan has selected some of his favourite shots from the day – friends and family can view the full gallery here.

Lennoxlove House is steeped in history – built in the 14th century and renovated several times over the last few centuries.  Indeed, Lennoxlove House must be famous throughout Europe as the German X Factor TV production team recently chose it for  the contestants’ “boot camp” in June!

However, before we got there, Catriona asked us to meet her at her parents house to take some bridal portraits in their extensive gardens. It had been raining heavily in the days leading up to the wedding but that did not faze Catriona – off she marched in her wellies to the bottom of the garden in all her wedding finery!  As you can see from the wedding photographs below, the bride and the gardens were beautiful with loads of bluebells still in bloom and loads of cosy wee nooks and crannies for plenty of photo opportunities.  It was still a little slippery under foot as Alan can confirm having fallen on his behind at the same location for the pre-wedding shoot a few weeks earlier!

Catriona and Steven put a huge amount of thought into their wedding with many unusual additions to the normal everyday Scottish wedding:  an owl delivered their rings to the alter in the middle of the ceremony; a fantastic old biplane carried out an aerobatic display; they had a really funky wedding cake and table decorations; they even had surprise singing waiters (more later).  The whole setting and the hospitality offered by the Lennoxlove staff was second to none.

As is typical with the Scottish weather, we weren’t sure if the rain would hold off to allow the Wedding Ceremony to take place in the gardens – right up until the last minute the staff were prepared for every eventuality. Luckily enough Catriona and Steven got their wish to have the Wedding Ceremony outside in the beautiful Lennoxlove House gardens.

The entertainment was also a little different! I’ve never seen a more fierce “address to the Haggis!” and there were three operatic Tenors, who had cunningly been disguised as waiters, who burst into song when coffee was served. What a really funny moment. The guests’ faces were a picture. The magnificent gourmet dinner was followed by a Ceilidh and a Disco where dancing went on into the early hours.

What a great privilege to be involved in a truly magical wedding in terrific surroundings with some really lovely people.

Aine’s wedding dress was beautiful and a little bit different, with the cross over straps on the bodice and the fishtail skirt. The bridesmaid’s golden Grecian-style dress was also quite unique.

During the speeches, the father of the bride and the best man seemed to be competing for the title of who caught the biggest fish (see the photos below)!

After the ceremony, the guests were treated to strawberry daiquiris on the patio. A lovely day was had by all.

Here are a few of our favourite wedding photographs from the day:-

Hidden on the outskirts of Oban, Barcaldine House offers wonderful opportunities for some great wedding photographs in amongst the gardens of the House – it also benefits from having some of the finest scenery in Scotland on its doorstep.

We visited Barcaldine in June for the Wedding of Kevin and Grace Webb.  Grace is a local lass, so she was able to quickly direct us to some of the finest locations for Wedding Photographs I’ve ever seen.  After a lovely ceremony which included Grace trying to put Kevin’s Wedding ring on the wrong hand – tee hee (see the photographic evidence below) – we took a short 2 minute journey north took us to the shores of Loch Creran – a local beauty spot and a big personal favourite of Kevin and Grace.

As Scottish Wedding Photographers we are spoiled for choice when selecting locations for wedding photographs – but I think the shores of Loch Creran are hard to beat. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Drumtochty Castle is one of Scotland’s finest wedding venues and is a fabulous setting for a wedding tucked away in a remote part of Aberdeenshire countryside. Drumtochty truly typifies the idea of a “Scottish Castle Wedding” and it’s no surprise that the 19th Century Castle attracts couples from all over the world.  We were very honoured therefore to be selected as the Wedding Photographers to photograph Sharon and James’ big day.

As Wedding Photographers in Scotland we are very lucky to be graced with so many fabulous wedding venues – however Drumtochty Castle must surely rank as one of the finest wedding venues we’ve worked in and is a joy to photograph.

Although Sharon is originally from the Aberdeen area, she now lives in London with James so many of their guests travelled from South of the border to enjoy a traditional Highland Scottish Wedding.  Luckily, Drumtochty Castle has fantastic flexible accommodation for a number of wedding guests ranging from the usual hotel rooms to apartments and cottages which have been converted from the original castle and stables.

Weddings at Drumtochty Castle are always fabulous affairs and Sharon and James’s Wedding didn’t disappoint.  Sharon chose a Vintage theme for her wedding with wonderful little touches.  The happy couple managed to source a fantastic old Canon Super 8 Cine camera to film some of the highlights of the day (this made Alan so jealous as he wanted that particular model when he was a teenager – many moons ago!). The Bride and Groom had also sourced some old Beatles 45′s to play on an old vinyl record player at the ceremony.

I LOVED the delicate pastel shades of blues, creams and pinks in the Bride’s bouquets which perfectly picked up the beautiful vintage shade of blue in the bridesmaids’ dresses. Sharon looked stunning in a cream lace dress with a long train and veil and she’d sewn her Grandma’s key charms onto a lace band around her bouquet. Very touching.

The three beautiful Bridesmaids, in their gorgeous blue dresses, were equally matched by the Groomsmen who looked thoroughly dashing in their kilts, and I think the English ones wearing them for the first time enjoyed the experience!

Weather in the Scottish Highlands is never predictable, and we did have the occasional shower – however we did manage to hold some of the main photography session outside before moving inside to capture the warmth and ambience of the castle.  Sharon and James made our job as wedding photographers very easy, as you will see from the images below.

Thank you Sharon and James for allowing us to be part of your special day.

Alan has selected some of his favourite images from the wedding below, and you can also view a short video slideshow of the happy couple’s wedding photographs.

If you enjoyed the photographs above, the please take a few minutes to view and edited slideshow of the couple’s wedding photographs.  Then we’d love to hear your comments and feedback, so please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Harburn House is one of the most sought after wedding venues in Scotland, we think largely due to the relaxed, informal but classic atmosphere that host Vera manages to create on the day of the wedding.

Regular visitors to our blog may remember that we last visited Harburn House for the wedding of Jacqui and Chris Bassett – that wedding made the feature pages of  ”Best Scottish Weddings Magazine“, so we were looking forward to working there again.

Kathrin and Mark chose a vintage theme for their wedding.   Unfortunately the Scottish weather gave us some challenges but luckily the rain cleared up shortly after the wedding ceremony at Haymains. Kathrin’s beautiful vintage dress, funky boots, ostrich feather jacket and beautiful hair accessory did not get wet and we were able to take some fabulous photographs in the lovely grounds of the Harburn House estate.

The unseasonal sunshine of early April followed by a quick cold snap meant that many spring flowers were not at their best, but we were still able to photograph the couple amongst the last of the spring daffodils in a more sheltered part of the grounds.

They were a fabulously fun couple to work with and were up for anything – even injecting their own ideas – we certainly won’t forget their “Blue Steel” and “Magnum” pose.

Kathrin is German and Mark plays in a band so their table names were a mix of their favourite German and British bands and in keeping with the vintage theme of the day they were able to source old picture postcards of the bands to use with the table names.  Of course they couldn’t help but place some of their coolest mates at the “JLS” table – tee hee.

The wedding guests were a fabulous bunch, and, when you notice that one of the guests is named on the table plan as simply, “The Shadow”, you know this is not going to be your average wedding party.

Mark and Kathrin’s guests knew really how to enjoy themselves and gave the Harburn House marquee a good shakedown, culminating in musician Mark picking up a guitar and joining in with the band for a few numbers.

All in all….. a wonderful day!  Here are some of our favourite images from the day.  You can also view a slideshow of the wedding day – this is set to music, so if you are viewing this at work, remember to turn the speakers down ;-)

So if you liked the above images and would like to see more of the day – here’s a full slideshow for your enjoyment – please remember to leave some comments as our couple love to read your feedback on their wedding day. (Remember the video will have sound – you may want to turn your volume down if you are at work!).

So it was with great delight that our Bride, Claire woke up on the morning of the 22nd of April to be faced with a beautiful sunny day at her parent’s home in Carluke with temperatures pushing 18 degrees – positively “roasting” for us Scots.  So by the time I left the house I was down to the shirt sleeves and looking forward to a gorgeous sunny day ahead.

Little was I to know that 40 miles away at Hopetoun House on the banks of the River Forth, it was a very different weather situation altogether. The unseasonal warm weather in some parts of the country was leading to fog elsewhere, and the east side of country was struggling to get above 5 or 6 degrees – positively “freezing”.  The suit jacket was quickly put back on!

Fortunately, Claire and Andy’s Reception venue was back across country again, at another fabulous wedding venue – Glenbervie House Hotel near Falkirk – and we were soon back in the sun again and despite the curious diversity in weather conditions that day, a great time was had by all.

A big shout out and thanks to Matty Cain of Photographic Dreams in Fife for assisting in the second photographer duties that day.

Once again I present my favourite images from the day:-

Friends and family can view the full Wedding Photography gallery and order any prints required on our Clients page.

Claire and Robert got married in St Fillan’s Church in Doune before heading back to the Roman Camp for their Wedding Reception and evening Ceilidh.

Weddings at the Roman Camp always have a cosy feel to them as the hotel has a very warm and inviting interior.   However for this early April wedding the weather decided to give us our Summer a little early and we were presented with a gloriously sunny day and everyone was out on the front lawn – a rare thing in Scotland indeed!

This was our fifth wedding of the year and signalled the real start of the wedding season for us with weddings every week right through until November when we have a three week holiday before a couple of Christmas weddings.

Here are my own personal favourite wedding photographs plus a slideshow of the highlights of the day:

From the bridal preparation photographs in the morning through to the first dance photos in the evening, our happy couple were clearly having a ball – Natalie had a beaming smile on her face all day long.  Like most typical Groom’s, Raymond showed a hint of nervousness, particularly when the the bride was a little bit late due to road closures – only 30 minutes late though, but we won’t tell anyone ;-)

It was a fabulous day with lots of great photographs – here are my own personal favourites from the day.

Friends and family can view the complete collection in our Clients Gallery.

We now have very limited availability for 2011 weddings, so if you have still to book a photographer for your 2011 wedding, please get in touch soon. 2012 Wedding dates are also filling up quickly and we have also started taking bookings for prime dates in 2013.

This wedding was a photographer’s dream: a huge cathedral (St Mary’s Cathedral in Aberdeen City Centre), a stunning bride in a fabulous wedding dress, a vintage Rolls Royce, and a stunning venue with the most fabulous staircase you can imagine.

St Mary’s Cathedral presented a bit of a challenge as the front of the building was engulfed with scaffolding for some repair work, and, as is typical in a lot of churches these days, the interior lighting was a mix of tungsten, and different types of fluorescent creating it own very “special mix” of colour temperature.

On to Norwood Hall and we completed the family group shots and did a quick couples session outside with Tereza and Barry and then agreed to do some more interior shots after dinner.  The interior photo session was my favourite part of the day, as the interior architecture of Norwood Hall is superb.   All the interior shots were either lit with available light on f/1.4 lenses or a Lowell ID Video light and the stairway shots (one of which was shown in our recent feature in Pro Photo Magazine) were all taken with my Nikon 12-24mm f/2.8 lens which is a dream to use.   Sadly I’ve been dreaming about it ever since as the £1300 lens took a tumble out of my bag just after these shots were taken and bounced all the way down the stairs, damaging it beyond repair LOL.

Which neatly takes us to an interesting point about that stairwell – our bride Tereza told me the story of how the hotel is meant to be haunted by a former owner’s wife who hung herself on that same stairwell.  Well as it transpired when I originally showed one of the stairwell images on my Facebook page, a number of people were convinced they could see a ghostly figure on the stairs – Tereza said there was a figure hanging over the balcony at the very top left of the image (and no one was there at the time) and local photographer Chris Crawford was convinced there was a figure at the top of the stairs on the left. What do you think? Can you see a ghost in the image? Did the Ghost knock the lens out of my bag? Wooohoooohoooo (I should really have blogged this one last Halloween LOL)

Anyway here are my favourite images from the day – the “ghost” image is the second last one:

Like what you see and looking to book a wedding photographer? (We’ll do our best to keep any ghosts out of your images, but can’t guarantee it LOL). Use our contact form above and we can check our availability and chat about your requirements in a little more detail – Our wedding photography collections range from from £995 to £2495 depending on the level of coverage and the type of wedding album you are looking for. Small mid-week wedding packages are also available from £695.  All of our collections include digital versions of all of the images purchased. You can view our wedding photography portfolio here.

Lastly, you may have noticed we now run Fashion Photography Photoshoot’s and Model Portfolio Experience Days – these make a fabulous “Girls Day Out” for you and your bridesmaids prior to your wedding day, or even after the big day as a thank you treat.   We can tailor a special half day or full day shoot and provide a hair and make up artist for a fantastic “feel good and look good” day – give us a shout if this sounds of interest and we can put together a special pampering day for you and your mates. More information can be found here.

2011 is proving to be even busier with 47 weddings booked so far, taking us all over Scotland again as well as South of the Border into England and also Overseas.

Before things get too crazy, I’d like to feature some weddings from last year that I haven’t had a chance to blog yet.  So, let’s jump back to a wedding from last September – This was the wedding of Jacqueline and Tam Cassidy (no strangers to the blog) and took place at Bridge of Allan Church and then on to Dunblane Hydro for the Wedding Reception.

It was a fabulous wedding – Tam dispensed with his usual hair and makeup (he plays in an Abba tribute band) and transformed himself into a very dapper gentleman for the day – he did however suffer quite a roasting from his best man during the speeches.  Jacqueline in the meantime looked stunning, as did her three bridesmaids (Jacqueline and Tam’s daughters) and the two flowergirls.

Here are some of my favourite images from the day.

We now only have very limited availability for this year, so if you have yet to book your wedding photographer, please act fast – 2012 is also now filling up very quickly.  If you would like to discuss your wedding photography requirements you can contact us here or telephone 01259 210299. You can also view our portfolio here.

Shooting Wedding Photography in Scotland is always done with one eye on the weather, but on a fashion shoot like this it’s even more critical as you don’t have the luxury of a wedding venue on hand to provide any shelter in the event of a quick shower. Fortunately the weather behaved itself and we had a great day.

We spent some time in one of may favourite “urban” locations in Stirling, before heading out to a more rural location which was an old favourite of mine when I shot a lot of landscape photography, a location that features lots of abandoned buildings and beautiful old textures. Fantastic!

I also had an opportunity to compare my Pocket Wizard radio flash triggers directly with the competing Radio Poppers brand that John uses, and I think it’s fair to say that the Radio Poppers won hands down giving consistent results shot after shot, whereas the Pocket Wizards still seem to have some teething issues to be flushed out.

It was a great day’s shooting and I think I came away with some images to be proud of and hopefully worthy of enhancing Rebecca’s model portfolio.  What do you think?

At the event we were given a challenge by Roger Griffiths to come up with an image that would emulate the look and feel of the great Hollywood photographer George Hurrell - Hurrell photographed many of the iconic images that came out of 30′s and 40′s Hollywood and his work was stunning – he used a particular lighting technique mostly using “hot” studio lights and spotlights.

I’d first been introduced to Hurrell’s work when I attended a lighting seminar run by the great Trevor and Faye Yerbury. Trevor demonstrated how he could emulate the Hurrell look by using a Fresnel adapter in front of a Bowens studio light – he then simply used the modelling light in the Bowens (and a bit of that “Yerbury magic sprinkle dust”) to come up with a stunning image. I was knocked out by what Trevor and Faye achieved that day and promised myself that I would try out some Hurrell lighting at some point.

So, when Roger came up with the challenge – and it was backed up by a prize of a Joe McNally book and a framed print of the winning image from Colorworld – I was definitely going to give this a go.

So below you can see my favourite image from that day’s shooting session.

This image was shot on a Nikon D700 using 2 Lowell iD Video lights. The key thing for me in George Hurrell’s images was the heavy contrast in lighting, so we worked in a darkened room and had the key light on full power and zoomed right in (the Lowell has a small fresnel type lens) – the second Lowell was used to light the background and provide a little separation between the model and the background. Exposure was manual and spot metered on the model’s nose.

The file was processed using my normal Black and White processing method which emulates film as much as possible and I then added a little softening to the image to give that Hollywood “glow”.

I think it worked really well.

What do you think? – Greta Garbo eat your heart out?

Fortunately our judges also liked it and this image was picked out as the winner from the day.

Hopefully you agree this is a fabulous look to try to achieve and something I will be adding to our fashion inspired portrait sessions. If this is something that might interest you we currently have a special offer on our Fashion Portrait sessions - give us a call on 01259 210299 for details or use our contact form to get in touch.

Jacquie is an old neighbour of mine, so it was good to see some well known faces in the wedding party.  Her brother Gavin played the guitar for the happy couple coming down the aisle – Gavin and I used to compete with each other as to who could play our electric guitars loudest (answer = me! ), much to the bane of all our neighbours when we were young – it was good to see that he can still play guitar as well as he used to, unlike me LOL

Jacquie’s daughter Fiona was bridesmaid and another well known face as she had modelled for a Bridal Fashion photoshoot for us last year at Gean House.

Our dashing Groom David had two stunning models in his sights that day – one his new wife and two the stunning Maserati car which the couple had hired for the day and which David couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of. I’m sure I heard the words “Boys and their toys” on more than a few occasions that day.

Weddings at Glenbervie House are always fabulous, but  thanks to their meticulous planning, I think Jacquie and David managed to pull off something quite special indeed.

As usual here are some of my favourite images from the day, with the full set available in the Clients Gallery for friends and family to access.

You can access our wedding portfolio here and if you like what you see and would like to discuss us potentially photographing your wedding day please give us a call on 01259 210299 or contact us here. We’d love to hear from you.

Having emerged for the arctic temperatures of December and early January it was nice to be faced with a pleasant sunny day for the last weekend of January, although it was still very cold.

Claire and Scott were no strangers to us as I’d done a pre-wedding shoot for a them a few weeks before their wedding, so they very quickly relaxed in front of the camera and were able to forget we were there apart from the occasional direction we’ll give.

This wedding will go down in history for the longest speeches ever – one hour and 40 minutes – well done Scott LOL – they even had to have a comfort break half way through the speeches! Fortunately Scott, his new father in law and his Best Man were all very entertaining and the speeches were hilarious.

Here are a small selection of my favourite images with more available on the clients gallery for friends and family to access.

If you are planning a wedding in 2011 or 2012 and have yet to book your photographer, please don’t wait too long to speak to them - sadly we’re now getting a lot of enquiries for dates we are already booked for, so to avoid disappointment, always speak to your chosen photographer as soon as you can. If you like what we do, please give us a call on 01259 210299 or use the contact form above.

Kaylea Adam and Simon Owen chose to host their Wedding at Stonefield Castle near Tarbert, a fabulous Winter Wedding Venue and a place that had a special place in Kaylea’s heart and one that Simon fell in love with the first time he saw it.

For the Wedding Ceremony they chose to head further down the Kintyre peninsula to the delightful Auchleit Parish Church near Mausdale, which sits right on the Beach overlooking the beautiful Isle of Gigha.

Of course we will all remember that the early part of December was very wintry indeed with atrocious driving conditions all over Scotland – fortunately by the time Kaylea and Simon’s wedding day arrived the worst had passed and road conditions were relatively good.

From my own point of view, this was our first wedding after spending a month in Florida in our “Winter Studio“, so it was cold. Very cold!   That however didn’t stop Kaylea and Simon having a blast – ignoring the biting cold arctic winds as they headed down to the Beach for some photographs.

The wedding day was topped of by a stunning firework display courtesy of the fabulous staff at Stonefield Castle.

Thank you to Kaylea and Simon who very kindly provided accommodation for us in the hotel the whole weekend, which made it a very pleasant Winter Wedding indeed.

Once again I present some of my favourite wedding photographs from the day – the full set can of course be found in our Clients Gallery.

In an effort to put more of our work on YouTube,  you can also view a slideshow of the Wedding Photographs as well – but be aware that this has music, so if you are at work – turn the speakers down!.

Looking for a Wedding Photographer in Scotland

If you are getting married in the not too distant future please take time to review our iPad and iPhone friendly portfolio and and if you would like to discuss us photographing your own wedding day, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you. We can photograph weddings throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom and as we enjoy travel so much we are also happy to discuss weddings much further afield.

Well I’ll let you, the reader, be  the judge of that one as I present the wedding photographs from what was our wettest wedding ever – The Wedding of Maria Carrigan and Ewen Christie which was held at Glasgow University Chapel and then on to the stunning wedding venue of Mar Hall in Erskine on the banks for the River Clyde.

Weddings at Glasgow University are always a bit special – the University Chapel is an absolute delight and of course you have the nearby University Cloisters which are fabulous to photograph and make the perfect haven on a rainy Scottish Wedding day.

Of course this was not to be just any rainy day – this was the 6th of November last year and we were experiencing monsoon level rain conditions and by 2:30pm any afternoon light had been absorbed by the heavy storm clouds above us.  It was almost pitch dark.  Fortunately we have great equipment, we have great lighting and we were very lucky to have a wonderfully game couple who snubbed their noses at the rain and enjoyed their special day.

So here we present our wettest wedding ever and a wedding that has netted us no less than 2 Gold Awards, 1 Silver, and also won us the SWPP Members Choice Wedding Photographer of the Year – not bad for a rainy day!

So the next time you hear a future bride fretting about rain spoiling her wedding pictures, tell her to have a little look at these and hopefully it might help put her mind at rest.  Better still if she hasn’t yet booked a wedding photographer, ask her to get in touch.

Thanks again Maria and Ewen for a truly wonderful day and as a thank you for helping us win the Wedding Photographer of the Year award, a large print of the winning image is on its way to you.

You can view our Wedding Portfolio here and please get in touch soon if you are planning a wedding – 2011 dates are now limited and 2012 is already over 25% full.

The show runs over 8 days and is a fantastic event with fabulous training opportunities. Over 14,000 photographers visited the show this year which was held at the Novotel Hotel in Hammersmith, London.

Due to a rather busy photography schedule I was only able to attend the show from the Wednesday through to the Saturday, but I managed to squeeze a ton of learning into those 4 days.

The culmination of the week is the Annual SWPP Awards Dinner held on the Sunday evening and hosted by TV personality Phillipa Forrester – sadly due to photography commitments I couldn’t attend this year – I did have some entries in the Final, but having viewed the stiff competition I thought I had zero chance of winning.

So imagine my surprise when I received a text message on Sunday night from one of my colleagues at the dinner letting me know that I had won an award! I was gobsmacked to say the least.

The award was “Members Choice Wedding Photographer of the Year” – this is a competition that runs throughout the year on the SWPP Members discussion forum. Each Week we are asked to put forward an image against a particular wedding theme and the membership then votes for the winning image each week. The winning images are then put forward for a final vote and the winner gets the title of Members Choice Wedding Photographer of the Year.

The SWPP is the fastest growing association for professional photographers and has 1000′s of members worldwide, so it is a fabulous honour to be given an award that was voted on by my fellow members and peers.

The winning image had just got into the final on the last week of the competition when members are asked to submit their “best” image of the year – that was an honour in itself to win that week, but to win the overall competition was totally unexpected.

So thanks to my fellow members and a HUGE thank you to our Wedding couple, Maria and Ewen Christie who were very patient with myself and Morag when we created this image on a very rainy and dark day in November under the Glasgow University Cloisters. Although I was the photographer, this image is all about the lighting and pose, so full credit has to go to Morag who setup the lighting and to Maria and Ewen who needed just a tiny bit of direction from us to pull this off.

From a technical standpoint the image was taken under very challenging conditions – it was indeed very very dark (it was raining at monsoon levels) and we had to expose at 1/30s f/2.8 and using ISO 6400. It is a testament to the power of the Nikon D700 cameras that I use that I was able to get this image at all. The lighting was from what little ambient daylight there was, and a single Lowell ID Video light, held expertly by Morag who was tucked in behind the left-hand pillar. The video light presents a warm tungsten colour balance and when we adjust this back on the computer we have to cool the light a bit to get correct skin tones – this then has the wonderful side-effect of cooling the ambient daylight colour and you then get that beautiful blue colour that you can see in the image. 6400 iso is a very high gain level to set your camera to, and for an image like this we would normally hope to be at just 200 iso – a higher iso level can cause a lot of digital noise in an image, however the Nikon handles it very well and what noise remains present can be further cleaned up during processing by the very powerful Lightroom 3 software that we use.

So, SWPP Members Choice Wedding Photographer of the Year 2010 – a culmination of a fantastic year! A big thank you from myself and Morag to all our 2010 couples for helping us make our job so much fun!