AKA: Our engagement weekend.

As Danni was still in China for Valentines, I’d arranged for a weekend away for us as a belated Valentines day present.  This year it was two nights in Thornbury Castle’s Plantagenet room.

It was a stunning room filled with old wood, castle brick walls and large, warm tapestries that covered entire walls.  There was champagne on ice waiting for our arrival as well as some cozy sherry just waiting for a couple to relax by the fire with.

We had an amazing time in the hotel and the food was stunning, but the main reason I’d dragged Danni out to the Cotswolds was to pop the question.  I’d been wracking my brain for several weeks to determine the ‘how’ of it all, and the only thing I could decide with any certainty was that I wanted a photo of the moment.  Running with that idea, I took Danni out into the courtyard of the castle at dusk under the guise of wanting to do a few couples shots in the fading light with the castle walls in the background.

After a few shaky setup shots and a couple of just a few more adjustments, I set the timer, sprinted back into place and said ‘for this shot, we’ll need this’.  With a subtle flourish I was down on one knee, the ring held aloft for her to see through shocked and watery eyes while I asked her to marry me just as the camera triggered, capturing the moment forever.

At least, in my head this was how it worked.  The reality of it all was that I was so nervous and the box was large enough to get stuck in my coat pocket that I was a few seconds off beat and this was as close as it came.

If you look closely, there surprise is there on Danni’s face and I’m obviously about to get on one knee (that or I’m doing the worlds first run-by proposal).  It’s not what I had in mind, but photography is a game of chance at the best of times and we’re both pretty happy with the way this shot turned out.

Also, she said yes!

There are a few more photos from our weekend away in the gallery.

So I got a text from Neal this past Wednesday asking if I was up for heading back down to the Banksy Tunnel for a car/promo shoot with some friends of his.  The plan as I understood it was to photograph a couple of cars along with a few models and just have a bit of fun with it.

Given I’m less than 2 months into my 365 project and already running out of ideas I jumped at the chance.  It’s been a while since I’ve worked with models and I’ve never shot cars properly before so it sounds like a fun evening.

While I won’t say it wasn’t fun, it was quite a bit more work than I’d anticipated.  I was expecting 1 or 2 models and 2 or 3 cars, but we ended up with 5 girls and 10-12 cars of which we probably only 6 or 7.  Neal and I managed an almost assembly line style production of taking around 20 shots of each car with and without the girls, but there was little time to get the lighting down.  I used some ‘safe’ settings and we fired away but looking back I’m wishing for a hair light in a few of them.  Live and learn I guess.

Overall it was a good night.  Met some friendly people and walked away with some fun photos for the day, which is always better than yet another shot of my cat.

Thanks again to the folks at South East Customz for providing the cars and the promo girls, as well as helping to organize the shoot itself.  I don’t think we would have managed the number of shots we did without those guys lining up the cars so we could do one after another without much hassle.

There are a few more shots in the gallery.

I think I’m going to have to create an album just for shots of London, as my new project has me out quite often shooting scenes within the city. This past Saturday had me out with Lord Crawley again shooting the oft-photographed south bank including Westminster, the eye and even the Banksy Tunnel.

I’ve shot the tunnel in the past, but this time I dragged along some lighting kit to do a portrait shot or two.  Lee was kind enough to be my model for the evening, which made things much easier!

We also managed to spin a couple of orbs on the south bank, much to the surprise of the passersby out for a quiet stroll.  At one point I was worried about collecting tips as a street performer while I stood on a raised dais whirling my LED’s around.  Still, I think it was worth it and I wouldn’t have said no to a few quids worth of coins.

Sunday was spent with my friend Su Kim doing some portrait head shots for her London relocations website.  It was fun to do something in a psudo-professional capacity and getting a free, yummy lunch out of the deal just made my day!  We’re still in the selection process, but there should be one or two processed photos online shortly.  If not here than at the very least on my 365 site as I didn’t take any other photos that day.

A few more shots from the weekend are available in the gallery.

It’s that time of the year again and I’ve just realized I never got around to making a Christmas post last year.  I may have to add that in retroactively once I’m finished with this one.

Having gone home and experienced Canadian winters last year, I was more than happy to stay in London where the thermometer rarely dips below 0°C.  Also, it was to be my first official Christmas with Danni so taking off and leaving her on her own didn’t seem like the thing to do for the festive season.

We spent Christmas eve together eating way too much and watching several Christmas movies (you can’t go wrong with Elf).  Sleep came easily after a few pints, a trick I’m willing to bet my mom would have paid good money to learn when I was an over-excitable child waiting for Santa.  There’s probably something to be said about giving children beer, but I’m sure there’s a balance to be struck there.

Danni was up shortly before 6am Christmas morning, but I made her sleep for another hour and she was content to open her stocking (sound familiar mom?) while I collapsed back into a coma.

After the gifts were opened (the winning gift being my new kindle!) it was time to get our Christmas dinner rolling.  We’d done a bit of prep work the day before but I’d never made a turkey myself so it was all a bit overwhelming.  Undaunted, and with the support of a few trips to youtube, some emails and phone calls home I was on my way.

Nothing says Christmas like a bacon wrapped turkey!  While it was in the oven doing it’s thing, we took the time to set up a mini photography studio in the living room to do some holiday portraits.  I love playing with the lights, but Danni tends to get impatient so it was just a simple 2 light setup on either side of the camera.  Large shoot through on camera right as the main light, small silver bounced umbrella on the far left.

After the portraits, I spent an hour or so getting the side dishes ready and did quite well getting everything out in time.  We used the fancy upstairs dinning table for the first time since moving into this flat (as well as the dumbwaiter, which every flat should have) and it all turned out really nicely.

There are quite a few more photos in the gallery.

I thought I’d also make a quick mention of the project I’m going to attempt in 2011.  A photo a day for the entire year.  I’ve set up a separate website specifically for this endeavor, but the photos will be posted in the usual gallery and can also be accessed here.  I’ll likely post a monthly round-up at the end of each month with my favourite images from the previous few weeks here, just as a little reminder more than anything.

Wish me luck!

Going to a wedding as a guest who owns a fancy camera is always a bit of a dilemma.  They’re such great occasions and always hold some amazing photo opportunities, but there’s certainly something to be said for just relaxing, enjoying yourself and letting the hired pro’s do their thing while you enjoy yet another glass of champagne.

I’d spoken to my friend Robert about the whole thing and had firmly decided that since this was a wedding between two good friends of mine and that I was likely to know a lot of people there (and thus have less need to slink away from awkward conversations to take photos) that I would leave my camera behind and just have fun.

Then, on the eve of the wedding day at about 11:00pm I received a cute little text from the bride requesting that I “bring my fancy camera along tomorrow”.  I’ve never attempted it, but I suspect not giving a bride exactly what she wants on her wedding day would be bad for your health so I wasn’t about to start now.  The camera bag was packed and ready to go.

I’ll be honest when I say that wedding photographers scare me a little bit.  They have the ability to deal with large crowds of (often drunken) strangers without batting an eye.  They’ve also been known to be less than friendly to guests who turn up at the wedding with fancy SLR cameras and get in their way.

Fortunately, I was told by the bride that the hired photographers were only staying for the ceremonies and would be gone by the reception/dinner which made it easy to stay out of everyone’s way and to get some shots that wouldn’t overlap with what the pros were doing.

In the end I got some photos that I’m happy with, hopefully ones that Kate & Adam can enjoy, and I managed to drink more than my limit of delicious bubbly.  Wins all around I think!

Also, if I didn’t have my camera with me that night I never would have been able to take this couple’s photo.  He had a tonne of character, and quite possibly the greatest eyebrows ever.

As always, there are a few more photos in the gallery.