Another Year Comes to an end!

Well, that's it for another year. It's been a great year again, and I have so many great memories from it. I have been lucky to share in the most special day in the lives of so many people, and I think that is the best part of my job. Somebody recently said to me after a bridesmaid was wiping her eyes "Why do people cry at weddings?", to which I replied "I cry at half the weddings I attend and I don't even know the people.". It's a really great feeling to play a part in a special thing like a wedding and I feel very privileged to have felt these emotions with all my 'couples'.

I have met some pretty amazing people and made a load of new friends again over the last year and I hope this will continue into 2009. I have a few big events coming up in the year, starting with the SWPP Convention in London in 2 weeks time. This year I will be doing a two hour masterclass on wedding photography, which will go into all the details of how I work on a wedding, from brides home through to the reception. I'll then be doing a 4 hour superclass which will go deeper into how I work, and cover the different techniques I use to produce the images I do. I'll also be shooting a trash the dress session on this class. I'll also be on the judging panel, so a busy week!

After that I have a seminar in Dublin in February then I have been lucky enough to book a wedding in Cyprus which will be pretty amazing, and then have a training course over in Spain with my good friend Martin Grahame-Dunn and Juli Cialone, which I can't wait for! We are also doing some workshops in Canada in October which I am going to be part of, so all exciting stuff!

I hope to be able to announce a few small workshops of my own around Scotland in the coming months and I hope there will be lots of interest in that!

I'd like to thank EVERYONE who has helped me and supported me in 2008. Friends, family, colleagues, you know who you are! To all the many photographers worldwide who regularly contact me through emails and forums - your compliments and encouragement are one of my main sources of inspiration and I am very grateful for that.

I hope 2009 is a great year for everyone and hopefully despite the recession we will all continue to prosper!!

Happy New Year!!!

28th December Edinburgh

Final wedding of 2008 and what a great way to finish a great year. The Hub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile was the venue for the marriage of Sarah Parr and Andrew Yates, who were up from Hucknall in Notinghamshire for the big day. What an amazing venue!! It's an old church which has been converted into a headquarters for the Edinburgh Festival. Once again I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to really spend in this place! (Jennifer who was coordinating the wedding may disagree!)

We went up to the Castle for a few pictures but were told it wasn't possible without permission to take pictures with the castle in the background. I think I'd guess that there were around 200 tourists around and I don't think any group didn't have a camera, and they were all taking the same view as me! Ridiculous policy!!! Bah humbug!

We also went to the Witchery, where Sarah and Andy were spending the wedding night. WOW!!!! What a place. I needed to spend an hour or two in there shooting but we only had ten minutes. It was amazing! I really enjoyed my day and want to thank Sarah and Andy for being so much fun and so easy going! Congratulations folks!!

Oban 20th December

Travelled to Oban for the wedding of Paula Nicholson and Martin Yeoman. It was a bad journey down as the heavy rain had caused a lot of flooding in the area and the roads were very dangerous in bits. I was a bit worried about the weather for the following day as it was so dark and wet. On the day however it was beautiful AGAIN! Can't believe how lucky I have been this year with the weather. I've shot outdoors with every single couple!

The wedding today was at St John's Cathedral in Oban. I'd never been there before, but what a wonderful building! It was great. The minister (apologies as I cannot remember his name) was a lovely chap and exactly the right attitude. I've had a few run-ins with ministers over the year and it's a shame that one or two have such a power trip when it comes to the couples big day. Today's one was an absolute gentleman though and I want to thank him for being so accomodating. The couple went with me up to McCaigs Tower for a few pics just as it was getting dark, which was good fun. I just wished we had more time! The reception was at Argyllshire Gatherings and we went back there to finish off the family pictures and the other parts.

Melissa Stewart & Jamie Maclean

Tulloch Castle is one of my favourite locations in the Highlands and I've not been there as often lately, so it was nice to get back for this one. Sad to find that Anne, who runs the place was leaving and this was my last wedding with her. She's been great to work with and I will really miss her from the place - and the Castle is going to miss her too as she was such a hard worker. Good luck to her in her new job though and I hope I'll bump into her soon!

On to the wedding - Melissa is from Dingwall, and Jamie from Muir of Ord. Melissa looked absolutely amazing (Jamie looked okay too I guess!) and I had a really fun day. Angus Mackay was assisting me at this one and I am sure he must have wondered if I was taking drugs as I was a bit hyper all day! It was just one of those days where everything was perfect and it all came together. ANOTHER beautiful day and even a small amount of snow still around so it was great! I have so many images from this wedding that I really love - as usual the best ones won't go on here though!

Loch Ness Lodge

Last month I had my first ever visit to Loch Ness Lodge, which I must say is a stunning venue! Beautiful place with a lovely warm feel about it. Scenery around it is quite spectacular, so a great venue for a wedding! Lorna Bain and Grant Bateman, from Elgin chose this as the perfect place for them to tie the knot.

I have been so lucky this year with the Highland weather, and once again we were able to shoot outdoors and take advantage of the scenery and autumn colours.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to everybody from Captiv8 Photography!

SWPP competition update

I've had 2 silvers from earlier this year upgraded to golds, both surprised me to be honest as I had much stronger ones in there. Well that's 25 for the year!

Children


Bridal Portrait

SWPP competition

Well that's the last month of this years judging over and I managed another 3 golds - although my best images didn't get golds in my own eyes.

Golds for:

Wedding Contemporary

Children

Fashion

This One was my favourite of this month and it only got Silver in bridal portrait

Was really disappointed to get a bronze for this in wedding traditional.

And I really liked this in monochrome which only got bronze

Just goes to show how difficult and subjective it is judging such a huge array of images.

This year I've entered 9 months and managed 23 gold awards, so can't really complain.

Little People

I had a late cancellation of a portrait session, and had a spare half hour to photograph my two youngest ones Cerys and Ally. It's crazy, but I don't have very many photographs of them, apart from random snaps, so it was nice to get a chance to shoot a few of each of them.

Ally was more concerned with when he was going to be on my website so here you go....

Coventry

Just back after spending the last week in Coventry. I was spending some time with Martin Grahame-Dunn, who I am going to be assisting on some future courses. Martin is a very successful photographer and now runs a training academy. I met some great folk on the Associateship course, and hope to bump into them all again soon! They are a talented bunch and between them had some amazing work. I didn't get much time with the Licentiate folk but hopefully they had a good course as well.

We also went through some of my work, with a view to future work and qualifications and that was very good as well. I now have fresh inspiration and direction and can't wait to get started!