Portfolio Shoot – Lucy

The Wedding of Alex and Annie – Sneak Peek

Despite the fact Alex is a massive Sunderland supported, I was delighted to be asked to capture his special day as he married his lovely bride Annie. Alex and I go back a few years and it was a true pleasure to see a good friend settle down and marry this beautiful young lady. Surrounded by their nearest and dearest this was a very imitate wedding with a reception at the ever impressive Lumley Castle. Luckily the rain held off and we had some beautiful skies to shoot against, and despite the cold these guys were more than willing to come out at night for some extra shots.

Here are a few of my favourites from the day

Special thanks to Alec (Dadio) for his Second shooter help once again

The Wedding of Lisa & Matthew – Sneak Peek

Love, love, love, love, crazy love (in the voice of the Buble) would be the way I’d start to talk about this lovely couple. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Lisa for more years than I care to remember, and have to thank her for indirectly being the reason I found my Wife! It was beyond a pleasure to capture this wedding surrounded by lots of familiar faces and friendly people (including the Missus as a bridesmaid). From start to finish it was chilled, fun and full of energy – an absolutely perfect match for this Bride, paired up with the very calm and collected Matthew, this day was awesome going to be a hit for everyone who was invited!
Here are is a snapshot of their amazing day….

Engagement Shoot – Lisa & Matt – Sneak Peek

Next weekend I have the absolute pleasure of shooting the wedding of this lovely couple. Having known Lisa for a lot of years I was honoured when they asked me to shoot their wedding in the best place on earth (Yes that’s Jarrow I’m talking about) before heading to Gateshead for the reception.

For their engagement shoot we headed on down to Saltwell Park on a chilly morning where its safe to say Lisa & Matt were very nervous to be in front of the camera. But after a few minutes and a quick coffee in Saltwell Towers, these guys really relaxed and look very natural in front of the camera!

It’s gonna be a great wedding, especially once Lisa hits the dance floor….(keep an eye out for that on the blog)

Sneak Peek – The Wedding of Jenny & James – Brinkburn Priory

Hand made decorations, a beautiful spring sun, an amazingly unique venue, an awesome couple and everything you could want at a wedding.

This was the first time I had shot at this amazing venue which had so many photo opportunities within such a small area. Front the first time I met Jenny and James we were on exactly the same page that this day was going to be very cool, very relaxed and very photogenic. Everywhere I turned there was something different to shoot, and a unique view of this venue. The colour and the styling of the wedding perfectly complimented this couple and the fun had by all of the guests was contagious. I caught myself bopping along on the dance floor a few times!

It was very hard to keep this sneak peek down to a low number of images, but here are some of my favourites from the day, keep an eye out for Gus (the pooch) and his awesome bow tie!……

Easter Egg Hunt – Family Time

So today we headed over to my parents house for the annual easter egg hunt for the kids. It was great to see all of the nephews and my niece too, and as always they were in interesting moods!!

Dad (Alec) planted different sets of chocolate eggs around the house for the “big kids” and the “little un’s” so they all got something different to bring home, eat, get hyper and have a sugar crash every day this week…..thanks Dadio!

Here are a few snaps I took (after my commitment to capture more family days on camera!!)

…oh and thanks Mother for the hot beef/pork dips!

Solar Eclipse

15 years ago, during the last Solar Eclipse, I was still at school as a 13 year old!!

This time I was pretty hyped up about it. I had an idea in my head to capture the eclipse as part of a stunning Fashion Portrait using dramatic lighting. So that’s what we headed out to do. Assisted by my friend Stephen and with model Faye Winstone all ready to go, we travelled up to Chester Le Street Park. I remember shooting a family portrait session there in 2012 and I remember this awesome leaning tree that would look great in the image.

If anyone from this part of the world was watching the eclipse, it was a bit of an anti climax in that the cloud cover pretty much blocked most of it out. We had literally given up hope of even seeing the sun through the clouds and started shooting in the opposite direction.

We did manage, during a break in the clouds, just two frames with the eclipse in. The first was a misfire on the flash and the second one (bottom image) nailed it with a little smile at the bottom of the sun.

We shot a few more frames while we were there, but I got the shot I wanted…..

Guess who’s back……Life

Wow, so it’s literally been 6 months since I last blogged. Going from blogging every single week, sometimes daily, to not at all was never intentional.

I guess I fell out of love with blogging a little bit.

It was a very tough end to 2014, my health was pretty poor (if you’ve read previous posts you’ll understand why) my beautiful Wife Laura was extremely ill and this was a very scary time in my life. Nothing puts life into perspective more than the prospect of your soul mate not being here anymore!

It’s taken a lot of self motivation to get back on the “blogging” wagon today to get into the rhythm of writing, sharing my work, experiences, life and inspirations.

2015 has been just as tough to start as 2014 was to finish. But, through adversity I have realised some pretty amazing things;

 

My family is amazing.

My Wife is the most understanding, loyal and patient woman in the world (even though my Mother put up with me for 19 years!)

Life is what you make it.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

 

So, the Wife and I declared that April 1st would be our New Year, the start of a new adventure and a new way of living life.

Happy New year to you all, I can’t wait for it. It’ gonna be awesome!!!!

 

And just because I’ve never blogged without and image, here are my handsome boys who make me smile (at some point) every day!

 

Wedding Photography Workshop

Today we hosted the first of our new look Wedding Photography Workshops at the studio (you can find more info over on our Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/xopstudio)

Here are a few of the images I shot while showing our attendees how I achieved them…

Ashley & Costa Studio Night

So it started with a concept of a shoot I seen where Beyonce worked with Vogue and an idea for a background that I had seen where Brett Harkness created a backdrop in his home studio  and I wanted to pair the two of them together….I knew the exact model who  could pull of this look and a great creative team to bring it together.

 

I started by constructing a frame out of 3×2″ CLS timber mounted on the back of some 12mm MDF sheets to give it some rigidity. I filled all of the holes and gave it a primer in some grey paint I had spare so that the “Cement” could key to it. I used Rapid set tile adhesive as the “cement” and boy was it rapid! I literally got one side of the panel done and the adhesive starting setting in the tub I had mixed it in, so it has a tough task to get it on the wall and for it to spread fairly evenly. I used some spare flooring from the kitchen and bathroom to give the area a base.

 

 

This shoot was part of a creative evening I was hosting at the studio , so we had another ten photographers attending and using the set ups we had. Ashley (our model) was perfect for this set up and style…. enough talking here are a couple of headline shots…

 

In terms of lighting, for the standing shots, these were lit by a strip softbox over Ashley’s left shoulder directed towards the wall, and a beauty dish off to the left of the camera to provide fill light. See the diagram below;

We also had the very cool and crisp Costa as part of this session…

 

A massive thanks to everyone who came along for this shoot but most of all the creative team who turned my vision into reality…

 

Model – Ashley Robertson

Model – Costa Toulis

MUA – Laura Lou

Stylist – Steph O’Neill