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Saturday 14 November 2009

Annual Report Photography

I'm just in the process of archiving off my hard drives and came across this project from early last year. The Woodland Trust had just bought Brede High Woods and commissioned me to photograph it for their annual report. Although it's quite large, Brede is not an easy place to photograph, there are only a couple of places where you can get any sort of overview and even then only as a fairly thin ribbon of trees (I did suggest a helicopter but sadly it wasn't within their budget). With a two week deadline it wasn't possibly to be too choosy about the weather, so a lot of time was spent trudging round the woods in the rain, covered in mud, looking for locations - great fun!




As a bonus I woke one morning a couple of days before the deadline to discover that a bigger than expected pile of snow had been deposited over the South East. It made for a slightly hairy drive to get over to Brede (we're not exactly used to driving in snow here), but you can't turn down an opportunity like that.




The snow didn't last long, the sun came out at about 9.30 and it had pretty much all melted away by midday, but it was lovely while it lasted.

Despite a lot of rain and grey skies over the two weeks there were a few periods when the weather and light were fantastic. In the end the photo's were used on a double page centre spread in their annual report and also on their annual fund-raising campaign brochure, a very nice result for one of my favourite projects.

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Tuesday 3 November 2009

Jodie and Mat's Wedding at Easthampstead Park, Wokinghham

I was doing a wedding fair a little over a year ago and had just finished talking with a bride (who's wedding I'm covering in a couple of weeks) when Nina grabbed my arm and said "You'd better come and meet Jodie - she's just booked you", which was a very pleasant surprise.

Jodie and Mat had their wedding at Easthampstead Park, which is a very attractive wedding venue in Wokingham. I hadn't actually met Mat until the day of the wedding as he couldn't make it to the wedding fair, but he is very easy to get on with and has a wicked sense of humour.


At the venue I bumped into a very nice photographer called Mark Lawrence who was running a photo course there that day with about twenty students. They were very well behaved and kept away from the wedding, although it was funny to see Mark every so often, looking like the Pied Piper (with better accessories) leading his troupe the other way along a corridor, loaded down with equipment or disappearing into the shrubbery brandishing reflectors.




Believe it or not Jodie kept telling me how she wasn't very "girly" and felt uncomfortable not to be wearing jeans and riding boots. Now I have no doubt that Jodie looks awesome in jeans and riding boots (and if I ever have to do a shoot for "Horse and Hound" I'll book Jodie to model for it), but there is no way under the sun that anyone will ever convince me that she does not look girly:






How can you round off a perfect wedding day? Fireworks! Nina wouldn't agree with this as she hates them and hid inside as far away as possible, but Jodie and Mat had arranged fabulous fireworks display that went on for ages:



Easthampstead Park is a lovely wedding venue with plenty of space to accommodate group photo's inside if the weather isn't too good and extensive grounds to explore if the sun is out. You can find more information on their website: www.eastpark.co.uk

Mark's photography course looks like it is very informative and great fun, so if you want to brush up on your photography skills you can contact him via his website: www.marklawrencephotography.co.uk

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