Basingstoke is surrounded by old manner houses that have been converted to hotels or venues suitable for weddings and other special occasions and Audleys Wood has been beautifully laid out and decorated in the style of the origins of the house. It has a honeymoon suite with a 4 poster bed which overlooks the front of the grounds and so can be used to take the group photograph.

photograph of the outside of Audley Wood Hotel at Basingstoke

http://www.handpicked.co.uk/opencms/sites/default/HPH/hotels/audleywood/about/index.html

Another beautiful venue with some great spots for photography after your ceremony is at Oakley Hall in Oakley near Basingstoke. Beautifully decorated with a huge chandalier in the main hall.

photograph showing the chandalier at Oakley Hall near Basingstoke

http://www.oakleyhall-park.com/

Had a great day today at Mill Hall in Newbury, this is a new wedding fair and the setting is beautiful, the main hall is oak panelled and has a massive fire place for some really great photographs. I managed to pinch a photograph off their website to attach below as when I was there the weather was pretty awful and loads of cars out the front so trying to get any kind of descent photograph was difficult.

Mill Hall photograph curtisy of Mill Hall website.

Mill Hall photograph curtisy of Mill Hall website:

http://www.maryhare.org.uk/?id=celebrations_venues

A great venue for a civil ceremony is the Guild Hall at Windsor (where Charles and Camilla were married), it is a bit of a sausage factory in that there is 1 wedding every hour (on a Saturday) and you don’t get to enter until 20 mins before the hour of your ceremony. However, once in there the place is beautiful with an enormous chandalier above the spot where the ceremony takes place. There isn’t much room outside for photographs and the sun shines directly onto the door where you come out so on a sunny day the photographs aren’t great, but once married there are lots of places to go to in the area for some fantastic photographs later.

photograph of the inside of Windsor Guild Hall

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/registrars_wedding_venues.htm

Oakley Court at Maidenhead is a beautiful venue with some lovely places to take photographs as it is right by the river. An old manner house converted to a hotel with immaculate grounds and a really peaceful calming atmosphere.

photograph taken at Oakley Court Hotel Maidenhead

Tylney Hall is a beautiful old house that has seen many different uses over the years and is now a 4* hotel (with 5* service (it can never be a 5* hotel because it does not have a lift!!!!) it does have a beautiful stair case though).

photograph of Tylney Hall from the large pond

The fighting (re-enactments) at Herstmonceux was quite realistic (apart form the smiles on the guys faces, they were obviously enjoying themselves), the armour and clothing all looked quite realistic, it really was a grest day out.

photograph of knights fighting at Herstmonceux medieval festival

One of the most dynamic compositions is to get things into a triangle or a V shape, this gives the eye somewhere to move from and/or to and so gives a pleasing effect. Take a look at the following photographs and notice how much more dynamic and interesting the 1st photogrpah is compared to the second.

portrait photograph with good composition -traiangles

Here it is again with the traiangle drawn in; in case you can’t see the shape.

portrait photograph with trainagle line drawn in

And here is the not so good composition.

photograph showing not so good composition

photograph of 2 knights jousting

As I am very much into horses one of the star events for me was the jousting, real people on real horses with real armour rode towards each other with lances (note I didn’t say real lances). They start  at opposite ends of the arena and charge towards each other and 2 strides out stop to a walk aim the joust pole at the shield and the end falls off very easily, I think if the pole breaks the knight gets a point, the rules wer not too clear. There were 4 knights who rode against each other and the black night from abroad won (she was the only female participant). It was quite a laugh with lots of audience participation and well worth watching. Click on the link below to view their website for next years dates:

www.EnglandsMedievalFestival.com

Back to the Herstmonceux medieval festival, which was great fun. I am really into horses (owned one for 10 years) so I made a bee-line for the jousting section and took lots of photos of that. It’s really tricky to capture the action shots but I got a couple that work quite well in the end.

photograph of jousting practice