After the wedding fair on Sunday I got a chance to take some photographs inside Ufton Court as well as outside, the sun was not in the right place for the outside ones but was ideal for the inside ones. They have really kept the character of the old building and it is stunning. See below:
photograph of the inside of Ufton Court
A beautiful venue in a wonderful setting is the Tithe Barn and Ufton Court at Ufton Nervert between Reading and Tadley in Berkshire. The venue is not a hotel, it is in fact a centre for education for under previlidged children but at other times it turns into a aplace where civil ceremonies and weddings can be performed along with the reception into the evening in a most beautiful setting. They can take up to 140 people sat down in the tithe barn and 75 in the ceremony room. A beautiful historic building with many of the originak features still in place.
photograph of Ufton Court frontage
A hotel with a nice atmosphere in Basingstoke is the Apollo Hotel. It has a small area at the back for taking photographs and lays out the red carpet for its Brides and Grooms.
photograph of Bride and Groom taken at Apollo Hotel Basingstoke
Another great Venue for weddings is Silchester House, they only do one wedding per day and you get the whole house for the day, There are about 14 bedrooms for you and your guests with a 4 poster in the main bedroom. The grounds out the back are large and shaded for those sunny days and there are lots of nice spots inside the house for beautiful wedding photographs. Below are photographs of the front and back of the house.
photograph of Silchester House front aspect
photograph of Silchester House rear aspect
A couple of years ago I went to Venice during their carnival week, this is always in the winter either late January or early to middle February, the dates change each year. Their carnival is not like most other towns carnivals with processions through the streets (too narrow, the ones that aren’t canals!). People go along in the most elaborate costumes you can imagine and stand and pose to be photographed or walk slowly through the streets. They are all masked and sometimes you would never recognise the wearer, even if you know them. Men as well as women dress in the most beautiful dresses and pose. I arrived on the Grande Canal front at 7.30am on 2 occassions and the place was already busy with models and photographers making the most of the beautiful early morning light. Over the coming weeks I will post some photographs from that week to show the sort of thing that goes on. Here is the 1st one of the models by the Grand Canal.
photograph of masked person at Venice Carnival
One of the major problems with taking photographs inside is that you usually need a flash to illuminate the subject and if that subject is a person wearing glasses and you use an on board (the camera) flash then you often end up with reflections of the flash in the glasses which can obliterate the eyes of the subject. There are a couple of things you can do to reduce the affect:
1/ get the person to lift the arms of their glasses so that the lens are no longer parrallel to the camera, so reflected light goes in another direction rather than directly back to the camera.
2/ take the picture from a slightly different angle so that you are not firing the flash directly at the lens.
3/ tweak it in photoshop afterwards (last resort)
Number 3 really is the last resort but if you are careful and have a little bit of eye that you can clone from you can clone out the flash and then smooth it over with the healing brush. The 2 pictures below show the sort of nasty reflection you can get and how some of it can be removed in photoshop afterwards.
photograph of 2 people with flash reflections in their glasses
Then after a little work in photoshop they look like this:
photograph of people with glare on glasses reduced.
One of the main rules of photography (as always rules are meant to be broken) is that things (and people) should come in odd numbers. 1,3,5 etc. This is particularly true of objects and items but does apply to people as well. Groups of odd numbers of people always look better than even numbers, the only possible exception here is 2 people as they are so close to each other they become 1 item. Take a look at the following images and see what you think about the odd number rule.
2 people in a photograph breaks the rule of odd numbers but works here because they become 1
3 people here looks better than the next image where there are 4 people
4 people here not as good as with an odd number
Tylney Hall near Hook in Hampshire is a beautiful setting for your civil ceremony or wedding. They have a variety of rooms to suit different numbers of guests and the most amazing grounds to use for your photographs after the ceremony. I am on their list of preferred photographers and as such have photographed many weddings at Tylney Hall. I always find that the staff are very curtious and considerate and the facilities are emaculate. Please contact me if you are looking for a photogrpaher for your wedding/civil ceremony or special occasion. Tel. no. 07818 858217.