Trunkwell Mansion House near Mortimer, Reading in Berkshire is a beautiful old country hotel with beautiful gardens and a peaceful environment. They cater for weddings, civil ceremonies, civil partnerships, corporate events, christmas parties and much more. Below is a photograph of the front of the property with some of the wedding cars from the wedding fair still outside.

I have finally choosen the albums to replace those supplied by Spicer Hall field who recently liquidated, they are now populated and prices sorted ready for the new wedding fair season. Call me to arrange a time and date to view them. Basingstoke 01256 333205 or the mobile 07818 858217, photographs coming soon on the prices page to show youwhat they look like.

wedding album photograph layout

I went to the Brighton Gay Pride Parade on Saturday and had a fantastic time, what a great atmosphere there was, so much like a carnival and I got some great photographs here are a couple for now. There was a fun fair and a couple of stages with bands performing live music all free.

Rule of thirds, make your photographs look more dynamic by placing the important or focal point of the image appear on a line that cuts either horizontally or vertically through the image at a point 1/3 the width or height of the image either from the left or the right, or top or bottom.

Diagram of the rule of thirds

Look at the next 2 photos and compare them for impact.

Photograph of Basingstoke Gate

The 1st photograph cuts the image into 2 so looks like it is 2 seperate pictures.

Photograph of Basingstoke Gate showing rule of 1/3

Here the image has been cropped so that the edge of the gate is closer to one edge of the picture, it looks less like 2 photographs stuck together and more like a shot of the gate with some of the background in view, a more pleasing shot to look at.

Of course not all images need to be taken in this way i.e. portraits and close ups can be taken such that the subject is in the middle of the photograph, but even here it is worth considering putting the eyes on the top horizontal 1/3 line or other parts of the body on other 1/3 lines, try it and see. I will add other composition improvements to this blog later this month.

St Micheal’s Church in the centre of Basingstoke is a beautiful old church with flint and stone brick work on the outside and some lovely vaulted arches on the inside. There is also a balcony from which to photograph the proceedings.

wedding photography inside St Micheal's church Basingstoke

Dummer church is a lovely ancient church in the centre of Dummer village, it is small but perfectly formed, with a balcony from which to get a birds eye view of the proceedings.

photograph taken inside Dummer Church from the balcony

At most weddings I try to take a photograph of the venue both inside and out, some times this is not possible due to time restrictions or weather or restrictions by the venue, but in most cases it is possible. Below is the inside of St Peter’s Church in Woodley, Reading, Berkshire. A beautiful old church with some nice places for shade on sunny days and some furniture in the grounds that can be used to break up the backgrounds and give different angles.

Inside St Peters Church Woodley Reading

When taking portraits make sure that the person you are photographing has their head tilted very slightly to one side so that the eyes are not level. This helps to make them look more friendly and less austere. So below:

corporate portrait showing eye not level.

I have have made several trips to London and each time I take photographs they always look different. The last trip I got there about 20 minutes after sun rise and so had some amazing light (with clear blue skies). I managed to see the London Eye with the most beautiful soft organge light on it and took this photograph.

photograph of the London Eye 1st thing in morning

Something that people don’t often notice when they take photographs is how objects pick up the colours of things close to them. In the example below the 1st photograph is of a jug which is lit from the right hand side so the left side is in shadow with nothing close to it. The shadow is grey.

photograph of a jug with lights to one side showing grey shadows

The next photographs are of the same jug with same lighting except that a piece of card has been placed to the left of the jug. This results in the jug picking up the reflected light fromthe card and colouring the jug with the colour of the card.

photograph of jug with blue card showing red shadows

photograph of jug with blue card showing blue shadows