Oakley Hall at Oakley Basingstoke has 2 beautiful rooms it uses for its’ wedding ceremonys, here is a picture of a couple who tied the knot in the smaller room.

photograph of signing the register at Oakley Hall

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

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

Almost since the discovery of photography and certainly since the early 20th century filters have been used to make changes to the look of photographs. There are hundreds of filters you can use. Some are for use with black and white only some for use with colour only and some can be used with both. Each filter has a number and in the case of warmup filters they range from 81a, 81b, 81c, 81d, to 81EF. These are generally used with colour photography when the sky is very grey and overcast and gives everything that dull grey look. Things look cold and uninviting. In the days of film a warmup filter was essential, this was put on the front of the lens, either screwed onto the front or a generic system can be used where a ring is screwed to the front of the lens and an adapter put on the ring and the filter fits in the adapter. With the adapter method several filters can be used together. In these days of digital photography it can all be done with photoshop, simply click on image->adjustments->photo filter (in CS3). This brings up a window which asks you to name the layer and choose your filter colour. You can vary the strength of the filter by adjusting the density, changing the filter itself or even picking your own colour, it’s all so versatile and done in the comfort of your own home. Below are 2 photographs one without any filters and the other has a warmup filter added to show the effect. In the second image you could almost imagine the sun had come out (it hadn’t).

photograph taken in grey overcast conditions

same photograph with warmup filter added (in photoshop)

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

Every wedding or civil ceremony I have done in the main rooms at Tylney Hall has always been enhanced with a simple ceremony involving the lighting of candles by the bride and groom. It makes the rather short and impersonal civil ceremony a little more personal. A nice touch to aperfect day.

photograph of bride and groom lighting candles in civil wedding ceremony

Tylney Hall at Newnham near Hook in Hampshire has 3 different rooms that it can hold marriage and civil ceremonies, the largest of which has a beautiful ancient fireplace at one end. The photograph below shows the fireplace in the cremony room with a four(4) piece quartet playing.

photograph of Tylney Hall wedding ceremony room fireplace with 4 piece quartet.

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

There is a little known phenomena about red and blue colours that effect the way we see things. Things that are close to us generally have stronger colours than things that are further away, in fact in landscapes things in the far distance often look very blue. So when we see two things together and one is coloured red and the other blue we tend to think that the blue item it further away than the red item. So you can give a feeling of distance or depth by putting red things closer to you and blue things further away. Take a look at the next 2 photographs. In the 1st one the 2 people are side by side, but it looks like the girl in red is closer. In the 2nd photograph the girl is actually about 3 paces behind but looks like she is level with the man. The further you are away from the photographs the more pronounced is the effect.

photograph of 2 people girl in red behind the man in blue

photograph of 2 people standing side by side