What a beautiful setting for a wedding!  This Victorian era building still has many original features like high ceilings with plaster mouldings, chandaliers hanging from rosettes in the ceiling, huge fire places and wood paneling. The extensive grounds have tennis courts and football pitches and 72 acres to roam in. A wedding here is a very special event.

front view of Sherfield School a beautiful venue for a wedding photographer in Basingstoke

There are some beautiful spots within the grounds of Trunkwell house all very close to the house so no long treks to get some nice photographs.Below are a couple of views of the back gardens:

At Trunkwell Mansion House, Mortimer near Reading, Berskshire they have the most beautiful room they use for the civil ceremonies, a real old fashioned fireplace and classic chairs with antique oil paintings on the wall. Below is a photograph of the room.

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

At the weekend we went to Bristol Balloon Festival to see the balloons flying and spend some time in Bristol (a city I am not that familier with). What a lovely city, the old harbour area has been turned into a tourist centre with shops and restaurants and the most amazing water feature which children are allowed to paddle in (’ealf & safety not gone mad here thankfully). There is an enormous mirrored ball by the water feature and lots of different and interesting statues dotted about. During the afternoon some young men came to the mirrored ball and showed us their trick cycling in the pavement area around the ball. Very clever they were too, here is one of the chaps showing us how to ride on the side of the rear wheel.

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.

As some of you may have heard the album manufacturer Spicer Hallfield has liqudated. Most of my albums were supplied by them so I have had to look for a new supplier. I am very pleased to announce that I have chosen the Italian handmade albums supplied by Mario Acerboni. Beautiful albums that come in 4 sizes and 4 colours. All these albums have a one inch border around the pages and take real photographs as either montage prints or with overlays. Sizes are (approximate inches) 10×10, 8×8,  A4  and 7×5 colours are iced diamond (silver grey), perl (cream), black and burgundy, the iced diamond colour is only available in the larger sizes. I shall also continue with the madison albums which do not have a border and come in black or white covers with a window on the front for a small photograph and 3 sizes, 12×12, 10×10 and 8×8 inches (approx). For the top end packages I shall be using the Australian Seldex albums, these have printed perspex covers or brushed aluminuim covers and are large albums (approx 11×14 inches ) with real photographs with overlays on them. Coming soon I shall put photographs of each album on my website so that you know what all the terms mean and what the albums look like.

Tylney Hall is a great venue for weddings as it has so much land with so many different features which makes for varied photographs (you don’t have to have the same background all the time). There are 2 stone pergolas with stone steps leading down to them whcih can make for some very different images, see the one below:

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.