If you watch the TV, you will no doubt know that Rise Hall is Sarah Beeny’s home and she has undertaken the mammoth task of renovating The Hall to hold weddings of distinction at the property.  When we arrived to shoot 8 different gowns with 2 fantastic models, there was still lots of work to be done at The Hall but the rooms that were finished made the most amazing environment to create the images that you see below.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t use most of the images that I am now able to show due to  TV rights issues which arose after the shoot was complete, but now enough time has passed and i am really proud to share these images –  I hope you like them – Rise Hall is a credit to East Yorkshire and I’m sure once fully operational, will be THE destination for discerning couples from all over the country.  If you’d like to see more of my work at REAL weddings, please take a look at my portfolio.

I didn’t really stay in touch with Jon, but through the power of Facebook, we connected a couple of years back and I was watching his musical progression from afar.  When I saw that Jon was bringing his show to Europe and that he would be visiting Manchester I knew I had to hook up with him.  I travelled over to Manchester and met Jon about 7pm and he went on at 9.45 at a venue called The Castle Hotel an amazing ‘proper’ pub that’s just been lovingly restored and has a really great concert room.

I wanted to pay homage to the pictures I had made of Jon 10 years ago in Montreal so got my head into a very ‘film based’ mind set and Jon gave me a superb photographic opportunity.  His act is basically a one man band for the modern generation, spanning at least 15 different instruments that I saw.  His energy was almost overwhelming and his musical abilities uncompromising - this was a show that challenged the audience in a very positive way and I’ll never forget the performance and I hope the images convey a little bit of the magic I winessed. Jon is basically self funding his curent 3 month tour and it is this courage and musical commitment that I so admire in people like Jon.  He’s keeping a tour diary as he travels which makes for a great read, it’s archived at www.thejcex.com

Clients often ask me about my backup strategy, especially wedding clients, and without going into too much detail I explain that backup and the redundancy plan of those backups will mean that I will always have a minimum of 3 copies of a wedding or commercial job to rely on in the event of a disaster.  Disasters do happen and those disasters come in all manner of forms from natural phenomenon such as fire, electrical failure and flooding through to simple human error such as driving over a laptop – yes this has happened to me!  Having worked as a photographer for over 10 years now, I have been very secure with my backup strategy, it was much different back in the days of film when there would only ever be one set of negatives so they ALWAYS lived in a fire proof safe but digital images allow me to easily make copies – so I do and in copious amounts!

What follows is an explanation of my backup strategy that I use day in day out and it helps me sleep very easily at night.

In the field I use (A) Sandisk Ultra II 4 gb compact flash cards in my Nikon D700 cameras.  I never use cards bigger than this because if a card fails, is lost or stolen at least I have a job spread over a number of cards and all would not be lost.  At a typical wedding I shoot at least 24-30 gigs (that’s around 2500 images) so if I shot 16gb cards, the stakes would be a lot higher!  Once I have filled a card up, I then copy it in the field to 2 devices at the same time (B) A Jobo Giga One digital Wallet and a (C) MacBook Pro  The digital wallet originally shipped with a 40gb hard drive but I have modded it with a larger 160gb drive to get more stuff on it.  Once the wedding or the job is finished and I have backed up the whole collection, i will drive home with the Macbook and my assistant will drive home with the digital wallet so that we have at least 2 sets in different locations at all times.

Once I get home, I then connect the Macbook to a (D) 4 TB external hard drive and make another copy which stays at my house and that drive never leaves home.  So at this point I have 4 copies of every job I do – you may think it’s overkill, but storage space is cheap and I like to sleep soundly at night!  The next stage of the strategy takes place at my office where I hook up the Macbook via a Gigabit ethernet Switch to my (E)  iMac which then takes all of the images and copies onto a (F) Verbatim 2TB Raid hard drive system  Raid drives are awesome!  in layman’s terms, a RAID is basically 2 separate hard drives that are configured to mirror each other (they can be set in other configurations, but the most secure method is mirroring) so once I copy onto the RAID I am effectively getting 2 separate copies.  Should one of the drives in the array go down, I receive an email notification and all I have to do is replace the faulty drive and the system then builds another backup from the healthy disk.  So this is my ‘live drive’ now propagated with the job I have just shot and I now have 6 copies, 2 of which are off site.  The last step in my strategy is to backup my live drive and my archive drive on a regular basis via a (G) Hard Drive dock.  This device allows me to hot swap hard drives without a caddy and so at least once or twice a week I bring drives that I keep offsite to the office and make backups of my ‘live drive’ and my ‘archive’ drive.  Should I ever have a data disaster, I’m now confident that  my work is safe and I would be able to work off offsite drives.  Just to seal the deal I also have Time Machine set up on my MacBook Pro and IMac so I think I’ve got all the bases covered with the copies.

Some people may ask where do writable DVDs come into the workflow?  Well to be honest, I stopped using them at the start of last year’s wedding season after reading a lot about how the format degrades over time so I made the decision to stop making DVD copies.  I’m actually really happy about that because writing disks was a really lengthy operation after a 12 hour wedding shoot!

This discussion has been about my digital assets and how I look after them, but I do want to talk briefly about my website and how I deal with it’s security/backup as I did have a website ‘infraction’ before Christmas which led to a loss of service for a few days.  My website is built on the WordPress platform and although WordPress is one of the world’s most popular CMS systems, it needs a lot of ‘tweaking’ to make it secure and robust.  My web consultant has installed several security plugins which protect against various types of web-borne threats bit I also make sure I have my own copy of my website available should anything happen.  Of course my web host takes daily backups but they can be difficult to deploy should they be needed on a weekend or evening, therefore I have a plugin installed which makes regular backups of my WordPress installation and files to a cloud based solution called Sugarsync.  I can now re-deploy my website from a clean copy should it get attacked and my down time will be minimised.

So, I hope some of you out there found this blog interesting, I know it’s not the most rock ‘n’ roll topic in the world but I guess I wouldn’t be very rock ‘n’ roll if I lost somebody’s wedding! I’m hoping that this post might start a bit of a debate, if it does I’m hoping there’s more for me to learn!

Today I was in Leeds City Centre photographing the Fantastic Trishool Indian  Dance Academy as they prepared to take part in the Sport Relief Mile coming up not too long from now.  The images needed to communicate the fun nature of the Group and also their commitment to the cause of the charity so that others will get on board to support.  The team were so energetic and brought lots of their own ideas to explore so the session was a blast.  The images have been transmitted to all the regional press in the North and lots of them had committed to run the story at the time of writing this blog article.

Pictures tell a story and stories sell a message, I always need to stay on brand and on message when working for a corporate client and I really enjoy working in this focused way.

For now, I’d like to share some wedding images from a couple of years ago which I just stumbled back across.  Rob and Emma were married at The Millhouse Restaurant during September of 2009 and i blogged their story here.  Emma recently got in touch to order some more prints from their collection to decorate their new house and although I hadn’t forgotten how great their images looked, I was really glad to revisit them.  I hope you like!

As a Wedding photographer in East Yorkshire, I had the pleasure of finishing off my 2011 season with one of the biggest events of the year.  Gemma and Martin were wed on the 23rd December at Beverley Minster and then went on to hold their reception at the fabulous Tickton Grange.  When I first met Gemma, she was so excited at the thought of a classic winter wedding at Christmas time – she loved the idea of the decorations, the tree and also the possibility of it being a proper ‘white wedding’.

When I met Martin and Gemma a few weeks before their big day for their planning and pre-shoot session, she had definitely changed her mind about the snow – mainly due to the second love of her life – her shoes!  The thought of ruining her absolutely fantastic bridal slippers was simply not an option and therefore it wasn’t allowed to snow!

Well, it certainly didn’t snow on the 23rd December, but boy did it rain!  in fact, the rain kept pretty constant at a torrential level most of the day!  Never to be scuppered, we took care of most of the group shots inside the Minster (including an aerial shot of all 150 guests) and then finished off the remaining formal shots at Tickton Grange over cocktails and canapes.  Martin and Gemma’s spirits were not dampened by the rain and they both had a fantastic day.  The minster makes a phenomenal backdrop for photography and when you add in a couple of off-camera flashes, the effects are just amazing.

Martin and Gemma honeymooned in South Africa over the Christmas and New Year period and have just returned to the UK to start their married life together, I’ll be getting together with them in the week to share the rest of their story and I’m really excited to share.

I am a freelance Make-up Artist specialising in Bridal Make-up based in the East Riding of Yorkshire.  I needed a new portfolio for my 2012 collection and, after having worked with Andy on a wedding earlier in the year and seeing some of his other work, I knew he would be able to capture everything I wanted perfectly!

Andy is the consummate professional, who really knows his craft.  Luckily for me after the initial discussion about joining forces we both discovered our vision was the same, both of us agreed that we wanted the looks to be clean and contemporary and above everything else, something that brides could look at and instantly imagine the look for themselves on their big day!

We arranged a photo shoot and planned to get all the looks in one session. Andy came to my salon and set up some fabulous lighting to best capture the make-up and immediately put my models at ease!

I have to say the shoot itself was a breeze and so much fun! We specifically chose real women – not professional models – to showcase the looks, and I must say the girls were superb and looked amazing; Andy definitely got some stunning shots!

After we selected the final images for the portfolio Andy put together the layout.  The photos and the layout show off  one strong image of each look with several breakdown images to show the look from different angles… it’s absolutely perfect for viewers to see the finished looks which are quite simply beautiful. 

I adore seeing my vision come to life and I cant for you to either!! Please check out my work at www.fonsvitae-beauty.co.uk.

This book project was so good to be involved with, I’m certainly no graphic designer so the process of laying this out was a real challenge, but we got there in the end and we are both really happy with the end result.  Here are the finished spreads.

As a Yorkshire Wedding Photographer, I meet the most amazing people. Joanne and Jonny above are without doubt, 2 of the nicest people I have ever met, I blogged about their classic wedding at Lazaat back in August and that post can be seen here.  I’ve never laughed with 2 people as much as I have done with Joanne and Jonny, we have a very similar sense of humour and we hit it off from our initial meeting and have now become really good friends.  I delivered their album just in time for Xmas and just received this beautiful letter from them, it leaves me speechless to get such touching feedback so i will allow their words to do the talking, followed by their album spreads.

Dear Andy,

Just wanted to drop you an email to let you know how absolutely blown away we are by the album.  We knew, of course, how amazing the images were, but nothing can quite prepare you for the feeling you get when you see the story of your wedding day presented to you in such a unique and personal way.  Every single image has captured something so special and holds so many wonderful memories, we will absolutely treasure them.

As for you, Andy, what can we say? We knew you would be our photographer from the minute you opened your door to us and sat us down with a beer!  You are a fantastic person to know, an absolute professional and your passion for what you do is out there for all to see and admire.  Your talent and enthusiasm knows no bounds.  We couldn’t imagine sharing our special day with anyone but you as our photographer.

We have fantastic memories of our pre-shoot, spent catching up over drinks in a pub on Hornsea seafront!  Then lots of fun and laughter on the beach as you put us at ease with the camera.  The result of all the ‘frivolities’ was a beautiful photograph of us, framed by the most amazing sunset, which attracted countless compliments when it was displayed as the signing board at our wedding.  We knew from the outstanding quality of your images and the relationship we had built up with you, that we had lots to be excited about, having you as our photographer.

On the day itself, you were an absolute star.  Your energy just fills a room, and rather than feeling that the camera is ‘invading’ your most special times, with you it is most definitely the opposite, we knew that with every click you were capturing something fantastic and totally relevant to the moment.  The album completely reflects this.

We really hope we have the pleasure of working with you again, maybe at a friend or relative’s wedding, as we have sung your praises to everyone we know!  Or maybe there’ll be some family shots when the baby Winnies start arriving!  For now though, it has been an absolute honour to know and work with you; may the Insight Empire continue to grow and grow, you deserve every success.

Thanks again for everything.

All the best,

Jo & Jonny (A.K.A – Team Winn!)

Reaching for the clouds…Wow, another year draws to an end and I have so much to be thankful for.  This has been Insight’s record year to date and to be able to say that in the grips of some pretty horrendous economic times leaves me feeling very humble!  I’ve had the honour to meet and photograph some amazing people and couples and now in the middle of album creation for many of those couples, the memories come flooding back.  So many highlights – far too many to mention, but a heap of images to keep those memories alive.

2012 is already shaping up to be another great year with some really interesting projects to explore in January and another full diary of new couples to meet and photograph.  I love the opportunity that photography gives me on a daily basis – it allows me to experience my world in such a visceral way, I get to see things from many different aspects and to share so much of life’s richness with such a lot of people.

I hope our paths will cross in 2012, whether it be in person or on the internet – all it leaves me to do is to wish you and your loved ones all the very best for 2012.  Thank you for the support of my business and my blog, I couldn’t do it without you!

We lucked out by being able to do the formal group photographs in the gardens at the registry office and although it was on the chilly side, it wasn’t unbearable.  Once we’d spent some time photographing a ‘Penny Drop Session’  it was back to the Fox and Coney in South Cave where Vince, Gloria and their  staff had done an exceptional job of styling the restaurant.

I wish Sam and Sam all the very best with their new life and I can’t wait to get together with them to share the collection of images we shot on the day.