Cathy & Pete - Islington Town Hall
16/11/12 14:53
Although I aim for a classic, ageless style in my work, I truly love shooting weddings that diverge from the traditional. Weddings are unique events and I’m a particular fan of those that place family, friends and down to earth values above glamour and glitz. All weddings are fantastic, but I guess I’m simply saying that that’s how I’d do it. Cathy & Pete had a wedding just like that.
We kicked off at Islington Town Hall before making our way over to The Snooty Fox in Highbury which is owned by Cathy’s brother’s girlfriend. Despite all being in central London, the route from ceremony to reception took us neatly down a gorgeous little canal walk that’s artfully hidden between urban streets. It’s the sort of place that you could walk right past and unless you were looking for it, miss it. I did a recce (as I always do) ahead of the day itself and when checking it out on Google Maps prior to heading up I simply couldn’t believe that there was anything there. A genuine wonder and huge respect to Islington Council for such a gem. As you’ll see below, we stuck around at the Town Hall, which is beautiful in its own right, to take some images in the lovely corridors while Cathy & Pete’s guests got ahead of us, before doing a ‘walk and shoot’ in the river walk.
The Snooty Fox is a fantastic, characterful pub and as good a location for an intimate wedding reception as I can think of. There’s nothing like packing a pub that looks like this with lots of merry people to make for some fun images. After some of the best bangers and mash I’ve ever had the pleasure of (thanks guys!) we popped back to the river walk with Oscar, Cathy & Pete’s little boy for a few portraits. I love doing what I’ve come to call ‘creative sessions’ where I work directly, one-to-two, if you will, with the bride and groom, and the photos we take during these windows are often amongst my favourites, but photojournalism and quiet observation are still central to my work. A wedding like Cathy & Pete’s, at least in part thanks to the choice of venue, was simply chock full of moments, conversations, interactions and vignettes that are the heart and soul of good photojournalism. Add to this the lovely ‘transitions’, the periods of movement between one location or ‘chapter’ of a wedding and another and this is the sort of day that really lends itself to my style.
As always, here are a selection of my favourites. I took the train up for this gig and therefore travelled a bit lighter than usual. As normal, this is the 5D MkIII with 17-40L, 35L, 50mm f/1.4 an 135L but the dancing is lit a lot more simply and I shot a bit more ambient evening stuff, something I used to do a lot of and enjoyed focusing on again.
P.S. Oscar wasn’t the only little one at this wedding. It featured an understudy cast of some of the most expressively fantastic little people this season!
We kicked off at Islington Town Hall before making our way over to The Snooty Fox in Highbury which is owned by Cathy’s brother’s girlfriend. Despite all being in central London, the route from ceremony to reception took us neatly down a gorgeous little canal walk that’s artfully hidden between urban streets. It’s the sort of place that you could walk right past and unless you were looking for it, miss it. I did a recce (as I always do) ahead of the day itself and when checking it out on Google Maps prior to heading up I simply couldn’t believe that there was anything there. A genuine wonder and huge respect to Islington Council for such a gem. As you’ll see below, we stuck around at the Town Hall, which is beautiful in its own right, to take some images in the lovely corridors while Cathy & Pete’s guests got ahead of us, before doing a ‘walk and shoot’ in the river walk.
The Snooty Fox is a fantastic, characterful pub and as good a location for an intimate wedding reception as I can think of. There’s nothing like packing a pub that looks like this with lots of merry people to make for some fun images. After some of the best bangers and mash I’ve ever had the pleasure of (thanks guys!) we popped back to the river walk with Oscar, Cathy & Pete’s little boy for a few portraits. I love doing what I’ve come to call ‘creative sessions’ where I work directly, one-to-two, if you will, with the bride and groom, and the photos we take during these windows are often amongst my favourites, but photojournalism and quiet observation are still central to my work. A wedding like Cathy & Pete’s, at least in part thanks to the choice of venue, was simply chock full of moments, conversations, interactions and vignettes that are the heart and soul of good photojournalism. Add to this the lovely ‘transitions’, the periods of movement between one location or ‘chapter’ of a wedding and another and this is the sort of day that really lends itself to my style.
As always, here are a selection of my favourites. I took the train up for this gig and therefore travelled a bit lighter than usual. As normal, this is the 5D MkIII with 17-40L, 35L, 50mm f/1.4 an 135L but the dancing is lit a lot more simply and I shot a bit more ambient evening stuff, something I used to do a lot of and enjoyed focusing on again.
P.S. Oscar wasn’t the only little one at this wedding. It featured an understudy cast of some of the most expressively fantastic little people this season!
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