photos I love: Elie Beach, March 2012

I took this photograph, in March 2012. I was in Elie for an engagement shoot with Dillon and Rosalyn.

It was a gorgeous, warm day, the first really warm day in an unusually hot spell in March. We went over to that lighthouse to start our photos, and when we returned to the harbour, we went for lunch. While we were sitting outside, I took this photograph.

In terms of landscape, it's probably quite dull. The sky is flat, the sea is still, the line of the land is narrow. But I love this photograph. I love it for its simplicity. I love that it's not filled with everything and anything, clouds, sunshine, birds, tornadoes, leaves. The sky was flat - it was a very hazy day. Look through the other photos, it was almost misty. But it's not boring to me. There's a subtle graduation in colour, creeping in from the left, and fading out towards the right where the sunshine was coming from. If you saw a cloudless sky outside your window in Scotland, you'd comment on it. I love that the sea almost disappears into the horizon. This photo is calm.

I love that it doesn't tick the boxes. I like some landscapes, but in a lot of them I see over-processing. Heavy on the colour. Vignetting, hue alteration, filters and editing. Colours that pop, colours that burst, scenes that grab your attention and shake it violently. I like calmness. I like seeing what is there, I like seeing what is real and what I'd see if I were there too, rather than an over-enhanced digital interpretation. Sometimes I see those photos, and they look wrong... they look like false nails, and dyed hair extentions, push up bras and implants, fake eyelashes and fake tans. They're not natural beauties.

I think sometimes, I go to a place like Elie, and I feel calm. I relax. I switch off, and I listen to the sounds around me, and that's all I feel. I wanted a photo that captured that. I love the smallness of the lighthouse.

I love that this photo feels unusual for me, but at the same time, it feels like a step in a direction of creative calmness that I find myself wanting to be. I just wonder where, in three years time, this photograph will sit in my personal photographic development.

House for an Art Lover: Portfolio Bridal Shoot

So here's the thing. Since I left college a couple of years ago, I still enjoy creating portfolio shoots. Some people call them "styled" shoots, but I prefer to call them portfolio shoots, as I feel it describes the end result and purpose a lot better.

Anyway. Back in July, I met with another young photographer, on a sunny day in Stirling, called Zoe Campbell. We sat, we chatted (a lot), and she was among the first sort of photographer who I'd met who wasn't simply sizing me up as competition; she was genuinely interested in chatting to me as a fellow photographer and business woman and we got on like the proverbial house on fire. We got to chatting about doing a portfolio shoot together and as I went to leave, I suggested the idea of getting a couple of models, a few frocks, and just going out somewhere and doing a "little shoot". Simple enough, great for practice.

Fast forward a few months and Zoe and I were chatting about it on Twitter. We caught the attention of a few other wedding suppliers, and in the space of an evening online, we'd formed our team: a make up artist - Sophie Edwards; a jewellery and accessory designer - Gioia Mia; a bridal dress designer - Flossy and Dossy; a stationer - Hill Weddings; and a florist - I Heart Flowers. So that was where it began. As we went along, we also recruited the lovely Mack Photography, which was thrilling, into our online team.  We'd also scooped Photos by Zoe into our little gang of chatterboxes, she was unable to join us on the day, but she became an honourary member of our team.

It was a massive shoot, and it involved a lot of organisation and planning. We even had our own private Facebook group, which made things a lot easier. We had proper group meetings in cafes - not just a case of sitting drinking coffee and occasionally commenting "so what about this shoot then?", but actual, sit down, plan it out, and bring your notebook (unless you're me and forgot. Ahem).

There was a lot of cross-planning too. We had diaries to think of, as well as Gioia Mia, Flossy and Dossy, Hill Weddings and I Heart Flowers coordinating on colour, design and materials, both face to face, and via email and online.

We also had to find a venue. Although we wanted it to be predominantly outdoors, we knew we couldn't rely on the Scottish weather as autumn and winter started to pull in, so needed somewhere that had it all - outdoors if it was nice; but a venue that was also willing to let us shoot indoors too.

Finding a venue was perhaps the hardest part. Aside from letting us shoot indoors, I was also keen that they understood this wasn't going to be the sort of thing that could be done in half-an-hour.

That's where House for an Art Lover came in. Located in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, I'd been there previously for a college project shoot and found them to be very friendly and accommodating.  So we called them up, and again they were brilliant. They fitted the plan perfectly - they suited our themes; they were handy and easy for the whole team to access; and they understood what we were trying to do. Without the right venue, the shoot wouldn't have happened at all, so I'm thoroughly grateful to House for An Art Lover for what they did for us.

While visiting a local wedding fair, Sonia from Gioia Mia and I also met a very lovely man who was representing his company at the fair, A Suit That Fits. Aside from being completely charming, we also fell in love with their suit designs. We loved the quirkiness of the suits, the idea that a wedding suit doesn't have to be staid and dull, but can be thoroughly stylish and actually, damned cool. We were thrilled when they agreed to work with us, and sent us some samples for our male models for our shoot.

We also decided to invite Chris from Nuvo Limousines to join our troop. Chris kindly brought his stylish Beauford car to the shoot, which gave us a wonderful starting point for our story. London Ross, from Macs Glasgow gave our models fantastic hairstyles for the shoot. Butler and Taylor were also kind enough to lend us their gorgeous gramophone and some records, to help set our scene.

Of course, no shoot can really take place without models, in this case, Emily Morton and Jamie Hillen who were our 50's couple, while Caeley Elcock and Omar Zingaro Bhatia became our 30s couple. I don't think we can thank them enough, for turning up on a cold, rainy November day, for early morning hair and make up, and then working through the day for us.

My day, started at around 5am. Up early and a good breakfast, packing the car, checking, rechecking, and triple checking I had everything I needed. Then I headed off to collect the gramophone and Sonia, before heading off to see dresses, suits, flowers, models and the rest of the team.

I always wake up early on shoot days. It was a proper November day as well, pouring with rain, grey and dull. I'd hoped that we might be able to shoot outside, but the weather prevented us from venturing out. It felt a world away from sitting outside a cafe in Stirling, sipping coffee with Zoe. Perhaps our biggest battle was chasing the fading light later in the afternoon and having to compensate for a lack of natural daylight pouring in.

We worked hard, all day. House for an Art Lover were incredible, and brilliantly accommodating.

Doing a shoot like this, really is about two halves. The first stage, the planning and preparation, the front end work belonged to Flossy and Dossy, I Heart Flowers, and Gioia Mia. At this stage, the rest of us could only really assist, through organisation; but the work of creating dresses and jewellery, with a deadline approaching, was entirely the domain of our styling team. Due to the fragile nature of flowers, Sophie from I Heart Flowers also had quite a challenge - creating gorgeous bouquets and buttonholes, but having only a small window of opportunity to do so in order to preserve the flowers at their best.  On the day, we all had roles to play - with our make up artist Sophie Edwards and our hair stylist London Ross getting the early morning shift.

Then the workload shifted onto the photographic team. We took photos, bounced around, and then had the work of downloading and editing images, which is always much more time consuming than even sometimes we like to think. It's not the sort of thing you can feasibly do in one sitting either - I always like to download, have an initial look, then spend a little time away from the computer - perhaps an hour or so - in between stages. I need to look, revisit, look again. Sometimes my favourite photo falls to the bottom of the pile; sometimes a photo that didn't initially grab my attention rises to the top of my favourites. I download, then I cull a first time, I do initial tweaks and cull a second time, then I do a thorough edit, and I'll often cull a third time afterwards; occasionally even a forth time, if I feel I'm including too many photographs which are almost identical.

We'd decided early on, before we'd started the shoot, to send the photos to Love my Dress blog. We didn't know if Annabel would blog them, but we thought it would be worth a try. We spent a while editing the photos, then as a group we shortlisted our first selection of our favourite photographs - a portfolio if you like, to showcase to Annabel. It was a careful process. We eliminated duplicates, and ensured that the first taster really was a selection of photographs we felt were our strongest work and most reflective of our shoot.  The whole team was involved in this process - it was about finding what people liked most, and what they felt reflected their work best. Critique was never personal.

Sometimes it was funny, often it was thought provoking, but it was never personal. I think if I were to describe it, I'd say it was trustworthy. We all had each others best interests at heart, because the best interests of the team were our best interests too. We'd formed into this incredible team, we'd developed skills and abilities and we'd honed our ability to work together, it made me feel complete trust in the team around me.

Then, we drafted an email to Annabel. Sophie and Sonia worked on this, while the photographers edited. Once we'd compiled our first selection of photographs, we sent them, along with the email, off to Annabel. Then it became a waiting game.

I was in London when I got a text from Sonia, telling me that Annabel had said yes. There's a photo of me, on Facebook, where I've taken a self-portrait with my mobile, and it's me with the biggest grin on my face at the news.

Being featured on Love My Dress was an absolute thrill - it was what we'd worked for, it was what we'd hoped for, and what we'd aimed for. And it was what we achieved. To us, it was a goal we wanted to achieve and we'd worked hard for it - so to see that come to fruition was fantastic.

Its always about setting new challenges, bigger ones, every time. Never settling to rest on your laurels, never settling to achieve the same level of success each time. Each time it's a venture further out, adding on something new, doing something a bit bigger, and never expecting to hear the word "no" before you've tried. Push a bit more, try a little more, experiment a bit more. The more I find things happening, and people saying yes, the more I realise there's a whole world of "yes" waiting for me out there. And I've heard plenty of "no" responses too - loads of them, but to be honest, I don't remember them. I remember the "yes" moments. That's not even about positive thinking - that's purely about the fact that I just simply don't remember rejections.

The best thing about this shoot, is it's made me see what I can do... and it's left me with lots of open doors of thought to new possibilities.

Photography on this page: Struve Photography
Photography - Zoe Campbell Photography + Mack Photography
Venue - House for an Art Lover, Glasgow
Dress Designer-Maker - Flossy and Dossy
Flowers - I Heart Flowers
Jewellery and Accessories - Gioia Mia
Stationery - Caroline Hill Wedding Stationery
Make-up Artist - Sophie Edwards
Hair Stylist - London Ross
Menswear - A Suit That Fits
Car - Nuvo Limousines
Gramophone and records - Butler and Taylor
Models - Emily Morton, Caeley Elcock, Jamie Hillen and Omar Zingaro Bhatia

Product Feature: Struve Photography Mini Albums!

I recently decided to invest in some new sample products, to showcase at wedding fairs. I can't describe what it's like picking up new samples - it's still a thrill, of unwrapping all the paper and bubble wrap to see what it looks like. I really love my new samples - so I thought I'd write some blog posts and make them a feature.

Today I thought I'd share some photographs I took of some sample mini albums I offer my couples as an additional product to their photography package.

These mini albums are as cute as they look. Press printed softback mini albums, with up to 80 pages, they're a gorgeous little keepsake for any couple to give as a thank you to family or friends who've been instrumental in assisting with a wedding.

These mini albums, are sized at 4.25" by 4.25", and feature photographs from Jen and Rob's Welsh Wedding.

They come in packs of five, and you can pick whichever of your gorgeous wedding photographs you want to share.

 

This makes a gorgeous little extra to add onto a wedding photography package. I couldn't stop admiring them when I got them - the print and paper quality is the high standard I really want to pass on to my couples, and a fitting keepsake for any wedding.

The Show Must Go On....

Today I'm going to write about wedding fairs, as I've been thinking a lot about my own stand at a wedding show later this month. I've been trying to work out what to put on my stall which is reflective of my brand, and make it work. Visiting other wedding fairs over the last six months has given me an insight to see what I think does and doesn't work and to see it from a potential bride's perspective.

From experience, for me what makes a good wedding show or a good wedding fair is a mix of things. I like them to be well lit. Some shows or fairs don't always have enough extra lighting, and it can make some of the stalls feel a bit dull, like a dark corner that I don't want to venture into. I like plenty of space as well, if a fair gets busy, then I need space to get round other visitors. Its very easy to feel claustrophobic if the aisles aren't wide enough, especially when you add a few buggies into the mix. Good sign posting is absolutely vital. There are some where I've had to ask directions once I've entered a hotel or building - to me, that's not good. It immediately makes me wonder whether to go ahead with visiting, or whether to go and get a coffee instead.

However, most importantly, a lot of how I feel afterwards is a result of the suppliers and how they behave. At some fairs I've been to, I've come away really having enjoyed meeting the vendors and suppliers. I've felt relaxed and open, made some great contacts and chatted and told them who I am and why I'm there - I don't pretend to be a bride, I'm quite open that I'm a wedding photographer. They don't mind me having a look, they chat to me, and it's been a really good experience. However, that's not always the case and my heart goes out to any bride who's felt uncomfortable at wedding fairs.

I remember one fair I went to and as I walked round, I started to find I had leaflets thrust at me. I'm not talking about actually pausing at a stall -  I was walking down the aisles between the stalls and I actually sped up to get away. I moved constantly, going round corners not out of curiosity, but purely to keep moving and escape. I felt like a real-life incarnation of Pacman. It was horrible. I stopped, for a second, at a crossing, because I had my purse in one hand, a plastic carrier in the other, a hand full of leaflets, and wanted to put my purse away into my handbag and my leaflets into my carrier. I thought it was a safe spot to stop. While I stood there for those few seconds organising myself, another three suppliers lunged forward from the corner stalls and thrust more leaflets at me. There was no actual verbal contact beyond "have a leaflet". Thrusting leaflets into my hand when I'm trying to put my purse into my handbag is invasive of my personal space and rude.

Unfortunately when people start pushing leaflets at me, I find myself being abrupt, with swift "no thanks" responses. It reminds me of how I felt when I was standing in the queue to go up the Eiffel Tower, and there were hawkers circling the queue, looking for the smallest eye-contact as an excuse to try and sell one of the metal Eiffel Tower miniatures.

Had I been a bride, I honestly wouldn't have hired any of them on the back of that.  I would assume any flyer in my bag that I didn't recognise would have come from one of those pushy vendors.

At some wedding fairs, I've been asked about who I am - so I find vendors opening with questions such as "are you the bride to be?", or "have you set a date yet?".  This is actually something quite useful - you're asking an open question, that invites visitors to talk back to you. The answer can be as short as "yes I am the bride" or "no date yet", but it can also be a bit more indepth, it allows people to give more indepth responses if they want to.

At some wedding fairs, meanwhile, I've been asked "have you got a band yet?" "have you got a photographer?", and I don't respond well to that. Those are very simple closed questions - yes or no answers. "Yes I have". End of story. They don't elicit additional information; they don't "invite" visitors to talk to you. 

Asking "Have you got a band?", makes no sense to me, if I've decided to have a DJ, or I don't know whether you're a band that covers pop, rock, or you are a ceilidh band, or even if you're prepared to travel to my venue or are available on my particular date.

This has given me a lot to think about in terms of my own approach. Often its the negative experiences that teach me as much as the positive about what I want to avoid. I think what strikes me is the insistence of suppliers to give me a leaflet, without so much as a discussion. Everyone likes to talk about themselves (as I am currently proving) - I always think it's better to get potential clients to talk about themselves and their plans first; it's flattering. Who am I? Where am I getting married? Am I getting married? Have I set a date? The little things that actually, as suppliers, we can learn from and listen to.

I've had stalls at wedding fairs before. I'm not a big fan of talking myself up, so tend to take a more softly-softly approach. I have a rule of waiting and giving them space to browse my albums, before I move in and talk to them. If they look at a couple of pages, then I strike up conversation. My aim is to let potential clients get to know me a bit; if they feel they enjoyed chatting with me, then they might be more interested in booking me. That's what I use it for - it's face to face contact, and that's something I can't get through magazines, adverts or online listings. I'll be honest, my softly-softly doesn't always work. That's ok though because I know I'm being true to myself and what I represent.

I'm not saying I know it all, I really don't. I'm learning. I'm learning as a self-employed photographer not just about sales, but also marketing, advertising, administration, book keeping, website maintenance... a whole load of roles. In terms of sales, part of what it is about, is finding out what people need, before you offer a solution. It's about communicating, finding out who they are, then where you can fit in their lives.

At the moment, I'm viewing my own forthcoming wedding fair as an opportunity for learning. It's a new wedding show I've not yet worked with, so it is in part an experiment, and I'm really looking forward to it. It will help me to get my name out there. It will make me a little more familiar, it will give me an opportunity to talk to people, and to meet people I don't otherwise have the chance to meet on a day to day basis. It will be a good experience to learn from. I may well learn what doesn't work as much as what does work. The money I spend on my stall I could easily spend on going to a course to find this out, I just see it as a real life lesson. It will never be a failure if I learn something new from it.

To use the quote which is often attributed to Thomas Edison:
"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."

My attitude towards my forthcoming wedding show is that it is a means to find out what to eliminate  or what works for me.

I think its important to understand the purpose of the fair or show isn't about us wedding suppliers, or making sure we break-even on the overhead costs we've put into it. The people who put these fairs on are trying to get brides to come along to see lots of suppliers in one place, and I think it's a duty of suppliers to make sure that we don't end up putting them off. To me, wedding fairs are a bit like a mini shopping arcade aimed solely at the wedding market. At some fairs, suppliers have been very positive - they are there because they clearly love what they do, they enjoy it and they genuinely take pride in their products and services. Their enthusiasm doesn't feel like a sales pitch - it's more than about making money, it's about offering something of value to the customer in exchange.

I'd love to hear from you what your experiences are of wedding fairs and wedding shows. Have you ever felt like you were being pounced or preyed on by suppliers? Do you have any tried and tested techniques that work for you as a supplier?  Have you learned anything interesting from shows or fairs you've enjoyed? How do brides and grooms feel about going to wedding fairs and wedding shows? I look forward to reading any comments you have on this.

Behind my photographs...

I thought that today, I'd share something a little bit different with you. I thought I'd share something from inside my camera bag - probably one of my most vital tools, most effective tools, and without a doubt, a real little unsung hero.

This is my notebook and it accompanies me on every engagement and wedding shoot I do.

 It's a tatty looking little thing, still has the original price tag on it, which might look expensive for a notebook, but it's a smashing little thing for the jobs it does. It's very thick, has plenty of pages, and it just fits in my pocket. It doesn't need batteries, it doesn't break or crack if I drop it. I can update it without needing any external power source or memory.

Before I go on engagement or wedding shoots, I do research. I learned to do this at college, and it's something I continue to do now. I love looking at photos which inspire me, and I make notes about what I like, and what I can use. I make notes about composition, lighting, depth of field... anything and everything that I love about really good quality photographs.

It serves to do a few things. Firstly, it means I've always got a reference, so I won't run short on ideas. Secondly, it means I've thought about what I'm going to do before I turn up on the day. I understand the idea behind "spontaneous" photos and how much every bride, groom, and photographer wants them, but the reality is perfect spontaneous photos aren't guaranteed to happen. It's like predicting rainbows. Personally, I don't like leaving that much to chance. So a little nudge of an idea is needed to get the ball rolling again, and that's where my notebook comes in.

Its a discipline I learned at college, and it worked perfectly there. When I had to do shoots, I usually took my (much bigger) college workbook with me. It allowed me to show models and make up artists, what I was trying to achieve. It allowed me to think in advance about the lighting, and get on with it. I take aspects I like, and then put my spin on it. I select images I like for their aesthetic quality that appeals to me. I adapt it to suit the situation I'm in and I make it my own.

I liken the process to music. If you're a musician, you start by learning from other composers. You learn arrangements of music, timings, you learn how it all goes together. When you start composing for yourself, you're taking what you've learned from other composers and adjusting it and adapting it, using parts you like in a way you like, and making it all your own.

 So I thought I'd show you how some of my favourite photos over the last 12 months came together....

 

You might notice that some of the photos seem a bit different to their actual notebook equivalent. It's about having a starting point. You can probably also see why I'm a photographer and not an artist! I like to use these as a visual aid, with notes underneath about composition.

Going through the notebook recently, I realised how many of my favourite photographs I've taken have come from ideas I've scribbled in the notebook.

I think it's interesting though to consider that this isn't just a me thing. It's not even just a photography thing. Bob Monkhouse famously had loads of journals, full of jokes. Personally speaking, this simple system works wonders for me, but it's definitely part of the process of my work as I never turn up to a wedding or engagement shoot without preparation and planning.

Turquoise, Twigs and Beer : Steph and Tom's Woodland themed wedding

I'm really pleased today, to be able to share some photos from Tom and Steph's wedding in September last year. For those of you not aware, Tom is the genius behind my logo design. So I was over the moon when I was able to give him and Steph my photography skills at his wedding.

Tom and Steph got married at West, the brewery in Glasgow. Theirs was a very personalised wedding - they decided early on that they wanted to have a turquoise theme, and as a pair of self-confessed nature geeks, they wanted a natural theme running through their wedding.

Tom and Steph were also keen to make it a day which was very much all about them. Tom designed the invites (below), and they chose West as their venue, which as well as being next to Glasgow Green where we went for the photos, suited them as a brewery and a restaurant. They also decided not to do things that they felt weren't reflective of them: the meal was a very relaxed barbeque, with no formal place sittings; they didn't have a first dance or speeches. Steph added some handcrafted items, she made gorgeous birds and bunting to decorate their wedding with. The cake, which was frankly amazing, was designed to reflect their theme, and based on their wedding invites. I was also thrilled that Steph had her dress made by fantastic Glasgow based wedding dress designer, Flossy and Dossy.
 

Photographing this wedding was an absolute pleasure - it really had so many things that as a photographer, excited my photographic senses! Congratulations to Tom and Steph, and thanks very much for letting me be a part of your big day. I'd also like to say a big thanks to Zoe Campbell, who was my sharp-eyed second shooter on the day.