Having returned from Cornwall I seem to have been back to the grind stone much faster than anticipated, and so it is that I still haven't written my Cornish trip blog post, and I am still desperate to do so.
In the meantime, this Saturday I shot something I desperately steer clear of these days, a wedding!! I have done so many wedding shoots since I was just 17 years old, but a few years ago now, I made the decision to give up the worry, the tense anticipation, the creative hand-cuffs, the break-neck speed of coverage - pampering to polar opposite factions of wedding families, and most of all to reclaim my weekends and to concentrate on the peace & tranquillity of seascape photography and the creative reward of fine-art printing of my personal work.
But then there are friends ! :-) Those who have always loved your work, respected your profession and generally offered you support and even custom when you needed it most. They don't want A N Other snapper, they want their arty mate for their son or daughter's wedding and of course it's then impossible to let them down, 'almost' :-)
In my hazy memory, it seems that at least the last five of my weddings have been shot in appalling Welsh summer weather, you know, horizontal rain, force 8 winds and relentless soakings, but this Saturday was different, just drizzle, low cloud and grey blanket skies !!
Even at 19ยบ artist, film-maker and bride Rebecca, stepped out of the wedding car and shivered, not just nerves I thought as the mizzle wrapped around her like a shawl. Her dainty frame cowered in self protection until she reached the church door and a warmth took over. Painter and Royal College student Iwan stood nervously waiting at the first pew.
Someone with a large beard (not William Blake surprisingly for this crowd!) must have been looking down upon them though, because as we left the church the rain had stopped and remained suspended in the heavens above until, all were safely and ensconced in the warmth of Holyhead's Ucheldre Centre for the wedding breakfast.
Technical: I used two Canon 40Ds for the wedding, one with the 17-85 EFS and the other with the 70-200 f4L IS. At 400 ASA I was able to hand hold the tele-zoom in the available light of the Catholic Church. What has always frustrated me with the 40Ds is the slow recharge time for the fill flash which sometimes means a missed shot whilst the flash recharges. In all other respects these cameras perform so well BUT I wish there was a way of syncing the date time far more accurately on both cameras as with over 400 files to process, the two cameras still manage to create different time lines and wastes hours of work arranging them all chronologically. This time I shot everything in RAW only so that every file demanded proper attention. As this is my only wedding this year and hopefully the last ever - and Rebecca's Dad Mike is such a good friend, I feel they deserve that effort, but I would not want to be doing this for two weddings a week :-)
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