Manchester wedding photography

Becky & Andrew, St Mary’s Failsworth & Mottram Hall

Becky got in touch after seeing photos from another wedding I had photographed at St Mary’s Church in Failsworth. It’s a lovely church for photographs. The services there are interesting, at a stage in the ceremony the wedding party are turned to face the congregation. Its nice for everyone to see more than just backs of heads. For a few years I taught Photoshop classes at the Lifelong Learning centres and was always impressed with the friendliness of the people and the community spirit in Failsworth. The wedding was the same, friendly guests with strong connections to the church and area.

The reception was at the impressive Mottram Hall, Mottram St Andrew. The grounds allow for some great wide angle shots as well as intimate telephoto shots. Lying on the lawn I got an interesting shot of Becky & Andrew walking along, the wide aperture blurring the foreground perfectly. Alex, their son, made for some great photo opportunities and Becky looked wonderful in her detailed dress throughout the day.

Tags: Mottram Hall,St Mary's Failsworth

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Joanne & Nick – The Royal Toby, Castleton

There’s nothing that says spring to me more than blossom. Arriving early for Joanne & Nick’s Ceremony at the Royal Toby in Castleton I found a little tree in the corner of the grassy area at the side of the hotel.
I took a close up of the blossom and made a mental note to use it later in a photo of the couple.

Ideally when the Sun comes out I would face everyone away from the Sun, no squinting, no hard shadows on faces. At The Royal Toby it is not so simple. The direction with the Sun behind (at least after a ceremony in May) looks towards the carpark. To photograph with the trees and “love seat”/swing behind you need considerable flash power to fill the shadows from the Sun. Using a powerful outdoor studio light rather than the more commonly used on camera Speedlites enables you to do that. It’s still not straightforward. If the Sun goes in, you need to adjust your aperture so that you get the same amount of ambient light in the photo. Because you’ve changed the aperture you then need to change the flash power! When the Sun is on the edge of a cloud its particularly difficult and I’m very pleased with the results.

Getting up on the tree stump in the garden to take a full group shot was less impressive. I needed a couple of guests to help me up after trying and failing miserably to do so on my own!

There is one photo I’ve posted only because it really needs a caption (I think you’ll work out which one!). No idea what was going on! What do you think?!