Wedding Photography, Portrait Photography and Family Photos in and around: Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Cotswolds and Somerset.
Wedding Photography, Portrait Photography and Family Photos in and around: Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Cotswolds and Somerset.
Welcome to my blog! I am a full time professional photographer specialising in natural, creative wedding photography and a range of different types of portrait photography including maternity, new born babies, families and pets.
I love my work as, for me, a photograph is a split second in time, which is shaped by the emotions of a moment. Every photograph tells a story and particular images can conjour up strong and sometimes powerful memories. I count myself lucky to really love what I do as I have a passion for taking photographs and finding out what makes people tick.
I am based near Bristol and Bath in the Chew Valley. For weddings, I work mainly in the Bristol, Bath, Somerset and Gloucestershire areas and photograph weddings regularly at some of the best venues in the region including: Hunstrete House, Thornbury Castle, Ston Easton Park, Maunsel House, Kingscote Barn, The Park, The Matara Centre and Guyers House. I am happy to travel to other parts of the country and abroad. To find out more about my wedding photography please click here. For portraits I work either in clients' homes, on location or from my studio in the Chew Valley and aim to offer a relaxed, fun and personal experience, particularly as many of my clients have known me since photographing their wedding and come back to me for their family photographs. For more information about portraits, please click here.
I hope you enjoy looking through my most recent work on the blog. If you are interested in wedding or portrait photography specifically and would like to search for posts related to that, just use the categories button to refine your search.
Last Friday I met up with Emily and Robert, who are getting married in a few weeks’ time, for their pre-wedding shoot. We had decided to take their photos in Bath around the Royal Crescent and Botanical Gardens area as the backgrounds are great – buildings and really nice plants. It had been a bit of a grey day but it stayed dry and the evening light was really soft.
Here are a few favourites:
Here is part 2 of Katy and Steve’s wedding in Ilfracombe – enjoy! :
Just before I went away, I photographed Katy and Steve’s wedding down in Ilfracombe. I was really looking forward to it as I had been there a couple of years back for a weekend walking along the South West Coast path and remembered what a nice spot it was. The forecast for the day was not great so all the way down the M5 I had my fingers crossed it would be fine!
Katy, her sister and bridesmaid Alex, Mum Chesca and other bridesmaid Vicky were all getting ready in a lovely hilltop hotel in Ilfracombe looking out towards the bay and the sea. They had the whole ground floor to themselves including a pretty funky 1920′s style bar, which they made full use of! I spent some time with them while they were getting ready – and got major shoe envy when Katy showed me her bright scarlet LK Bennet heels – what a great colour for a wedding shoe!
I then headed down the road to Tunnels Beaches, which is a gorgeous old seaside resort which has just had a fabulous wedding venue open up above the beach. I love open glass buildings – and this was a really eye catching curved building with a big terrace outside overlooking the sea. Steve was having a calming coke and a chat with his best man Ian and some of the other guests when I arrived so I captured all the goings on and we all waited for Katy to arrive. Managing to time her arrival for a bit of a break in the weather, despit the ceremony starting with brolleys up, by the end, the skies had cleared and we all enjoyed a bit of respite from the rain.
When I had first met Katy and Steve, they told me they were going to do an Italian style aperitivo after the ceremony - which I thought was a great idea. For those not familiar with this – in several areas mainly in the north of Italy, for a couple of hours each evening, bars and cafes lay out a buffet of snacks which you can help yourself to with your drink (much more civilised than the usual British bag of crisps or nuts for munchies!). They had really gone to town on it so everyone tucked in to big platters of cheeses, cold meats, salad and warm focaccia - canapes eat your heart out!
I took Katy and Steve off down to the beach for a few shots by themselves, but as I have got so many nice images from their day here are a few just until the end of the ceremony. Part 2 coming soon:
I am back in the office after a lovely break in Italy – including (very unusually for me!) attending a wedding as a guest. Although I love what I do and really enjoy shooting a wedding, it was interesting to see if from the other side and of course to quaff a few glasses of Champagne!
Coming up on the blog are Katy and Steve’s fantastic seaside wedding in Ilfracombe, which I photographed just before I left and Emily and Robert’s pre-wedding shoot in Bath. In the meantime, just before I went on holiday, I photographed 7 week old baby Jackson ands his parents Sarah and Ian. For such a small baby Jackson was incredibly good and we even managed to do a few natural light shots at the end of the studio session including one of all the family – even the dog!
Here are a few favourites:
Last Sunday I drove up to Kingscote Barn in Gloucestershire for Kathy and Luke’s wedding. The last time I was there at the beginning of June we had probably the wettest day of the year and Sunday was the complete opposite end of the spectrum – dry, sunny and warm – so all in all perfect wedding weather!
Kathy arrived straight from the hairdesser with bridesmaids Jenny and Claire and her mum Linda to get dressed, so I got some shots of them doing their final preparations. Meanwhile, Luke and the boys were greeting guests and enjoying the sunshine.
Kingscote is a really nice venue for lots of reasons, but one of the main ones from a photography point of view is that, for a lovely stone building, it has lots of glass and is really light, which is great particularly during the ceremony. Afterwards, everyone headed outside to soak up those lovely sweeping views and Kathy and Luke wandered around chatting to guests and having a great time. I also took them off for a few photographs in the hayfield in the late afternoon sun which was really nice – to capture the gorgeous country backgrounds.
Here are a few of my favourite images:
Last week before all this awful rain descended Rachel and Andy came out to the studio for their pre-wedding meeting and shoot. We caught up over a cuppa and then did a shoot in the hayfield – which looks so lovely at this time of year and is a great background for photographs. Watch this space for their wedding pictures in a few weeks’ time, but in the meantime, here are a few favourites from their pre-wedding shoot:
Kimberley and Joss were really lucky on their wedding day that they had one of the nicest days of the year so far weatherwise. They had planned to have both the ceremony and the wedding breakfast outside in the grounds of Maunsel House, so I was really hoping the day would be sunny and warm and fortunately it was perfect!
When I arrived Kimberley had just started to get ready with her Maid of Honour Katherine upstairs in the Bridal Suite. Also popping from time to time were flower girls Mia and Jasmine and Page Boy Sasha. Kimberley had chosen a lovely yellow theme for the day which looked really fresh and summery – the girls dresses in particular were a great choice for a summer wedding.
Kimberley and Joss both used to dance with the Royal Ballet, which I only discovered that morning – seeing some amazing pictures of them on a photo montage in the hallway. I think it definately explained why Kimberley looked so elegant and graceful in her stunning bridal gown all day!
Outside, the cellist and pianist were warming up and Joss and his three best men Cedric, Matthew and Graham were chatting to guests as they arrived and trying to keep Joss’ nerves at bay. During the ceremony Samantha sang a beautiful song and Sasha did a lovely reading and it was great for me being able to move around a bit and have a bit more freedom than you usually do indoors.
After the ceremony, guests enjoyed Champagne on the lawn and the kids ran around and played on the big swings under Maunsel’s gorgeous old trees. I took Kimberley and Joss off briefly for a few photographs and then everyone sat down to the speeches and wedding breakfast under the pergola.
Here are a few of my favourite images:
It is rare for me to visit a venue I haven’t shot at, but until I went to see Gants Mill with Jo and Tim a couple of weeks before their wedding, I had not been there before. Only a 15 minute drive from North Cadbury, it is set in a secluded valley and as you can see from the images has lovely old mill buildings as well as a truely spectacular garden (put my efforts with a few pots to shame!!!).
We managed to dodge the odd shower and get some lovely shots of Jo and Tim in front of the mill and waterfall – you don’t get much better backgrounds than that! The nice thing about the gardens was also that guests just wandered around them finding a pergola to walk under or a bench to sit on and enjoy their Champagne. The marquee was decorated beautifully in an English county style ready for afternoon tea – complete with vintage cups and saucers and, of course, tea pots! Being a tea fiend myself – they looked great and very welcoming at that time of the afternoon. Everyone tucked into a proper afternoon tea and enjoyed the speeches.
Here are a few more favourite images from their day:
A couple of weeks ago, I drove down to the lovely village of North Cadbury near Glastonbury (although luckily I missed the festival traffic by a couple of days!) for Jo and Tim’s wedding. Jo was getting ready at her parents house with sister Alison and other bridesmaids Katy and Amanda. It was forecast to be a showery day but it was dry when I arrived and everyone had finished breakfast and had started to get ready. After spending an hour or so with the girls, I headed over to the church to see Tim and his best man Bob and ushers Steve and Tom. It was very blustery so guests were chatting inside the church (which has such a lovely setting in a wide open church yard with beautiful trees).
The ceremony itself was one of the nicest weddings I have ever photographed, not least because the vicar actually let me shoot what I wanted to without any real restriction, which is very rare, so it was great for me to be able to capture the ceremony from different angles and tell more of the story. Afterwards we did some family photographs in the churchyard before heading off to the reception (more about that later!). Here are a few favourites:
The one thing couples getting married tend to stress about the most is the weather! It is really pretty unusual for it to rain all day without stopping in this country, but last Sunday it did! Not that this made any difference to Emma and Dan’s wedding at the lovely Kingscote Barn in Gloucestershire – a favourite venue of mine. I headed over to see Emma in the morning, getting ready at her parents’ house and then drove over to the barn to catch up with Dan and the guys. After the ceremony in the barn, we did manage to take a few shots outside with the aid of a couple of brolleys and it was clear that, despite the rain, Emma, Dan and their guests had a great time.
Here are a few favourites:
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