Last month we were asked to do the wedding photography for Michelle and Ashley who got married at the Swan Hotel, Bibury near Cirencester. So we packed the car up with all the gear and had a great sunny saturday  in the heart of the cotswolds. It really was a pleasure to shoot and we had a great time sharing and capturing Michelle & Ashley on their big day.

Here are a few of our favourites : )

See the band’s website here: http://www.cubacubamusic.co.uk/ and you can download the album ‘Where Else Is Safe But the Road’ on iTunes by clicking HERE

CLICK HERE to see all of the photos from the gig!

Below are some photos from the wedding  ceremony of Sara and John which were taken at Maes Manor in Blackwood, Gwent. For this wedding we were allowed to shoot right through the ceremony and I also managed to move to both sides of the registrar allowing me to get different angles of both Sara and John. You will also notice some height on one of the photos giving a third angle at a key moment in the ceremony. Please note also that while doing this we are as quiet as a mouse and completely professional throughout the ceremony allowing you to fully appreciate and enjoy the main moment of your wedding day with as little distraction as possible.

Now for some technical stuff ! For the wedding ceremony of Sara and John I used flash throughout with a diffuser and shot in manual mode. The front shots were taken with a Nikon D700 camera and my settings were mainly F4 and a nice and fast shutter speed of 200. giving clarity and sharpness to both the bride and groom in the center of the frame. The lens used was the Nikon 24-70 f2.8. Iso varied slightly as it was set to automatic but was mainly around the six to eight hundred mark. I always take a few shots at F2.8 for several shots during the ceremony as well as F4 just to get a nice creamy bokeh (or blur) in the background around the bride and groom in order to vary the ‘type’ of ceremony shot. At this wedding Dave was shooting from the back of the aisle using a Canon 5DMK2 with L series 70 – 200 f2.8. There is a great shot that Dave took that shows me shooting the bride and groom!

Due to the high spec of our cameras we can also shoot without flash when required; even in low light situations such as churches. We  carry  in total  four cameras, three flash guns, six batteries, chargers, a range of the very best lenses and a laptop and ipads for backups throughout the day. We tend to stick with one 32gb memory card each and fill up those rather than switch amongst several 4gb, 8gb or 16gb cards.

]]> http://www.kapowphotography.co.uk/blog/2011/03/30/the-wedding-ceremony/feed/ 0 http://www.kapowphotography.co.uk/blog/2011/01/18/bridal-preparations-the-morning-of-your-wedding/ http://www.kapowphotography.co.uk/blog/2011/01/18/bridal-preparations-the-morning-of-your-wedding/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:11:32 +0000 Kapow_Karl http://www.kapowphotography.co.uk/blog/?p=693

So your planning your wedding and your trying to visualize your wedding day and the all important morning of your wedding! ; the makeup artist, hairdresser, bridesmaids, breakfast, champagne and um…photographer?!

Hmm… photographer! do I need my photographer on the morning of my wedding? what do they do?! You may of seen a friends album or been a bridesmaid so will know all about this, but for some you who have not we thought we’d better explain some of the behind the scene goings on and the all important bridal preparation shots that can simply add that little bit of a story to your wedding album through the use of photography. We as photographers LOVE this part of the day…hair and makeup shots are my personal favourite! the excitement, anticipation and general flow of the morning of your wedding day is just great fun all round.  Many times we come across makeup artists and hairdressers that we know well in South Wales having worked with them at previous weddings so its always a relaxed and fun morning as you prepare and get pampered for your big day. The benefits of having two photographers of course means that we can capture both the bride getting ready and the groom. It enables us to split up and capture both the groom and the boys getting ready aswel as the girls and be in two places at once!

In terms of the photography;  especially the hair and makeup shots and the composition of the portraiture and colours I always find that its exactly the same as an artist. The same rules apply in photography whilst image making as they do if I was to use a paint brush or pencil to compose or paint the same picture. Good photography is a combination of pushing the camera to its limits technically as well as having an eye artistically to compose the photo. Some of this composition of course can be done after the event using software such as lightroom or photoshop but its this balance of technical knowledge and creativity that makes for good photographs and its during the morning of the wedding that we can show this composition in portraiture.

Below are some photos taken on the morning of weddings from across South Wales and beyond! – Karl

I thought it might be a good idea to write a blog  about album designs! Because we design the album pages ourselves we can pretty much do anything in terms of design and style when it comes to the layouts of your album. We can stick with the traditional layout option or go for something a little bit more modern and design in a storybook fashion. It is entirely up to you which way you’d like us to design your album. With all our package options you get 30 pages which is enough for roughly 50 – 60 photos from your wedding DVD of images. Album design is one of my favourite parts of being a wedding photographer as I get to play around with the finished and edited images and try and fit them in sequence into page layouts. I love this part of the job as it means I’m putting the finishing touches to your chosen wedding photographs it also means days infront of the computer working in photoshop and designing away whilst drinking loads of coffee and listening to some of my favourite dance tracks on itunes!! Without sounding too pretentious (as that definatley is not us here at Kapow) designing to music definatley helps the process. Anyway I’ll leave you with some album layouts so you can see the kind of designs we like to go for! – Karl