Simon Kemp – Hyde End Studios | Wedding and Portrait Photography, Reading, Berkshire U.K.

These two crazy kids are getting married next month! We met today to shoot some pre-wedding pictures. The plan was to shoot at their wedding venue which is the lovely Wasing Park in Aldermaston but sadly the weather was against us. Still, we got some nice pictures inside and I am looking forward to the big day! Here’s a couple of images from the pre-wedding session that caught my eye.

Sarah and Chris tie the knot next month at Pennyhill Park Hotel and today we met for a pre-wedding meeting and to shoot some pictures. We shot a few in the studio and headed up to the abandoned sawmill that I shot at last weekend. Again, it’s a great location for outdoor portraits, I found some new angles and got some cool images. Chris and Sarah were great to work with, the wedding should be fun, I am looking forward to it.

Here’s a few favourites from the pre-wedding shoot, starting off with a couple of studio pics.

So I hope you are all well today on ‘The Day of the Great Choosing’ as Stephen Fry so eloquently puts it. I took a walk over the polling station today and shot a few Hipstamatic iPhone shots on the way. More of my phone images right here.

I am pleased to say I am finally back home after an unscheduled extra week away, tons of hassle and some, uh, interesting travel stories. I am so happy to get home in time to shoot Victoria and Richard’s wedding tomorrow and Katie and Graham’s bid day on Saturday. Had I missed the weddings it would have been the first time in sixteen years that would have happened. One benefit of hiring a professional photographer like myself is that we have a network of fellow professionals to call on. I had already lined up replacements to shoot the weddings this weekend but thankfully that wasn’t needed.

It’s great to be back, a post on my holiday and some pictures (of course) coming soon.

Sometimes when you are in a creative profession it’s good to set yourself little projects to kick start your mind along different avenues and to see things from different perspectives. My good friend and fantastic photographer Rob Burress, Mr. Shooting Hip himself, was kind enough to let me come along on his wedding today at Cain Manor in Hampshire. Although I am a dyed-in-the-wool, card carrying stills photographer, for a little while now I have wanted to shoot some moving images at a wedding. At the end of last year I bought a hugely expensive (£15) vintage cine camera off Ebay.

The 30 year old camera shoots 8mm film in the Super 8 format which was introduced in the 1960′s. There’s no sound (this is antique, folks), but it has a style and quality all it’s own, lo-fi, gritty and with flaws which are all part of the charm. A couple of months ago I shot a Super 8 test roll so I could make sure the camera works OK.

Sadly, one factor with film is of course the delay whilst it gets developed and scanned. I will of course post the finished movie when it’s ready.

I took my regular camera and shot some stills as well. Not leaving well enough alone I thought it would be fun to shoot some iPhone pictures using the mighty Hipstamatic application. It’s great when you don’t have total responsibility for the wedding images, you can mess around a little, which was of course the whole point of the exercise.

Here’s some favourites from the stills, cine footage coming soon!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="Out of the chaos...."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="No time to be thinking about the Father Of The Bride Speech"][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="The Cain Manor Synchronised Button-hole Fixing Display Team"][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="820" caption="(L) A little lucky ladybird on Claire's shoe. (R) When you gotta go, you gotta go..."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="The boys."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="A Rembrandt-esque image from the iPhone/Hipstamatic combo."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="457" caption="Claire and her dad and, uh, the limo driver escort Claire to the church."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="The ceremony. Amazing how a phone image (just about) gets away with it in such low light."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="And for comparison, the £5k camera/lens combination."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="The bee-yoo-ti-ful cake."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="404" caption="Claire braves the great outdoors."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="Claire and Michael do the 'Victorian Bride and Groom' pose for the iPhone"][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="820" caption="A couple of favourite reception images at Cain Manor"][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="820" caption="(L) Always the bridesmaid.... (R) I love the backlighting as the champagne flows."][/caption]

Thanks for looking! And thanks to Rob and Claire and Mike for letting me be a wedding crasher :)

It’s always a joy to see brides and grooms back with their babies, today it was a pleasure to see Sumi and Suren with little Krishan. I had photographed Sumi and Suren’s wedding at Pennyhill Park Hotel almost three years ago.

Krishan is 9 months old now and starting to want to stand up, we did manage to keep him still for a few shots though. Here’s a few that caught my eye.

It’s been a little while since I photographed a bump so it was lovely to welcome Connie and Ian to my studio to shoot some pregnancy photographs. It’s a lovely thing to do and is a beautiful precursor to newborn pictures which we are planning to photograph in about 9 or 10 weeks. I often think that it’s really sad if you grow up without any photographs of yourself as a baby. Not so common now but I’ve spoken to a few people of my parents generation when film cameras for some were an expensive luxury and often no images exist of their babyhood and youth.

I think Connie and Ian have made a great start to the family heirloom which a treasured photograph album becomes. It’s easy these days not to ever print a digital photograph but I love the fact that the tangible nature of a hand made print or book is something that won’t crash or get corrupted and is always there to pass on to the younger members of the family. I am pretty sure the new baby will appreciate these ‘beginning’ images, especially when he/she is old enough to have children of their own.

A couple of favourites from the session.