SteelOrchid Photography

Category: Wedding

  • Bridesmaid

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    Another simple animation.

    Beautiful bridesmaid from Matt and Lisa’s wedding having fun running about. The spontaneity gave us a delightful, charming and more natural photo.

     

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  • Claire and Lennie

    For Claire and Lennie – a few photos from your wedding…many more to come…

  • Ben and Tiya

    Congratulations to Ben and Tiya who tied the knot at Dobcross Parish Church on 7th January prior to returning home to Thailand in a few days’ time. This created quite a challenge for us to get the images ready and the wedding books ordered for them to take back. We managed…just!!!

    Tiya looked stunning in a traditional Thai gown in pale pink with an overlay of embroidered pink lace. Ben formerly lived in Dobcross village before travelling to Thailand where he met his lovely bride.

  • Michael and Nicola

    For Michael and Nicola – a taster of your wedding photographs:

  • Latest Haslington Hall photos

    Had a fantastic day at Haslington Hall near Crewe on a wedding photoshoot arranged by DingDong Events

    This was taken in the Bridal suite at Haslington Hall. http://www.tailormadevenues.com/haslington-hall.html

    The amazing dresses and the jewellery provided by Cheshire Bridal Wear http://www.cheshirebridalwear.co.uk/.  The mask we used for this shoot was the amazing filigree mask “Katherine” provided by http://www.masqueboutique.co.uk/.  You can see it in more detail below.

    Make up and hair by LA Hair and Make-up  http://www.totalpamper.co.uk/ and Vickie Quinn 07894 584847

    “Yvonne” Heirloom bouquet by http://www.tiny-gems.co.uk/

    The stunning floral arrangement was provided by Acer Florists  http://www.flowershopfrodsham.co.uk/ and the amazing candelabra “Windsor” from http://www.muniquedesigns.com/

    Cakes and cupcakes by http://www.mummys-yummies.co.uk and http://www.scrumptillios.co.uk

    Formals by http://www.landjformalhire.co.uk

    Location shots http://www.haslingtonhall.co.uk

  • Haslington Hall Wedding Venue

    Haslington Hall, a beautiful Tudor mansion near Crewe, makes a really romantic wedding venue in the heart of the Cheshire countryside. We were asked to provide photographic services for a wedding and product shoot by Wedding Organiser Tracey Allen.  In spite of inclement February weather and temperatures close to freezing, our ten “models for the day” braved the cold and did a fantastic job all day.

    Mike and I were on our feet from 9 am to 5 pm and very tired by the end of the day, but sheer enthusiasm kept everyone going.  I was aided and abbetted by friend and photographic artist Joan Blease, who became dress fluffer extraordinaire as well as ably assisting with reflectors and models. I could really get used to having an assistant photographer and Joan’s knowledge of working with models was most helpful. Thanks Joan.

    Dresses were provided by Cheshire Bridal Wear. The full skirted and floating designer dresses were so gorgeous and the models all looked fantastic in them.

    Jan of Acer Flowers provided bouquets and table flowers, with a showstopper of a centrepiece displayed in an enormous and amazing candelabrum provided by Munique Designs.

    Helen of Scrumptillious brought a black and white cake to compliment the black and white themed wedding stationery by Rattytatty Designs. Gold and “oranges and lemon” themes were played out in the stationery and in cakes and cupcakes by Karin of Mummy’s Yummys. The delicious smell of these cakes sent us wild all day…it was so difficult not to pinch one!

    Formal wedding attire for the men was provded by Colin of L&J Formal Attire . He was so pleasant and easy to work with.

    Total Pamper and Vicky Quinn worked so hard all day with hair and make-up and coping with the many changes of clothing.

    Malcolm of Smooch Rings provided a stunning array of bride and groom rings in beautiful and unusual designs.

    For something really unique and different, Sarah of Tiny Gems provided us with a fantastic heirloom bouquet, which could be used at period weddings and would be treasured forever.

    The models loved wearing Tanith’s fabulous Venetian Masks from the  Mask Boutique, which were a talking point right up to the end of the day…everyone wanted to try them on!

    Thank you Tracey for arranging all this.

    More on Tracey’s Blog

  • Dee & Peter’s Wedding

    Being a part of a very special wedding is a wonderful feeling…Dee and Peter’s wedding was just about as special as it can get…a wonderful day from just after noon, when I arrived at Dee’s home to photograph the last minute perparations of the bride and bridesmaids. Mike arrived shortly afterwards at the wedding breakfast venue to photograph the cake, flowers and table settings before high-tailing it to the church to meet up with Pete and his party.

    The bride looked fantastic in a heavily embroidered bridal gown and sparkling Swarowski crystal jewellery.

    Dee absolutely loves her sunset colours, so the bridesmaids wore shimmering sheer fabric which changed from pinks through reds to orange depending on how the light caught it. The flowers were magnificent and we especially appreciated the inclusion of orchids in the bridal bouquet (naturally they’re our favourite flowers!!!) from local floral designers Wild Orchids. The cake was also decorated with matching flowers.

    The marriage service at Saddleworth Church was such a happy event, made lighthearted as well as solemn by Father Duncan. Mike took up a position at congregation level and I found myself a good vantage point above the bride and groom in the balcony.

    The happy couple went on to Saddleworth Golf Club for the wedding breakfast and evening reception.

    As a “thank you” to the bride and groom, we had prepared a pre-wedding montage from photographs that we took at Dovestones a few weeks before and this was mounted so that guests could sign it on arrival at the reception venue.

    We stayed throughout, taking a break from work to enjoy the wedding breakfast along with Dee and Peter’s guests and then photographing right through the speeches, the cartoonist sessions, the dancing and karaoke until we, too, were exhausted. But what an enjoyable day!!!!

    It’s impossible to choose just a few images to give justice to such a day and we did find it difficult editing the pictures down to a manageable number for our presentation to the bride and groom, but below are just a few of our photographs as a sampler.

    Click thumbnails to enlarge:

    Technical notes: Technically the photography of the ceremony was challenging (to say the least), as flash photography had been banned until after the signing of the register and the church is very dark inside. Typical exposures from the balcony were 1/25 second at f/2.8 and 1000 ISO.  In order to be able to quickly reposition myself without the clatter of moving a tripod, I chose to hand-hold, as did Mike below. Whilst this creates even more of a challenge in terms of image stabilisation, it does allow greater flexibility. My camera has a stabilised sensor, which gives me a 3 to 4 stop advantage in adverse conditions. Digital noise was kept to a minimum by ensuring accurate exposure (noise is always worse if you underexpose and have to pull up the images in processing) and by giving some noise reduction treatment to the RAW files during processing. We always shoot in RAW format as it gives us so much more control at the processing stage.

    Perhaps the most challenging photography of the day was recording the evening dancing. Low light, moving subjects and vibration from the floor meant that sharp photographs become even more difficult to achieve. We both decided to use a little bounced fill flash, but carefully balanced with the ambient lighting so that it did not destroy the feeling of the disco lighting. In such conditions there will always be a lot of wastage, but we were pleased with the results…

    So were the bride and groom!!! and that’s the most important thing.

    Chris

  • Wedding sample album

    The fashion in wedding photography and albums continues to change. Two years ago, the emphasis from most of our customers was on the high quality leather traditional album with what they often termed “real photographs”…in other words, not digital layouts. Now it seems just the opposite. Maybe it’s that fact that the traditional albums have gone up in price and storybook albums have not…or maybe it has just taken time for the latter to really catch on.

    We therefore decided that an extra digital album was required to showcase even more the variety of our work and layouts. Our digital layouts cater for all tastes. We ourselves prefer simple clean layouts, with lots of white space. However, the shot below shows how we can include some pages with extra pictures and still have the page layouts work. With busy pages like this, we like to mix colour and monochrome to “separate” the pictures visually.

    But an album made up of all pages like this would look very crowded, so we do think it’s important to include some feature pictures at full page size and the example below shows how we can use a background image, text (a reading from the ceremony in this case) and a feature photograph across a full page spread.

    This particular album also has “metallic” paper, a rather spectacular looking paper with a metallic glow to it as the light catches the pages.

    As for the covers, many of our customers have chosen a simple and modern acrylic sheet over a photographic cover. Our new book shows an alternative option…a full leather cover with a triangular acrylic insert over a photograph of the client’s choice. Having the couple’s names debossed on the leather is another option.

    The covers come in a variety of subtle but beautiful colours and it’s a great idea to match in with the theme colour of the wedding, in this case using a burgundy leather to compliment the cerise of the bridesmaids’ dresses and the flowers. Works very well!

  • New Wedding Packages

    It’s been a while since we posted about our new recession beating packages. Well, the wait is almost over. While we looked at the pricing structure in detail for our budget conscious deals we realised that we could also offer a complete package for those for whom nothing but the very best will do.

    Our new wedding photography mini site will go live in the next few days with options for our

    Update: 23 February 2010: the new wedding services are now live.

  • What’s new in March?

    Fine Art Shop

    It’s been a very busy month…but we managed to find enough time between weddings and events photography to get the new Fine Art shop on the road and on schedule. We’ll be adding more prints soon so please come back for another look.

    Wedding Shop

    We are also developing a Wedding Shop, where couples will be able to log in to their own page and pay for their wedding package in installments.  We’ll also be selling some wedding fare in the shop, for example personalised thank you cards for the happy couple and gift vouchers for family and guests to buy. So, yes, it’s another “watch this space”. The wedding shop will be online soon with a simple selection of products.

    Wedding Albums

    To help out in these uncertain times, we are reducing the price of our storybook wedding albums. This year, they will start at the same price as traditional (matted) albums, from £395 for a 30 page book with a level one cover.

    Events Photography

    On the events front, we have acquired a brand new Fuji dye-sublimation printer, so we’ll be able to print even faster than before and produce bigger and better prints at events. We are already expanding that side of our business and believe that we are now the premier events photography team in the Oldham area for producing instant prints on the night. But we don’t confine ourselves just to Oldham – we can cover most areas of the north, including Yorkshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire. For charity events we can arrange to donate to the charity a part ofour profits from the evening.

    Exhibition Photography

    We’ve been too busy to do much exhibition work this year so far as competitors, but Chris was invited as a judge at the Southport National Exhibition of Photography (Digital Section) and also the first UK International Small Prints International Salon (Birmingham event). She has thoroughly enjoyed judging both events. Chris also picked up another award for her fine art print “Ivy Impression” in the Southampton International Salon of Photography at the beginning of March. This work is now available to buy as a “Signature edition” print in our shop.