Wedding Photographer, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Posts tagged wedding photographer wakefield
Wedding Photogaphy Black and Whites
Jan 29th
Seems like a while since my last post, I’ve been changing the site round a little to be more wedding focused, as opposed to photography focused in a bid to get a few more visits from potential brides. I read somewhere that I should refer to myself in the third person more, possibly starting each post with: Pete Barnes, a wedding photographer from Wakefield says… seems a bit strange but there you go. Anyway…
As a wedding photographer I am often asked by clients if I supply images in black and white? My eyes light up as I love producing black and whites, I personally feel people just look better in black and white but I also appreciate the client is always right and if I forced BW’s on every client I wouldn’t be getting much business! When I give the couple their images I always include a few of the best shots in black and white but I also give them the colour versions as well then they get the best of both worlds. How come you don’t do all the images in both versions? Well this brings me on to my next point.
Black and Whites aren’t just converted at the touch of a button, of course they can be and some wedding photographers do batch processes where the images are just converted to BW with no input other than clicking ‘run process’ I prefer to be a little more bespoke when converting photos to black and white. An example would be if I had a photo of the happy couple under a nice blue sky and converted it to black and white what colour would the sky end up? It could be Black, White or any shade of grey in between, these are processing choices you let the photographer choose, and he should as you have hired them to produce the best images of your wedding possible. If there is no input from the photographer you usually just get a bit of a bland, low contrast, grey photo with little impact, I see these all the time and as a black and white enthusiast it gets to me a bit.
It wouldn’t be very professional to get another photographers black and white, process it how I would and post it here so the examples below are from one of the weddings I covered last year. The first shot is a simple quick conversion to black and white with minimal input from the photographer processing the shot. The second shot is how I typically process my black and white shots, in my opinion it has a lot more impact as it has more contrast (but not too much) it has a slight warming in the shadows and a nice vignette to really draw the eye in.
A quick and simple black and white conversion
A more 'in depth' conversion with more punch
It isn’t to say these processes can’t be automated to some extent, they can, but the extra work in my opinion is worth it to create a great image instead of a photo that could be better. Of course this is all subjective and there is no right answer, if you prefer colour images anyway none of this is really applicable but if you do like some of you images in black and white it’s good to know that there is more effort than you may have thought when producing a good black and white
Welcome To My Blog
Dec 22nd
Hi, thanks for visiting my blog. I am a wedding photographer based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and this is where I keep people informed with what I’m doing, or have been doing recently. I try and offer a few tips on how I get some of the shots but I also encourage feedback, so if you want to leave a comment or a question, please do, I’ll try and reply asap, unless it’s spam and then I ignore it, and rightly so!
Thanks again for stopping by, hope you like my work.
Great bride, Great location
Aug 6th
Wedding Photography by Pete Barnes at the Crab and Lobster, North Yorkshire
Wedding Photography by Pete Barnes at the Crab and Lobster, North Yorkshire
This is my first post using my new blog, probably not much of a highlight you readers but it’s a big deal for me so I thought I’d mention it. Wordpress is just so much better than blogger, surprising really with google behind blogger, I’m sure they’ll improve it.
Anyway on to the main topic. This was a recent wedding at a place called the Crab and Lobster in Asenby (near Thirsk) North Yorkshire. The grounds were fantastic for wedding photography with plenty of features to use for visual interest. There are loads of curvy paths for leading lines, worn statues and flower covered arches, I was quite spoilt for choice. I find all the brides look pretty stunning on their wedding day but this one was especially photogenic, some just have a natural ability to strike a pose, so to speak. The sun came out now and then but there was a bit of cloud cover which made the light a lot softer so we didn’t have any harsh, sharp shadows. All in all the conditions were very good, excellent considering it had been raining all week before the wedding.
I have processed these shots first in lightroom, where I do the majority of the work. After sorting the keepers from the rejects the main steps are any cropping and colour temperature adjustments and any exposure shifts. I then take some shots into photoshop for any additional editing or to run some actions (black and whites, glowers etc) Although lightroom does do a very good mono conversion I find Photoshops a little better.
These two shots were taken at f2.8, ISO400 at around 100mm for between 1/500 and 1/1000.
Marketing Material
Jul 1st
Hey folks, not posted for a while, it’s pretty quiet at the moment although I have been accepted to an exhibition in Skipton called art in the pen. It’s an art exhibition in a livestock pen, I think it’s pretty trendy, it was started in 2006 and has been growing pretty steadily, you never know it could be my cavern club! It’s here if you want a look. I’ve done a bit of business type stuff recently that I don’t usually go into on my blog but I am doing today as I haven’t been out with the camera recently. These are the layout for my trifolios, they are cards that fold in on themselves so they can stand freely and just give people a chance to see some of my work. They are easy enough to design if you know your way around photoshop. I get them printed by my pro lab called Loxley Colour. Just got to drop them in at some local shops now.
Aston Martin at a Wedding
May 27th
Just a quick one from a recent wedding, this one was a pretty quick snap of the couple and the car, and a superb car it is too, they had taken it for a spin between the church and the reception. I knew I had the shot I wanted straight away but I could have probably done the formals and the couple shots solely around the car but in the end we had to drag ourselves away. It was taken at f/4, 1/2000, ISO400 at 24mm, if I was doing just the car I would have had a grad filter to really deepen the clouds, maybe even have tinted them red like top gear! No time for such things at a weddings though.Fearless
May 1st
I’m having a few issues with the blogging side of things today so if I don’t post this time I’m going to give it up as a bad job!
This is the last of my wedding posts from this wedding, I’ve done a couple as I was a bit low on wedding posts but after this I’m going to get back to some landscape stuff.
I was pretty nervous shooting this part of the wedding, the river was quite wide so there was quite a lot of stepping stones, it didn’t help matters that one guy who went turned back as he didn’t like the look of one of the stones. I was also aware of a number of spectators filming it on their mobiles and commentating on it as if they knew they’d be sending it to you’ve been framed! Luckily it went off without a problem and I got a lot of keepers. I had to clone out quite a few people on the banks but it’s easy enough with Lightrooms spot removal and photoshop for the more tricky parts.
More of the traditional stuff
Apr 28th
Not too traditional mind, I try and avoid the getting in the wedding car shots whenever possible. As mentioned previously, I did have a lot of time with this couple as they are close friends so as a result I have quite a few to post, I might put a slideshow up at some point too.
These are more the traditional black and whites which I really love. The shadows are slightly warmer than a straight black and white and a decent vignette also help the image along.
I won’t go into the exif data other than to say I was at a higher ISO than I should have been in bright outdoor conditions but only 400 so not really noticeable. It’s never a good idea to step out of a dim church into the sun and start papping everyone at ISO3200!
I won’t go into the exif data other than to say I was at a higher ISO than I should have been in bright outdoor conditions but only 400 so not really noticeable. It’s never a good idea to step out of a dim church into the sun and start papping everyone at ISO3200!
Different style of wedding photography
Apr 28th
I’m still playing with photos from a recent wedding, I have done a load of black and white conversions which I really like but now I’m doing some cross processing and more texture overlays. 
Cross processing is another throw back to film days where people would use different types of developer for different film producing high contrast stuff with odd hues. It was often quite unpredictable and yielded great results as often as bad ones. With digital the randomness of the process isn’t really replicated but it is a technique that can work better on some shots than others. Museums tend to be quite big on cross processing and lomography, usually of bicycles or old cafes. Not for everyone but I quite like some of the results. I’ve also done some border overlays to complete the look.
Cross processing is another throw back to film days where people would use different types of developer for different film producing high contrast stuff with odd hues. It was often quite unpredictable and yielded great results as often as bad ones. With digital the randomness of the process isn’t really replicated but it is a technique that can work better on some shots than others. Museums tend to be quite big on cross processing and lomography, usually of bicycles or old cafes. Not for everyone but I quite like some of the results. I’ve also done some border overlays to complete the look.