Ailsa and Nigel are getting married in a few weeks in a mince-pies, christmassy, silvery wintery kind of wedding. Here they are looking all foxy and serious on their LoveShoot. I’m thinking Nigel = Kevin Spacey. Looking forward to your very cool wedding next month!
jx
Not wishing to obsess about the weather - but it was typical of a shoot in Ireland that we had great light from the big strobe in the sky, and some torrential downpours, and it was freezing cold all in the space of a couple of hours shooting. But despite being cold Breda and Ray were great craic and well up for dodging the showers and trying out some pretty unorthodox locations. Thanks guys. Top shoot! Can’t wait for your wedding in June in Donegal. Come…you know the day after shoot makes sense…..!!! Check out the rest of their loveshoot images on the grape website.
New blog, new website. It’s finally all live and we’re loving it. We would love to hear your feedback. Leave a comment, or send us an email. Or facebook. Or twitter. Or come round for a pint. Or send an SMS. Or a letter. Just get in touch dammit.
If you join us on the grape facebook page you’ll see how much we like purple cows. If you’ve read anything by Seth Godin you know what this is all about. We LOVE what he has to say about being remarkable. I’m sure Seth would agree, as we do, with our friend and photography goddess Jennifer Bebb that “boring is full.”
Because we are totally passionate about giving outstanding service to our clients and about being remarkable, we love it when we come across other companies trying to do the same. Which brings me to the point of this post - shamelessly plugging a company we came across yesterday while scouting locations for a shoot in Hillsborough.
Robyn Rycroft set up Ned and Ruby’s in January. It’s a hair place for kids and it’s very cool. It has made the whole process of taking kids for a haircut really fun. We have two kids. Give them the choice between eating cold brussels sprouts and getting their hair cut and it would be a very close call. No hairdresser that we’ve come across has made the effort, or had the imagination, to make it fun. Not until Ned and Ruby’s.
While we were talking with Robyn it struck me that there are quite a few similarities between hairdressing and photography. Stick with me on this one.
1. Low barriers to entry - anybody with a camera can set up a website and call themselves a photographer. Anybody with a pair of scissors can set up a chair and call themselves a hairdresser.
2. As a result there are lots of photographers. And lots of hairdressers.
3. Most photographers are OK. A few are awful. Most hairdressers are OK, but we’ve all had some awful haircuts. Or maybe that’s just me?
4. It’s much harder than it looks to be a great photographer, or a great hairdresser.
5. Hiring both hairdressers and photographers can be risky because you don’t really know what they’re going to do until they’ve done it. And so the market functions around personal experience and recommendation.
6. Great photographers produce consistently stunning results and make it look easy. Same with great hairdressers.
7. Great hairdressing is not about the scissors. Great photography is not about the number of megapixels.
8. Only very few photographers are truly great. That’s also true of hairdressers. Because there are very few truly great photographers (or hairdressers) the top few are very expensive.
9. Not everybody values great photography. Not everybody will pay a lot to have great hair.
10. There are lots of boring old men barber shops doing what they’ve been doing for decades. Of course they have their place and on a Saturday morning they do a roaring trade in £4 haircuts. But all the haircuts are the same - the only difference is the closeness of the shave. People order by number. You can complete the photography analogy yourself.
We loved meeting Robyn because in an saturated market where every supplier looks much the same as every other, Ned and Ruby’s stands out as something exceptional.
Ned and Ruby’s - we salute your purple cowness!
p.s. You’ll find them at 6A Main Street, Hillsborough, 028 9268 8712.
A few weekends back, we were with Steph and Chris at their wedding in Belfast Castle. Steph looked just amazing, Chris was uber laid back, guests were excited and the sun shone, (note - for those of you in warmer climes - this is a BIG DEAL in Ireland!). There were some tears at their ceremony, a lot of laughing, and later on there was some spectacular dancing. Guys, we hope you had a great honeymoon! Here are just a few images from your day.
The gorgeous flowers by The Flower Box in Bangor. Loving that there was rosemary in there. Look closer!
Steph getting ready to walk down the aisle with her dad. The light coming in the window was so sweet.
Love this!
But I think this one is our favourite
j&k
I think Savannah Airport may be the nicest airport I have ever been in. I was delayed for hours and nearly missed my connection to Belfast, but there was no stress. Why? Because they have rocking chairs. Lovely wooden rocking chairs. I didn’t even sit in one. I just liked the fact that they were there, rocking away in the background. Imagine if Heathrow or Gatwick got some rocking chairs…….
j x
Kenny and I have decided to go on one solo workshop each year which will challenge and inspire us and push our photography forward.
I have been spending the last week with an amazing group of female photographers in Savannah, Georgia. We connected on a whole bunch of levels; love of beautiful light, extremely early mornings and those lovely Reeses peanut butter cups!
The workshop was with the lovely folks of Radiant Vista, and I learned more about my own photographic journey than I can possibly describe in one short blog post. It has been such a priviledge to be here. I fly home overnight tonight and am totally fired up about all the great shoots we have coming up this summer. Here are a couple of my favourite shots from the week.
j xx
It was a fairly rotten Irish, drizzly damp day. BUT, these guys were up for all sorts of caper on their LoveShoot. We started out in Donaghadee with coffees at the lovely Cafe Manor and moved onto the pier to lark around for a while
There were some moments of sunshine which led to some peachy light. hurrah!
Stephen proposed to Kathryn while on Groomsport beach - so we thought we’d head there. And yes, they did end up in the sea! Freezing, Irish sea, in the rain, in April. Kenny was in the sea as well in a moment of solidarity! I - er - wasn’t. My feet were safely in my socks and boots. Warm and dry.
Kathryn and Stephen, we had a top day with you both - really looking forward to July!
j x
Last week we shot a really fun wedding at Belfast Castle with Steph and Chris. Lots more of their cool pictures to come, but I love this shot of Belfast Castle at night. Wedding photography is a combination of reacting quickly to spontaneous moments as they happen, and pre-planning shots. I love it when a carefully thought out, pre-visualised image works out, as happened with this one. For those of you interested in the technical aspects, this image is a combination of three different exposures taken with a Canon 1DS mark III and a Canon 16-35m lens. All three components were taken at f11, with the sky exposed for 20 seconds, the grass and fountain for 15 seconds, and the castle itself for 4 seconds. Enjoy!
k
Jenny and Stephen have such a connection. I love it, and it’s so tangible from these images. You can almost touch it!!
We spent the morning at Belfast’s new Victoria Square . I love the mix of architecture here, the old red brick with lots of glass - which makes for some astounding light. We had such a good laugh. Thanks to the kind folks on the management team for helping us to shoot there.
We started off outside the friendly Kitchen Bar
Then moved inside for more action. We did get some looks!
I love the colours in this one and Stephen’s amazing hair!
Stephen and Jenny, we really enjoyed hanging out with you on Tuesday. Looking forward to Cultra in June!
j&k