Mezzo Soprano Victoria Gray

21 February 2010

This weekend I had the pleasure of photographing Victoria Gray. Victoria is a Mezzo Soprano Opera Singer and is touted as being the new rising star of Opera singing. Not only is Victoria extremely talented, but she is stunningly beautiful and extremely professional in front of the camera which makes my job so much easier.



The photographs were taken shortly before her performance at The Queen Elizabeth School in Mansfield at the weekend. I had worked at the school before and I knew that the school was a lovely old building with loads of character, but the main hall is lit with a mixture of horrible overhead tungsten and fluorescent lights which means the colour is all over the place, so just to be on the safe side I took my Vivitar 285HV`s and my Al Jacobs Black Box. This kit incredibly simple, but allows me to provide studio quality lighting in almost any environment.



To make the photographs, I simply fired the Vivitar 285 through a white shoot through umbrella. I deliberately underexposed the available light by setting my camera to its top sync speed of 1/250th  which allowed me to totally remove the horrible yellow/green light that lit the hall.


 
After the official portrait session, Victoria left to prepare for the concert. While she got ready I set up the Vivitar just right of the stage. I removed the umbrella and zoomed out the reflector head to its maximum setting so that the flash cast a tight beam of light across the stage. This allowed me to highlight Victoria as she performed and create some atmosphere in the photographs.

More photographs from Victoria`s performance will be in a forthcoming issue of Life and Style magazine, available from most good outlets in the Newark and Nottingham area.

And the winner is......

19 February 2010

Jennie :)

After loads of deliberation, umming, arrhhing, and sitting on my thumbs trying to put off selecting the winner of the wedding photo competition, I finally decided to just do it.

There were so many fantastic entries, over 60 in all, from all over the UK. I actually decided to offer a further three runner up prizes of £250 wedding photography vouchers.

How we did it.

I had actually received loads of entries by email, from lovely couples pleading with me to pick them, but the choice was just too difficult. In the end I left it totally to chance. I first winkled the weddings that were for dates I couldn`t do for one reason or another, printed off the names of all the remaining entries. I put a squecky dog toy at the bottom of a big bucket and dropped the pieces of paper on top. Then called Lucy.

Lucy did a grand job, in a matter of seconds all the pieces of paper were flying all over the place and in no time at all their was only one piece of paper left. That was the winner. We repeated the process until we had chosen all the winners.

We haven`t managed to contact everyone yet, but we did manage to get hold of our winners Jennie and Ian who live near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.



Jennie sent me a recent photo of the two of them together on holiday so I knew who I was talking too. We had a lovely chat and she was over the moon to have won the prize. They get married in October, so keep your eyes open, we will be seeing more of them later on this year. Jennie and Ian win £1450 worth of wedding photography which they can use in anyway they please from our regular price list...

Thanks to everyone who entered, those of you who are getting married next season will be automatically entered into next years competition, so don`t worry, you might yet still win something....

Win Your Wedding Photos

14 January 2010

NATIONAL WEDDING COMPETITION
WIN £1450 WORTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOR YOUR 2010 WEDDING

Paul Saxby, one of the UK`s most sought after Wedding Photographers is announcing a
fantastic new competition.

If you are getting married in the UK before Valentines Day 2011, you could qualify for a wedding photography package worth up to £1450.

The collection includes almost everything a couple could ask for from their wedding
photographer including:-

Pre-Wedding Photo Shoot
Up to 8 hours of photography on the wedding day
An amazing 20 page digital wedding album containing up to 60 images.

Paul has a style all of his own and creates images that will tell the real story of your wedding. Paul never uses a template to work to, so every single wedding is treated differently and you know your wedding album will be totally unique.

Passionate about his photography, Paul never tires of pushing the boundaries of new ideas, using techniques from photojournalism, commercial, fashion and boudoir photography to create a a collection of exciting,yet intimate and personal images you will treasure for a lifetime.

Not all wedding albums are the same. Paul uses only the best suppliers to source his products and is always on the look out for new and exciting products. Paul even creates his own hand made products for some of his more exclusive clients.
This opportunity should not be missed. Paul gets more than 60 wedding enquiries a year, yet only shoots 14 weddings each season which means Paul can concentrate on giving his clients the experience they deserve. Paul has decided not to shoot every wedding that comes his way so that he only gets to work with clients that he knows will appreciate what he does. Every client has at least two free consultations before Paul agrees to work with them so that both parties fully understand what each one wants from the other.

This year, Paul has decided to add one more wedding to his already busy schedule. One happy couple will win nearly £1500 worth of wedding photography. That couple could be you and your partner. This means that you could use the money you save on your photography and put it towards something else, like a honeymoon in Mexico, a bigger party at the reception or you could even use it towards even more photography by upgrading the package and just paying the difference.

Paul has also decided to give away two further prizes. One lucky couple will win a voucher worth £500 which they can use if they decide to book Paul as their wedding photographer. The final couple will win a £250 voucher which they can use towards their wedding photography.

The competition is easy to enter - to qualify to win this great once in a life time prize, all you have to do is book a simple studio photo shoot for you and your partner and answer a few basic questions about your wedding. The photo shoot requires a £25 creation fee(RRP £165), and includes a mounted 5x7 print. If you are one of the three lucky winning couples, you will get the £25 refunded back to you in addition to your prize.
By entering the competition you will know that you are also helping to care for premature and sick babies who without extra care my suffer permanent injury or may even die. Part of your Creation fee will be donated to Bliss, a charity that cares for sick babies, which we have adopted as one of the three charities we support.

link to the application form and you could win the wedding album of your dreams.


Remember the draw closes at 4pm on February 14th 2010, thats St Valentines day to all you romantic types. What better gift could you give your partner?