My encounter with a small printing company...

Recently, my sister has been bugging me to find somewhere that will print an oddly sized photo she has. Its basically four portrait orientated photos one under another. it is very difficult to get it printed to the size she would of liked. Then i came across a company call 'Oddprints' and at long last i found somewhere that i could actually get the print made. I am a very nice brother so i thought yeah ill print it here and then surprise her with it. I made the order. Once the order had been made i even opened up a pay pal account just to get this order done. In my excitement i barely read the size of the print i was getting i was just excited they actually prints things in these dimension. I read the size i was getting and it was 4"x18", i was somewhat upset to find that it was to small for my sister. i emailed the company before printing began to cancel my order but it was a Saturday and most company's are shut on Saturday at the time i emailed them. i proceeded to email them anyway, in hope they would read it before printing commenced. yesterday i received an email to say that they couldn't cancel the order, so what they did was refund the money and they are still sending the photo i printed and said they hope i can make use of it still. Now as a photographer i know what good customer service looks like and that was extraordinary that they will still send the print even though it was my error and lack or reading. 

I made a decision that in some way or another id use there service again because i don't fear id have any trouble with any concerns or issues in the future. i will not be using them as a professional printing, but i will use them again. 

here is there site so you can check them out and hopefully they can provide you will a odd print. 

www.oddprints.com

Bunmi + Collins 2016

Bumni + Collin was such an amazing couple to work with. Collins had a job opportunity in Germany where is currently working and had been for a few years now, and will be moving out to Germany a few weeks after their wedding. 

   They was  a lovely and co-operative couple and gave me the time i needed to get the shots i needed to get for them. It was a beautiful day and a privileged to be apart of that and i am truly honoured i got to be involved in documenting their wedding. There of course was some stress for the bride and groom throughout the day, but the handled it very well and kept there spirits up and smiled throughout. Well, how could they not they was a beautiful couple and you could see how much they love each other. 

Let me stop rambling on and I will leave you too look at some of the photos from the day... 

Model photoshoot...

I have done many weddings but one thing that i had never felt i needed to do was organise a photo shoot with model just for the fun of it. Me and another photographer both wanted to collaborate so i felt it was time to reach out and work on a shoot. I've always wanted to do a sunset shoot but as we are both busy photographers we couldn't organise a shoot at the time we needed because of commitment’s then following day. so we did our best. 

    We started talking and decided to get as close as we could to the sunset time. The next problem we faced was location, I live in London so I wanted to spread my wing a bit and venture out, so we decided we would do the shoot in Birmingham. At this point it was a month away and I wasn't too excited about it yet, the weeks few past and next thing I knew I was on the virgin train heading up to Birmingham. When I checked the weather it wasn't looking good I thought it would have been rainy or cloud. It turned out perfect nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

                It was such a great day we went to various locations in Birmingham which included a rooftop which I was most excited about shooting there. The models were great and fun, they got on so well. Here are some pictures of behind the scene, kind of.

A Challenge i faced on that day was i used a studio flash i was completely unfamiliar with but i didn't let me stop me continuing the shoot, and creating some awesome shots. A few reasons why it was challenging is because it wasnt  a HSS (high sync speed) flash so i was limited to 1/200th second. Which meant stopping down the aperture letting more things be in focus distracting from my couple. so i had to find a background that complimented them and shown off the beauty of where we was.

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The Crew

Stay tuned for the full shoot photos check back in a few days for the fully edited photo of the day.

I would like to thank;

Enitanphotography.co.uk

Models: Kris Marshall and Emelie Kelman

MUA: Nickyfostermua.com

UPDATE!!!

So, as promised here are some of the final images from this shoot in a slide show.

My 5 Tips for photographers...

Over the years i have learnt 5 things that i are important for us photographer to do before the day. 

•  Research the venue before the day - This means either visiting the venue or calling them. Do something to get in contact with the venue to make sure you don't need to show them your insurance documents where you can or can't shoot, things like that. They might be able to give you some insight on location that aren't too far from the venue. Researching the venue gives you the insight into what equipment you might need on the day and more importantly a backup plan if something didn't or wasn't working on the actual day.

• Arrive early - there is nothing more important than being punctual in my eyes, it gives you a chance to approach things calmly and professionally if you are on time. It also gives you time to get familiar with your surroundings and see the small details and possibly scout a location inside the venue that you may not of seen when you researched the venue, especially if you couldn't get to the venue previously.

• Backups, Backups, Backups - i can not stress how important it is to have back up batteries AA, AAA, camera batteries,  back up flashes, backup camera(s), backup memory cards and back up lenses. I dont know how you can call your self a Pro without back ups. Things arent too expensive to rent or try and borrow something off of someone. Do what you can, it is your responsibility!! The last thing you want is to break or run out of something and you have nothing to replace it with and you cant continue to shoot.

• Water - always carry some water with you to drink, you could potentially go all day without eating and drinking because of how hectic things can get and if you are anything like me i'm always looking for the next picture or another way of taking the photo. Bring water or make sure you always make an effort to get a drink now and then. It will help you function better throughout the day, and it can be a long day 12-16 hours sometimes you don't want to break something or mess up settings because your dehydrated.

• Lastly, RELAX - It is so important for you to be relax or at least hide the fact that you are stressed out, because that energy will get transferred onto your couple or the guests at the party. so no matter what while you are infront of the couple act like nothing bothers you except doing the best job for them as you possibly can. It's a wedding after all how could you be stressed out if you love what you do. 

      I Learnt this things the hard way no one told me these and its all through experience, im not just saying it. It makes the day so much more enjoyable and fun, and it goes so much smoother.. if you do these or have your own ideas please leave a comment or message me.

Why I don’t buy third party lenses…

A week ago I was at a photoshoot, a pre-wedding shoot to be exactly and towards the end, my camera came loose off my black rapid strap and fell to the floor with my 70-200 2.8 on. It hit the concrete and I was thinking what was that bang, I turn around to find my gear on the floor. I have broken all of my lenses at one point, but this time it didn’t break. It was still usable and there didn’t appear to be any fault.

 A few days later my camera kept making a plastic clicking noise, to which the body of the camera had come loose, and I started thinking wow I have really done some damage this time. After messing around with the plastic it simply snapped back into place, to my knowledge the camera had fell around 4ft onto the floor and barely had a scratch on it. The next day while I was at an event I tried to change the flash mode to rear curtain sync, to my surprise it wasn’t working and didn’t even register at all with the camera, this was the only fault I found with the camera and I don’t often use the bracketing or flash mode buttons so it doesn’t affect me dramatically. Just to see if anything else wasn’t working I then started making sure all the buttons was doing what I had programmed them to do, and the only other button that wasn’t working was the bracketing button. This doesn’t actually worry me because I bracket my shot manually anyway so it not necessary to even be on the camera. Even saying all this I will still go through my insurance to fix it and get it all new again.

The point to all this is that if you spend money on equipment, yes it overpriced, yes there are cheaper options and if it was to break it will break regardless. However, I’m not planning on selling this camera I will let it die a naturally death doing what it was built to do. Taking pictures, at the end of the day its tool (an expensive one) and it needs to be treated as such. I have the Nikon glass and if it was made of plastic maybe it would have broken completely and I couldn’t complete the shoot therefore I have to organise a reshoot and its taking more time out my already busy schedule. If you are a professional, you should always have insurance to cover you for these types of accidents and always have a backup. If I learnt one things from this it is to take extra care, have insurance and pro equipment as the extra money it cost might save you one day.