Anyway here are the results, some good, some that fit in professionally and some for fun just to show the area. 
Oh and if any of the tourist boards would like to license the usage of just drop me an email.

Great for me too in that I get feedback off the back of the camera showing them the shots of what can be achieved getting a yay or nay, and they also get a buzz seeing what can be achieved.
Hopefully made them a lot more confident too not only in what I can do but what they can do.

Oh and despite not planning to shoot, I got some pretty nice results from the few shots I did so I am a pretty happy lad.

Better I let the client see the results before the general public though?

Then there was the gap of waiting before the circuit! me just as a photographer found that wait gruelling as I started to wind down and relax, and when you start relaxing its a hard job to get going again.Anyway, some where between the rain and the haze of spray I managed to get some photos, and here for you is just a few, Enjoy!

These have sparked my interest because they all say pretty much the same thing all be it with different words.
The best reply I have had though says that they will only mention/recommend people that they have worked with on both good and bad days as well as a range of scenarios, because only then will they know if they are going to get the working cooperation when they need it most.

And I understood immediately exactly what they meant and from my own experiences had immediate respect for it.

So what do they mean??
Well they are referring to good and bad days, good days are when the Vicar is on side and gives you free roam to get all the best shots from many angles as opposed to being told to stay outside the church, the cake is bob on, everything runs smooth and to time, you don’t have to keep chasing uncle harry or the groom from the bar to get the shots, catering is served on time, the reception venue doesn’t have a monster of an events organiser that continually works to undermine what you are trying to do (that’s a exceptionally rare one but it does happen and did happen on one of my first ever weddings), the wedding cars don’t break down (again pretty rare), road works, the entire grooms side being an hour late for the wedding (yes I have honestly had that one!), foul weather and or any other problems in between.

Its on days where you get a string of problems where you and all the other companies that contribute to the wedding have to be able to work together, like me (the wedding photographer) and the videographer both want to get our best results that the client has paid for, the car driver may have to be on the ball helping me get the shots and I have to be quick if they have to do several runs to and from a venue with people, you have to be quick and decisive as you can guarantee the food is already cooking at the reception, helping the videographer light a shot and them helping me with mine, working around hair and make up and even helping keep things organised in the bridal preps.

Pretty much having respect for what each person does and grouping together to get the job done rather then fighting against each other to get their own job done.

Something I can really respect from my working history, the first company I worked for was like a family and when something happened and went belly up we would work together, compromise, and working between us we could literally kept everything working to time (as near as) and clients happy. it was a truly great working relationship between us and a place where ego’s and selfishness where received coldly (not to say we didn’t argue on the odd occasion though, that’s just human nature!), and to be totally honest I have not seen a company with the same working balance or ethic since.
In fact what I have seen since (when I was working via agency’s at some of the companies I was sent to in particular)  is a divide and conquer attitude which may make drones who just do the job, but when it comes to problems and getting them solved no ones interested in helping and the end results has always been back door whispers and complaints for the companies services.

So imagine the divide and conquer attitude to your wedding???

The idea scares the hell out of me I know that, photographing a wedding properly is a hard, long and stressful gig to start with, without having to battle with all the other suppliers!

So, from this I may not have gained those people as contacts, but, I think they have a worth while ethos to the job, and sincerely hope to work with then sooner rather then later .

Signing out.

Daily Rate;
This is simply the rate for a days shooting and depending on the photographer, work required and client can typically be from around £1000< to £2000+ per day (pricing guide from the freelancers union), and this is the base rate which you should expect to pay. This is inclusive of all consultation, evaluation and editing normally where in house depending on contractual agreement (example being a certain number of edits are inclusive, over a certain number additional fee’s apply).

Expenses;
This is added on to the daily rate and a photographer should not meet the expenses involved in putting a shoot together which typically accounts for hiring models, make up artists, hair stylists, other stylists, assistants, location and specialist equipment hire and any other expenses that may be incurred like international travel.
The end value of this can vary greatly depending on the clients requirements and where possible I know I will suggest an alternative that can quite often save money with minor compromise to the overall end results.

Licensing Fee’s;
This is what you pay to use the photos, and depending on the size of the company and usage can range from £30 to lets say £30,000 plus. But unless your advertising on TV, to 6 million homes, on bill boards, on the back of milk bottles, with big banners in a large brand clothing shop the likely hood of most of my clients paying close to the top whack is minimal as most are small usage for a few thousand flyers, a year on a website for a company that turns over 30k a year.
I also refer to the likes of Magnum stock agencies to get a rough guide as opposed to the penny sweet ones that pay the photographer pennies but gives a company the right to use it in 10 million brochures turning over 2 billion.

There are exceptions to these rules, small companies like the local bakers I take their requirements and limitations in to account, and price accordingly.
There are also the likes of the editorial photograph which is short notice, working with what you have available, is almost certainly local to the photographer and the images in question are more often then not going to be used in a local newspaper or magazine for a one off article. So the time and costs reflect this.

In all instances I also like to know what I am doing and who I am shooting, what for, and usage as just showing up, guessing what the client wants and hoping for the best is a recipe for doom.

Hope this is enlightening.

Best wishes.

First of all, its Mark 2 as I scrapped the initial draft as it was very long (like a university dissertation) had to draw on other types of photographers as examples (I try to avoid calling competition idiots directly of inadvertently) and covered so many issues one friend who proof read said it was mind boggling to read there where so many factors included, so this version aims to educate as simple as possible.

To start with the problems and the reasons for me blogging about it, a common phrase I hear is “we don’t want any posed shots” it is also LIBERALLY used by many photographers as an advertising pitch to people, whom simply have no basic understanding or education of how a bit of correct posing can significantly help improve their look in a photograph, and trust me when I say it isn’t silly, it isn’t stupid and its highly unlikely there are many if any shots that you stand looking at wishing you where that person, in advertising or won awards that where not posed with a bit of insight and using flattering lighting. 

Way back in the film days pro’s mostly shot medium format big cameras, but with it being film there was also ONE big difference, you where very limited on how many shots you got to a roll, and you could not delete so the cost to you was apparent, and you did not know if it came out till you hit the dark room, so what more an incentive to try and get it all right at the time of shooting? posing, lighting, exposure, details and everything in between?

In todays world everyone thinks they are a photographer, it says so in a camera advert that it can take professional shots without you doing anything, stating that theirs make is a miracle machine that takes professional pictures (to vaguely quote a popular mail order catalogue on entry level SLR’s), and the other thing I hear is you can take 1000’s and “A Few” are bound to come out right, and every time I try to place that working ethic in any other scenario I get the vision of taking 1000 attempts to knock a nail in to the wall with a hammer, your clearly doing it wrong and end up with a seriously soar thumb!

The reality is, you get out what you put in, so the more work you put in to creating an image at shooting stage, the better the result you will get out, simple.

To another point, I think its this ability of near unlimited shots and little perceived value (cards cost money and they eventually wear out when they get hammered, but you fail to notice the real cost) has created this problem, this way of thinking where people and “photographers” alike consider the above scenario acceptable, and quite often in many photographs I have seen the extent of posing and direction/instruction probably goes no further then “stand over there, look at each other” which does not go on to help remedy this problem and by design can, well create a lifeless photograph which I will elaborate on a little later.

Let me start though by saying, posing is technically easy once you know what to look for and how to remedy it, however, creating emotion and directing people, aka communicating with people how you want them to pose and getting emotional reactions while keeping it fluid so they don’t get bored is a right royal pain in the ****.
Its difficult as words you would normally use to describe an action are WRONG and get the wrong reaction from the client and what ways works for one photographer wont work for another and its more then partly down to each individuals personality.
Typical example being I cant pull of jokes I really cannot but I can make people laugh easy in conversation, I know this and I try to work with it., I also know more then a few other ways to provoke other emotions that work for me and I have gathered through my experiences, trials and failures.

To the pointers on posing and how it can help you as a client.

Like I mentioned the extent to some photographers posing skills does not extend past telling a person to stand over there and smile (and just to be clear, I have been just as bad in the past and continually look to learn and improve little by little), and being told to stand there really carry’s no emotional presence, arms fall limply by your side, your thinking and feeling nothing like the content of the photo is supposed to show.
Best example is a couple embracing, or kissing as is the typical down fall, arms falling at the side, no real contact at all because your not in the moment and the result resembles the kind of kiss you would get from one of them over bearing aunties.

Cant just be me who had such relatives surely???

To be mindful of the communication barrier, first tip is if you are unsure what to do ASK! I know some people may feel daft not knowing what to do but how many of us are professional models?

And here’s a few vague thought processes that can help a composition

• Hands are a pet hate of mine, I have big hands with long spindly claw like fingers and like most people you can look at a candid photograph of me and they are always flat making them look huge, which they technically are, your hand spread can be as big as your face, but with 2 adjustments, 1 to the wrist and the other to the way the fingers are placed can not only make them look a hell of a lot smaller but a darn sight more elegant then a pack of sausages or the grim reaper creeping over the shoulder.
• Face structure, again I have a long thin face and the angle of which some one takes my photo can have a drastic effect on how my face looks, and the opposite action is more flattering to a shorter or broader face.
• Big looking thighs in camera can be fixed by altering where you are placing the weight, pressure when sat or posture, which can in conjunction with placement of your arms can enhance your figure (both men and women but slightly different approaches).
• Footing, is such a simple one, simply by placing your feat at x>y position from each other can improve the posture and figure of most people I photograph, and what’s the really staggingly simple fact? you see it in most types of dancing ALL the time!
• Eyes, one eye bigger then the other? how about I turn your face so your larger eye is slightly further away from the camera then the other? not sure what I mean take the index finger of each hand and set them at different distances from your eyes,,, which looks bigger?
• Use of perspective, with a similar mind to the eyes scenario above posing and shooting from different angles (anything but straight on) using the theory of perspective outlined above can have a very slimming effect, enhance curves, show off strong bone structures in the face or like I mentioned with my face, make it look more in proportion.

Ok I did say I was vague before I started, but these are just a few thinking practices that employed can work wonders, I could go in to finer detail but:
A* there are many more out there far more qualified and skilled than me who could write about it,
B* finer detail would literally have to include everything from the lighting to the posing, clothing types, body masses, hair, the big scene, the final image in mind etc..

Closing Notes
Got to write this bit for legal purposes and the fact I do have an honest belief in this; there is no fixed way to shoot anything, its all a mixture of the photographer, client, artistic vision and more variables then you can shake a stick at, you can shoot a wedding in the reporter style advertised but I do believe VERY FEW people in the world can actually pull it off to the extent that is all they do from the evidence, reputations and portfolios I have seen.

This is also a representation from my views and experiences in photography, not intended as a sales pitch or to tell you there is a right way but hopefully to anyone reading this will be educated by it enough to make their decisions on what they want from their photo session be it Wedding Photography, Portrait Photography, Commercial Photography, Event Photography, PR Photography or any other that involves people.

Hope what I have written has been enlightening, during the process of writing it I know I have double figures for the initial number of drafts and some of the research that went in to has left me a more learned person in the process.

Thanks for reading.

Simply put? because I don’t trust anyone I know to do a proper job, and taking one of myself is more then a little difficult for me (I have a tendency to chop my own head off).

Other factors why I do not take one of myself is that, directing yourself to look right in frame is,,,, well impossible, I know having a long slim face I need a long lens and flat lighting and to look straight at the camera to get the most flattering look for me, but by nature I naturally tilt my head, look down my nose etc so its not going to work, and the one reason I don’t hire some one to take one for me? well A* if they do it wrong I wont be happy, B* to display that on my site can be misrepresentative of my work and C* I am pretty sure the licensing agreement to use such an image for public promotion (based on what I would charge) would be more then a luxury expense to suit my vanity.

Don’t get me wrong, I think having one professionally done will do wonders for image representation, and in secret I have had  more then one done before and always the results where terrible so never got used so with that in mind am in no hurry to attain and pay for yet another.

This kind of also fits in with my beliefs on posing people and doing it correctly with the right lighting, aka you get out what you put in.
I don’t take a good picture because as of yet I have not had anyone who knows how to.

And I have got to say, that kind of knowledge doesn’t and shouldn’t  come cheap.

Bad move Adobe, we need things to work smoothly without lag, it needs to be an aid to out workflow not a hindrance and if a hex core system and 16Gb of ram and high speed Sata drives cant run your software without lag I have to ask exactly how bloated have you made it? and its not just me who is getting agitated trying to work with it, many others I have been speaking to are experiencing the same problems including one photographer that said it added nearly 1/3rd on to the time it normally takes him to get the basic corrections done to a set of wedding photographs.

That’s just not acceptable as really that’s our personal time that is being eaten in to in an industry where so much of the hard work (circa 7/8ths) goes on behind the scenes.

Adobe, pull your sleeves up and get it sorted.

So to answer the question and its possible variant “can I have the raw files” with NO, certainly not, happy to give you a glimpse on the back of the camera on the day but that’s it.

To start with the file format I shoot in is commonly known as RAW which is only readable and editable with specialist software, and the reasoning for using this format is at the time of capture it stores every bit of data from the sensor where as shooting in JPEG like your average point and shoot does some background editing, clipping and looses a lot of detail and info in the process so I am at a loss before I hit the cutting room floor! Also Raw files have a tendency to look very flat because of the fact they store all data (including all the “grey”).

My working theory has always been to get the image as close to perfect at the time of shooting which includes unsightly objects, poor lighting (bright sunny days and dark rooms as an example) exposure, bad posing, hair in eyes etc., then using the extra data on the files I boost the image to be as vibrant as it looked to my eyes.

Another big reason I will not show unfinished images is that I consider it unprofessional and quite likely business suicide, to elaborate if I where to hand a wedding client the photos before any editing including all the slightly missed shots that I throw away (gurning faces among other things,,, scary!), those are then passed around and unless the clients are clearly stating that they are unfinished images there is nothing to stop that person being shown thinking they are.

And do I really want that to be the representative of the finished product I produce and sell when you are telling your friends how much I charge? definitely not!

Cheers for reading, I hope its been enlightening.

So here I go,, do your worst!!! (you watch I will get the nurse that used to drill oil).