Just before I went away I met up with Helen & Dan at Hazlewood Castle. This is the venue they are getting married at in October. We had some coffee and chatted about how their preparations were coming along before we headed out to do the pre-wedding shoot. As they are getting married here rather than do the usual Hazlewood locations we went for a walk around the bridle paths and into the woods. Not something I had done before but we found some great locations like the old roller. It would be lovely to bring a bride down here and do some shots. Maybe I  can convince Helen as it will be a beautiful autumnal day when they get married!

Check out the shots here and watch the slideshow to see the rest of the images from the day.

Helen + Dan from Barber Photography on Vimeo.

We recently spent a fantastic day at Tory and James’s wedding in the beautiful countryside around Ripon. The ceremony was at the village church in Bishop Monkton and the Marquee reception was on the banks of the river Ure on James’s farm. It was a really stunning spot and gave us loads of fantastic photo opportunities.

As usual I spent the morning with the girls while Lou hung out with the guys at the farm where James was whizzing about on his tractor putting the finishing touches to the marquee site. After a lovely ceremony (and a few drops of rain) everyone made their way back to the reception for drinks ad photos by the river. We were joined by two extra special guests, Tory & James’s dogs Fergus & Millie who managed to sneak into a few photos themselves.

As a surprise to Tory, James had arranged for a fantastic fireworks display to be set off from the opposite bank of the river. It was an amazing end to a great day and we’d like to thank Tory & James for inviting us to be a part of it.

Lou & Phil xxx

What all Groom’s should do on their wedding morning – Drive Tractors! Love it.

We have also just created our own video channel on Vimeo – Were we will be putting up highlight slideshows from the day and also pre-wedding shoots. So keep checking it out for more weddings in the future. In the meantime take a look at Tory & James highlight slideshow of their wedding day below.

Tory & James from Barber Photography on Vimeo.

After a very hectic few months we took the kids and vanished for a week to recharge the batteries and get ready for the Autumn. Italy is a place I love. The food and scenery are amazing but also it’s a great place to come and get away from all the hustle and bustle of modern life. No TV / No signal on iPhone / No computers ( well almost! )

The picture above is the view we had everyday and I never get bored of it. The iPhone4 has now got a decent camera and that with a couple of great apps has made taking pictures on hols a real treat. No longer having to lug big cameras around the iPhone4 has truly liberated the photography. One of the best camera apps is the Hipstermatic. This creates the look, feel and fun of the plastic toy cameras of the past. Below is a slideshow of images taken using this app. I went for a black & white feel which harks back to Italy in the 60′s

My first post for a while – I have loads of pre wedding shoots and wedding to blog about going back to April (where is the year going?), but I though I’d start with the wedding I’ve just finished editing – Marissa & Ian’s. It was a great day, and it was nice to meet up again with our friend Mark Lenik who videoed the day for Marissa & Ian.

Marissa & Ian both live and work in London, but chose to get married up in Yorkshire where Marissa’s originally from. I spent the morning with the girls in Halifax at the home of Marissa’s Godparents who were playing host to the beautiful PapaKata Tipi which was set up for the reception later. Lou met the boys in the pub (she always seems to wangle pub trips somehow..) The pub was next door to the church in Ripponden where the ceremony was held, which was also the church where Marissa’s parents had been married too.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an excited bride as Marissa when the vicar pronounced them husband and wife, and the smiles never stopped all day after that. Back at the reception the guests mingled in the sunshine while we took photographs, and a highlight for us was Hook a Duck, where the gentlemen guests had to fish a plastic duck from the pond to find out which lady they would be escorting into the wedding breakfast – great fun and another fantastic photo opportunity.

Our friends at Papakata had once again done an amazing job of setting up the tipis. Everything looked amazing with beautifully decorated tables, a chill out area and a fantastic wedding cake as centrepiece with mini-me’s of all everyone one the top table including identical wedding outfits – amazing. The speeches were rounded off with a great best men double act who had everyone in stitches with tales of Ian’s murky past. After that things really got going with the evening reception – Ian & Marissa’s friends and family really knew how to have a great time (I’m not even going to mention sumo suits…). Then as the evening drew to a close everyone stepped outside to set off dozens of chinese lanterns into the sky.

It was such a lovely day to be part of, and we’d like to thank Marissa & Ian for including us.

Phil & Lou xxx

Charlotte & Paul tied the knot on 14th May at the beautiful Oulton Hall Hotel. I was joined for the day by my fellow 3b chum Rob Booker who was helping out in Lou’s absence.

It was another really relaxed day with everything taking place at Oulton Hall. The dress code was Black Tie so all the men looked superb (afterwards Lou was v. perturbed she wasn’t able to be there as she loves a man in a dicky…). The black and white theme ran throughout the day with really stylish decor in the ceremony room and afterwards for the wedding breakfast.

Charlotte, of course, looked amazing and was fantastic to photograph – we love brides who can’t keep the smile from their faces!

Thanks Charlotte & Paul for sharing your day with us – we’ll see you very soon for your viewing!

Phil & Lou xx

Back to the end of April we go and it seems that time is flying this year.  I met up with Hannah and Gavin for their Pre-Wed shoot around Saltaire near Shipley. If you ever get the chance and not made it to this part of the world check out  Salts Mill and the David Hockney gallery 1853. A great place to come and be inspired. So it makes it a great location to take couples and walk along the canal to chat about their wedding plans. Like with all our couples we try and make this process as easy as possible. This usually means starting off with a large coffee or something stronger sometimes! But once we start I find the couples really getting into the pre-wedding shoot and start enjoying it. I have to say with Gavin he was a natural and loved playing up to the camera. We have just covered there wedding last month at the amazing Ripley Castle. It was a great day and made all the more interesting with the guys all wearing black tartan kilts. More of that to follow very soon. But in the meantime enjoy the slideshow below of some more images from their shoot.

Last week saw us back at one of our favourite venues, Allerton Castle, for Bridget & David’s wedding. We love working there and really feel part of the Allerton family. It’s lovely bumping into friends we’ve made within the wedding business -  Bridget & David had chosen our friend Fiona at Firenza to produce their beautiful (and gorgeous smelling) floral displays, and Chris & the guys from the Event Music Company provided the music for the day. Lauren Sally was Bridget’s fab make up artist (got a sneaky pic of here below!). We’ve worked with Lauren before last year at Laura & Jamie’s wedding so it was lovely to see her again.

We met up with Bridget & David at Allerton for their preparations and as usual I joined the girls while they sipped champagne and had their make up done. Lou hung out with the guys in the billiard room until the ceremony started. We managed to get outside for some photos and Bridget & David really entered into things despite the windy conditions so we ended up with some ace shots.

Bridget & David are probably sunning themselves on a tropical beach at the moment, but we wish them both loads of happy times.

Phil & Lou xxx

You may be aware that Rob Booker, Barnaby Aldrick & myself, all established Leeds-based snappers, joined forces last year to pool our skills into 3B Media.

[FYI: The 3B's come from the B's of our nicknames 'Barber', 'Booker' & 'Barns']

Our common goal has been to create an exciting, forward-thinking company with 3 major goals:

1. To run fun workshops train & develop the stills & video skills of photographic enthusiasts & aspiring pro’s
2. To take on interesting commissions in photography & video that we wouldn’t be able to approach as standalone photographers
3. To inspire one another & the world of photography through our 3B Media website.

So after running successful training courses, we’ve spent these past months beavering away at coding our vision into a working website.

Introducing www.3Bmedia.co.uk!

Let me show you around the key pages…

After studying the photography training market around us in Yorkshire there appears to a lack of training for amateurs & aspiring professional photographers. We’ve all been on or heard horror stories about training courses with too many delegates / sharing too little equipment / fighting over too few models / not having enough teachers to go around. So at 3B we decided to run a few simple courses for small groups, with all the B’s on hand for a more one-on-one experience.

The courses we’ve currently offering include:

And there are more details about each course in the Workshops section of the site if you’re interested in joining us to sharpen your skills!

The next major section of the site has been the development of the 3B Pages.

The 3B pages are the evolving, ever-expanding hub to our website, where the reader will find bucket loads of useful information and inspiration. The Pages link to the 3B Photo & Video galleries – for inspiring 3B stills & video commissions – the 3B Friday page – where every week (guess which day) we post professional techniques, tricks, and ideas on how to take your photography / business further – the 3B Amazon Store, detailing the gear we use & rate and finally the 3B Blog – our electronic signpost, pointing out news, changes within the site (such as new projects added to the commissions page) and new 3B Fridays posts.

So we hope you enjoy our shiny new site. It’s still a work in progress and will grow and change as time goes on. But it’s there for you and we’d love you to follow & comment on the blog, drop us a line if you’re interested in using us for a commission or fancy joining us on one of our upcoming workshops!

]]> http://www.philbarberblog.com/index.php/2010/06/03/3b-media-website-launch/feed/ 0 http://www.philbarberblog.com/index.php/2010/05/12/helen-robert-prewedding-at-dunham-massey/ http://www.philbarberblog.com/index.php/2010/05/12/helen-robert-prewedding-at-dunham-massey/#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 21:19:17 +0000 Phil http://www.philbarberblog.com/?p=2815

A very quick post now to show you some pre wedding shoot pictures I took recently. Helen & Robert are getting married this Saturday in the Lake District (we can’t wait!) but we had a relatively last minute pre wedding shoot a couple of weeks ago after we had to postpone their first one due to grim weather. We’d been keeping on eye on the forecast and the first evening that looked promising we made hasty arrangements to meet up.

Helen & Robert chose Dunham Massey for their shoot. It’s a beautiful National trust property just south of Manchester in Cheshire. It’s a beautiful place and we had the park all to ourselves, apart from a few curious deer who wanted a bit of camera time.

We’ve got about a zillion pre-wedding shoots to post up so bear with us and we’ll try and post them up over the next week or so. We’ve got two weddings this weekend, including Helen & Robert’s so we’ll report back next week after those.

As a photographer life can sometimes in a strange way be quite lonely. Over the years I have got to know a number of photographers who have become friends and more importantly people I trust and can talk about my business to them. We have always been very open about how we set up our business and the transition from the corporate life to photographers. Recently guys like Rob & Barns – who are my partners in 3B Media – have become people I trust and discuss my business with and talk about their business without fear. So if we want to try something new or have an idea, these guys will be the first we go to to discuss it.

Over the last year we have become involved with the Randall Network which is a larger group of photographers who are very like minded and have a similar philosophy to how they think their business should be run. All to often we come across people who are very defensive about their business don’t want to help or collaborate with you. So when we came across the Randall Network it was a real breath of fresh air.

So last week 35 photographers from this Network travelled from all parts of  the country and came together in my home town of London! The goal of the two days was to socialise but also to discuss and share ideas regarding their businesses. We discussed aspects of marketing, social media, suppliers etc.

Also as part of 3B Media we were very excited about doing a presentation to these guys about Off Camera Flash. We spent a couple of hours going through some very simple set ups and trying to show how simple using flash off camera can be.

So on Wednesday a group of us travelled down on what got labelled as the 3B Media Express from Leeds station. On arrival at All Bar One next to the London Eye we were sent out to take pictures. We were given a little task to go and capture elements of London life in a number of locations. We ended up going to the Strand & Covent Garden. Some of the images I took can be seen in the slideshow below.

I would like to thank Stewart Randall who is an amazing photographer who originally set up the network and for Hayley Ruth who organised the two days and pulled it altogether for us. Thank You! Thank You! I met some old friends like Olivia, Rebecca, Mike, Susie, Cris, Pete & Laura Lawson and met some amazing new ones like Carrie, Mr Phil, Simon

I wish we had more time to get to know each and everyone who was there but that will come with ‘Randallmania2″ in the meantime checkout Jame’s Blog for other pictures from the 2 days.