The last 7 -10 days have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to blog about everything. So today I’m going for possibly my longest post ever covering all that has gone on in the slightly mad world of Phil Barber. So let’s take a journey back in time a la Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure ( Showing my age now!)
THURSDAY 24th – FRIDAY 25th: WEDDINGS
On Thursday I was out and about with my old mate Mr Aldrick to help him cover one of his weddings at Hazlewood Castle – The weather was fab and it was great being a second shooter and allowed me a bit of creative freedom. This was swiftly followed the next day with one of my own weddings at Allerton Castle. I was back with Lou for this and what a day it was for Rachel & Ian. These guys are now on honeymoon and have allowed us to post a couple of teaser shots from the day. I’ll post up more pictures and a full report when they get back from honeymoon.
SATURDAY26th SUNDAY27th: WEEKEND OFF!
After doing 12 weddings over the last 6 weeks, we had our first weekend off in ages and some well earned R&R. My sister came up from London and we spent a great couple of days with the kids and going out and enjoying the last bits of late summer sunshine. My particular favourite moment was having tea & cake at Bettys in Harrogate. If you are ever in the area then this is a must. I bumped into one of our old clients from last year – Laura who was having a girls day out and preparing for on evening on the town.
Sunday evening was spent down at the Verve Bar in Leeds for another excellent evening of music. I have always gone down to the Sunday Service with a camera to record the event but I had made a conscious decision to just go and enjoy the music and spent some time in the company of good friends.
MONDAY 28th: EDITING & MORE EDITING!
As you can imagine after doing so many wedding s in such a short space of time there are a few images to edit.
So Monday was spent finishing off editing 2 weddings and getting the images ready to show clients. The evening was spent with another couple of our fantastic clients having a planning meeting discussing their upcoming wedding.
TUESDAY 29th:EVEN MORE EDITING!
A la Bridget Jones.
Edited 1 Wedding – 2 Enquiries – 2 Albums received from Queensberry & 1 Booking for next year 
Also spent the evening with Steph & Darren doing their viewing to select images for their album.
WEDNESDAY 30th: 3B MEDIA – TEMPLE WORKS & THEN TRIP TO BLACKPOOL!
Early Wednesday morning I met up with Barns & Rob at Temple Works to discuss with Susan the art installations that she would like us to do. This was slightly unusual as I had never considered myself as an artist. But with the guys we set about over the next hour discussing how we would display our work that we had produced in documenting The Temple Works. The work will be available to visit as part of ‘The Final Days’ – Light & Sound Show torchlit tours from Friday 9th through to 16th October. If you are interested BOOK HERE!
After that the 3 of us head off towards Blackpool to spent some time together as 3B Media but also meet up with some other excellent photographers from the [b]school and the Randall Network. This was a great opportunity to sit down and chew the fat so to speak with some like minded photographers. So a shout out goes to Stewart Randall, Peter & Laura Lawson, Olivia Brabbs, Susie Lawrence, Chris Mackenzie, James Pearson, Rebecca Honeywell, Hayley Ruth, Mark Lenik, Neil Matthews & Mark Byrne. I think that was everyone. I had a weird experience with a Blackpool landlady who showed me to my room that had a double & a single but was asked very nicely if I would sleep in the single so she didn’t have to make up the double in the morning!
The day was spent having Fish & Chips and drinking glasses of the finest ale that Blackpool had on offer. As the light rapidly vanished there was a flurry of activity as we decided to take some images on the beach. As 3B we tried to create some promo images of ourselves in near darkness but using a bit of 1.2 action. Below are a few more images from our time on the beach.
After this it was off to have a chinese and more chat. It has to said at this point I was feeling crap / cold /swine flu not sure what – so I left the guys to head onto a bar which would appear to have been an experience for all of them. Check Barns blog out for further scary details.
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THURSDAY 1st OCTOBER – JOHANNES VAN KAN
The next day I left my fellow 3B Media chums and the rest of the photographers to have a day of discussing albums / marketing and alike while I headed up the coast to Staveley and Annabel Williams studio. It was here I had the chance to spend the day in the company of an amazing photographer from New Zealand – Johannes Van Kan. He had been invited over here to speak on behalf of Queensberry who are our album suppliers (and also the best manufacturers of albums in the world – fact!). It is hard to describe what I experienced during the day. Johannes has a passion & vision for photography that I have rarely come across. Normally when you come to see a photographer he or she will show a small slideshow of their work and then talk for a couple of hours. But from the very first minute you could tell Johannes’ approach was completely different. This was not about “look at me I’m a fab photographer”. This was story of his life and the journey he had taken. For him it was telling the story via his images. Also in this fast moving digital age where it’s so easy to get caught up in the transient nature of digital photography, he talked really eloquently about he how wanted to produce albums for people that they will be cherishing in years to come. This is why we use Queensberry – they’re so much more than photo albums. They really are heirlooms (gets off poncey soapbox…!)
FRIDAY 2nd OCTOBER – MORE EDITING & The Lurgie!
Spent the day editing a couple more weddings and had another booking for next year
But the whole family by this time were really suffering from some horrible cold thing – Lou spent most of the day wrapped up in bed 
and I’ve been pretty laid up most of the weekend. I even had to renege on a gig on Saturday that I’d been dead excited about for ages. I was gutted. Anyway……
Hopefully by Monday we will all be fighting fit and ready for another excellent week.
Off now to dose up on Lemsip and clear away the mountain of tissues. Eeeww…
At the 
To start with I did a classroom session running through exposure and how to shoot manually, Rob ran the mornings ‘finding backgrounds’ and ‘Communication & Etiquette’ practical shoot classes.
We taught delegates how to quickly find & use clean backgrounds, such as this one of Alex.
In the afternoon we walked over to new revitalised Granary Wharf to try out some new backgrounds and I went through composition and finding light with the delegates.
Another shot of Alex trying to demonstrate you don’t have to shoot head on but consider different angles.
This is one my favourite shots that Barnaby took and the one below is my favourite one that Rob took.
Here is Natasha working with Alex. It was great that by the nend of the afternoon session – the delegates had the confidence to take the models off on their on and start shooting in their own style.
