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.

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

Caesars Stars are a new band that only got together at the beginning of 2010. Wilko Ed & Josh have been working hard in this short time and already are starting build quite a following. Wilko has written some brilliant songs and along with his distinctive voice Caesar Stars  have created quite a unique style. They recently won a Battle of the Bands competition in Leeds and are now working on their first EP. Checkout their Myspace to have a listen and also go see these guys when you can. Check out Facebook for dates coming up. I caught up with them at the Elbow Rooms last week and these are some of the images from the night.

OK once again my blogging has slipped in a big way recently due to one reason or another – setting up our new 3Bmedia website then Easter holidays (trip to Disney World – amazing and I will be blogging at some point and boring everybody with an updated version of the 1970′s holiday slideshow evening. I may even prepare a cheese and pineapple hedgehog to accompany it).

Anyway we’re back into the swing of things and I’ve got loads to update you all with. I’ll start off with a recent wedding we did – Carly & Jay’s. It was a couple of days after we got back from Florida so we were feeling all fresh and raring to go after our break – it’s a good job our holiday wasn’t a week later when Mount Eyjafjallajokull [copy & paste FTW!] started causing chaos..

Carly & Jay’s wedding took place at the Hospitium in the Museum Gardens, central York. It was a beautiful location and the weather was amazing on the day which was fantastic for Carly and Jay as we could use the gardens for their photos. The daffs were in full bloom and all was very springlike (about time too!)

Carly looked amazing and Jay got quite emotional as she walked up the aisle. After a lovely ceremony (including a particularly fantastic reading from young flowergirl Phoebe) everyone spilled outside into the gardens to enjoy drinks in the sunshine – it was all very chilled.

The wedding breakfast was upstairs in the Hospitium then it was back downstairs for a very nicely choreographed first dance followed by a lot of rather less coordinated boogying by happy guests.

Carly & Jay, we had a blast with you on your day. Thank you for asking us to share it!

Phil & Lou xxx

As the kids keep growing up and we are always taking pictures of them on the big main cameras – I have been looking for a small pocket camera so I don’t have to lumber the 5D about. The trouble as a photographer we still want full control and usually the small compact digital cameras have so many pre-programmed settings and no manual settings that it is trying to second guess what you want. So after a lot of research I have plumped for the Canon S90.

What I love about this camera is that it is a true compact and will fit nicely into my jean pockets. It has a great feel of quality with its metal casing.
The S90 features an intuitive lens Control Ring, which enables users to adjust the settings of various functions by twisting the selector at the base of the lens barrel to the left or right. The Control Ring can be used for a number of things from setting ISO to using as a manual zoom offering a closer view of subjects in 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 105mm steps. This is a cool feature and makes the camera a real breeze to use.

Without getting too geeky a number of features worth noting are Canon’s enhanced DIGIC 4 image processor.This is the same processor in the G11 which I didn’t go for because it was just too bulky. This is particularly useful in low-light photography, where users are able to shoot high quality full resolution images even at ISO 3200. This camera gives me full control over Shutter / Aperture / ISO and also shoots in RAW so I have as much control on the S90 as I do on my 5D DSLR.

Also a big help is it has an aperture of f2.0 which lets in twice was much light as the f2.8 found on the G11. There are a whole load of other stuff which if you are interested in then checkout Canon’s website

The thing is that you can read reviews and research as much as you like but it isn’t until you use it in action that you get to know if the camera is half decent. Well I went to help clear out an old garage the other day so took the camera with me and some of the images can be found below. I have to say it was great to use – so simple and intuitive which meant you could concentrate on taking the picture rather than working out which setting to use. This is what photography should be about. You become so comfortable with your equipment that you just capture what is around you.

There is a final feature of the camera which is the capability of video. It isn’t HD which is a bit of a draw back but for little hand held videos it should be OK. I am going to try some videos next week so come back and take a look and tell me what you think.

This is an evening not to be missed. If you want to get up close and personal with an excellent band then this is for you. The Hope and Social guys are having a Come Dine With Us evening at the Crypt on March 27th. Billed as a recording event with food and music – the idea was conceived during the recording of their second album which is still being put together. There was a song that James said had the feel of “A french Bistro, in a cave or cellar, with a small jazz band playing, and red candles on the tables”. So the guys are going to turn the Crypt into a French Bistro and invite fans down to get involved with a fun night. The 3B Media boys are going to be there to document the evening and do a little video as well.

Go here for full Come Dine With Us details