Focus on imaging 2011 at the NEC

Today we attended the Focus on Imaging photographic exhibition at Birmingham's NEC.

Focus on Imaging is Europe's biggest annual imaging show, with over 200 exhibitors covering all aspects of video & photographic genre's.

Equipment stands, photographic print exhibitions, seminars and demo's from top professional photographers, print trade and many more.

Our reasoning for attending was so that we could go firm on our wedding album selection for 2012, to meet with the industry leaders and to put faces to names from the various book companies.

After a few hours pondering who to go for, we went for who we felt offered the best possible product - and the winner was GRAPHIS - http://www.graphistudio.com/

We felt Graphis books are second to none, the print quality is simply the best!

We know that for our weddings in 2012 we want to be able to produce the best possible product, not only from the cap2ure but all the way through to the final presentation of the album - Graphis books offer this.

We will go firm on our packages over the next week or so, but a quick inside hint is we will have large albums, parent books, gift books............with many finishes both inside and out.

We also purchased a 135cm Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox for our full length fashion and wedding portraits, this will be a valuable tool in our quest to produce the perfect image.

All in all Focus on Imaging is a great day out for anoraks and geeks in the photographic trade, to talk camera's and see who and what is going on in the trade.

regards

Steve

You're never too old'

To learn that is!

On Tuesday, I attended a British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) workshop in wedding photography at their HQ Offices in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Our tutor for the day was a former Photographer of the Year, Kelly Hearn.

The day started in the classroom and a slideshow of Kelly's work just to get us all in the mood. Followed by an ice breaker for all those attending, fortunately there were only six of us. There was a variety of experience in the group from seasoned Pro's to those just starting out.

We went through a series of poses indoors using just available window light. Kelly was great at those just so fine movements that make a huge difference to the look of the final image.

After a great lunch, we introduced Holly, our model for the day, all "glammed" up in her wedding dress and variety of bouquets.

She could have quite easily just snapped in to the pose and made life very easy, however Kelly was having none of it and made her make life a little more difficult for the group. The only way to learn really!!

Following a quick session indoors we headed out in to the cold and over to the local Church, using the grounds for the first couple of shots. We took turns posing the "Bride" and acting as the groom, whilst the rest of the group grabbed a few shots.

We headed inside, again using the light available and set up a few well posed shots, bouncing ideas of each other with Kelly always on hand to assist and cast her eye over the set up!

The day finished with an opportunity to squeeze any final advice and information out of Kelly that we could manage, all in all a great day and thoroughly well worth the five hour round trip!!

Thanks and wishes of good luck go out to Kelly who didn't hold back and passed on an immense amount of information and invaluable advice.

And of course Holly for putting up with us and the cold.

A few of the images from the day.....

Mark