A P P L E P H O T O

Elsham Hall gardens and country park is a beautiful venue for weddings, I am delighted to be their official photographer and got the opportunity last weekend to take some shots of Laura by the lake. It was an open day for Elsham promoting their wedding facilites and the lovely Laura was on hand in a beautiful Carol Li dress. These were very much spur of the moment shots, I wasn’t using anything fancy just my trusty Nikon D90 and the SB900 flash.  I was holding the flash in my left hand and the D90 in my right, one of the reason I like the D90 so much is that I can use it single handed, my old D2x was just too heavy. I have now replaced the D2x but more about that in another blog.

For shots like this I tend to use manual, first I take a couple of test shotsof the ambient light and get it around 1 stop lower than normal then I set the SB900 on manual at -1/8 power as a starting point and go from there.

I wanted a wide shot that showed the beauty of the lake for Elsham to use on their stand at this week’s Lincolnshire show, the 3 white ducks were most obliging and all looked at Laura at the same time – something I can’t get some wedding guests to do!

Elsham Hall gardens and country park

When I got back and started processing the images in Lightroom, I realised how much Laura had a Garboesque (if their is such a word) look, the hair and the dress just begged for something in post process. Fortunatley I had taken a few for Laura to use in her portfolio and here are a couple that have had a little tweaking.

Laura does Garbo at Elsham Hall

Laura does Garbo 2

Elsham is a fantastic location, not just for weddings but all sorts of other events. This year they are having three open air theatre evenings and a fashion show, I’m planning on running a day’s training course for photographers there at some point.

For more information check out their websites, the main one is www.elshamhall.co.uk and for a list of events and details of hire www.elshamhallevents.co.uk or if you are at the Lincolnshire Show tis week pay them a visit on their stand, Jof and Elaine will be delighted to see you and don’t forget to say Andrew sent you.