Wedding recces

I love a recce! Be it local, a drive to the country or as, today a very efficient Tube ride to St. James's and Dukes Hotel. The image above is, in fact from a wedding recce in Lewes, East Sussex, a couple of Sundays ago when we had the last couple of days of good weather. The couple and I had a great stomp around the venue and various and many locations in the centre of Lewes, including the Castle. This was an exercise in what we wanted to shoot and what not, areas that seemed good on paper, were soon dismissed in preference to other locations. Always such a useful thing to do at one's leisure rather than faffing around on the wedding day.

Their venue was originally the local council offices and now converted to a swish restaurant and small exclusive hotel. This is a small wedding but offers big picture opportunities and a couple who are up for the challenge - should be good.

The reason I mention this recce with today's trip into St. James's is that the Lewes bride to be used to work at Dukes Hotel and that is how she found my details . . . Today's meeting was with September's American bride and her Parents at Dukes Hotel. Another smaller wedding (85 guests) but it has the potential for something special, especially with a military angle and a few Bear skins thrown into the mix!

There are a few timings to iron out but so far - things are looking good.

As mentioned before most, if not all images on this blog were shot with the Ricoh GRD . . . Well folks there is a new kid on the block - more of which later in its own post but safe to say the Ricoh may be on eBay soon!

The image above and below were shot with the new camera, on P mode (auto exposure) and with minimal LightRoom processing and greatest shock of all . . . shot as JPGS! Yes folks, the jpgs out of this pup are phenomenal! More later.

I'm a great fan of giving credit when credit is due and our venerable Tube system covering London always comes in for constant criticism. On this occasion, my return trip to St. James's couldn't have been smoother or closer to the advertised times on the online journey planner. In fact I was almost 25 minutes early but i managed to fill this with picture making with the new toy. The meeting went well and the Parents loved the Parents' and Guest Books as well as the main Wedding Book - could be a good one!