Sculpture Gallery, Woburn Abbey

I love the panoramics that I shoot, stitch and present to the client! Thankfully after many years of championing this format, clients are seeing their worth and selecting them for their Wedding Books or as final images. Things have progressed from shooting with the Noblex 135 Camera where I would shoot with 800asa Fuji print film, Kenton Photographic would C41 process this, I would scan as two overlapping halves and once colour corrected and balanced, I would eventually put the two halves together to produce a final file - very time consuming.

With Photoshop CS3, I have the ability to shoot panoramics with my main camera and then stitch. I can also shoot more formal panoramics with an ancient D100 c/w 20mm lens and tripod and Manfrotto QTVR head and these stitch perfectly in Photomerge. Much better to have a dedicated pan camera, rather than having to set up a main camera just for the wide shot.

Monday's food shoot

I am lucky to be one of the recommended photographers at One Great George Street, Westminster where Aoife and Yvonne, their wedding coordinators keep me busy with weddings, corporate and food shoots! I was coming to this after three fairly heavy days but actually felt great and was able to boil down the necessary kit to allow me to take the Tube to Westminster, rather than drive.

The starter above was the first of three courses shot and we tried a red and black table cloth versions as well but I think the white looks the best. This was shot with an SB800 through a Chimera Maxi Softbox (22x16") at the back and slightly off to the left and the fill light at the front was provided by another SB800 on its stock table stand, zoomed out to 85mm and a 1/64th power. All triggered by Pocket Wizards, although with this combination I could have used Nikon's Creative Lighting System but after three previous shoots, the less buttons to press the better and setting up the PWs is so simple.

The Client also wanted an in situ portrait of Executive Chef David Wilkinson and again, I used the softbox and a backlight over the shoulder and triggered by the PWs.

Nikon D200 c/w 50mm lens.

Heavy weekend . . .

Two weddings, a bar mitzvah and a food shoot - sounds like the title of (supposedly) Britain's all time favourite movie but actually the running order of shoots from last Friday to yesterday, Monday! Thankfully the weather cooperated throughout the weekend with only a couple of showers on Friday afternoon that didn't coincide with any outside parts of the wedding. Friday's event ended late and I left the Sculpture Gallery, Woburn at about 1230am and returned to Harrow about an hour later. I carefully downloaded the cards, backed up to two external harddrives and finally crawled into bed at 345am.

I needed to be up early for Saturday's wedding that was near the south coast in Lewes, East Sussex but with only the panoramic card to offload from Friday, I was reorganised and out the door at 10am and first stop was the garage for petrol, then Greenford for a McDonald's breakfast and Kouros Eau de Toilette, from Boots - an essential combination for any wedding day! Finally onto the A40 towards the M25 and the traffic is already backed up but thankfully this clears and it is the usual stop and start stuff until the M23 turn off. I made the venue with five minutes to spare within my self imposed timetable that still put me there way in advance - I love being early! This wedding went well, with beautiful weather and I eventually left at 1045pm - an early departure and I was home just after midnight. I left the offloading until the morning as the bar mitzvah wasn't until the afternoon.

Sunday dawned clear and sunny and as I wanted to be at the Emirate's Stadium, Arsenal's ground, at 3pm, I left at 2pm and drove over to Highbury through moderate Sunday traffic, arriving at 255pm. Access and parking were all organised and I quickly found the area of the Stadium I needed to be, taking the lift to the Club floor level and into the party. Again, all seemed to go well and I was outta there soon after the wrap at 1115pm and back home just after midnight. The image above was stitched from five horizontal frames in Photoshop CS3's Photomerge.