Sneaky Weddings

How do we obtain wedding images when we are not at a wedding? In fact how do we do so when we are on holiday?

I was on holiday in France recently visiting towns and villages I had read about and had a great desire to see. One of these was Narbonne and especially the Cathedral Saint Juste.

I was with my wife and we arrived in Narbonne around 2pm on a beautiful warm and sunny September afternoon and had a wander around the city for about an hour before we decided to visit St Juste. WOW! was it worth it? Well in more ways than one. I have been known to gatecrash weddings as a photographer, totally uninvited of course.

I was wandering around the cathedral when I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of fuss and goings on and in my broken French I asked some official what was happening. He told me it was the wedding of the daughter of the mayor. Anne wanted to go as she had seen all she wanted to see but I urged her to stay another 15 minutes.

I spotted the photographer, a scruffy looking guy with long hair and a beard, toting a Nikon something or other. Well I had my Canon 30D didn't I, so much better than his N thingy and had on board my old Sigma 70-200.

So here is a lesson for all up and coming wedding togs, wherever you go carry your camera and don't be afraid to pass yourself off as a pro. Oh, and be prepared to be thrown out of places, as I was from St Juste, but not until I got my shots.

They are of course noisy because I couldn't use flash and was on ISO 800. At least I got what I wanted.

It is hard to pretend that you don't understand when someone official is grabbing you by the collar and ushering you to the exit.

SWPP Conference 3

There are times in everyones life when they come accross a genuine lovely person. Out for a curry one evening taking a few shots around the pub when Tim just happened to look straight at me over his forkfull of curry.

Tim is the genuine person I mentioned. What a great guy.

SWPP Conference

I often like shooting from the hip because it is amazing what you can capture. Taking a break from the conference, Matt and I went for a coffee and whilst in the coffee shop I grabbed these two from the hip.

The guy sleeping woke up about five seconds later and looked at me. All I appeared to be doing was putting sugar in my coffee. The bloke with the glasses was totally unaware as he walked away from the counter.

SWPP CONFERENCE

Recent visit to SWPP conference in London produced some interesting images of interesting people.

As Matt tries to take an image over Ian's shoulder, for his blog, Joe and Luke try to get in on the act