Eleanor Jane

Links 10.02.12

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo

♥ A Beautiful Mess gives us five tips for shooting perfect outdoor photographs.

♥ Famous photographers pose with their most iconic images in Tim Mantoani's new project which archives photographic legends. He shot the whole thing on 20x24 Polaroid at $200 a pop!

♥ For all the wedding photographers out there looking to give their business a little kick, Rock & Roll Bride shares how to get the best out of exhibiting at a wedding fayre.

♥ Some strange soul has scanned the entire Argos catalogue from the year I was born and uploaded it onto Flickr. There are bad dinner services galore, clunky cameras, a whole page of typewriters and really really ugly duvet sets.

♥ I just had to quickly edit this post to share a beautiful project called Love Ever After with you (thanks to Debs from Belle Amour for alerting me to it). I spent most of yesterday evening blubbing my way through the last few episodes of the BBC drama 'Call the Midwife' so am well up for some sentimentality today!

Real Weddings: Hannah & David

Oops, I can't believe I forgot to blog about this! VOICE magazine are running a new 'Real Weddings' column over the next few issues and I've been writing it. This is Hannah & David's wedding feature from the January 2012 issue. More to come!

Em & Marc: Wedding Ideas magazine

Thank you Wedding Ideas magazine for featuring Em & Marc's wedding in the latest issue - I love it! It's been fabulously put together and the reproduction of the photographs is perfect, the colours just *pop* off the page! Wedding Ideas is a cute, compact little mag and the focus is on real brides & their weddings rather than lots of editorial models, which is great if you're insatiably curious about real people (or as some might say, just plain nosey!). If you're stuck on theme ideas or sourcing the perfect details & accessories the pages are also crammed with mood boards and supplier information. I'm not even planning a wedding and I've been obsessing over it all morning!

PS. Em is so gorgeous she's going to be in the new Simple skincare advert when they launch in America next year - exciting!

Hannah & Kieran

Hannah & Kieran were married at the Brecon Castle Hotel, overlooking the mountains just above the beautiful Brecon Beacons national park, the perfect location for a Welsh wedding. Cymru am byth! Apparently it’s one of the oldest hotels in Wales. The hotel was built in the early 1800s but I was fascinated to find out there has been a castle on the site since the eleventh century.

This was a small, sweet, family wedding and Hannah was such a cute bride – always smiling, even after getting delayed behind a tractor on her journey to the venue that morning. I've never seen a bride get dressed so quickly in my life! Also, I have to say how much I LOVED her giant crystal pendant. One for me too please, Santa? Strangely enough I didn’t find out until I delivered her wedding pictures that we went to the same school together. Hannah was a few years above me so I never knew her back then, but small world, hey?

Kate & John

July & August were crazy busy for me this year. If I had the ability to magic myself to multiple places at once I could have shot five different weddings on August 13th! I felt terrible having to turn people down but Kate & John had already booked many months in advance and I’m very happy they did too – the wedding was so pretty and the party in the evening was wild!

The entire day was held at the Coed-Y-Mwstwr in Bridgend, an elegant but welcoming Victorian manor house which required some serious country driving skills to get to. I don’t think I’ve ever gripped the steering wheel as tightly as I did in those narrow, winding lanes! There were some lovely backdrops to photograph against there too such as the red brick wall and the teal painted wooden club house in the gardens. It rained a little bit off and on throughout the day but luckily we managed to nip out between showers with Kate even braving the mud to get the balloon shot among the trees.

Kate looked so sweet and nervous coming down the aisle – the shot of of her & John holding hands after her father gave her away is just charming! I love love love all the beautiful colours Kate chose for details & décor too, especially the baby blue vintage inspired bridesmaids dresses and bright coral shoes - gorgeous. Congratulations Mr & Mrs Aubrey and thank you so much for inviting me to photograph your big day!

Check out the ffotobooth from the wedding reception. Don't click if you're easily offended by the sight of scantily clad gentlemen - I told you the night got a little wild!