Ladies and gentlemen. It has been 7 years of wonderful loveliness with this site, but the time has come to bid you all farewell. This is the last of many blog posts (over 400 I believe) here – srphotos.co.uk has officially been eaten by lightbulbhead.co.uk.

srphotos.co.uk has left the building.

I’ve just added a blog post about mobile photography to my new website: http://www.lightbulbhead.co.uk/mobile-photography/

So, it’s been a bit quiet around here lately hasn’t it? What with getting married and setting up home and various other things, I haven’t really had much time to blog about photography, although I have got several draft posts about various things waiting to receive some attention. Is this neglect of srphotos.co.uk through laziness? Well, not really.

You see my new wife has a business – Lightbulb Head, and within the first month of marriage we were commissioned to build a website for a couple of guys who did a grand job with the catering at our wedding. I’ve therefore been spending a lot of my free time on the implementation of pigandporter.co.uk which went live last Friday.

Whilst we’ve been doing this site, Kiri and I have been looking at each other (we’re allowed to…we’re married!) and we’ve realised that what with Kiri’s design and film skills and my photography and geek skills, it would probably make sense to combine our businesses. So…at some point in the new year, srphotos.co.uk will be no more as it merges with Lightbulb Head.

You’re welcome to join us for the ride!

Yesterday I travelled to Stock Brook Manor in Essex to take photos at the wedding of Andrew and Gemma. It was a beautiful day from start to finish, with lots of laughter and great musical diversity. Fortunately we didn’t have to venture outside much as it was rather windy, however the sun showed its face for the parts of the day it needed to!

This was my 30th wedding (I should clarify – I’ve only only been married at one wedding, but this was my 30th taking photos). It was, however, my first wedding with an assistant – my wife joined me for the day to get an additional angle on proceedings which was great, as so often I’ve lamented the lack of ability to be in two places at the same time!

Congratulations once again to Gemma + Andrew.

This weekend for the first time in a long time, I had chance to relax into some photography! We headed up to Lancashire from London on Friday night to stay with some good friends, then had a lovely day out on the Saturday, taking in some great things that Lancashire has to offer, starting with Brockholes – a nature reserve with the visitor centre floating on a flooded quarry:

Most of the pictures I took in and around there though were of our friends and their grand-daughter, so not many to share I’m afraid.

And then onto Blackpool for the illuminations. On the way there through Lytham, the sky and clouds were doing some really cool things that you only seem to get at the turn of the seasons, and even though we were in a moving car, I just had to take some photos (it’s ok, I wasn’t driving!). This was one that I shot through the windscreen:

Blackpool. Well, I’ve never been to Blackpool before and I can honestly say the illuminations were quite something. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before…endless rows of bright lights and stuff. It was a real assault to the senses, and much as I appreciated the skill and effort that had gone into it all, it was just a bit much for me. One of the best illuminations I thought was just the lighting of “The Big One” against the night sky:

All in all, a pretty varied weekend in terms of subject matter of things to photograph. I’m itching to get out and do more now!

I’ve uploaded a selection to my Facebook page: Gallery of images taken in Brockholes, Lytham and Blackpool

So, I’m a married man now – married to the lovely Kiri Roberts since the beginning of September and now enjoying setting up home together. Without giving too much away, I did take some photos at my own wedding, but until I’m ready to share the results, I’ll not say any more about that.

We had a lovely little break away following the wedding, where I didn’t take many photos (for obvious reasons), however I did take a few. No prizes for guessing where we went – the mini gallery of our minimoon doesn’t give many clues, but you’re welcome to guess! I mean, where would you expect to see this:

In the coming few weeks I’ll try to do a few more blog posts about weddingy stuff and photography, but now I’m married I’m a little busier doing other things, so not sure I’ll blog quite so regularly!

I think this is possibly the longest I’ve gone without writing a blog post, but hey, I’ve had other things on my mind recently! Photography-wise things have been a little quiet as I prepare for my wedding – no time really for heading out and about with my camera. I’ve also had a bit of a downsize with regards to my camera collection, and especially my 3D photography paraphernalia (glasses and the like) as there are bits and bobs that I haven’t used for ages and realistically might not be using again for a while.

The most common question I’m asked about my wedding is who will be doing the photos. No question – it has to be Tom Dauben – a great friend and good photo walk companion. However, I can’t cope with going to a wedding and not doing something photographic…so I’m setting up a time-lapse of the venue from the setting up through until when we leave.

Wedding planning is calling me…only a week to go!

On Saturday I travelled to Abingdon in Oxfordshire to photograph the last wedding before my own. Anne and Andrew were very fortunate as the weather was kind during the day; only breaking once we were inside for the ceilidh at the end of the reception. In all it was a great day with plenty of fun and laughter.

In a break from the norm, I’m not going to talk about how my cameras fared at the wedding (D700 lived up to its previous good performance) – instead I’ll say a little more about the weekend as it was very, very British!

On the Sunday afternoon I attended two very British events. The first was a lovely ecumenical service in the village of Kennington, Oxfordshire which in a marquee in the middle of a field. True to form there was torrential rain outside, drenching the bunting, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the local brass band and congregation inside. The second was rather more random. To cut a long story short, I stood in the town square of Abingdon in the torrential rain with my face upturned, trying to catch currant buns that were raining down on the crowd from the roof of the town hall? Why? Well, apparently every royal occasion that’s what happens in Abingdon – bun throwing!

Congratulations once again to Anne + Andrew and apologies to the regular readership about the lack of blog posts – planning a wedding takes up quite a bit of time!

On Friday I had a great day in Richmond photographing the wedding of Clare + Pete. The weather, surprisingly, didn’t turn out to be much of an issue at all – there was heavy rain at times during the day, but none of them disrupted the plans. The ceremony was in the Octagon room of the Orleans House Gallery which was full of natural light even with the threatening clouds, the sun briefly shone for a few of the group photos outside, then the boat trip over the river to the reception venue of the Bingham Hotel was dry before the next downpour.

This being my first wedding for a while (I’ve stopped doing weddings as I prepare for my own), I was horrified to find out 3 days before the wedding that I had only got one camera film left, so it was a hasty scrabble to get some spares. It’s sad that getting black and white film is no longer as easy as walking into a high street shop. So that was the first minor mishap – the other one was that I found that the head of my monopod had a crack. Not wanting it to fail in the middle of the wedding I put it under a stress test (i.e. I shook it and twisted it a bit) and lo and behold it fell apart. Bit of a shame, but in the end I didn’t really need it anyway.

I’ve talked previously about the weight of the Nikon D700 and all of my other kit at weddings, so decided this time to weigh the kit that I carry at a wedding. 10 kilograms. That’s 2 DSLR bodies, 1 film SLR body, 5 lenses, 2 flashes, 16 AA batteries, 4 DSLR batteries plus a few odds and ends. Carrying that around with me means that weddings are basically a workout!

But back to the wedding and the photos – it was a great day and lovely to share it with Clare + Pete. Only 2 to go before my own!

This Easter I had a great break with my family and my fiancée’s family at Penhurst Retreat Centre in East Sussex where my fiancée’s parents are wardens. It was a double celebration – focussing on the resurrection of our Saviour and also helping my Dad celebrate his 60th birthday.

The weather wasn’t all sunny…in fact there was quite a bit of dullness and rain, but Penhurst is so beautiful, no matter what the weather is like. We had a chilly picnic on the beach at Norman’s Bay one day, and a soggy walk up Tent Hill on another as well as a drizzly sunrise service on Easter Sunday. The rest of the time it was great to just hang out at the retreat centre.

Whilst there, I took the opportunity to take some photos of some of the rooms, trying out my new Nikon D5100. Well…to state the obvious, it’s not my D50 and it’s certainly not my D700. Although the spec is higher than the D50 that I’ve loved for the last 6 years (more megapixels, a video mode, higher ISO settings and live-view), it feels a lot more amateurish. I can’t change timer mode to use a remote or ISO or white balance any more without digging into a menu and there’s no LCD screen on top to give me a quick view of settings. It might just be me getting used to the controls, but I would prefer the above functions instead of the ability to switch to “colour sketch” mode easily or flip out the back screen. I’m not complaining, after all this is a fantastic starter DSLR, but it’s not quite delivering for me in the usability stakes!

Anyway, back to the weekend – view a gallery of the photos taken this Easter