We shoot Nikon and have a prefernece for fast prime lenses. That said, a firm favourite lens and one which I pretty much use all day at a wedding is the 70-200mm zoom lens.

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

A great lens for capturing details which is rarely used at any other aperture than  f2.8 to allow the background to be thrown out of focus. Using this lens, you will generally need distance from the subject to the background to allow it to become out of focus. You can read more on this in my previous post about using the background

Nikon 60mm f/2.8 Macro

The 60mm lens which can be used for extreme close-ups. Great for small details such as rings. The depth of field on this lens is exceptionally shallow, hence why we normally use it at around f4.

1/50 sec, f4, ISO 3600

1/50 sec, f4, ISO 6400

We then come into prime lens territory. All of our prime lenses are fast . Extremely narrow depth of field is the key to giving lovely blurry backgrounds, often referred to as Bokeh.

Nikon 50mm f/1.4 

A 50 mm lens which I find comes into its own if you have an object on a material surface as in the two examples below. I often hold the material out towards the camera or lie the camera on the material whilst keeping the object in focus and you will get a gorgeous creamy feel to the image.

1/640 sec, f1.4, ISO 250

The last lens is a more unusual choice, but used in the right way can give some interesting and more unusual results. The 24mmm 1.4.

Nikon 24mm f/1.4

A wide-angle with a 1.4 f stop. I usually end up as close the subject as possible at 1.4 which works in throwing the background out of focus whilst maintaining a pin sharp point where the focus lies. You can really include a feel for the whole room / table settings whilst picking out one part of the scene as a focal part.

Both images photographed at f1.4

1/40 sec, f1.4, ISO 250

Another use for this wider angle lens is its ability to shoot closer to the subject matter than the longer lenses where you to be a considerable distance away. It’s sometimes tough to find this distance during preparations particularly where rooms are tight for space. These flowers were placed on a table and I was simply standing over them and I used the 24mm lens to create a simple but fairly abstract shot.

1/60 sec, f1.4, ISO 1600

We are lucky enough to have Loch Ness on our doorstep and it was a good call to stop by the shore of the loch on the drive back to the castle for a few shots.

Last weeks day off took me round to Mellon Udrigle beach on the West coast. This beach is amazing, and much photographed due to its gorgeous turquoise sea and patterns in the sand. After spending the afternoon there we went on to have the most perfect dinner ever in Gairloch …. fish and chips sitting dangling our feet over the edge of rocks with the sea lapping at our wellies.

Although the original idea was to just photograph Mellon Udrigle, as ever, I find it almost impossible to plan which landscape you are going to photograph. In this case as we drove home , we passed along the side of Loch Maree just as the sun was setting.

I have never photographed here so we just happened to pull into a car park space and walk to the edge of the cliffs as a rain storm was coming in, whilst the last of the sun just lit up the mountains.

I hadn’t expected to be able to find a good vantage point in time to set up and take some images, but took my camera with me regardless.

This image was shot at 36 secs, f11 , ISO 800. I was using my D700 with a 24-70mm lens, on a tripod to allow for a longer exposure.

Other tips I can provide is always to remember to take your coat with you if there’s even half a chance of standing outside in the North of Scotland in April for any length of time. It may look very picturesque and warm, but it wasn’t!  Very minimal post production on this image as I often find that other than tidying up dust spots, cropping and some sharpening, it’s better to keep landscapes looking natural and to get the image looking good in camera.

Last weekend saw the first of two consecutive weddings that I am photographing at Aldourie castle , which is situated right on the banks of Loch Ness.

Aldourie is an amazing venue in the daylight, but it was really spectacular last weekend illuminated with a line of torches leading from the castle to the marquee and the trees lit up in green and blue.

Both these images were shot handheld at 1/8 and 1/140 sec at 2.8, ISO 3200. They were really just a test before later on getting my tripod out to do some low light shots properly. However, later on the sky went very dark and these shots have much more impact with the blue cloudy skies. And, yes, I do have an unusually steady hand. I wouldn’t ever recommend shooting at such low shutter speeds without a tripod to anyone!

It was one of the weddings that we have booked this year as part of our fusion packages, where I shoot the stills and Steve films the wedding. It is really great to work together like this in many ways, but mainly because we know exactly what the other is doing and are both able to help and allow the other to get great footage. We will keep you updated on both the photography and the film in due course.

A few mentions go out to some of the fantastic suppliers on the day including :

Venue – Aldourie Castle 

Event styling – Angela Stewart Creative

Fabulous Band! – Whisky Kiss 

Marquee - North of Scotland Marquees

Sound and visuals – Andy Belby - Entertainment Experience

Catering – Mike Crook - Good Highland Food 

I took a day to shoot some images around the Isle of Skye at the beginning of last week. I have been a long time ago but never really taken any time to explore this amazingly landscape before. I began by photographing at Glenbrittle. The light has been so changeable in the past couple of weeks that it swings from torrential downpours to sun within half an hour. My favourite light, full of variety and interesting, changeable skies.

Shooting with a tripod and ND filters really slows down the whole process. Landscape photography is a whole different way of shooting compared to wedding photography.

Wedding photography involves shooting fast and constantly adapting to changing conditions, indoors to outdoors, dark to light, always searching for expressions, emotions and reacting quickly. In the landscape there’s a fait bit of searching for the right place, hanging around for the right light and then carefully setting up before finally making the exposure. I tend to work with ND filters and long exposures to blur water or show movement in the clouds which further slows down the whole process.

On this particular day I must have shot around 15 exposures in 7 hours with around 3 good images in the result.

The day just disappeared very quickly whilst photographing the Cuillins, but I managed to make it down to Elgol, one of Scotland’s most photographed places, just in time for the sunset.

When speaking to Eilidh about her upcoming wedding to Andrew in Inverness, the one request she had was that we shot some images outdoors, whatever the weather. Last week they were married at Crown church in Inverness and then back to the Drumossie hotel for the reception. Just a few days before we had the most dramatic change in weather for weeks, with snow, rain and hail throughout the Highlands.

It was fairly dry on the wedding day itself but extremely wet under foot. In fact, piles of snow still lay round the grounds of the hotel. As planned, we took a few moments to go outdoors around the Drumossie.  Eilidh had brought wellies in preparation for bad weather but, on the day, decided to simply take off her shoes and go barefoot on the grass. In my experience,  letting go of worries about the dress and shoes, the weather and just simply enjoying the moment makes for the most natural and emotive images.

Plenty more images from Eilidh & Andrew’s wedding day can be seen on our facebook page

I set out last night amidst a torrential downpour with the thoughts that even if I didn’t shoot anything , it would be good to get out for a walk! I arrived at the spot I had wanted to walk to and literally had to shelter under the trees while the rain beat down unrelentingly. Even opening the camera bag at this point wasn’t an option. It eventually died down to just general gloom and dark skies, so I began to shoot.

The first shot:

Then the appearance of a rainbow:

The skies suddenly cleared and light began to fall onto the jetty :

More light in the distance falling on the mountains:

I was suddenly standing there with amazing soft evening light which was producing beautiful glowing colours everywhere and clouds that seem to cling to the mountain tops. It was one of those times when I just felt in total awe of the landscape. Not quite believing how beautiful the surroundings are, with a real desire to capture this on camera and do it justice.

This all happened within half an hour of being soaked to the very bone.

One of the final shots before the sun sank behind the mountains and the light disappeared:

Icelandair PR tour of Boston’s finest restaurants:

The Austrian alps with an Austrian toursim PR company:

Touring Iceland and a gruelling 8 hour trip up Eyjafjallajokull to photograph the volcano whilst it was erupting:

And finally Steph and Bryce’s wedding in the Sonoma wine county region of California:

Liz was the happiest ever looking bride as she battled across the bridge against the rain and wind. She still chose to walk over the bridge to the castle, rather than be driven. It was a gorgeous wedding day and a very happy one, despite the weather.

The photo won the award of Reportage Wedding Photographer of the year 2010 through The Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers.

Janice and Owen were married on an extremely blustery day on the Isle of Lewis. Janice had always wanted to get some images shot on a very dramatic cliff face, close to the church, which drops down to views over the beach and sea. Despite looking out towards the cliffs and seeing bands of rain coming in, both the bride and groom decided to go regardless.

We drove over the fields and stopped the cars as close as possible to the cliff. After battling with car doors to actually get them open against the force of the wind, we all managed to get out and attempted to gather everyone together. Janice’s veil was threatening to be blown out to sea and the little bridesmaids could hardly stand up straight.

What was supposed to be a formal bridesmaids photograph turned into an image full of laughter and expression. The extreme weather helped to bring out those real expressions!

This image won the title of Scottish MPA Reportage Wedding Photographer of the year 2011

So brides, don’t worry about the weather – you can enjoy your wedding day regardless. Photographers – take a chance on shooting in bad weather and you may come up with something extraordinary.

One of my favourite personal images so far this year. Shot on my iPhone as I took my boys to the school bus.

The reason I love this image is tied in with the idea of gratefulness. It’s so easy to focus on the things that we don’t have and become discontent. If you begin to consciously focus on what you do have, contentment begins to be part of your life.

These simple pleasures are around us everyday. Health, nature, sight, running water, freedom of choice, sunshine and having the pleasure of walking past horses, sheep and mountains on the way to the school bus.