Cumbria almost sweeps the board.

Cumbria almost sweeps the board.



We stopped entering awards in 2005. That year finished with one of Steven’s pictures making the exhibition and publication of the Swcheppes Portrait awards at the National Portrait Gallery. That was a pretty good achievement. There were over 6,000 entries and the most talented photographers in the world hotly contest the highly prestigious award.

We actually stopped entering because, with the advent of digital photography, entry requirements changed and as we were still shooting film at the time we were not meeting a lot of the requirements. Anyway as we are now fully digital we thought it was time to start entering awards again. We tentatively sent 4 images in to the first round of the Kodak Wedding Photographer of the year awards, Steven has won that before so we thought that would be a good one to start with.

So on Friday afternoon I got a call on my mobile. It was from our friend and most fierce competitor, Steve Yates from Keswick. “Congratulations mate, you’ve got a picture in the final of the Kodaks.” Apparently The MPA put the winning images on their site before they inform the winners. So, and here’s the best bit, there were over 4,000 entries from all over the UK and the judges only select 5 pictures to go forward, we have one and Steve Yates of Derwent Photography got 3 of them. Cumbria nearly sweeps the board.

We want to, publicly congratulate Steve, that is a phenomenal achievement, and Will and Keely, our couple who win a digital camera from Kodak and go forward to the final with the potential of winning themselves £1000. The next round of judging is in September and we will be entering a lot more with the intention of getting more through than Steve this time.

What a great weekend.

What a great weekend.

We had a good weekend apart from photographing the wedding of Rachel and Gavin, we will blog that during the week, we had two lots of good news. I am going to make two posts in the order they happened.

Oh what a perfect day...

Oh What a Perfect Day…

Remember Steve and Gosia? Their wedding was in London on 17th April. Our blog entry about them was spotted by Gavin Burrell, editor of Perfect Day magazine and like us Gavin fell for them straight away. So, their wedding and our pictures have two double page spreads and a back cover in Perfect Wedding’s “Real-Life Weddings” supplement. In your newsagents now. It’s only the 2nd ever issue of “Perfect Day” so we wish Gavin and his team luck and good wishes.

Thank you....

Thank you…


Getting paid for our work is pretty important but we love it when get a thank you card.

We got one today from Peter and Catherine whose wedding we shot on 10th April, they said,

Dear Steven and Josh


A quick note of thanks for the wonderful photos of our wedding.
We had high expectations after seeing your web site and we were not disappointed! We have had lots of compliments about the high quality of the photographs and we are delighted to have them as permanent reminders of our perfect day. We can’t wait to see the album.

Best wishes

Peter and Catherine

London sunshine, 17th April

Steve and Gosia had a beautiful day for their wedding in Islington and South Kensington.

As is often the case nowadays I met up with the Groom and Steven went to the Bride. This time though we all came back together at Steve and Gosia’s apartment.

Gosia’s Dad traveled from Poland over night and because of the ash cloud had to hitch a lift with a courier’s van. He was tired by the trip but as Steven said you would go to those lengths to be at your daughter’s wedding wouldn’t you?

Steve and Gosia traveled to the Church together with me in the back seat of their Fiat 500 while Steven and Gosia’s parents got there by cab. It wasn’t until we had finished work and were about to get on the train at South Kensington Station I realised I still had the keys to the Fiat 500 in my pocket. So I had to hotfoot it back to the reception venue.

We always like working in London, it’s very different to the Lakes and it’s good to know that we are equally at home with London weddings as we are with Lake District weddings.

We hope, Steve and Gosia, you managed to find a way to get to your honeymoon and the ash cloud hasn’t spoilt your holiday, there was no way it was going to spoil your lovely wedding day.


Josh

Peter and Catherine, 10th April 2010.

Peter and Catherine live and work in London but both of their families have strong associations with The Lake District. So when they thought about where they would tie the knot The Lakes shot to the fore. Our weather cannot be predicted but Peter and Catherine couldn’t have wished for better, it was a glorious day for their Lake District wedding.

The service was at Hawkshead Church followed by a reception at Belmount Hall. We are back at Belmount Hall on 1st May for Rebecca and Campbell’s wedding.

Congratulations Peter and Catherine and we hope you don’t have too many difficulties with your flights home.

Rob and Annette, 7th April 2010

Most times we get an E mail enquiring about our availability and pricing that’s often followed by another asking to meet. Sometimes we will have further phone calls or E mails. Then we get the completed contracts and retainer. Usually, around a month before the wedding we will have a meeting or phone call with the couple to finalise the details.

Rob rang about a month ago to ask what we would charge to attend a vow renewal ceremony for an hour or two. We gave him a price and he said he would get back to us. Around a week later we heard back. “I would like to go ahead. It’s a big surprise for Annette so please don’t call me on this number”. So that was it we didn’t know anything except the date, the time and that we would meet them both at St. Martins Church, just down the road from the Studio.

We waited in the Church yard at the given time. We were in no doubt who the couple were because as they walked through the gate Annette burst in to tears. We attend a lot of emotional occasions but this was one of the most moving we have seen.

Congratulations Annette and Rob.