Farewell

To my very dear friend Cuddles. Brokenhearted but thank you for the beautiful years you gave me.

Those house calls again -

Early mornings are made for drinking copious quantities of coffee at the brides house. Zero pressure and usually great reportage shots for the grabbing.

Very often these candid shots duo toned are my favourite images of the day.

Lynn and Robert - Part Deux

As always - natural light is king. I know I harp on about this over and over again but just take a look at these pictures of Lynn.

La lumiere naturelle est la plus belle !

Winter Weddings

There's a certain beauty and challenge in photographing winter weddings. Light drops off a lot faster - which means we start a little earlier with the house calls !

Extensive use indoors of the RAW file format - allows us to control light temperature to a tee. Keeping things - well, really cool !!!!!

Kate ?

Always thought that this young lady bears a striking resemblance to Kate Winslet

Treport & Abbeville - NW France

Always feel on a natural high when I am in France. The North West is a big favourite of mine, whether it is the beaches of Normandy or tripping around the Oise valley - there are no shortages of subjects to photograph.

Come hell or high water I intend going back at least twice in 2011 with my little boy. Happy days, la vie est belle et le ciel est sans nuages.

Devil is in the detail

Great details deserve their spot when it comes to graphically designing each page. Its a shame not to see the world on a micro as well as macro level.

Big thanks to Emma and Niall for such a great day out yesterday. You know, I'm not complaining but give me a nice overcast day any day (as was yesterday). Being an army wedding - well that's a big plus to start out with. Guys - you were a pleasure to work with and can't wait to sit down and do your preview ! Enjoy St. Lucia !

Let the light do the talking - not the flash

Take a quick look at the following image taking from Caroline's recent wedding. Notice anything ? Got it in one - no heavy handed use of flash, in fact no flash at all.

Thanks to investing in "L Series" Canon lenses we can generate highly atmospheric images like this without resorting to flash which very often washes out the glory of the natural light.

All too often wedding photographers (experienced and in-experienced) over rely on flash, which is in itself not a natural light source. At worst you finish with awful shadow balloons behind the subject and at best a clinical image with no warmth.

Not so at Alchemy Photography - we celebrate natural light whenever we can use it.

Ballykisteen Hotel

Over the years it was always a pleasure handling wedding photography at Ballykisteen Hotel, Tipperary. This is a superb wedding venue backed with a fantastically friendly and professional staff. Thanks for making my job so easy any time I am out there with you guys.

Here is a montage of the hotel's design features. See you all again really soon.

Normandy

Two graphically designed images here of Normandy in France. Very often the resemblance to the Irish landscape is uncanny. I guess that's why Steven Spielberg used Wexford as a stand in Normandy 1944 in Saving Private Ryan.

The two pictures are the American Cemetery at Coleville-Sur-Mer (spot toned) and a fusion of the bell tower at St. Mere-Eglise with the sandbars of Omaha Beach at the St. Laurent Draw. Great memories of good friends in Normandy. Pas de Guerre encore !

The world of music

It was a great pleasure today to spend some time photographing friend and up and coming singer / songwriter Fergal Nash. I have known Fergal now for quite some time and its always great to catch up on his burgeoning catalogue of original songs.

I tried to capture Fergal in his song writing environment, using lots of duo toning and creating these graphically designed spreads.

So there you have it - always refreshing to work around a real talent. By the way - want to catch up with Fergal - check out the Whitehouse on Tuesday nights and Lock Bar on Thursday nights.

www.fergalnash.com www.myspace.com/fergalnash

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside !

Mes Vacances

Even photographers need a photographic holiday now and then .

Nothing to do with wedding photography this time ! Big thanks to the staff at IWM Duxford especially Historic Flying Machine's Joe for letting us get really close to some amazing vintage aircraft. And ....here's the picture.

2011

In 2011 Alchemy Photography will be pushing the boat out a little further ! Book a wedding with us in 2010 and receive two parent albums absolutely free.

These "side" albums are authentic replicas of your main album and remember - you will also get all the great graphic design that went into these albums on disc absolutely free.

You can then create anything from great picture galleries in your home to dinner place mats with zero hassle.

Into Facebook, MySpace ? - then these discs give you all you need to get these stunning moments from your day out on the web. Go even further and get your free audio visual uploaded onto Youtube ! Now that's what we call spreading the word about your big day.

Talk soon,

Peter

Sometimes it is a great pleasure to re-visit older work with newer technology. Laura and Nigel's photography was completed well over two years ago.

Using capabilties opened up by our graphic design software it was possible to re-cast this photography in a stunningly new context.

Will hope to sit down with Laura and Nigel to finalize design really soon and get this one off to production in Spain !

Cheers guys !

Great day yesterday in Adare working on Sinead and Brian's wedding. Just one of those days in the year when the lighting positively drips.

I have never visited the Abbey in such glorious conditions of course having a Bride like Sinead really helps. Almost forgot, Brian you were great too.

Now its time to get to grips with graphic design for album pages. In the meantime here are some early samples.

Till next blog,

Regards,

Peter