Rewritten Home Site

Well, I've spent a lot of time over the last week rewriting parts of my web site. There are several sample wedding albums included as Flash slideshows and the galleries have had a major overall too.

The immediate thing you will see which is different is the main entry page which has been completely reworked to include a Flash presentation of my major areas of work - weddings, babies and landscape work. I have included a screen shot of what it looks like now and I hope you like it. Let me know - any comments gratefully received.

New Camera

Well I managed to get one of the new Nikon D3 cameras at the start of December and it proved extremely useful when I had to photograph a wedding on New Year's Eve as the day was very grey and dismal and the light was fading fast in the afternoon.

This is a photograph done in the dimly lit Oldway Mansions (our local registry office) - for those of a technical disposition the photograph was taken hand held at 1/50th sec at f5.6 and ISO 6400. No flash was used.

With cameras I have owned in the past, this shot would have been impossible without a solid tripod and plenty of flash which would have ruined the mood and ambience of this delicately lit and captured image.

A wedding with a difference

Well, last Saturday's wedding turned out fabulous. For once the rain clouds disappeared and we were blessed with glorious sunshine - not that we needed that for one of the locations where we were doing photographs. I had spoken to the manager of Kent's Cavern in Torquay and with his kind permission and helpfulness of his staff, we were allowed to take some photographs deep down in the caverns, once home to sabre toothed tigers, woolly rhinoceros and other exotic creatures from the post Jurassic era. Bones of ancient hominids have also been discovered there. If you are ever visiting Torquay, it is well worth a visit there.

.............. and for the first time this year, we were near enough to the beach to go for a paddle (although the bride did say the water was freezing)

Another cheeky chappy

Another part of the job which I love doing is photographing babies. I tend to photograph them at around the four month mark as they are capable of better expressions and can (generally) lie on their tummies and lift their heads up at this age. Baby Joseph is typical for his age, plenty of smiles and wonderment at the new environment that he was in.

Hectic Saturday

Last weekend I crossed the River Dart in South Devon to photograph a wedding at the ancient church of St. Petrox at the mouth of the Dart estuary. The church lies in the shadows of an ancient gunnery tower which protected the citizens of Dartmouth and the rich galleons which were harboured in the estuary. It is thought that Sir Francis Drake's fleet anchored here before sailing forth to join battle with the Spanish Armada.

The wedding was wonderful with a fabulous couple - here are a few sample images from those taken on the day. The first image on the right was taken during a walkabout which we did in the old streets of Dartmouth (now thankfully a pedestrianised zone otherwise I might not be here to tell the story) and the 2nd image is one taken in an old shelter overlooking St. Petrox Church and the Gunnery Tower.

A wonderful place to have your wedding if you are contemplating getting married down here in Devon.

For more images from this wedding please visit the 'Recent Weddings' link from my main web site at http://www.carolsteele.co.uk