Claudia & Jonathan | Wedding | Caistor Hall, Norwich

I travelled across to Norwich last Friday night so that I was ready and in place for Claudia & Jonathan's wedding on Saturday.

They had literally only booked me through recommendation from my friend and fellow photographer, Chanelle, as their photographer had broken an arm *ouch*. We hit it off right away and had a lot of fun throughout the day. As you will see there is a little dress swap for that first dance ... no way was Claudia going to manage those sexy moves with the big dress on ! The reception was held at the beautiful Caistor Hall.

A few favourites ... warning ... it was a sun flare kinda day :)

The Importance of Backing Up

I get asked, on occasion, what measures I take to ensure my client's treasured images are kept safe. I'm about to share what I do. I'll keep it simple for those not too "geeky" LOL, but I think it is an important subject and one that my clients should be made to feel comfortable with.

Once I come home after a shoot, the RAW files are loaded to my main production machine. Never the laptop. Why? The laptop is my admin machine and has 1 hard drive. Too risky. Also, it is not hooked up to a colour calibrated monitor and therefore completely useless for processing files. The production machine has 2 "mirrored" drives, making it safe for a hard drive failure, as everything is mirrored onto the other drive.

But that's not good enough for me. Usually, I am pretty tired after a large event and I like to have my client's files in 2 locations. So, they stay on the memory card until I can get to the next bit.

I have 4 external drives, 2 500gb lacie porsche drives (1 with current weddings and 1 with portraits and other work), and 2 1 TB mirrored drives. See that mirroring thing again? Talk about paranoid !

Every single file from the event is backed up to the appropriate drive. They are now in 2 places, good to clear the cards, ready for the next job (it is worth noting at this stage that I have enough cards to shoot 5 weddings and a couple of portrait sessions without clearing them off).

Every single time I process a shoot, the processed files, changed files, album layouts, blog files, get backed up to the appropriate drive.

So, what happens once the job is finished? All files are backed up to Archival quality DVD (s) and placed in the client file. It is also useful when clients purchase the "digital negatives" so that we have an off-site copy of the files ... something to consider if you haven't already :)

And that's it.

And now for a little humour to back this up ... enjoy ! :)

Ruth & Steve | Wedding | Moat House, Acton Trussell

You may remember Ruth & Steve from their fun pre wedding shoot on the river ... both are very keen canoeists, in fact they both compete ... they are also mad snow boarders and a favourite destination of theirs is in Canada ... where Steve proposed a year ago.

A while back, they set up in business together selling custom canoes, you can view their stuff at www.hydraasports.co.uk.

So, yesterday found us at their wedding, a beautiful affair at the Moat House, one of Stafford's gems. I got the following text this evening from Ruth:

Hi Gill, jut wanted to say thanks for everything yesterday, I loved having the photos taken and as you probably realised I usually hide from cameras ...

So, without further ado ... some favourites from the day ... oh, I was ably assisted by Matt, who borrowed by lensbaby 2.0 for the day (jealous !) ...

I reckon nerves and heat had something to do with the fact that Steve struggled to fit Ruth's ring on her hand ... that took some pushing and shoving ! LOL

The lensbaby effect !

Fun speeches ...

Lensbaby cake cutting ...

Thanks for having me ... and feeding me like a guest ! Totally appreciated that and man, that chicken was to die for ! Have a great honeymoon and see you both soon ! Gill x


For the photographers ... the majority of photos were taken on Canon 5D with 70-200, 50 1.2 and 16-35. And of course a lensbaby. The BW's were processed using Jeff Ascough's new Silver Actions, either the 400 film or 800 film, depending on what look I wanted.