Fiona Campbell Photography blog

Here are some images from a fun little cherish the dress shoot that I did with Francesca Battisti Jones the day after her wedding. (You can read about her spectacular wedding to Ross Jones the day before here http://english-wedding-showcase.com/2012/01/06/the-roman-holiday-wedding/ )The idea was to escape off around Rome for a few hours and relive the joy of wearing her wedding dress. I hadn’t quite realised, however, that the plan would entail zooming round at breakneck speed across Rome on the back of the vespa whilst clutching my camera! Who said wedding photography wasn’t an extreme sport? We had enormous fun, and the Romans enjoyed complimenting her on her new marriage, although one lady did say with mock reproof, ‘Have you lost your husband already?!’. However, I am pleased to tell you that husband Ross is alive and well (he it was that took the photo of me on the back of the vesper and created the sign, ‘catch me if you can’).

So, today is a wonderful sunny day and for once I am actually experiencing that elusive thing, ‘the work-life balance’. I think this is as good as it gets; working hard at a job I love, with a little downtime for family and friends. Tomorrow I’m shooting the wedding of Joanna and Jason, so yesterday was a hectic runaround to make sure that everything was in place. You see, a lot goes in to photographing a wedding and like an iceberg 90% of it is behind the scenes. I train 5-6 days per week to make sure that I am physically at peak fitness to carry heavy kit for long hours and still remain good humoured, organised and creative. I also practice photography between weddings, so that I can experiment  and keep myself creatively open. Then of course there’s all the editing (usually about 6 days per wedding), engagement shoots and designing wedding books.

Two days before the wedding I like to have a very practical day. Camera back from its service, with a clean sensor and all components in good working order? Check. Glasses repaired? Check.  (the dramatic snapping of my glasses was Wednesday’s drama! Now I am the proud owner of two pairs of glasses, two cameras, and two eyes. Plus a fantastic sidekick, Francesca – although of course I don’t own her!). Shoes shined? Check. Dress ironed? Check. High energy snacks packed ready for a long challenging day tomorrow? Check. It all means that I am fully prepared to do a fantastic job on Saturday. Because above all what I love doing is creating fantastic wedding photography. Good wedding photography is about so many aspects, and preparation is one very important ingredient.

Today is the day before the wedding and it’s a rest day. I don’t train, so that tomorrow I will have bags of energy and enthusiasm to run around. I check through the schedule and the shot list and I make sure that I know exactly what’s happening tomorrow and later today I will chat to Francesca to make sure she’s on board with everything. Mostly today I let my mind relax so that I’m in a truly creative space for tomorrow.

Here are some irises – the flower of creativity so they say!

Unique Wedding Idea..Creative Lighting and Décor
http://t.co/SrxJGBr6

Today I want to share with you this beautiful book of Ross and Kika’s stunning Italian wedding set in Rome. It is a bijoux, 7 x 10 inch Queensberry album and it is exquisite. The cover is shimmering blue silk and the pages are wonderfully thick matted ivory, edged with carved silver. The images are pagemounted without a border to give a sense of impact and simplicity.

A good wedding album has a sense of gravitas to it, and expresses the story of the day as a many faceted work of art. That is to me the advantage of a book – it is both a tale and a visual, tactile artwork. I love to hang pictures on my walls and I love to look at digital images but I love books even more because you can interact with them in a sensuous way and they can surprise you each time. Really they need to be seen and held to understand their beauty, but these photographs will give you a little idea of the magic of a wedding book.  This one is made by the album makers Queensberry, widely held to be the best album makers in the world, and certainly excellent.

I also offer Booked coffee table books, and these too are stunning. Albums cost from £695. For further details please get in touch. With many thanks to Ross and Kika for allowing me to be part of their spectacular wedding.

I must admit I’m a bit in awe of this brilliant family and their two lovely kids. Nathalie and Frederik have clearly created such a happy environment for their family and I love their magical secret garden tucked away in Highgate amongst the trees. Is it just me or are French children better behaved than English ones? Here are a few pictures from their gorgeous shoot.

I’ve just put these up because I wanted to pin them in a mood board I’m creating on pinterest for a shoot. It’s so nice to be reminded of this trip.

We snuck in to Monet’s garden at dawn. We had applied for permission but it hadn’t come through, so we just rang the bell and the door opened! It was wonderful to be there alone. The light was just breaking, its burgeoning light revealing the myriad of colours. I was an assistant at the time, and these were taken on a tiny film camera between carrying John Glover’s equipment. We saw one gardener, and they nodded and went on their way. It was like being in a magic kingdom of flowers.

A loud cheer goes out tonight to Truprint for fighting hmrc and forcing them to take the VAT off photographic books. This means that I will be able to offer my books at an even better price to clients and is truly great news. I am totally passionate about creating books that are artworks, and this will make it much easier for me to do that. Hurrah!

I’ve just been chatting with photographer Nadine Burzler about what the key trends will be for 2012. My feeling is that paradoxically as digital books get more popular, so will wedding albums. Here’s why.

Turning the pages of an actual album is a magical, sensuous experience. It is made even more powerful because it is rarer in this age of computers. I think good wedding albums will be making a big comeback as people realise the joy of books and of sharing an album in book form.

My specialism is telling your wedding story through stunning books. I like to find the real and the beautiful in your story. I believe that the role of a great wedding photographer is both to help you have fun on the day and to capture your memories forever. I believe that one of the best ways to do that is through an album,
which becomes a travel journal, a destination where you can relive the journey of your big day. So I work with fantastic printers to tell your story through my beautiful images and words in a choice of the most sumptuous albums.

My mission is to revitalise the wedding album as a must have contemporary item of desire! I also intend to create a series of training courses aimed at photographers on improving their storybook style photography and album creation skills, and another series on how to make your own magical albums, for those who love to get creative.

Also new for 2012 I have a fantastic service whereby my clients can have their own personalised website in which to share all the photographs of their wedding – both my gorgeous images and the precious (if sometimes ropey!) snaps that friends upload. This means that clients can enjoy all their photographs in one place without all the work of collating guests’ pictures. It also means that guests can order any photographs they like and I will edit the amateur ones to a professional standard before they go to my professional quality printer. It takes a boring task off the shoulders of the couple and means that you can easily share and order all the images. The website is private and can be updated for the honeymoon, Christmas, pregnancy shoots – forever. And whenever you want an album, or framed print, you have but to ask and I will sort it out for you. So if you love taking pictures but never get round to printing them out, you never have to worry again. Hooray!

The word ‘journey’ keeps recurring today. Here it is courtesy of Washed Out (thanks Goop!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYnfE5Cycg&list=PLD8396277179F4C6C&feature=plpp_play_all

It strikes me that, like many things in life, a wedding is a journey. Often couples find that their wedding preparations are a journey of self discovery and reawakening. Many people describe to me ‘the journey of finding their wedding photographer.’ (Stop here – you’ve found her!) And I observe through my work that the wedding day itself is an emotional journey – a very beautiful one, perhaps more a story than a journey with highs and some lows and a happy ending.

Images are a journey. How they are presented takes you somewhere, and that can be dramatically altered according to the choices of presentation that you make. I try to reflect this sense of journey in my work, which is full of motion, and finally in the albums that I create – I’m working on a travel journal style of album at the moment. Perhaps in a way the album is the destination – a place where you can relive the day, the  journey.

You get on with the memory making – I’ll make sure the memories stay vivid in your very own website with printing facilities.

So you’ve seen your gorgeous wedding images. (Of course they were gorgeous – you hired me!). And your friends have emailed you loads of slightly ropey but nonetheless precious pictures. Now for the daunting task of collating them all!

With my new free personalised website viewing gallery everything is made easier for you. You can view my photographs and all your friends can upload and share their own pictures all in one place. Everyone can order a wide range of products without you having to do any work at all. Then you can keep the online gallery going forever and use it as your very own family website; a complete photography solution where you can house all your pictures and easily order prints, albums and framed prints edited by me to a professional standard.

Your very own personalised website is included for free for one year in all my photography packages, and just £5 per month after that. Here’s one I made earlier http://nathalieandfrederik.eu/

*All pictures will be checked before going live. Prices for individual orders start at £5 including VAT, plus postage. Prices correct as of 2012. The website is password protected for your privacy.