In my opinion, the New Irish concert is the official start to Christmas. Its such a great night (if you haven’t been then go to http://www.newirisharts.com/ for more info).

Apart from being a great night of music, I bumped in to no less than 5 of my wedding customers! Even better, running up and down the stairs at the Ulster Hall was good exercise before the Christmas dinners started .

Ok, so here’s a few photos, starting with the conductor Jonathan Rea.

Lots of behind the scenes photos like this one:

Very much like the next two:

Doesn’t the Ulster Hall look well? Some venue!

So, here’s a few photos:

Below: looks like a great book!

After the service in Armagh, we headed to the Ballymascanlon Hotel. It really is a great spot…

Love the next few:
   

Added a wee drop of grain to the next one. No reason why, just for the craic!

Had a bit of a blast at Colm & Grainne’s wedding! Was great..Arrived at the house in the morning and it was properly pouring down – but by the time we got to the Ballygally it had cleared up nicely for some beach pictures.

Here’s a few photos:

Love the next few:

Just keeping an eye on the photographer…

About the only photo Grainne and Colm actually asked me for:

And to finish off with, a few nice bride photos:

Adobe Lightroom
This image management software is perfect when handling large volumes of images. I use it for  almost all my re-touching. A bit slow at times, but saves a massive amount of time in the long run. www.adobe.com





Adobe Photoshop
The industry standard, I only use a tiny fraction of the features in this mammoth programme. www.adobe.com







Transmit
Transmit is a very neat little FTP programme. Its reasonably priced, works great and looks kinda cool too! http://www.panic.com/transmit/

ChronoSync
Another beautifully engineered piece of software, this programme allows you to keep your drives or folders synchronised with each other. I use it to keep my off-site backup hard-disks synchronised with my desktop.
http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html




Bento
Made by the same folks who develop filemaker, this little database programme is easy to use, works flawlessly and even syncs with your iphone. Great as a booking database, to record contacts or pretty much anything. http://www.filemaker.com/bento/





PhotoJunction
Free software from album company Queensbury, I use this software to layout my traditional albums. There a lots of pre-loaded templates for a range of album manufacturers. It’s not a perfect piece of software, but all in all its pretty decent. http://photojunction.com/

Cinch
Cinch is a tiny application that makes your Mac do an old Windows 7 trick. When you drag a window to the left or right of the screen it automatically resizes to be half the screen size. Its so simple, but now that I’ve got used to it, it’s a must have. It makes comparing things easy – and theres also a handy maximise function.

http://irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/





1Password
As a photographer, I have lots of different passwords for logging into album companies, suppliers stores etc. 1Password stores all this information securely and can automatically fill the information on websites. No more forgetting website passwords! Nicely made software too. http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password

Dropsend
A great little application for emailing large files. Works perfectly, pity about the subscription. http://www.dropsend.com/

Spotify
A great way to listen to music for (kinda) free. Not available everywhere, but if you can you should. Quality is surprisingly good – its what accompanies my album creation! Also allows you to listen to tunes before buysig them for slideshows.

http://www.spotify.com/uk/

Mozy
Perhaps more of a web service than a piece of software, but Mozy  is a client which backs up everything on your computer to a remote location. You pay per Gb, I use it to back up my webserver every day. It works great – most of the UK’s broadband is too slow for backing up your desktop – but some day! http://mozy.com/

This particular day started with rain – but the weather picked up in the afternoon. Sinclair Seamen’s church is great inside.

Above: Outside Sinclair Seamen’s Church.

Above: This is fast becoming one of my favourite shots to take at a wedding!

Above: The classic Ballygally picture. I actually did a photograph a few weeks back from the other side of the archway – which I hope to post soon.

Above: the stormy weather had washed up tonnes (and I mean tonnes) of seaweed onto the beach – so unfortunately we couldn’t take photos on the sand. With a little improvisation, we got quite a few good photographs with the amazing scenery in the background. I thought I’d post the most different one – which was on the steps onto the beach.

Above – the spiral steps in the Ballygally Castle. Probably my favourite image from the wedding.

Above: hard to beat the natural photographs!

Above: And finally, one idea which Heather had which I thought was really nice, was to have a picture taken in her Mum’s wedding dress! I’m sure that will have been a lovely surprise for her mother.

You can view the full album mock-up  here

Above: one of the album layouts from the service.

Above: thought this chipboard would be interesting!

Above: There 2 were good fun!

Above: I’m into doing a few more interesting crops at the moment. This one was done in camera

Above: The Slieve Donard in all its glory.

You can view more here

Let me start by saying that when it comes to planning something like the Signing of the Register, there are no rights and no wrongs. Some churches are quite prescriptive and so you may not have a choice. You may also want the table to look a particular way.

The following is simply a few things to look out for, which will make your photographers job a little easier. Of course, a full-time, professional photographer will be able to make a good photograph out of most situations.

So here goes:

1. Watch out for large floral arrangements.

While a large floral arrangement on the table may look good and blend in with the rest of the colours, it can often hide the registry document. If you have flowers, they are often best placed off to the side (like above). If they are in the middle, the congregation often can only see the bride and a large bunch of flowers. The pen and register are completely hidden. This forces the photographer to stand on a chair or take the photograph at an unusual angle.

2. Buy a decent pen!
This is probably one of the most important documents you will ever sign! Quite often the minister / clergy / priest will bring a pen – and you would be surprised how often it is a cheap biro! You may wish to purchase a good quality pen, at least for the photographs. I always try to carry a good quality, silver pen with me to use for the photographs.

3. The Table
There is some personal preference in this – but I find that the best signing of the register photographs are taken when the bride is seated at a table. Many churches do the signing of the register while standing at a bench. This is fine but just something for you to think through.

4. Location
This one is entirely up to you! Some people like to sign the register in the main church, allowing the congregation to watch and take photographs. Others prefer to take a breather and sign in a side room. I’m not going to outline the pros and cons of both – its a personal decision.

5. The Background
Wherever you decide to sign the register, just take a moment and look at the background. Is it a pleasing background? Is there something in the way that could be removed? Often these photographs are taken in minister’s offices – and there are often posters, photocopiers, computers etc. in the background. Often a small change in the position of the table can make for a much nicer photograph.

A plain room off to the side of the church - yet a pleasing image. The bride is relaxed - note the quality pen and brides bouquet off to the side! Photograph by Peter Thomas Photography

And finally….
Don’t worry! Ask your photographer for direction and be safe in the knowledge that a professional photographer has probably seen it all before. Remember that the Signing of the Register is only a small part of the day – so no point in stressing too much about it!