The Freesias and Daisy Chain

After much soul-searching I decided to try macro photography and the question I had at the end was "Why did I wait so long?"

I spent a morning with my friend, Jan of Daisy Chain Florists, Quedgeley, Gloucester, shooting everything in her store.

I've attached a copy of the montage I put together to hopefully show how much fun I had doing this.

I am now looking at everything with a view to shooting it with the new lens - including insects and even objects such as golf balls and keypads. They all appear to be mundane until you focus right into form and light of the object.

There is the danger that I am going to turn into a macro-nerd but I'm sure my girlfriend, Jan (not the Daisy Chain one), will keep me looking at the bigger picture once in a while. Besides I don't think many Brides will enjoy 300 images of their eyes and nostrils in close-up.

Keep checking my Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/David-Gow-Photography/103472636371331?ref=ts - for more images. And please feel free to message me if you think I've gone too far into macro-land.

Shot By Both Sides - Ian & Jan shoot Sam & Annabel

Some weddings are so much fun and their venues so perfect that it's impossible to point a lens at any point and get a bad shot - Sam & Annabel's great day was one of those special ones.

The Kingscote Barn is an amazing venue with some incredible scenic backdrops. If you are looking for a venue I urge you to check it out.

Sam was, by far, the calmest groom of the year. He and his ushers and Best Man strode around the grounds and made the first shots of the day so much easier and fun for me.

Jan, from Blenheim Photography, and my girlfriend, was my glamourous assistant for the day and took some incredible shots of Annabel's bridal preparation.

The staff at the Barn were really helpful and even allowed me to stand above the ceremony which allowed me to get the shot above. It proves that to get the best of anything you need the help of everyone.

Annabel looked fantastic in her wedding dress and was accompanied by 3 bridesmaids who could easily have been in a Girl Band. Time to hand your crowns over Girls Aloud!

It was easy to see how much Sam & Annabel love each other from their flow-posing. They were so comfortable with each other that I only had to instruct where to stand for the shots - they did the rest.

This was wedding was incredible fun to shoot because everyone was having an incredibly fun time.

A real pleasure and I wish all the best for Sam & Annabel.

OK, Croquet - Sam & Lucia are Game

It's Saturday May 16th and you'd be forgiven for expecting a gloriously sunny day from morning til night. Instead the weather tried to dampen the spirits of Sam & Lucia - and after seeing how that wasn't going to work decided to ease up and let us all out to play.

Lucia played the modelling bride to perfection and loved the ideas of the day including sitting on a stone floor and walking up and down stairs until it became a great cardio workout. Lucia should release a DVD of that exercise regime.

Sam too played a great role as the Groom, with the heavy-mood shots as well as part-time bodybuilder as he held up Lucia for what must have been a good 5 mins without a break. Perhaps another exercise DVD to be released?

Sam & Lucia's family were great fun too and were very much up for all the group shots available while the sun stayed out.

The boys played a fine game of croquet on the Greenway Hotel green but someone had to point out that swinging the club with a golf swing was not only going to put you on a losing strea of this fine sport but was also likely to injure themselves and anyone within a 50m radius of them.

The after-dinner speeches were hilarious with the Best Man speech topping them all. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting Sam you really have to ask him to play you his band's version of "House of the Rising Sun". Britain really does have talent.

A Site for Sore Eyes

Well, its finally here - the new David Gow Photography website is finished and uploaded.

The site contains a number of portrait and wedding galleries from 2009 & 2010 as well as the fantastic Grotesque concept shoot with Jessie.

There are also links to the best companies in the wedding business as well as links to my Facebook, Twitter and, of course, Blogger accounts. Please feel free to be a "fan", "follow" and "follow" again on these.

The site design was done using the fine brain of Andy Doane of Enaod Designs at www.enaoddesigns.co.uk. My great thanks to Andy for his hard work and inspiration. I hope you agree that he did a fantastic job on this.

Face to Facebook

I have set up a fan page on Facebook. Please feel free to check out my 2009 images (so far) at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/David-Gow-Photography/142839644801?ref=ts.

Galleries include weddings, portraits and Best of the Rest which contains images taken when "off the clock".

There is also a gallery of teaser images from a Gothic Concept shoot. The image on the left is another teaser.

I'm currently working to complete the editing and finally deliver the "show" of the shoot. The story being presented is a twist on the Phantom of the Opera. I'll post the complete shoot online by the end of the month.

Thanks for checking out my blog. I'm looking forward to finalising the 2009 gallery and getting ready for 2010.

Gloucester Cathedral? I can barely see it!

There are some weddings I love shooting and then there are some wedding I really love shooting. Matt & Stacey's wedding was one of the latter.

St Katharine's is a really beautiful church with one of those rarities where no matter where you point a camera you're going to get a great shot.

Then there was the reception at Kingsholm, home of Gloucester Rugby Club. A truly fantastic venue that allowed us to play around with some fun shots.

But more importantly that either the church and reception was the Bride and Groom themselves.

Shooting Matt & Stacey was a real pleasure and a joy. From the start of the day at Ashley Paul's where Matt was enjoying his first cut-throat shave to the reception and fun everyone had in the photo booth, both Matt and Stacey were intent on getting the most out of the day and have the best time doing that.

Thanks to Matt for not flinching during his shave and for not kicking the rugby ball into my face. And thanks to Stacey for making me go into the photo booth with a pair of big star sunglasses and a viking helmet. Actually I did like the viking look. The helmet covered up my very very small bald spot.

But really, thank you both so much for allowing me to shoot your wedding. I hope you enjoy viewing images as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Great buffet - but where was the duck?

After the duck-infested pre-wedding shoot only 5 weeks earlier you think I would have remembered the gang culture of these tasty critters. No. Within 2 minutes of setting up a shot of the Bowden Hall I was surrounded by them again. I recognised one of them as the previous ring-leader. Steve & Tracey's pageboys, Jack and Ashley did me proud by terrorising them for the rest of the day.

As expected, the wedding was fantastic fun. Steve and Tracey were the perfect bride and groom. They laughed, danced and kissed all day and made my job very easy. And that fun continued when they came in to view their images at the studio last week.

Steve and Tracey’s wedding was officially the inaugural David Gow Photography wedding after many years, and counting, with Blenheim Photography (www.blenheimphotography.co.uk) and if the next weddings are half as much fun as this one it will prove that this is the greatest job in the world.

A huge thank you to Mr & Mrs Talbot.

P.S. Jan is still talking about buying another dog. Thanks for that too.