On the second of October Liv and I shot our first mixed wedding. Of course we’re a mixed couple but photographing another mixed couple was a really good experience. Something we’ve started promoting this autumn are our Chinese wedding packages which can be found on the packages page on this blog.
A lot of Eastern people come to Edinburgh to get married yet a lot of them don’t speak English very well. My Chinese is very very patchy (I can say hi, thanks, get lost, how are you etc) but Liv is completely fluent. With our weddings nowadays I give quite a lot of direction and while Liv also gives direction in English she directs in the same way as I do so she can tell people what to do in Chinese. This is great for me but even better for these lovely foreign couples.
During this wedding, for which the couple asked me not to use their names, we shot mainly digital photos but I also got a chance to to shoot some film with a 6×7 format Mamiya RB67.
6×6 and 6×7 are my two all time favourite formats. They’re really easy to shoot but the quality with a good film (or digital back if you can afford one) is simply stunning. I also did some panoramic type photography but below are some of my favourite photos from the day.
About the venue, we photographed at Aldourie Castle by Loch Ness (about a 15 minute drive from Inverness). I believe this is only the second wedding to have taken place here but Aldourie Castle is normally used for private functions (car launches etc). So we’re really proud to have a shot wedding here. Some of the decor inside Aldourie Castle is quite beautiful. The only complaint we could have about the venue is that it’s in the middle of nowhere. Liv finished work at roughly 1am and then we did some late night food shopping. We were both then up at 6am and out the door at 7am. It took about 3.5 hours for us to get and we finally got home around 11pm. As you can imagine we were absolutely shattered by the time we got home.
We also had a chance to use a Canon 5D mk2 at this wedding. I normally use a Canon 1d mk3 with a mixture of Contax and L-series lenses while Liv will use a Canon film SLR. The couple insisted we use their 5d2 instead of shooting 35mm film. It’s a really interesting camera. It’s very different to use compared to a 1-series Canon body and it seemed to underexpose by around 1 stop but it has really good noise qualities and per pixel sharpness is really good. We’ve been thinking about buying another SLR in the near future and had considered getting a 5d2 as well but in all likeliness I think I’ll swap to a Nikon D3S if and when I do upgrade.
As mentioned the couple asked me not to use their real names so I’ve had to admit a couple photos which had their names on them but otherwise here are some of our favourite photos from the day.
My favourite picture of the day.
We’ve been pining to do some proper preperation photos for a long time and today we got our chance.
The bride’s parents were absolutely lovely. Liv spent most of her day helping them through the wedding but they were really lovely
I learnt from one of the guests that the bride and groom are bankers so the bride surprised her groom with this cake covered in equations.
I was in two minds about whether to include the colour or black or white version of the above photo but in the end went with the latter. The wall is really beautifully painted but the b&w version really picks out the details. The bridge also looks beautiful.
No Scottish wedding would be complete without a piper.
The above two photos are genuine hand held panoramas. The first was a nightmare to stitch together as it was really windy so heads were moving but also I wasn’t able to bring my tripod up onto the room. I really want to do more photos like these in the future.
Main lounge at Aldourie Castle. The decor is quite beautiful. I would love to go back one day and do some proper interior photography.
I’ve included the above photo as it reminds me of something I have done in the past. The bride and groom presented her parents with this bottle of Chinese rice wine for a toast. When I was in China in 2007 my partner’s father insisted I drink a bottle of this with him but as you can see it’s 53%.
Many more photos from this wedding can be found on my main website: Chris Radley Photography
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