28 Feb 2013

Sarah and Innes wedding album

We just had another delivery of a beautiful album from Graphistudio in Italy. Although Sarah and Innes got married in November, 2011, busy life's and a new baby meant the album was not ordered until before Christmas last year. Sarah and Innes and their parents chose to have printed preview books with every image, which they got after the wedding. As we leave our images on-line, ordering an album can be done at anytime after the wedding. Sarah and Innes chose to have a 40x30cm landscape book with a black leather cover with a die-cut in the cover for a photograph. Their names and wedding date are embossed on the front, and they chose to have silver foil embossing which looks great. This is the first album we have supplied with this and the choices are blind embossing (with no foil), silver, or gold.

The quality of these books is excellent and even after selling them for 14 years, I still get excited every time a delivery is received. The main book is stunning and the parents books are exactly the same in a smaller size but with the same thick laminated pages and they are very competitively priced.

You can view all the album pages at the link below.

Click to see the whole album.

14 Feb 2013

Philip King Kiltwear

Product Shots in the Studio

Another studio shot of new kilts and acessories by Philip King of George Street, Aberdeen.

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14 Feb 2013

Worldwide Workwear

Product shots in the Studio

Although the studio is mainly used for family portraits, we often undertake shoots of products for a wide range of companies. We have photographed toys, jewellery, clothing, tools, test equipment, and many other things. We have a wide range of backgrounds although black or white seem to be most popular. Good photography has a wide range of uses – website, email promotions, leaflets, display prints, exhibition panels etc. The image below shows a few of the 100+ shots taken for Worldwide Workwear based in Crombie Road, Aberdeen.

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29 Jan 2013

2012 weddings

We had another great year for weddings in 2012 and despite the ever increasing number of photographers and the huge amount of competition, we managed to increase the number of weddings photographed last year. It is a privilege to work with so many great couples and even after 36 years as a wedding photographer, I get a great buzz creating the images on the big day, and then creating the beautiful books after the event. I still get excited every time another book is delivered from Italy. Every wedding is special and we enjoy them all and going to great venues such as Kings College, St. Machars Cathedral, all the local castles, Meldrum House, Norwood Hall, The Marcliffe, Ardoe House, Pittodrie House, and many others. In August 2012, I photographed Sally and Matthew Finnie's wedding at the famous St. Paul's Cathedral in London which was a great experience. Also in August we photographed Michelle and Jonathan's wedding at Cameron House at Loch Lomond, which is a stunning setting. Below is small selection of images from 2012 weddings.

The most satisfying part of the job is the incredible feedback we get from our clients who are so kind in taking the time to write, email, or post on Facebook. As I was preparing to go to the AECC, I got an email of an amazing post on Facebook from Kelly Tanser who got married on the 18th October last year. This was a great confidence booster, as I was about to spend two days chatting to lots of prospective wedding clients.

Kelly wrote: "Good luck guys , hope its a great success this weekend and you get all the wedding bookings you truly deserve. Its a tough competitive world out there but your work speaks for itself. your incredibly organised manner and Pre wedding meetings ensures a wedding day runs like clock work and that's exactly what you need to ensure that all the important photos on the day are captured. Neil, dazzle the potential bride grooms with your love of all photo related and "apple" gadgets and I bet they'll be just as impressed as what we were the first time when we walked into your office . For anyone still swithering about a photographer, take some time to meet Neil at his studio and I can guarantee, him and his team will blow you away with their work!! 3 months on from our wedding and I still can't stop looking at all our photos. I am so thankful and feel so lucky that we stumbled across aberdeenphoto to capture our day and it was the best decision we ever made. xxx"

Click here to see lots of comments from clients married in 2012

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29 Jan 2013

Your Wedding Exhibition 2013 at the AECC

aberdeenphoto.com stand

On the 19th and 20th January we had a very busy two days at the wedding exhibition at the AECC and I have been busy since sending information and samples to all the couples we spoke to on at the show.

We had a draw with a prize of £500 off any wedding package and the winner was Hannah Smith who is getting married in July this year.

We had a simple design for the stand which featured 6 large (2.4m x1m) panels covering the shell stand. We had lots of albums, an iMac running a slideshow, my Retina Macbook Pro with thousands of images at most venues. The 2 computers and 3 iPads allowed us to show relevant images to most visitors.

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25 Jan 2013

Back to blogging

This is the first blog post for a long time and having just finished two days at the wedding show at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, several people mentioned the blog and were asking why I had stopped using it. Workload was the initial reason and once you stop, it is difficult to get back into the habit. However it is a very useful tool in letting clients and potential clients know more about what we do , and to give a showcase for more samples of our work.

I am going to start with a look back at 2012 weddings, portraits, and commercial shoots. I will also have a blog post about some of the technology and software we have changed or upgraded last year.

Going forward, I am going to commit to regular blog posts and link this to better use of Facebook and Twitter. I am lucky enough to work in a job that usually gives me a lot of interesting and varied work, and most people like looking at photographs, so hopefully there should not be a shortage of material to have on my blog. The first task was to re-design the look of the blog to match our new website which is due to launch soon (see above).I hope you like the new cleaner look.

I love to get feedback from the blogposts so I look forward to reading your comments.

Neil Gordon 0 comments General Read More →

19 Feb 2012

Storybook album design

Alison and Scott's album

We have just completed the design for a 40x30cm Graphistudio wedding book for Alison and Scott. They were in last week for the final viewing and to choose the cover. They chose a Crystal Glance cover which is a beautiful solid perspex finish with any artwork you want.

I love the image they chose for the cover which is fun and the spot colour highlights the wellington boots that Alison had to change into to go under the Bridge at the Old Mill Inn where David got some great shots. You can view the images here.

The pages of this book has a good mix of formal and informal creating a complete story of the day. You can view the book pages here.

These shots were taken in the wooded area under the bridge.

Having the table plan and some shots of the speeches is nice to have in the book.

As David was there up until dancing, he was able to get dusk shots after the meal in the evening.

Neil Gordon 0 comments Albums Wedding Read More →

18 Feb 2012

Wedding on 10th February

Jane and Kenny’s wedding photographs

Friday 10th October was a wet and miserable day. However meticulously you plan your wedding, you cannot plan the weather. David was taking the photographs and managed to get some outside but most had to be taken in the restaurant of the hotel. You can view the images here.

It was not so wet when the Groom arrived so David photographed Kenny and all the guests outside before the service.

David always gets nice shots of the rings, and if there is not a suitable background, he has a piece of slate in his back which works well as a backdrop for the rings.

He managed to get some during the service and here we see the couple exchanging rings with Rev. John Watson conducting the service.

This shot has Jane and Kenny with their daughter Sophie who although only 16 months was a beautiful flowergirl.

On the way from the restaurant to the function suite, David has got a nice walking shot with the dusk lighting.

You can view all the images here.

Neil Gordon 0 comments Wedding Read More →

12 Feb 2012

New image editing software

The new Lightroom 4 beta

I have been testing the new beta version of Lightroom 4. We do not use Lightroom but the camera raw develop module is the same as it will be in Adobe CS6 which we will be upgrading too as soon as it is released.

To test the camera raw module, I used raw files taken on the compact Fuji X100 that I have been testing and the changes between the previous and new camera raw are superb.

Here is an image taken against the light on the Fuji and alongside it the new sliders of LR4 used to adjust it.

The new sliders controlling highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks give great control. All the sliders we are used to including clarity, vibrance etc. are enhanced. The adjustment sliders now have a zero centre point allowing adjustment both ways rather than starting at the left as in the previous version. The adjustments are all greatly improved and are "content aware".

As well as the "night and day" differences seen here, these tools will allow us very fine control of images – e.g. getting maximum detail in a wedding dress and retaining detail in the Groom's black jacket. To repeat what I said about the new cameras – it is an exciting time to be a photographer.

If you want to learn more about LR4, Terry White of Adobe has a good video showing the main features in his blog – click here.

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11 Feb 2012

New Nikon D4 and D800

Amazing New Cameras from Nikon

On Wednesday of this week, I was at an Nikon Professional Services event to launch the new D4. It is always worth attending these events as there is a camera clinic and you can have your camera checked and cleaned while you attend the presentation. I was really looking forward to seeing the new D4 which is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary upgrade to the beloved D3s that I use. The day before the trip to Edinburgh Nikon launched another camera the D800 to the world’s press in London and other places across the world. I knew it would be a talking point but I did not expect to see it one day after the release. However it was very exciting that there was a D800 there so those at the workshop were among the first group of photographers in the world to handle this amazing new camera.

The ground breaking news is that the D800 has a full frame 36.3MP sensor. High resolution is usually delivered at the expense of high ISO performance but this new D800 can still perform amazingly at 3200 ISO or even 6400. It cannot compete with the 16MP flagship D4 in this area, as it can virtually "see in the dark" and goes to an insane 204 800 ISO but it does have twice the resolution. Most photographers are taking the view that the D800 will be the logical choice for the commercial, studio, and wedding photographer while the D4 with it’s ability to work in very low light and it’s speed (up to 11 frames per second (compared to 4or 6 of the D800) will be the natural choice of the press photographer. I would expect to see lots of D4′s at the Olympics. However I do not think we can make a decision until we try the cameras and see the files.

It was great to see and handle both cameras along with the full range of Nikkor lenses and I cannot wait to properly test them both.

This is me in Edinburgh on Wednesday with the D4 and D800

As the cameras were pre-production models, the memory card slots were taped up. However someone in our group (who will remain nameless for fear of repercussions) managed to sneak a memory card into the D800. Although I cannot open the raw file as Adobe are not supporting the new cameras yet, a jpeg shot with available light at 3200 ISO is below. The "male model" in the shot is Charlie Stewart of Royale Photographics.

A small file on a blog post cannot convey the resolution and quality of this jpeg straight from the camera but it certainly looks very impressive. However, Nikon has made a selection of sample images available for download on its official site for the new cameras. As always, these are compressed JPG files – we will wait to see what the RAW files of these cameras can produce before we can even begin to really judge the quality. Still, interesting nonetheless.

Nikon D800 Sample Images

I have not went into any detail on the specification or even mentioned video as there are hundreds of opinions, and detailed technical reviews on-line (I have probably read them all) and all the specifications can be obtained from Nikon or DP Review.

There is already huge debate over which is the best camera. However they are both fantastic tools and both will yield amazing results – it is a very exciting time to be a photographer.

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