LRPS

I achieved my LRPS -  Licentiateship of the Royal Photographic Society - at the Distinctions sitting in Birmingham last Sunday. This is the panel:

For more information on the RPS and its Distinctions please visit www.rps.org. What follows is how I prepared for the assessment and may be useful for those thinking of doing so.

Firstly, it's not just picking 10 of your best shots. The panel has to display an overall cohesiveness and "the editing, selection and sequencing must be considered to display the portfolio to its best advantage", to quote the Distinctions Handbook available on the RPS site and absolutely necessary to study before you do anything.  

I knew something of what was required having had the benefit of advice from presentations given in my camera club - the Cork Camera Group - from photographers who had been through the Distinctions process with the Irish Photographic Federation (which awards similar Distinctions to the RPS  - LIPF, etc). I had also attended an IPF assessment day and so was familiar with how the process worked.

I whittled down my pool of possible images to 40. I got 6x4 prints made of them and then set about playing with various combinations of 10 to see which worked best.  This proved to be the most frustrating part of the process. Each time I looked at what seemed to be a possible panel I changed my mind and started afresh. It took me the best part of 3 months before I was finally satisfied. A week before the Distinctions Day I changed 4 of the prints for new ones.

My rationale for the arrangement of the panel is as follows:

• The 4 corner prints complement each other by virtue of their tones.

• The bottom left and right corners work because the Signal Tower (LHS) is leaning in to the centre whereas the Golden Gate Bridge (RHS) is also leaning in. I don't think it would have worked had the placement of the prints been reversed. Also, the red tones are complementary.

• The top left and top right prints represent morning and night respectively.

• The second from the left on top and second from the right have complementary grey tones.

• The centre uprights show the flow of water, as if from one to the other, and, again, I don't think it would have looked right had the sunset been on the bottom. 

• The second from left on the bottom row and the second from right are both of leaves: one a semi-macro shot and the other a bit of Photoshop trickery. Had they been both straightforward shots of leaves I don't think it would have been as effective.

The 4 prints I substituted at the last minute were the 2 on the bottom left and right and when I did so I experienced a kind of Eureka Moment. I just knew they worked and I was finally satisfied with my selection.

I may have over-agonised on the arrangement and I might possibly have succeeded with one of my  earlier choices but I wasn't about to take any chances. And the judges liked it.  

I opted for 12x8 prints on iced-white 20x16 matts. I would advise photographers to stick to A4 or 12x8 sizes and not to go for A3 or 16x12. The larger the print, the greater any technical imperfections will appear. I got them printed by Loxley Colour (http://loxleycolour.com) in Glasgow, a firm I have been using since late last year and which I highly recommend. I then had them dry mounted and matted by Marcus Framing in Cork City.

Came the big day and I flew to Birmingham early in the morning. My time for assessment was 10:30am. The assessments were being held just next to the Focus On Imaging exhibition at the NEC. I handed in my package of prints and took my seat. The room quickly filled with fellow Distinction seekers and onlookers.

The process is as follows: an RPS staff member places the prints on the print stands in the order you have chosen. You are not identified. There are 5 judges and a Chair. The judges sit in the front row and view the panel for a minute or so. Then they approach the prints and examine them in detail taking some off the stands for closer scrutiny. They then confer amongst themselves. One of the judges gives his or her personal impression of the panel and the Chair was at pains to point out that such impressions may not be shared by the other judges. They return to their seats and complete the marking forms. The Chair retrieves the forms, does a quick calculation and announces if they are able to recommend the panel for a Distinction or not. If successful the applicant is identified and receives a round of applause from the audience. If not, he/she is not identified.

It is nerve-wracking waiting for your turn. Some panels that seemed to me to be of the required standard were not recommended because of technical flaws that were not obvious from where I sat and could only be seen when closely scrutinised by the judges. Lack of sharpness was cited in a couple of instances; blown highlights in others. One photographer whose prints were A3 size or thereabouts had sharpness issues which *may* not have been as obvious had he/she chosen smaller prints. Moral of the story: make sure your prints are technically perfect.

Then my panel went up and my heart began to beat that bit faster. What were the judges thinking? Could I determine anything from their body language? Would some print or other cause the panel to fail? Such was the idle speculation going through my mind while waiting for the decision. And then the Chair announced: "Congratulations, John". He proceeded to say some nice words about the panel including that it was "well presented and well photographed". Whooeee! What a relief! I acknowledged the applause from the audience and I sat there grinning from ear to ear.

Got it!      
  


  


 

Knockadoon Signal Tower

In 1796 a French invasion of Ireland nearly came to pass. In December of that year 14,000 troops led by General Hoche and accompanied by Wolfe Tone eluded the Royal Navy and reached Bantry Bay. Unfortunately, a combination of very bad weather and poor leadership put paid to any landing and the fleet returned home. As Tone remarked at the time: "England has had its luckiest escape since the Armada".

The chance of another such invasion must have been remote - the French were preoccupied with their colonial wars  - but the authorities were nevertheless fearful of such a possibility. It was decided to build a series of towers around the west, south and east coasts to keep an eye on shipping and to enable the alarm to be raised should another flotilla of French warships be spotted. The towers were built within line of sight of each other so a signal indicating possible invasion could quickly reach Dublin.

The tower at Knockadoon dates from 1805. It is situated on public land at the end of a road that changes to a narrow pot-holed lane after you pass the last house. The lane is drivable but I would advise parking your car near that house and walking the rest of the way. Or, in order to avoid any inconvenience to the residents, you could park on the main road near where it comes to an end by the camp and walk back. It's not far.

There isn't any signpost to the tower. For its exact location check out the interactive map on www.osi.ie  - put these XY coordinates in the search field and you will see it: 608734/569653.  Or simply ask a local person.

I was there on a cold, bright December afternoon. As I was checking out the surrounding countryside a rainbow suddenly appeared to the east:

This breaks a compositional rule which says that you should not have your subject in the centre of the frame. I tried a version with the tower towards the right  - as per the Rule of Thirds - but it didn't work for me. (Canon 5D Mk11, Canon 24-105L, ISO 100, 1/200 sec @ f/10, unfiltered, RAW exposure processed in CS5).

For the following shot I used a B&W 10 stop ND filter on a Canon 17-40L. The camera was tripod mounted and the exposure was 60 seconds @ f/22. The B&W filter added a slight reddish hue which helped to accentuate the natural rich colour of late winter afternoon. The long exposure rendered some of the moving clouds as a blur which was what I wanted.

        

Youghal Panorama

This is a panorama of Youghal taken across the river at Ferry Point. It was shot back in August and I used 35 separate exposures with the camera in portrait mode. It was processed in CS5.

http://pix.ie/carrigman/2651233/size/7916

Capel Island

Capel Island is located at Knockadoon, East Cork. It is the island that you see when you look south when walking along the front strand at Youghal. It derives its name from a Norman family, de Capelle, which was granted the island after the Norman invasion in the 12th century. It is just over ten acres and rises to 124 feet.The tower is twenty five feet high and it was once intended, in the 19th century, to build a lighthouse here. That plan was dropped in favour of Ballycotton.


The island is now a nature reserve and is home to a herd of wild goats.   


I took some photos here on 25th November in some nice winter sunshine.

Bean Bag

A couple of years ago I bought a bean-bag online from this UK company:  http://www.camerabeanbags.co.uk/index.html

The purchase seemed like a good idea at the time but after using it once or twice to try it out I couldn’t find any need for it as my tripod or monopod delivered all the support I needed.

Then, recently, I took a short trip to London and I had a specific photo in mind that needed camera support as the exposure time was going to be a couple of seconds or more. Bringing a tripod was not an option as, apart from the inconvenience of lugging it around the city, I was travelling light with no checked-in luggage and the tripod would definitely not fit in my carry-on bag. Finally, a practical use for the bean-bag.

The photo I had in mind was of the British Museum Great Court with people moving about rendered as blurs. I went down there in the morning and found my vantage point: an open window on the first floor looking down on the Great Court. There wasn’t a window ledge, just a narrow railing, and I was worried in case it was too narrow to support the bean-bag plus camera. In fact, the bean-bag worked a treat and it gave ample support. I composed the shot, took a meter reading, fitted the B+W 10 Stop ND filter, adjusted the exposure for the latter and took a series of shots using a cable release. This 2 second exposure gave me the result I wanted:

I used it further on the same trip for some night shots of London such as this one of Tower Bridge:

The bean-bag itself is lightweight and it contains not beans but tiny polystyrene balls. It will easily fit into any rucksack or camera bag. The standard size one which I have costs only £11.75 plus postage and is ideal for those situations where support is needed but a tripod is not to hand.

East Cork Early Music Festival

This year the East Cork Early Music Festival (http://eastcorkearlymusic.ie/) was held between the 5th and 9th October in various venues - the Cork School of Music, the Grain Store in Ballymaloe, the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, and Fota House. Having volunteered my services I was asked to document the festival and as this was something outside the photographic mainstream for me I was eager for the challenge.

Photographing classical music concerts can be problematic. One doesn't have the same freedom of manoeuvre as in a rock concert for example. Moving about looking for the right shot can distract the musicians and the audience and while this was not a major issue in a large venue like the Curtis Auditorium of the Cork School of Music it most certainly was in all the other much smaller locations. It would have been great to experiment with different angles and so forth but it was not possible. Even in the Curtis Auditorium I had to be very careful to change my shooting location only at the end of a particular piece of music and never during it. Shutter noise was another consideration - the shutter on my Canon 5D Mark 11 is not silent so I had to avoid firing it during quiet passages.

Dame Emma Kirkby performing at the Curtis Auditorium, Cork School of Music 

Rachel Brown of the London Handel Players

Lighting was also an issue. While there was an excellent lighting set-up in the Stack Theatre the same did not apply in the other locations. The Grain Store in Ballymaloe is a great venue but for the recital by the Irish Baroque Orchestra the stage lighting was kept to a minimum in order to preserve the tuning of the period instruments - bright lights, apparently, can affect them. The lights around the theatre were brighter than those on stage and it was a struggle to get any usable images of the musicians.

The Irish Baroque Orchestra at the Grain Store, Ballymaloe 

Likewise with Malcolm Proud's harpischord recital of Bach Partitas at Fota House on Saturday night. The only lighting was a pair of household light-stands and the light from one of those was just to the left of the musician and facing the audience (and me).

Malcolm Proud at Fota House 

Flash, of course, was not an option. Instead, I was using high ISOs - typically, 1600 to 3200 - and my camera was supported on a monopod. The lenses I used were the Canon 17-40L, the Canon 24-105L, the Sigma 70-200, and the Canon 400 f/5.6. The fastest of these was the Sigma (f/2.8) but the lack of other fast glass wasn't a problem. Typical exposures were in the 1/60th to 1/100th sec range at apertures between f/2.8 to f/5.6 but the lighting in the Curtis Auditorium permitted much faster speeds.  

Emma Kirkby conducting a masterclass with young sopranos at the Cork School of Music

Overall, I was happy with the images. More importantly, the music was magnificent and the committee of the ECEMF deserve great praise for making it happen. The highlight for me was the masterclass conducted by Emma Kirkby at the Cork School of Music on Friday morning. I was astonished at the amazing talent of the individual students who participated in the class. Each girl who stood up and sang had a wonderful voice and it was fascinating to hear Emma give pointers on how improvements could be made.

Soprano Róisín O'Grady at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh

Next year will be the 10th year of the Festival and I have no doubt that the calendar will be one to savour. Anyone who loves music - any music - should make a point of attending a few of the events. Sitting in silence while listening to accomplished musicians and singers bring music of another era to life transports the listener to another realm. It is magical experience.

Kinard

I am an admirer of the photography of John Hooton and Brid Coakley and some of their finest work has been done in the Dingle Peninsula and particularly in Kinard Beach.

See: http://john-hooton.com and http://www.bridcoakley.com 

I had never been in Kinard. In fact, I wasn’t sure exactly where it was until a couple of weeks ago when I looked it up on Google Earth. (It’s about 3 miles East of Dingle: as you approach the town from the East turn left at the Seal Sanctuary on the main road – there’s a small sign saying Cinn Aird. Drive due south on the narrow winding road until you come to the sea).  Last Saturday I decided to check it out.

It is a beautiful place. To the East is the sea-stack called An Searrach. South across Dingle Bay are the mountains of the Iveragh Peninsula and to the West is the high ground around the entrance to Dingle Harbour. The beach is sandy and there are plenty of rocks and boulders to delight the photographer of coast and sea. I could see why it is a favourite with John and Brid.

I climbed up the hill to the East heading for An Searrach, about three quarters of a mile away. When I arrived at the tip of the headland overlooking the sea-stack I set up my tripod, placed the 5D2 with the 17-40 attached on it, inserted the remote trigger cord, screwed in the Lee filter holder and slotted in an ND grad. I checked the scene, composed, and fired the shutter. Nothing. Looked at the LCD screen – “No CF card”. Blast. Rummaged in bag for card. None there. I uttered the unabbreviated version of “FFS” in a loud voice. Nothing for it but to traipse back to the car where I knew I had plenty of cards in my main camera bag and come back again. Which I did. Memo to self: make out a checklist before hiking across country to do photography – at your age you can’t rely on your memory anymore.

I mooched around the Kinard area for a few hours but it is a place that needs to be visited several times for it to offer up its full photographic potential. As in any form of landscape photography time of day is a major factor and I know that John and Brid are often here around dawn. It’s definitely a location that would be worth getting up early for.

These are some of the snaps I took:

I like the figures of the people in the foreground rendered ghost-like by the 10 seconds exposure.

Apology from Dept. of Justice for using my photograph without permission

.


See:  http://carrigman.blogspot.com/2011/07/dept-of-justice-uses-photo-of-mine.html

When I initially queried the matter with the Department I was told that the image had been purchased from a stock photo agency: istockphoto.com.

I had never made the image available to that or any other stock agency.

I wrote to istockphoto and asked for their comments. As expected, they were at pains to point out that they respect intellectual property rights and would never lift images from sites such as Flickr to sell on. They asked me for the purchase reference number used by the DoJ so that they could investigate the matter further.

I accordingly wrote to the Department on 25th July for that information and requested a quick response. I eventually got a reply today as follows:



3 August, 2011


Dear Mr Finn,


I am directed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Mr Alan Shatter, T.D., to refer to your correspondence dated 25 July, 2011 regarding publication of the Cloyne report.


Upon our initial investigation into the matter, we were informed that the photograph on the cover of the report was used with your permission as its author and that the relevant payment had been made.  On further investigation it now transpires that this is not the case.


The Department therefore acknowledges that the photograph should not have been used without your consent or permission as its author.  We apologise unreservedly for the error.


A limited number of copies of the report, with the photograph on the cover, were printed internally in the Department and distributed without charge. 


Following receipt of your correspondence of 13 July querying the use of the photograph, it was removed from the Department's website as a precautionary measure.  Further copies of the report have now been printed for sale, and these copies do not contain the photograph.


Yours sincerely,
_____________
Damien Brennan
Private Secretary to the Minister for Justice and Equality


I trust they have learned a lesson: do not trample on photographers' rights.

We photographers should remain vigilant and pursue copyright infringement when it comes to our attention.

Mount Brandon via the Faha Ridge

The Met Eireann forecast for Kerry was promising: good sunny spells with some scattered cloud on Friday. The very reliable www.yr.no was even more emphatic – it showed bright sun symbols for the day. I therefore left my hotel in Tralee at 5am anticipating a golden dawn illuminating the Brandon range. It soon became obvious, as I drove west towards Cloghane in the pre-dawn light, that there was little likelihood of such a prospect – the sky was overcast.  Nor was there any improvement when I arrived at the car park in Faha. The sun had risen by now but it was hidden by thick cloud. The only upside was that the cloud cover was above 3000 feet and most of the peaks of the Brandon range were visible.

I’ve been up Brandon a few times and on all but one of them the peak was covered in cloud. The last time I was there I met a Limerick man on his twentieth ascent and he had never been there without a cloud sitting on top. Legend has it that Saint Brendan ascended the mountain around 530AD to see America before setting sail across the Atlanic. He must have hit it on one rare clear day.

There are two routes to Brandon from the Faha side. One is the tourist route along the flank of the Faha Ridge and is well sighposted. It brings the walker into the magnificent valley floor and its string of paternoster lakes. At the head of the valley there is an easy climb with some mild scrambling on to the top of the saddle and from there it’s a short walk left to the summit.    

The other route is via the more difficult Faha Ridge and that is the one I chose. Instead of sticking to the waymarked route I veered right on to the ridge and continued upwards in a westerly direction. The ridge is very wide at this stage. That changes when the top is reached – it narrows very dramatically and it becomes clear that traversing it is not going to be easy. There are sheer drops down each side and it is obvious that once you have made your way across there is going to be a very steep scramble on to the main ridge to the right of Brandon on the other side.

It reminded me of the Crib Goch ridge on Snowdon which I did years ago except that Crib Goch is longer. Crib Goch also has the advantage of plenty of traffic. I saw no other walker on the Faha Ridge so  if I got into difficulty I would have to rely on my mobile phone for assistance - if I was able to do so. Yes, I know it's foolish to be doing such routes solo. One of these days I'll start abiding by good mountaincraft safety guidelines. Otherwise, one of these days......

 The "interesting"part of the ridge begins.

 There were some heart-stopping moments when I said to myself “how the hell do I get past this?” and when I wished I had a rope and the skills to use it. In particular, there is a slab of rock towards the end of the ridge when one has to drop down about 15 feet or so. There are few signs of any defined paths but impressions of bootprints in the earth at least gave me confidence that I was on the right track.

This shows the steep climb on to the saddle at the end of the Faha Ridge section. The route is to the right of the peak in the distance.

 It was a relief to get past that! 

Looking back at the Faha Ridge. 

It was with a great sense of relief that I finally reached the top of the main north-south ridge and from there it was a short walk to the summit of Brandon while enjoying some fine views of the north-west Dingle Peninsula and the Blasket Islands in the distance and down into the valley floor.

 A view of the valley from the top of the saddle just below Brandon.

  

The summit, it needs hardly be said, was covered in cloud.

I didn’t stay there long and I headed east along the ridge in the direction of Brandon Peak. I soon dropped below the cloud and there were some fine views of the direction ahead.

Looking back towards Brandon from near Brandon Peak.

I had a vague notion of walking the length of the ridge towards the Conor Pass and then making my way back to Cloghane via the road. However, on reaching the summit of Gearhane it was obvious that it was going to be a much longer walk than I anticipated.

An alternative would have been to drop down to the valley floor at this point and make my way back to Cloghane via The Pilgrim’s Route. What really put me off either option was the 1.6 mile walk from the centre of Cloghane uphill to the car park in Faha. My heart sank at the dreary prospect. So, I made my back to Brandon stopping off en-route at the summit of Brandon Peak and descended via the tourist route.

    

The Reluctant Wedding Photographer

Weddings are not my natural habitat, photography-wise. I’m usually to be found perched on a rock on some windswept strand taking long-exposures of breaking waves or sitting contentedly for ages on a mountain-side waiting for the light to change. All a world away from the frenetic activity of a wedding. My view is that weddings are best left to the professionals. They do it week in and week out and know how best to produce a series of memorable images. A good professional will have developed a unique style, something that sets him/her apart from run-of-the-mill photographers, and that is something that can only be achieved by constant practice. I'm thinking here of photographers like Roger Overall in Cork and Shane O'Neill in Waterford, to mention just two. Prospective brides and grooms should therefore check around and find whose style they like best. Just because someone is good at, say, landscape photography does not necessarily mean that he/she will be able to do weddings well.

It  was therefore with a sense of reluctance and not a little foreboding that I agreed to photograph a couple of weddings within weeks of each other in the last few months. Both were for family friends who were adamant that despite all my caveats and entreaties they wanted me to take on the job. I have photographed weddings before so it wasn’t as if I was a first-timer. Most of the weddings I’ve shot were in the pre-digital era when you were confined to maybe 6 rolls of medium format film and you had to make sure that practically every shot was properly composed and exposed. Digital wedding photography is a breeze by comparison.

The first of the weddings was in Spain. I had to make sure that all the vital equipment I needed was going to fit in a take-on bag – I was not about to trust expensive gear to checked-in luggage. Happily, my LowePro Photo Trekker Classic met the Aer Lingus baggage requirements – I called to the airport to make sure a week before I flew out - and it carried a Canon 5D Mk11, a Canon 5D, and a Canon 400D. The lenses I brought were the Canon 24-105, the Canon 17-40, the Sigma 70-200 and the Canon 15mm. (The 24-105 was used for most of the shots). I also brought two Canon 580 EX 11s plus a Gary Fong Lightsphere. In the checked-in luggage I included a Lastolite white reflector as well as some odds and ends such as flash batteries. If the luggage went missing I could either do without the missing items (the reflector) or buy replacements (batteries) locally.

 I made sure to call to the different wedding locations a couple of times before the event: the hotel where the bride would be getting ready and where the reception would be held, and the church where the ceremony would take place. Obviously, I needed to be confident of being able to find them on my own on the day.  I also needed, of course, to check out the light and note the likely exposure settings I’d be using as well as determining which locations would be best for group and individual shots. And as I visited the church I uttered a silent prayer that the wedding day weather would be dry and overcast and not, please God, wet or too sunny.

All went well (and God answered this agnostic’s prayer by producing a dry, warm overcast day with only occasional bouts of bright sunshine). I accompanied the bride and her party to the hotel and photographed them being made up and getting their hair done. Then it was a quick dash back to where the lads were staying for some shots of them on the beach. This was done pretty sharpish as I had to return the 10 miles to the hotel for the final shots of the bride and her party as they were about to depart for the ceremony.

Then it was on the church to capture the arrival of the bride and the usual photos outside the church door before changing cameras for the internal shots. I went from ISO 100 and natural light to ISO 1600 and flash. Some photographers refuse to use flash for weddings preferring instead to crank up the ISO to the max. I’m not one of them. The light here was abysmal and I wasn’t going to trust in ISO alone to give me usable images. Even at ISO 1600 I was using a setting of 1/60 at f/4. And it worked very well indeed.

After the ceremony it was back outside to natural light and making sure to change the ISO settings accordingly. Weddings are a combination of remembering a host of different technical things (ISO, when to switch from Manual to Aperture Priority to Shutter Priority, flash settings, etc) as well as checking if the various “must-have” shots have been captured. Doing this on one’s own is not easy, at least not for someone who is not doing it regularly. An assistant would have been very useful.

And always there is a voice at the back of your mind saying: “listen, if you screw this up, this once in a lifetime event, this unrepeatable day, you will have to live with the disappointment of the couple and their families for the rest of your life”. As they say, no pressure.

I finished shooting at about 1am. I had been photographing from about 10:30am the previous day. In sequence: bride’s/bridesmaid’s make-up and preparation; groom’s/groomsmen’s pre-church shots; bride’s departure from hotel; bride’s arrival at church; ceremony; post-cermony shots at church; arrival at hotel; group shots; shots of B&G on their own; arrival at reception; speeches; cutting of cake (usually staged before the actual cutting of the cake but not possible in this instance); more individual shots of B&G in low light; B&G arriving for first dance; photos of guests dancing and having a good time; photos of bride and/or groom with particular friends/relations.

The Irish wedding schedule was: arrival at bride’s parents’ home at 11:30am for make-up, preparation and photos with parents, siblings and bridesmaids; groom/groomsmen outside church; bride’s arrival at church; ceremony; post-ceremony shots – including family groups - at church; to Blarney Castle for individual shots of the B&G; arrival at hotel; cutting of the cake (staged); more individual shots of the couple; speeches; first dance; photos of guests dancing and having a good time. I put my cameras away around 12:30am. I should add that my wife and myself were guests at both weddings so there was no question of packing up and going home as soon as the first dance was over as would be the norm with most wedding photographers.

I took a *lot* of photos. I am not a “spray and pray” merchant and I tried to ensure that each frame was properly composed and exposed in camera. Still, the beauty of digital is that I could shoot six or more frames of a family group just in case someone blinked. The downside is that they all have all to be edited. Which is where the real hard work comes in.

I was faced with days of post-processing in Photoshop CS5, of poring over individual images checking for things not noticed during the shooting: the odd tree branch growing out of someone’s head, the “toilet” sign that had to be cloned out, and the like. Then there was the colour correction and noise reduction to be done, the contrast to be tweaked and the levels to be adjusted, the conversion of selected images to black&white, appying vignettes and Gaussian blur to particular shots, and so forth. Naturally, I shot in RAW so each usable image had to be converted to jpeg. And yes, I know about Photoshop Actions and I’m sure professional wedding photographers use them to speed up the workflow but that is something that they refine after years of experience. I felt I had no choice but to do it the hard way.

Then there was the album preparation.  I explained to each bride and groom that I would determine which photographs would be used in the album but would give them the power of veto over any particular image they did not like. (I only had to make one very minor change in each instance). I do not subscribe to the philosophy of letting the B&G decide on which ones will feature in the album. As far as I was concerned, they selected me, for better or worse, to produce a record of the day and to present the finished product based on my experience and, for want of a better phrase, on my aesthetic sensibility. They would have to trust me and they had no hesitation in doing so.

A lot of work went in to the album design. The selection of images, resizing individual ones to match the particular page templates, deciding on which ones to include and exclude – this took me about a  week in each case. I’m sure that I could have done it in a long day or so but I found that I could only manage a couple of hours per session . With all due respect to the lovely people concerned there was only so much time I could spend staring at them, their relatives and friends on screen.

Then there was the slideshow which is pretty well expected as part of the package nowadays. I loaded as many images as possible on to the slideshow – it’s an ideal vehicle for including all those shots that didn’t make it to the album. I used ProShow Producer from Photodex and I burned the final versions to DVD. I chose the soundtrack myself – lesser known modern instrumental music to complement the images but not songs as I felt they would distract.

The couples concerned were delighted with the end results – the albums and the slideshows -  and I was very pleased with how things turned out myself. At some point in the distant future someone will look at the end album page and see “photography by John Finn” and maybe wonder who I was. There is a sense of gratification in that, in capturing one of the most important events in a couple's life, in making something that will outlive us.

But I won’t be touting for wedding business. There’s just too much pressure on the day, too many opportunities for something to go wrong, and the workload afterwards is something that I had seriously underestimated when I agreed to take on the jobs. I think you need to love weddings to do them on a regular basis, to constantly find new ways of making fresh and exciting images, to avoid the worn out old clichés, to retain the love of photography and not let it become a chore, a mere means of making some cash.

And I don’t even like weddings.