Piers Photography

It had been a great day at Newmarket (see last blog) but it got even better when Steve Thirsk of the Guild of Photographers rang to say that they were about to announce the December competition results in which I had been awarded 4 Bronze medals and 2 Commended and this meant that I was third in the Open Competition for the year and 10th in the Wedding category! Yet to find out where I came overall but delighted with the result.

This months Bronze medal winners were:

The competition is spread over 12 months with your best 9 months counting towards the end result, so not easy. The judging is done by a panel of photographers and they are hard task masters! Here is how the scoring works.

Platinum Bar – World Class / Awesome (The guild have yet to give one)
Gold Bar – Exceptional (so very rare)
Silver Bar – Very High Standard (very difficult to achieve)
Bronze Bar – High Standard (above the norm)
Commended – Good Professional Standard (a competant image)
Unclassified – Images that are not to our competition standards

So this year I was awarded, in the 11 months I entered, 5 silver medals, 47 bronzes and 16 commended. An achievement I am very proud of, so now onto 2012. I would like to thank the Guild for all their hard work in putting this on and for my fellow contestants for raising the bar in photography terms which will benefit all of our clients in the future. This is one of the reasons it is beneficial to hire a professional photographer to undertake your photography commission.

My favorite picture of the year is but only a bronze – a gold in my book!

Mary with Meg

Another new year dawns and the excitement mounts, as I sit here waiting to here waiting to find out if I have been placed in The annual 12 months long Guild of Photographers competition. Having achieved 20 bronzes in the wedding competition and 23 bronzes and 5 silvers in the Open and December still to come in, I am hoping to get into the top three but we will just have to wait! here are some of this years winners 2 silvers and a bronze:

This year has started with two new wedding bookings and one in Crete, the year is filling up with enquiries and events and weddings so it will be a busy year. My first overseas wedding is a real treat and I am really looking forward to a wedding in the town hall followed by a beach wedding then off to the taverna! Not only that but the couple are good fun and well organised!  It is interesting that I have had a lot more enquires about bespoke packages to include DVD of the pictures rather than those that I have in my brochure, so I probably need to revisit this shortly. My year’s training kicked off today with a training day with Mark Pain at Newmarket to photograph horses on the gallops which has been great fun and also helped me into a better understanding of how to photograph horses. I am now looking forward to going to photograph Badminton with Mark in May.

Then in February I will be going to the Venice Carnival, something I have always wanted to do to photograph those amazing costumes and the city to match. I just hope the weather stays fine. A full report to follow.

The end of January will see my new studio arrive and I hope to have this operational by the end of February, so the planning has started and I look forward to trying this out shortly. May be I can get the Three Beards all in there to get the group shot of this great band, a bunch  of madness on stage. http://www.threebeards.com/threebeards/Three_Beards_Home.html see them on the 28th of Jan at the galdstone pub in London:

Until next time

Jonathan

Its been a while since I last posted and in that time, we have been to Italy for a family holiday and fallen in love with Italy old cities and their way of life. This included a 4 hour lunch in Cortona, visit’s to Assisi in the rain, Pienza for the most expensive round of Coca Cola ever. We stayed at Passignano and only hoped the weather would get better but it rained so not much sunbathing!

View from Pienza

Cortona Side Street

When we returned from holiday, I arranged to spend the day with Mark Pain, the Sports Photographer of the Year,(http://www.sportsphotographyschool.co.uk/event.html) who got  a number of us Press passes for Brands Hatch for the Formula 2 meeting. It was a fascinating day learning the tricks of panning and getting clear images of really fast moving cars. I learnt a lot from a very nice man who has the patience of  Jove. Very pleased with the results see below:

GT tourer at Brands Hatch

GT Tourer Brands Hatch

Formula 2 Brands Hatch

I was also able to photograph a couple of weddings one for Tracey and Will and then Les and Annetta. As usual I thoroughly enjoyed both weddings and the sun shone on both days if only the world could be as happy as a wedding day all the time!

Tracey and Will at Uplands House

Annetta and Les

Our dog Spice, a cocker spaniel, has had 6 puppies, so not much time for photography but they are rather sweet and just starting to escape. Everyone seems to want to pop by to see us but I think they just want to see the puppies! I will post some more soon

Jonathan

Nutmeg

Basil

The photographs are now up on  www.piersphoto.com

Naphill Riding Club Open Show - Jumping

Isn’t interesting how life has that funny way of saying no you cannot take a break this weekend. The Naphill Riding Club Show which is held in the grounds of the West Wycombe Estate by kind permission of Sir Edward Dashwood www.westwycombeestate.co.uk must be one of the most friendly local horse shows around. The club has developed an ethos of members willing to help with the best collection of cakes and tea as rewards. This attitude has helped the organisers to run successful shows over a number of years and even the weather has been kind over the last three. Congratulations must go to all involved in once again successfully putting on a great show for the local horse owning community and I trust that they will let everyone know how much fun was had. www.naphillridingclub.co.uk

Show In Hand Champion

This year I had wanted to just be there and help Mary my wife who organises the show and enjoy the day, but a last minute call to the photographer booked to cover the event on Friday night and I discovered that we have no photographer, oh dear! So the phone got busy and by Saturday afternoon I had the help of two fantastic people Roger Smith of pics-4-U www.pics-4-u.co.uk and the daughter of a friend Elise Reynolds. So we were able to cover 3 rings and have now put up some 1500 pictures of the event. I cannot thank these two enough for their help and good humour and hope I have not used up too many credits in the bank of human kindness for when I next need to ask for a favour, Thanks guys you were great.

I am not sure about this one!

Judging

Learning the ropes

The day was a success for my daughter as well, as she was able to do two dressage tests on Ted and come third in both, before charging back to Southampton Uni and then back home to go on holiday, Well done Charlotte. Note to family try to be less busy!

Ted at Naphill Riding Club Show

I look forward to next year being bigger and better than this and a great big thank you to all who made the day such fun and running so well.

My thanks to all who made the day, brought me cake and drinks through the day, the judges who made me laugh and the competitors who all tried their best.

Jonathan

Some of the most difficult flowers to photography in the UK are the blue bells that have just been out. Here in the Chiltern’s they fill the beech woods with their sent and colour and look like vast carpets of blue. Why then are they so difficult to photograph? I believe that this is due to their colour and the light which it appears is hard for  a camera to capture properly.

So here are my tips for getting better pictures of Blue Bells:

• Only photograph them in the early morning or early evening
• They also come out well in the rain as the ligth works well then
• User a tripod as the woods then to be dark
• Try to use natural light and not flash
• If you have a manual camera setting try underexposing by 1.5 stops
• Try to avoid areas where you have pools of light coming through the trees
• Also try a low camera position

Here are some that where taken last month:

Chiltern Bluebells1

Chiltern Bluebells 2

Chiltern Bluebells 3

Hope you enjoying trying your hand at photographing these next year and here are a couple of close ups of salmon flys which I have been asked to take they about 2 cms long and shot in a light tent with diffused flash.

Salmon Fly 1

Salmon fly 2

Now all I have to do is find something better than blue tack to stand them on!!

Until my next post enjoy the weather

Jonathan

When travelling to Marrakesh you will also have the opportunity to see the Atlas Mountains and the Berber villages. Our hotel looked over the mountains and the chance to go and see these and how the villages lived was a trip that we had to do. Using the guide who we had used for the Souks and the Medina  Tod Zankert [todjfk@gmail.com] and his village guide Chiboub we were able to get a fantastic inside into village life and how they live.

We were picked up and taken to our first stop in the foothills which was a house where they not only made there own bread but also butter , olive oil and honey. The views over the river bed and into the foothills where fantastic and very green. and we were shown how they make mint tea and managed to avoid the mobile bead sellers as we parked and went into the house.

View from Berber house

Mint tea being made

Bread oven in the Berber house

We then made our way up the mountain to higher Berber villages passing bridges made of very interesting logs and wire.

Log and wire bridge

A walk up the sides of a mountain into a village with views of the mountain beyond with terracing for the apple trees showing in the lower hills were some great views.

Atlas mountain views

We were then driven out of the villages and up a very rocky road and had a 25 minute walk to our guides Mother in laws house who had cooked a traditional meal for us. This was made up of chicken, cous cous and vegetables which was some of the best food we ate whilst in Morocco. The spartan room had great views over the mountains and made one realise how much these people have in their community and way of life and how we have moved from this to value material possessions and in truth they are the richer!!  A good day out and an experience to remember.

Berber cooking

Our Guide

Our Lunch