Romantic Portraiture in Venice, Italy | Gavin Conlan UK Wedding & Portrait Photographer | www.gavinconlan.com

Venice is an amazing place quite possibly my most favourite place in the world it's a photographers dream.  I've been lucky enough to spend quite a lot of time here in the past and have built up a large image library although I still need to see the place in the snow and when it's underwater.  

I am currently in the process of updating all the imagery on my website (finally!) and as I was sifting through my photographs it made me think about re-editing some of my favourite images taken over the last few years. What started as a cool idea has led to hours of work (i'm not complaining one bit) to take some of my favourites and give them a total make over, using some of my new and current styles of post production techniques it has breathed new life into them.  

I hope you enjoy these pictures; once I'm finally up-to-date with my work I am going to start posting before and after images to show you how my techniques have evolved over the years.

Anna and Tom's Wedding at Maidens Barn, Essex | www.gavinconlan.com

Anna and Tom's Wedding is my last of 2011 and what a way to end the year, their day was amazing and so much fun.  It's great being a photographer when your surrounded by fun people, it makes my job so much easier as we just laugh our way through the day.  

It was the first time I'd shot a wedding at Maidens Barn and I must say it's a perfect venue which I'd totally recommend - I even managed to set up my own studio space in the balcony area.  There were so many highlights for me with the main one being.... (well you'll just have to watch their slideshow - towards the end) I don't want to spoil the surprise for those that didn't attend.

I also want to give a shout to the playlist for the evening, so many classic songs one of best DJ sets I've ever heard.... and to Anna for making their wedding cake I hope the images do it justice because it looked beautiful on the day.

You'll see below I've posted a small selection of images from their day and below the images you'll find their online slideshow.  

I really hope you enjoy viewing their pictures and feel free to leave a nice comment (it'll make my day :) ....

now enjoy their personal slideshow.....

Portrait and Bridal shoot in the gorgeous City of Amsterdam, Netherlands | www.gavinconlan.com

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of spending a couple of days in the beautiful City of Amsterdam with some great friends.  Myself, Bandele and Evette had travelled from the UK (London and Birmingham respectively) and Tasha travelled in from the States with her friend and now our friend too, Alisha.

Special thanks go out to Tasha for organising Charlotte our amazing model and the fashion outfits and Evette for bringing the bridal wear and being our make up artist, she is an amazing beautician as well as a photographer and Bandele for booking us into a great boutique hotel with not only free wifi but also free drinks sadly for me no alcohol....

If you are thinking about having a break in Amsterdam then I recommend you check out this place its called the Hotel Hermitage (click here) it's really close to a metro station and is walking distance to all of what Amsterdam is famous for - a word of warning though keep your eyes on them bikes they seem to ride them everywhere.....

I had so many great laughs while I was there, learnt loads and generally just chilled out for two days.  Walking through the red light district was an eye opener I'd heard the stories but to see it in person was slightly surreal I've gotta give the girls credit though they were looking damn fine apart from one or two that I'm still trying to forget about...... On the last night we all took a canal boat ride all joking aside it was pretty good just a shame we chose a boat with no bar and a sexist driver, still can't believe he would only allow the girls to steer the boat. Seeing the narrowest house in Amsterdam and quite possibly the world with the width of one meter (3 1/2 ft) was my personal highlight of the canal tour.... 

Here are the links to my friends websites, please check them out they are all amazing photographers;

Bandele - www.bandelezuberi.com

Evette - www.evettechiverton.com

Tasha - www.tashawalkerphotography.com

I have selected a few of my personal favourites from the shoot with Charlotte, I hope you enjoy them and please feel free to post a comment.

Anyways enough of me, here is the imagery;

Rocking it again in Bermondsey Village | www.gavinconlan.com

If you’ve been following my journal over the last couple of years you may have noticed that there’s one place in particular I love to shoot, since first visiting back in the summer of 2008 I have been blown anyway by it’s potential as a location.  It’s got everything you could wish for plus it’s extremely quiet so you can just get on with shooting without any distractions and the odd tourist getting in the way….

This shoot with the stunning Dina was a follow up (http://gavinconlan.xanga.com/720596087/photoshoot-with-dina/). The first shoot was cut short due to the weather being so damn cold and you know what women are like they can’t handle it as well as us men ;) seriously though I remember getting to a point where I thought my eyeballs were freezing over so I was well chuffed when we decided to call it a day ....

The weather this time around was a lot kinder to us (thank god) and apart from a heavy downpour an hour or so before we couldn’t have asked for more.  As I love shooting in the village I am always on the look out for new interesting locations places I haven’t used before, we definitely found a great one in particular with the tunnel shots…

I love photographing Dina, frame after frame we were rocking out some wicked shots, the camera was working overtime on this one.  We had a great laugh which made the shoot really easy and if it weren’t for the fact we both seemed to find it impossible to direct ourselves to the meeting point it would have been the perfect 10 :)

Right enough of my ramblings lets have a look at some of the shots we produced, I hope you enjoy..!!!!!

So if your ever around the London Bridge area then I’d recommend you take a stroll down to Bermondsey Village, they have a pub there called the Woolpack which has the most amazing art decor upstairs… 

Have a good day!!!!!

logo redesign for gavin conlan photography 2011

New Year = fresh new approach for gavin conlan photography....

You'll see from my new logo that I want to give my branding a more boutique kind of feel.  I've been working on few different ideas but I kept coming back to this one, I feel it's a natural progression from my previous logo abeit my brand colours have changed slightly.  I've tested the logo on all types of media and it looks really cool....

Over the next few weeks my website will be having a well deserved make over because I've so much imagery for you all to see, I can't wait to show you...!!!!

In the meantime please bear with me as I implement the changes & I truely hope you love what you see.

Aside from the redesign, this year has started really well for me I feel my photography will be pushed to the next level in my journey to achive excellence, the investment I make in myself is vital for this to happen. During the annual SWPP (Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers) Convention I attended two superb seminars, one was by John Denton (www.dentonphotography.co.uk) & the other by the master himself Damian McGillicuddy (www.damianmcgillicuddy.com) I will post about these shortly especially as the John Denton one took place in the disused Aldwych underground station in London.

Next week I'm attending the awesome Adam Alex 3 day workshop this guy is out of this world his work will blow your mind - you can check out his work here (www.adamalexphotography.com/blog) I can't wait to put into practise the knowledge I'll be learning, this is all part of my quest to achieve my goal & that's exceed both myself and my clients expectations.

I wish you all the best for 2011, let our journeys begin....