London photo shoot with Anastasia | Gavin Conlan UK Wedding & Portrait Photographer based in Essex | www.gavinconlan.com

A couple of weeks ago being the hardcore people we are we planned a little shoot around the Embankment/Southbank area of London.  It maybe wasn't the greatest idea to shoot next to the River Thames as the wind chill factor was really and I mean REALLY cold.... I think it took a couple of days just for my hands to thaw out and warm back up...

Besides from the cold and grim weather on the day we had a great laugh and managed to capture a lot of images that I love, below is a selection of images from the shoot (thank god for that warmish stairwell), I hope you enjoy the results....

All images were shot with either available light or daylight balanced video lights with occasional use of a nikon speedlight for some back lighting.

Ps... big thanks to Anastasia for braving the weather...

PPs... big thanks to ME for not moaning much...

blast from the past - London Eye

Back in the summer of 2007 I took a gamble and entered a major photographic competition by the then sponsors of the London Eye British Airways, the competition was in celebration of hitting it's 25 millionth customer to take a ride on the Eye - Tracey Emin was the guest judge. Before this competition I had only entered local competitions which I was lucky enough to win also. My point is that entering competitions is a great way to measure the level you are at and to get your name out there. Recently on a workshop I had a couple of images critiqued it was such a great learning tool because it has made me more aware of the fine details of the image which I honestly had never noticed before, you should never be scared to have your work critiqued as you'll learn a great deal.

The reason I am writing this is because I am a definately going to enter work into the SWPP and WPPI print competitions next year, I am going to push myself this year to improve and development my skills and will use these competitions to gage how my progress is going heading into 2012.....

I've attached below my London Eye shot which won me regional winner, it was on display outside the London Eye for around two months, I did at the time visit the Eye loads to watch people looking at my image, it was such a buzz ...lol...

The Wedding of Emma & Scott at the Haymarket Hotel, London

Finally their wedding day had arrived, I had been looking forward to this for what seemed an eternity.... The dinner suit had been hired the camera kit prepared and the wedding day was upon me, with hindsight I should of tried on the dinner suit before the wedding day to make sure it fitted well, to my disappointment I'd given the hire company the wrong neck measurements to say it was a little snug on the old adams apple was an understatement, once I got used to the feeling of being strangled I was all good to go....

Their wedding had to be one of the hottest days of the year and to say I was a little warm was an understatement haha, anyway my problems aside the day was truly amazing.... Every part of the hotel is a photo opportunity, if I ever win the lottery I will definitely be hiring the place for a future photoshoot :)

Weddings like Emma and Scott's makes me love this industry so much, it's a great honour to be given the responsibility to capture the imagery that will last for generations of their future families, pushing myself and working as hard as possible makes all worthwhile when you exceed your clients expectations.  Their slideshow is the biggest I've ever created for a wedding and I believe it captures their wedding perfectly, oozing the love, emotion and style that was in abundance on the day.....

The highlight for me was their first dance as they had some great rhythm on the dance floor I can't wait to see the video, it was like a movie scene, their first dance was to Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" an absolute classic and it had all the smoothness of a Tarantino movie.... I had to keep reminding myself to shoot as I was enjoying it so much, it's definitely gave me ideas for my first dance if I ever get married haha...

I really hope you love viewing the images and slideshow below as much as I've loved creating them and If you haven't seen Emma and Scott's Pre-Wedding shoot then you can do so by clicking here.

I look forward to hearing all your thoughts....

Have a great day.....

(if you are reading this on facebook then you can view their amazing slideshow by going directly to http://www.gavinconlangallery.com/slideshow/halsey)

Portfolio shoot in London with the awesome Dila....

I recently had the pleasure shooting with Dila, we decided to shoot around Victoria/ St James' in the City of Westminster, I had scouted some locations a while back and it was great to finally have the opportunity to use them.  I wanted to do something different for this shoot, I want people to be surprised by the locations and to see how your everyday places can look so cool, I believe that these images are different to anything I've ever seen shot around this area before. I am so pleased to have these in my portfolio.

Dila was wicked to shoot with, she has a great look and a personality to match, she was really relaxed and loved the ideas I had come up with, without her help these wouldn't have been possible to achieve.  We managed to fit loads of outfit changes and locations in such a short space of time, the diversity will really benefit our portfolios.  I really hope that we get to work together again and that she is really successful in what she wants to achieve.

I hope you love this selection of shots from the shoot, I will be adding them to my website soon so check it out when you can.