Patshull Park Wedding Photography -Julie and Sam

This time of year is great – plenty of lovely weddings to keep me busy, and you also get the mid-summer weather roulette.  August this year has been a fairly soggy one, and it is the one thing you cannot plan.  Julie and Sam got married at Patshull Park Hotel (just near Wolverhampton, West Midlands) a couple of weeks ago, and despite the best efforts of a really dramatic thunder storm they managed to stay dry most of the day.

The middle part of the day, before and after the church had brightened up and we had some lovely weather, but the afternoon was a bit on and off, with bright sun interspersed with heavy rain.  For me the weather is not a downside – there is always somewhere a creative photographer can find a spot for photos – and the advantage of days like this is interesting light.  You also get fun moments, such as the the one where the bridesmaids were down by the lake just as a sudden downpour blew in across the lake – I have never seen rain go from nothing to drenching in such a short space of time…

Julie and Sam are very clearly in love – Sam had put some really touching facebook updates leading to the wedding, and the day itself was emotional and uplifting.  Thanks to you both for letting me share it with you. I hope you enjoy the photos…

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The Wedding Community

As part of our new website, we are going to be setting up a section of people we love – people we work with on weddings who we think are fab.  We are going to be setting up a whole new section for this, but today seemed a good day to get the ball rolling, as one of our favourites – The Wedding Community – have featured one of our images as their Photo of the Day…  They have a really lovely site, full of inspiration and ideas for creating the perfect wedding, and well worth having a look around when you are planning your big day.

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Looking for our Website Re-Launch Post….?

Scroll down through our subsequent posts or Click here.

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Somerford Hall Wedding – Kat & Shane

The best thing about wedding photography is getting to be there for such an amazing occasion in people’s lives, and it is always a real pleasure to such an important part of it.  I particularly love getting to know the Bride and Groom, and it has been great fun getting to know Kat and Shane.  We had a laugh on the pre-wedding shoot, and been chatting loads on Facebook in the run up to the wedding so I was really looking forward to being there as they got married.

And their wedding did not disappoint.  I met up with them in the morning at the hairdresser, before moving on to Somerford Hall, where the wedding was being held. Somerford Hall is a lovely venue – they made sure everything was looking perfect – and the weather turned around from being a bit murky in the morning, to beautiful sun in the afternoon (with some dramatic clouds lurking in the background).

Kat looked fab, and had the funkiest shoes (although I did feel a little short once she had her heels on) and the ceremony and reception were relaxed and happy.  There was a black and white colour scheme, and quite a few of the guests had also colour coordinated so it all looked great.

It was a genuinely lovely wedding, and I hope Kat and Shane have as much fun looking at the photos as I had taking them.

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Isabel & Michael – Stoke Park Wedding

I love photographing weddings.  I suppose I should really, bearing in mind what I do, but either way it is always so good to be a part of a couple’s big day.  I have usually spent some time with them already – between the wedding consulation, pre-wedding shoot and various conversations I have a really good image of how the day is going to be.  It all comes together on the day itself and everything falls into place and you finally get to be a part of months (or years) of planning.

I met Isabel at the opening of Wedding World UK in Barnt Green, and got chatting about wedding venues.  I suggested a few ideas, but the one they finally booked was absolutely stunning – Stoke Park Club, in Stoke Poges.  As a backdrop to the wedding it was perfect – beautiful inside and out, but (as with most venues) it was the staff that really made it special; attentive, polite but never obtrusive.

Isabel and Michael were relaxed – Isabel looked stunning – and the guests enjoyed the party throughout the day and well into the evening, Hannah (who was assisting me for the day – and did a fab job) and I had real fun photographing the whole event.

Here are some of the photographs from the day….

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Louise & Peter – Hampton Manor Pre Wedding Photography

We met Louise and Peter at the Belfry Wedding Fayre earlier this year, and chatted about their wedding at the beautiful Hampton Manor later this year.  A couple of weeks ago I met up with them in Sutton Park for their pre-wedding shoot.

There are several reasons why I always do Pre-wedding shoots, and one of them is just to get to know people better.  It was a nice warm day, and it was great just wandering around taking photos of them, as well as just chatting and getting to know each other.  After getting the shots, we found a nice spot to sit for a chat and an ice cream, to talk through the wedding day plans (sitting on a blanket in the park with talking to lovely people about their wedding – there are tougher ways of spending your afternoon…).

I am really looking forward to photographing their wedding, particularly at Hampton Manor, which is a great venue.

Some photographs from the afternoon…

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Goodwin Family Portraits

So, because of the website developments the blog has a bit of catching up to do.   I have had so many lovely shoots recently I am really keen to share them with everyone.

I am going to start off with some family portraits that I did a few weeks ago.  Daphne and Peter Goodwin recently celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary, and had a big family gathering in the Cotswolds for the weekend.  Daphne and Peter have known me since the day I was born – they lived up the road from us as I grew up and Daphne was our GP, so she has seen me and my brothers all grow up.  They also have three sons who, like us, were musical, and New Years Eve was not complete without either them or us serenading the other house (and the neighbourhood) with violins or trombones.

Now they all have children of their own, so there were  16 in total.  I had a really lovely couple of hours taking photographs of the whole family, plus groups and individual shots of each separate family.  They had booked a massive ‘cottage’ for the weekend, which meant there were plenty of interesting places to shoot, and the weather was perfect.

A great fun shoot, and some great shots.

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Website Re-launch

We are very very excited. You cannot possibly have got this far into reading the blog without noticing our fab new website. We have had a busy couple of months working hard on all our marketing material – everything from our business cards, through our brochures and right up to the website has been changed and we are very proud of the results.

This new look would not have been possible without a number of people, including Edge Creative, Audacity Marketing and Stef, and we really appreciate their creativity, inspiration and hard work in making this all come together so well.

So here it is – we have a section for our weddings, portraits, events and corporate photography, as well as a whole new portfolio area, where you can see the images a lot easier. We are also developing new areas in the future, so we can show off some of the great people we work with to make what we do stand out from the rest.

You can also follow us on Facebook – become a fan and we will keep you updated on the latest shoots.

We are also on Twitter – @crockfordphotos, so don’t forget to follow our Tweets.

So, we hope you love our new look as much as we do. Please let us know what you think – at the bottom of each blog section is a ‘Leave a Comment’ link. Just click on that and follow the instructions, and boost our egos with a lovely comment.

James & Kat.

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Christening Photography – Berrow Court

Erk – my blog has been slightly neglected of late – the trouble with being busy is that the things that are important but not urgent get pushed back if you are not careful.  However the blog is going through a major overhaul, as is the rest of our site, so keep your eyes peeled for the not too distant future…..  hmmm – intriguing…

Anyhow, I will endeavour to catch up as I have some great shoots to post up.

I love being the family photographer – I have several families that I particularly enjoy working with, because I have seen so many stages of their lives.  The Murphy family fit this category perfectly.  I shot their wedding a couple of years ago, I have done a couple of different portrait shoots with them, including their new baby, Anaya, and most recently, Anaya’s Christening.

The family (and their friends) always love a good party, and this was no different.  The party was at Berrow Court, which is a hidden gem in the Harborne / Edgbaston area, and they had the whole house and gardens to celebrate, and they doubled the day up as Phoenix’s birthday (the younger of the boys).  Towards the end of the evening they had a band playing, and quite a few of the family and friends sang late into the evening (and they were good – not just some poor karaoke attempt!).

So here are some images from the day….

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REC Corporate Photography

I have posted a lot recently about my wedding and portrait work, but inbetween these shoots, I am constantly working on corporate photography, so I thought I would post up a couple of my recent jobs to give a flavour of what else I get up to.

One of my favourite corporate clients are the REC - the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.  They are a member organisation who promote and lobby for the Recruitment sector.  They organise events for their members across the country and often invite me along to capture the events, either for internal publicity or for the press.

The most recent event was a Public Sector Recruitment conference held in the Congress Centre (a great venue in London for corporate events by the way), where amongst others, they had Sir Peter Gershon as keynote speaker.

My role on a day like this is to take photographs of the speakers, but also to give a photographic overview of the event, so I take photos of the networking during the breaks as well as delegates during the event itself.

The one thing about my job is the variety it gives me, and I genuinely find corporate events such as this interesting.  So here is what I do…

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