Yesterday, we drove over to Margate to visit, amongst other things, the Turner Contemporary. We’ve been meaning to get over there for some time but as usual when having the kids and the dog in tow, left later than we’d hoped and went via Reculver beach, so we ended up in Margate at about 3pm.

After getting side-tracked by some great little junk/retro/antique shops and a food stop, we entered the gallery to view the ‘Turner and the Elements’ exhibition.

Turner’s association with the town of Margate started at the age of 11 when he was sent to school there and he returned regularly throughout his life to sketch and paint.

The location of this part of Kent was a huge draw for him due to the quality of the light and many of his famous seascapes were inspired by the East Kent coast. He once remarked to art critic John Ruskin that “the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe.”

As we exited the gallery just before closing time at 6pm, we had, without knowing, timed it to perfection. This is what we saw. No wonder Turner had been so inspired.

Margate Harbour at Sunset

I just like the way Folio Albums operate. The quality is certainly there to see from the materials used in their covers, the archival fine art papers and latest pigment-based inks through to the details like the debossing of names on the cover, the lay-flat pages inside and quality bindings.

I’ve just received my samples this week and am absolutely thrilled with them so here are some images to illustrate how everything looks.

Presentation boxes for a 12×12″ album (left) and 6×6″ copy album

Each album comes in its own unbleached cotton bag

12×12″ (Ebony leather cover) and 6×6″ (Shadow grey canvas cover)

Debossing on cover

Invisible crease on lay-flat pages

12×12″ (above) with scaled-down 6×6″ copy (below)

Lay-flat pages

Folio Album leather cover swatches

Folio Album cotton covers (left) and canvas covers (right)

For more on my Folio Album package, click here

At least this lady senses the need for urgency at Jo and John’s wedding at The Spa Hotel, Tunbridge Wells.

We seem to have got off quite lightly so far and I’ve even spotted Spring daffodils coming through.

I love photographing Winter weddings. Many photographers are put off by the lack of light and predominance of indoor shots. It’s true that the light is usually gone by 4pm – something that can be missed by couples planning a late ceremony. If you’re lucky and have a good weather day, the light can be amazing but there is usually a trade-off with the amount of time anyone is prepared to stay outside as the fingers and toes numbness sets in.

The inside stuff is no different from photographing a wedding in the Summer. Couples often choose Winter weddings as they want that intimate, cosy feel of log fires and mulled wine.

As a documentary style wedding photographer, I shoot low light situations with fast prime lenses often wide open with the ISO usually set between 1600-6400. I can feel confident in doing this because the files produced by the Canon 5D MKII are lovely. These images that have a great depth of field managing to retain the ambiance of the scene without artificially lighting it with on-camera flash.

Here, the bride Vikki is making her way up to St Margaret’s Church in Ditchling to marry Ben. I’m sure Vikki would have liked to have worn her Ugg boots all day, but she did change them at the church door. The reception was held at Pangdean Farm.

Here’s one from Eimear and Ross’s wedding in Hartlip, Kent taken in the local St Michael and All Angels Church.

I usually photograph from the back of the church as this is usually the least obtrusive place to stand. But, at times, when the layout of the church (and the say-so of the vicar) permits, I will discreetly move to a second or third position to get a different angle. For me, this is just one of those lovely moments when the bride has looked back at the groom during a hymn, with the guests all gathered behind.

This one was in the woods where I live and I came across it while walking my dog Barney. When I got back, out came the mushroom and funghi book – this particular type contains poisons and ibotenic acid which can have psychoactive effects. Some cultures therfore use it for religious and cult practices, notably in Siberia and South America. However, the central Europeans use pieces of it in a bowl of milk and to put on the windowsill. This attracted flies which would die when they came into contact with the mixture and this is where it gets it’s name.

It’s all about whether there should be a ban on guests taking pictures at weddings and the consequences of images turning up on Facebook pages etc without the couple knowing or approving.

It’s a tricky one this and without trying to come across like some sort of controlling ogre, I have just stated that I think there are far too many cameras at weddings. Taking a couple of snaps is fine but guests who bring gear with them and treat it as a photo shoot are missing the point about why they are there.

I know it’s pretty impossible to enforce and I wouldn’t want to ban anything, but I put the cameras away when I’m a guest at a wedding.

Mrs P has been hard at work with the pumpkin carving too.

In her eighties now, Bown is mostly known for her portrait work at The Observer, which started way back in 1949. This long relationship with the paper has led her to photograph the great and good from the past sixty years. Bown developed a quick way of working, capturing candid portraits, yet revealing the private side of many of her famous subjects.

Bown’s working practises have remained the same throughout the years; she shows great allegiance to her 40 year old Olympus OM1s, shooting no more than two rolls of film at a time, always just available light, metering from the back of her hand. One of her most famous portraits is that of Samuel Beckett from 1979. The shot was taken in an alleyway by the Royal Court Theatre. Bown only took five frames with the third shot being ‘the one’.

Viewing the fifty or so portraits in the exhibition, it was interesting to see the quality of the shots which have all been taken on film. I’m so used to the digital images that I shoot these days; it’s been nearly ten years since I last on shot film. The cameras have improved so much since the early models came out, which were expensive and produced small files. As technology moves on, the balance has tipped the other way, with much more affordable cameras producing fantastic large files. Bown’s images show the qualities you get with film. There’s great tonal range to the prints and often a graininess due to fast film being used with available light indoors. Some of the images look soft, which could be a focusing thing, the cropping and enlarging or the film used but nothing detracts from the content of the image and the way she captures her subjects.

David Bailey describes Bown in the foreword of the accompanying book as “shy, modest and charming in equal measure”. Good qualities to have when you’re dealing with larger than life characters.

Woody Allen (1994) and Jayne Mansfield (1967)

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1968) and Cilla Black (1967)