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.....

Photo shoot with Dina in Halstead, Essex | www.gavinconlan.com

This is our third shoot together - we have such a laugh.  When we finished chatting and I remembered how to shoot we captured some really great imagery, in the short time we had we still managed to shoot in three locations and had three outfit changes.  Below are a selection of photographs from the shoot, if you want to see more then visit my facebook fan page where they'll be uploaded when I've finished the rest of the edit.

I've sampled some of my new post production techniques on these images and I'm really loving the look and feel I'm creating.  All images were lit with either a mixture of nikon speedlights, daylight balanced video light or just available daylight.

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!!!!!

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...