Canon cameras invited us to London Fashion Week to photograph a show by designer Julien MacDonald, with a view to producing a set of photos in our style (although we also took a few catwalk fashion shots for fun). You may remember we shot LFW last year, also with CPS (Canon Professional Services); you can view that by looking at our previous London Fashion Week article.
After the show we were shown in to a room where Canon had set up a 360 photography rig at the show called Canon Fashion 360Ëš Studio. Utilising many Canon cameras rigged up in a circle to photograph at the same moment, causing anyone in the middle of the rig to have their very own personal freeze frame Matrix moment. Of course myself and Laura had to jump in and you can check it out at the bottom of the post.
Ashley and Alan are such a charming couple, from the moment we met them we slipped into easy conversation and Ashley’s meticulous and extensive planning and research for the day meant her excitement and energy about her wedding day was truly infectious. As the day neared, all the emails back and forth with the details of the day between Ashley and I meant it felt like going to the wedding of dear friends, and on the day it was really exciting to see her vision come to life.
Both Ashley and Alan got ready at the very elegant Melia White House Hotel in Regents Park. Ashley had this as her base for a few years when she first moved to London from Singapore so it was the perfect choice for the wedding day preparations as it held a special place in her heart.
I’ve just re-read what I’ve written above and am amazed I’ve taken this long to tell you about how beautiful Ashley looked on the day. As she slipped into her chic custom-made Stewart Parvin gown, there was an audible gasp in the room as it fitted her like a glove and when teamed with her floor length veil, radiated elegance reminiscent of a classic movie star. Alan couldn’t hide his emotion and joy at seeing her.
The couple had opted for an intimate and cosy day with their nearest and dearest at the very scenic Orangery in Holland Park, acres of beautiful sculpted parkland in the very heart of London. Holland Park is peaceful and beautiful at the best of times, but on a crisp sunny afternoon in autumn, it really is spectacular. Before the ceremony we managed to take some time to walk through the park including the impeccable Kyoto gardens with Ashley and Alan and get some couple portraits making the most of the beautiful golden sunlight.
The ceremony always is a very poignant part of the day, but with the golden light streaming through the glass walls and ceiling of the orangery, and the autumnal colour scheme Ashley had opted for there was a real feeling of nostalgia and magic in the air.
Below is a narrative of their day, you may notice there’s two shots of the fountain couple shot. Myself and Henley couldn’t agree on which to include and ended up shaking on adding both. My favourite is the colour, his the black and white. Let us know which you prefer, extra Limeleaf points for saying the colour version!
Canon invited us along to London Fashion week to shoot a couple of collections, including Henry Holland and Alice Temperley’s collections at Somerset House in Central London.
The show was introduced by Caroline Flack and we had a great time shooting from the photographers pit and eating complimentary Kinder Buenos. Being restricted to a narrow space to photograph the catwalk from, posed a challenge to apply our unique documentary style, but one that we really enjoyed and made us think differently.
We had the privilege of being invited by Canon to try the currently unreleased Canon 1Dx at a Karting centre in London. We arrived and were greeted with a table full of the finest lenses and with plenty of 1Dx bodies to go around we were not short of toys to play with. We had also brought along our 1Ds mk3 and Canon 5D3 to compare the 1Dx against.
After trying out the focusing, tracking and ISO capabilities I will say that anyone with a pre-order will not be disappointed, the 1Dx is a serious beast. Tracking the karts around the track was effortless for the 1Dx with entire series of shots in very sharp focus at 12fps.
On more than one occasion as the karts flew past where I was standing I’d sometimes be playing around with settings and then at the last-minute swing the 1Dx up to my eye, hit the focus and shoot. Normally I would be very surprised to even get one in focus being so flippant with my shooting style but the 1Dx was nearing super powers and I found that more often than not I would get a sharp well focused image, usually several in fact due to the speed of the camera.
Already owning the Canon 5D mk3 we were more accustomed to the new high iso capabilities of the new generation of Canon cameras and the 1Dx again is top of its game, changing how we’re going to be shooting certain aspects of work in the future.
