I always look forward to the ring shot at a wedding and try to come up with something different each time. Marie spotted the round handle on the door to the strong room at Peckforton Castle, Cheshire and suggested tying it in with the rings and so we came up with this!

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 7 – Four Rings.

The bridge was originally built in 1852 but when Chester Corporation accepted the responsibility for the bridge, they decided to demolish it. This happened in August 1922 and a new bridge took its place. The opening of the current bridge took place on 18 April 1923. Here you can see the bandstand at The Groves, The Lady Diana and The Mark Twain showboats.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 6 – The Dee at Chester.

So, I sent it back and plumped for the horribly expensive Lastolite 54cm Ezybox Hotshoe kit. I found a deal for about £170 which included a grid to reduce the spread of light, a nice quality lightstand and a short handheld stand for holding the box up. It’s all good quality kit and the only issue I had to address was again mounting the flash on the back of the unit. Using the Radio Poppers requires you to use their specific shoe for the flash which has a screw thread in the base. The lastolite expects you to mount the flash using a hotshoe clamp, so I had to ditch this and buy a decent size thumbscrew. All works a treat now I figured it out!

The softbox connects to the ring mount literally by squashing it in – a little disconcerting, but time will tell if it’s a reliable solution. The softbox and stands come with their own good quality fleece lined bags and the softbox folds up to fit. The grid attaches with velcro and works well, but you do lose a lot of light even when the subject is directly in front. Quite how much, I’ll have to measure with a meter but it does a fine job of controlling spill as it’s quite a deep grid.

These first two images are taken indoors with the grid using a 24-70L and below are a couple taken outside with the Sigma 50mm 1.4. I’m amazed that these are basically straight out of camera – the contrast and colour are really nice using the Lastolite softbox.

I’m using it for it’s first wedding next weekend, so I’ll see how it goes.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here Lastolite 54cm Ezybox.

We found this camera in amongst some of Marie’s gran’s things stored in an old suitcase from the 1950′s. There are loads of images from it from 1949-51 in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), along with various newspapers, RAF papers, postcards and all sorts of other interesting paraphernalia. It had a list price of $18 (about $400 in todays money) when it was made by the Eastman Kodak Company, who are in dire financial trouble right now and may be about to disappear for good, making this image somewhat topical. It still seems to be in working order, but quite where you can buy A122 roll film from these days is anyone’s guess….

Here’s a bit of blurb I found on the web.

The No. 3A Folding Autographic Brownie Camera was manufactured by the Eastman Kodak company from 1916 to 1926. Capable of taking ten exposures, 3 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches on no. A 122 roll film cartridge. Constructed with a metal body covered in a durable imitation leather. The hardware is finished with nickel and black enamel. Features included the autographic feature to personalize the photo, adjustable focus with automatic focusing lock, reversible ground glass finder and two tripod sockets. The camera measures 1 11/16 x 4 5/16 x 9 5/16 inches when closed and weighs 32 ounces.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 5 – The Old Camera.

We had a photo shoot this week with a couple whose wedding is coming up soon and I grabbed a quick portrait of Marie during the session. I liked the slight over exposure on her face, the wind giving a bit of life to her hair and the muted brown colour palette. I figured it needed a little texture on the background, so had a play with Photoshop and came up with this.

All natural light, just a little contrast boost, the texture (masked roughly from her face and body), sharpened and exported.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 4 – Marie with Texture.

Canon 24-70 at 35mm 1/50s f5.6 ISO200

Two 580EXii’s on lightstands moved around various locations and heights either side of the car, always equal on each side. 1/8th power. Then a flash composite created from 9 or 10 images, masked a little due to strong reflections on the number plate but mainly each layer just had the blend mode set to lighten. Then a bit of tone mapping to create the HDR look and a touch of mist (as the wind was not blowing the right way for the smoke bombs to do their stuff….)

This car was actually Marie’s 30th birthday present, it’s a 2.0TDi 170bhp Quattro Sportback with a good helping of extras. Lots of fun to drive and does 50mpg – well recommended, especially at this time of year with 4wd and heated seats!

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 3 – Fire up the Quattro!.

Canon 24-70 f14 ISO200 5 second exposure at 45mm.

I picked up some battery powered LED lights this week and taped them to a piece of plastic tubing to have a go at a light painting effect we wanted to try and achieve. This was a first pass in the garden. Kaya is lit by a softbox just to her right, triggered with the Youngnuo 601. It’s a big softbox (Westcott 90cm), so at f14 / ISO200 the 580EXii was a full power and maybe 6 feet away at the most.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 2 – Light Painting.

What do you think??

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here Sky Replacement Example.

Canon 100L Macro f5 1/40 ISO800 – lit with a video light.

A slightly introspective start to the 2012 weekly images – the eye that will be working on the next 51 photographs It has had a slight contrast boost, tiny amount of sharpening (TRA web sharpen) and as I am full of cold I painted a bit of the red lines out… Week 1 in the bag!

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here 2012 Week 1 – Eye.

Canon 70-200 2.8L @ f4 1/60s approx 130mm.

I appreciate my first three images are somewhat of a cheat – two from weddings and one I shot as a test. Not exactly shooting especially for the weekly image! I’ve no doubt I’ll pick a few from weddings as I go through next year, but I’ll try to shoot specifically for this in order to keep my mind looking for images when I’m out and about. I have something in mind for next week, just need to make the time to do it.

Jason Lloyd is a Wedding Photographer in North Wales. He works with his wife Marie and together they are a formidable husband and wife photography team. You can read the original blog post here Grosvenor Pulford Winter Wedding.