In September last year I photographed a family portrait shoot in Avenham Park in Preston, although I haven’t been able to show the photographs until now as they were used for a surprise Birthday present!
It was really nice to go to Avenham Park again as I lived in Preston for three happy years whilst studying for my degree at the University of Central Lancashire – including one year living on Avenham Street which is just off the park itself.
We had a lot of fun on the portrait shoot and I hope that comes across in the photographs 
Michelle and I went for a walk around Lyme Park in Cheshire (part of the Peak District National Park) on Sunday. It’s a beautiful place, in fact I believe the country house there is where Darcy meets Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice!
I took my Canon G10 along for the walk and took a couple of photos, including one of Michelle when she wasn’t looking! The two landscape photographs are each of “The Cage” which at one point was used as a lock-up for prisoners.
I love taking personal photographs with the Canon G10 as I feel it gives me a lot of freedom. When I using my DSLR I sometime feel as though I need to get a technically correct photograph whereas with Canon G10 I feel as thought it doesn’t matter as much – which is really nice. These photographs are full of noise but it really doesn’t matter!
My first wedding of 2010 is on Saturday at the Egypt Mill Hotel in Gloucestershire and I can’t wait!!
Thursday, February 11, 2010 Posted in website
I am very excited to announce that I will shortly be launching a brand new website: www.weddingphotographyadvice.com
As the name suggests the site will be dedicated to helping new and aspiring wedding photographers.
I have been photographing weddings for almost 4 years now and, whether it be through my own experience or from that of other photographers, I have learnt so many things which have helped me develop in to a better wedding photographer and I will be sharing my experiences and advice through this site.
However, as I still have lots to learn myself and I am always looking to improve my own photography, as well as writing posts myself I will also be encouraging other wedding photographers to contribute their own tips to the site. Over time, as more articles and tips are added, I hope that the site will become a very useful and valuable wedding photography resource.
So, to all my wedding photographer friends, if you would like to write a post for the site, please email your article or suggestion (and an image should you wish to showcase your work) to me at info@neilredfern.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
The site will be launched this St. Valentines’s Day so please keep your eyes peeled!
Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who entered my first Facebook competition, the prize for which was a 30″ x 20″ canvas print of one of my recent safari photographs.
To enter the competition I invited members of my Facebook page to post a comment against their favourite photograph in this Facebook gallery, with the best comment being the winner. The comment could be funny or serious.
In the week that the competition was open I received over 60 comments, which is fantastic!
What I hadn’t envisaged beforehand though was how hard it would be to actually choose a winner! So many people left comments which were worthy of winning that I felt very guilty for only choosing one comment to win… so I’m choosing two!
The first winner is Richard’s B’s comment “Snobby monkey mimics The Thinker by Auguste Rodin” which really made me laugh! Richard is right – the pose is uncanny – click here to see The Thinker by Auguste Rodin
The second winner is Richard W’s comment “I would love to win this picture as this is the one you had just had printed when we visited you to discuss our wedding, and it is absolutely stunning! It would be a wonderful memory of the fun we had planning our wedding.” Apart from it being a lovely comment, I was both surprised and proud that Richard had remembered I’d shown him this photograph when he booked me to photograph his wedding.
Congratulations to both winners!
Most of all though, thank you to everyone who enetered I wish I could have chosen more winners but I’m not sure I could afford it!
Please keep an eye on my Facebook page as I plan to hold more photography competitions in the future, but I think I will try and incorporate a voting system next time so I don’t have to choose the winner myself as I just feel too much guilt!
I was pleased to find out last week that one of the photographs I took at a wedding at Manchester Town Hall last year has been published in Live Cheshire magazine.
The photograph was published as part of Live Cheshire’s wedding section, within a feature about weddings at Manchester Town Hall.
Manchester Town Hall is a fantastic wedding venue, extremely photogenic, and it came as no surprise to me to read in the magazine that the Town Hall is almost completely booked out already for 2010 weddings. I am lucky enough to have another two weddings there this year and I am already looking forward to them!
by Neil
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