Whooohoo I won a ShutterRock facebook competition which meant I got to go to a Chris Hanley – Cherish the Dress Workshop!! (Plus an extra ! because it was so cool) HUGE THANKS go to Jaz Ampaw Far for dreaming up and launching the ShutterRock movement to improve the state of UK Professional Photography. Now, onto the day itself.

To start .. where does the name come from. Well the UK industry has been inspired by the folks across the pond in America .. but .. here’s the thing. We don’t want ‘Trash the Dress’ here in the UK .. that’s just too awful to comtemplate, ruining a hundreds or thousand pound wedding dress for photoshoot memorabilia .. fuggedaboutit! Instead we want the more gentile, care about the dress, love the dress, ‘cherish the dress’ concept and that is what Chris Hanley came up with. I got to learn by his side about his business operations and how he gets his results in a wedding or photoshoot.

Jayne was Chris Hanley’s bride earlier and was gracious in letting all of us learn from Chris and Jayne in how to truly rock a ‘cherish the dress’ shoot which I believe should be a part of every brides wedding album series.

The photo below of Jayne is in natural light where she’s standing in a door frame half emerging into the the light and from an overcast day this light is so soft and beautiful. I loved what I was capturing but found the straight on angle a little to harsh for me and so is stunning so I went for a close up more of a beauty shot to show off her skin and the little smile she gives when she focuses on you. Its like everything goes quiet and you get a little gift in the form of a smile, love it.

I love this photo below because it is MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE KIND OF LIGHT. The mixing of colours, angles and everything .. just.. love it! The one I took just before this photo has an more extreme version of light that I also love to bits is called ‘rim light’  and it’s one I learned to master very early on as I love it so much. It often means that you include the light as a feature and it becomes like a star burst.

To wrap up the day learning from Chris was so entirely what I needed, a pick me up, a portfolio boost, an knowledge acquisition day and meeting a new fabulous bunch of people who I now can call friends, as well as the friends I already knew and got to catch up with .. holla Crissi!