www.steveholcroft.com
Ever since Photoshop made it easier and quicker, some people may have forgotten that editing photos is not new.
Once upon a time, an 82 year-old lady came into my studio and mentioned that her husband had been a photographer, and she had been a ‘retoucher’ – it was a career choice even then.
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I thought we had a ‘proper’ winter last year, and I think we did in terms of temperature, but this is the most prolonged period of snow I’ve seen in all the time I’ve lived in Cumbria. Actually it’s only snowed two or three days, but it’s been heavy and it’s stuck around.
I found myself wishing I had a 4×4 this week. Not because I couldn’t get around, but because the places you can get are just the main roads, and it would be nice to take my camera to more remote locations. I suppose I’ll have to get kitted out and head for the hills on foot.
So this is Grasmere, frozen and snowbound.
I suppose posting photos of Bowness piers underwater didn’t help, but it seems that most people still think Cumbria is flooded and all our road bridges have been destroyed. It’s certainly been bad in some corners, mostly in the north of the county, but Bowness and Windermere were only affected for a day, and then only down by the lake. People with property on the lakeshore have had a bad time, but the towns themselves are open for business as usual. But it’s been pretty quiet.
I don’t particularly rely too much on one type of customer – I have a good mix of locals and visitors – but I know that lots of people have said how quiet it’s been. Let’s hope the New Year is better.
For now, I’ll say Merry Christmas with a lazy photograph – this chap is stood outside right now (yes, it snowed, but only for ten minutes) so I only had to stand in my doorway to take a picture.
OK, so I said all summer that it didn’t rain as much in Cumbria as they say it does on the news. Now the whole world knows that it tends to rain pretty heavily in Cumbria.
The base of this letterbox is up some steps about 6ft above the ‘normal’ lake surface.
Says it all really.
Wonder what the wildlife make of it.
Rainy-day weddings often bring out the fun side of people even more than if they were stood outside on the lawn on a hot sunny day – there’s a determination to have a good time. Or is it just because it’s a wedding?
I reckon Claire & David’s family and friends were going to have a good time whatever, and I have to say produced the funniest Best Man’s speech of 2009.
I don’t know if they were expecting this, but luckily I was!
This is as ‘outside’ as we got, but it was worth it.
Many of my wedding clients are visitors to the area, but Sonja & James are local. Which meant that lots of other local people were there. I’ll confess to being more nervous than usual about the weather – as there were 100+ people squeezed into the Merewood Country House Hotel, between Windermere and Ambleside. If it had rained all day, it would have been a little more ‘intimate’ inside. But we were so lucky…
Can’t leave any of your mates out? Put them all in a suit.
Final adjustments.
The old “Why’s there a man with a camera in mummy’s bedroom” look.
What everyone was there for.
Spoilt for beautiful backdrops.
Top class punchline from the best man.
(Almost) the end of the day.
October weddings are a bit of a gamble – you hope they’ll be ‘autumnal’, but are aware the weather could be rubbish. And in the morning it was. Wind, rain, cold, the lot.
But as I spent an hour or so with Sophie and her hairdresser and make-up team, it got brighter and drier outside. By the time the ceremony was over, we even managed a walk alongside the river. OK, it was a tad nippy and the wind was whipping around, but that’s ‘autumnal’.
A last look in the mirror.
Not your average wedding car.
See? It was a beautiful day.
And not a bad setting if you have to be inside at the Swan either.
I once overheard a wedding guest say, “You can feel your blood pressure drop when you come up here.” At the time we were on a boat on Coniston Water, but whichever lake you choose, it’s got to be a good way to spend the afternoon or evening.
So, after a ceremony and meal at the Langdale Chase on Windermere, Helen & Andy took their guests out on ‘Silverholme’ for an hour or so.
Anna-Kate tunes up before the ceremony
Don’t drop the camera, Don’t drop the camera, Don’t drop the camera…
Bride & Groom in the gardens at Langdale Chase
It’s like waiting for a bus…only nicer. And how many buses have bars on board?
It’s no use, she asked for Guinness
Off to the bar…probably
USA-based Anita & Dan were married in the States in August, but came over to Dan’s parents’ home in Cartmel for a blessing a couple of weeks afterwards. It was effectively a wedding without the ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife’ bit. Because they already were.
The weather looked ominous, so we did some shots in the grand setting of the Priory before the ceremony took place
Followed later by the ceremony itself
Which was watched over by these guys
And their carriage to take them to the reception…
