A Royal Visit to St Andrews

I have just returned from the town centre today where His Royal Highness, Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton were honoured guests at the 600th celebrations of St Andrews University.

The street was busy, many students, as you would expect were present, along with citizens of the town and also many visitors from further afield. Some of the luckier students were able to attend the actual ceremony in St Salvator's Quad while the remainder of them and the rest of us lined the streets. Some students had a really good vantage point from their apartment windows.

Their was a very jolly mood, and you should have heard the crowd roar when Prince William said, in his speech, that St Andrews University was the best university in the world!

There was - as one would expect - a very high police presence there. Whilst they were all very helpful and cheerful, there was no escaping the level of security at such an event and there were police dogs - probably trained in the art of sniffing for explosives - and surveillance on St Salvators rooftop.

It wasn't difficult to determine when Prince William and Kate were ready to begin their walkabout - there was such a cheer from the crowd the minute they appeared.

Prince William walked along in front chatting to all and Kate followed behind. I didn't think that I would be able to get a good vantage point but people are so incredibly kind and I found myself in a fantastic position not only to photograph the lovely couple but to meet them!

I have to say, I was very impressed with Prince William. I was standing next to an elderly lady in a wheelchair and he was so very considerate of her. The way he bent right down over the rail to speak with her was so very kind. It can't be easy shaking hands and finding the words to say to so many strangers all the time but they were both simply marvellous. I do think though that they may have suspected I was "paparazzi" on seeing my cameras when in fact I was just an ordinary citizen of the town who truly enjoyed seeing them both. No - wedding and portrait photography suits me just fine, I couldn't work in that cut throat world!

I wish them all the very best for their wedding and a long a happy life together!

I just thought, since I didn't blog much last year, I'd show you some of the weddings and portraits I worked on last year, in particular, weddings in St Andrews, since I don't have any St Andrews images on my website yet.

St Andrews is such a popular place to get married particularly with St Andrews University students who meet here during their studies and come back to get married in St Salvator's Church.

In fact, St Andrews University has the highest percentage UK wide of students who meet at uni and get married. Prince William and Kate Middleton are just one - very famous - example however the town of St Andrews isn't that large so I guess it makes sense - who else are students going to meet?

It's not only students who come to St Andrews to get married, many people have a great affinity with the town. Some holidayed here when they were little and others simply wish to get married here because of St Andrews' great history with golf.

It also helps that there are so many lovely venues to hold a reception here. There's the Old Course Hotel; The Fairmont Hotel; St Andrews University Lower and Upper College Halls; The Golf Hotel; The Scores Hotel and Rufflets - to name just a few!

There are also wonderful locations from which to choose for wedding photography, including the castle; the cathedral; the harbour; the pier; the Swilken Bridge and the beach. No wonder St Andrews is such a popular wedding destination.

Anyhow, here is a wedding I covered last July which took place in St Salvator's Church and the Old Course Hotel.

More next time............

A Winter Wedding

I photographed a lovely wedding just before Christmas. The ceremony took place at Boarhills Church, just outside St Andrews.

It was very cold, we already had snow and the ground was white but it was a clear day and we managed to get some lovely photos of the groom - Neil - and his family outside, although the light was failing as the wedding ceremony began slightly later than normal at 4 p.m. The biggest problem I had was actually the low temperature as my lens started to freeze over!

By the time the bride, Jenny, arrived, it had started to snow quite heavily - as you can see from this image of Jenny in the car.

Boarhills Church is not large and the ceremony was very intimate. Since it was dark outside we did a fair amount of photography in the church .

As we left, I could see how pretty the church looked lit up from the outside so I took the opportunity to take a final photo of Jenny and Neil with the church in the background.

The wedding breakfast was held at the Peat Inn, thankfully not too far from St Andrews, as the roads were pretty bad and driving was difficult. I took along my studio lighting equipment for a few more pictures there. I particularly like this one of Jenny, she was a great model!

My last photos of Neil and Jenny's wedding day were of the speeches. Then it was off home for a quick change, then to the Golf Hotel in St Andrews for a Christmas night out with friends.

And finally, I thought I'd show you our new addition to the household - a puppy for Christmas. Meet Belle (well she is beautiful and her name has a Christmas "ring" to it!) our golden retriever puppy.

Well - once again I have been very remiss in blogging!

To be honest I am still busy organising the St James Church centennial photographic exhibition. For every photo given me, I have had to photograph the image, develop it through and in many cases restore the image where there have been creases or tears. This is very time consuming work, but I do enjoy it and it really does make a difference as you can see below.



BEFORE



AFTER



At the bottom of every image I have also included text so that there is some information pertaining to each photograph such as date, where, who etc. Most of the work is complete now and I am just waiting on some images of the history of St Andrews town from the St Andrews Preservation Trust and St Andrews University. The exhibition should be open for the middle of June and is free so if you are around, do try to come in and see it, it should be very interesting.

It is of course now also the wedding season and I have had quite a few weddings in April - but more of that next week........


I was also out last week photographing the Kate Kennedy Procession in St Andrews. The procession is organised by the Kate Kennedy Club, a group of St Andrews University Students, to commemorate the annual spring visit to St Andrews of Lady Kate Kennedy, the beautiful niece of Bishop Kennedy.Lady Kate is always played by a first year male student but many other students play famous citizens of the town such as Tom Morris and also previous University Rectors, scholars and even poets and monarchy. It is very colourful and the students play their part wonderfully well. I particularly liked the portrayal of John Cleese, it was very amusing to watch this particular student's antics, carrying out all manner of funny walks!

That's all for now folks!

A Busy Weekend

 

 

I am so looking forward to this weekend.  On Friday, I have a model shoot  - I really love this type of work – and then on Saturday, I have environmental portrait photography to undertake in and around St Andrews.  I get the day off on Sunday from actually photographing but will be busy developing and working on all my images so they are ready to view on my client gallery. On Monday I will be photographing a wedding at the Golf Hotel in St Andrews , and once again – I am really looking forward to this.  Jayne and Curt are coming all the way from San Francisco to get married in St Andrews.   After the ceremony we will have a little tour of the town, weather permitting, so that Curt and Jayne can have lots of wonderful wedding images and memories to take back home with them to show all their friends and family who can’t be with them on the day.                                                                                                                 Meantime,

  I am just about to start work on a wedding album for Sara and Steven, who were married at Glencorse House.  If you haven’t been there, it is a beautiful setting for a wedding, with a stunning old chapel and fantastic grounds around the house including a lake affording views right across the  Pentlands.

                                                                                               

                                                                                                                              At the same time  I am also heavily involved in planning a photographic exhibition to celebrate the centennial of St James Church, The Scores, St Andrews.  Our plan is to have not only images depicting the church and it’s parishioners over the last 100 years, but also images of happenings in and around St Andrews and the world at large.  Since I haven’t been in St Andrews that long, it will be a marvellous education for me.  I have already started trawling through the St Andrews University photographic collection and have found lots of interesting images.   Did you know that Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Bob Hope were all here in the 1950s?                                                                                                                                 Take care and we’ll speak next week!

Enough Now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think we’ve all had quite enough of the snow now regardless of how much we’ve had.   Last week we went away to Speyside for a few days to a fantastic hotel overlooking the River Spey.  It really was quite beautiful, very different to St Andrews, but just a s spectacular since there was just so much snow.  It was absolutely picture perfect.  The trees were just laden down with snow.  This image was taken out of the a car window while we were travelling so it’s a bit fuzzy but I think you’ll get the gist.  

                                                                                                                  It was also very cold and the Spey river even though it is a fast flowing river had frozen over in bits. 

Although our trip was last minute I had the camera

  with me as even when I’m not photographing weddings  photography is still a recreational pastime for me and I took lots of photos whilst walking around.                                                                                                                                                     

However it’s back to business now. 

There are still a copule of album orders to come in from last years weddings but this is the time of year that I always update my album samples.  I have stunning new wedding albums on offer from Australia – absolutely total quality – making your album something to cherish for a lifetime .  However I need to choose some wedding images from this year to place in them.  One of the weddings I will probably use, is from Claire and Iain’s wedding at Colinton Church and then the George Hotel.  For their wedding timescales were very tight on the day, so I arranged a pre-shoot with Claire to ensure that we got lots of wonderful images of her.  This is something I often offer to clients when timescales are tight and photography is desired throughout the day from getting ready to the first dance.   Claire came up to St Andrews and we photographed her in her wedding dress.  It was a win/win situation for us both, giving me lots of time to photograph the bride in different lighting situations and giving Claire the opportunity to wear her beautiful wedding dress more than once!                

Keep this in mind ladies when choosing me as your wedding photographer!  Until next week!