Gary Askew 23/07/2016 Gary Askew 23/07/2016

i recently covered a 50th birthday, and wow...

I recently covered the 50th birthday, and wow, this was a special one. The celebrant was a hero is some of her guest's eyes. she had three master degrees, she is a mother, a wife and a friend to everyone. she was one of the kindest, most helpful person I've met. I didn't know her that well but every time a guest spoke about her I knew they was not lying. it was an emotional birthday at times and I'm proud to say I covered this event. people came from all corners of the earth to be for her birthday because of something that she had done for them in the past or present, and no doubt the future. she came all the way from america to celebrate her birthday because most of her friends and family were over here which shows her thoughtfulness. It was a joyful event and i personally had alot of fun photographing this event.

Gary Askew 08/07/2016 Gary Askew 08/07/2016

Saal-digital photobooks... are they good enough?

I was on Facebook and I saw an ad for saal-digital photo book and the chance to get a photo book, so because I'm always looking to improve for my customers especially the final product I couldn't miss this opportunity.

I went onto their site and starting browsing through the selection to see what I could get and what would be the best choice. I decided to go for the smaller photo book for like a coffee table size kind of thing. It wasn't long before the album had arrived at my house and I couldn't wait for to open it up and have a look. I wasn't expecting much if I'm honest but I can happily say I was pleasantly surprised. I would like to also note that I also ordered a few leather cover samples at the same time.

So to begin my first impression of the photobook, it felt very nice, I could tell it was a high-quality leather they used to cover the book it feels terrific. I got the sapphire black leather for my cover and it's beautiful. There were multiple options to print on the spine of the book. It really does feel durable and excellently made. I printed my company name on the front of the book and I wanted in the bottom right of the book and in the free software they let you download it didn't say that the leather would wrap around and it has look the longer letters such as the 'g' 'p' and 'y' and they have come off the front of the book.

Now, opening the book it just gets better, the images are perfectly printed on the pages with clean and sharp edges to the images, the pictures are all crisp and punchy too just how I edited them. the actually printing quality is amazing, the whites are whites and the blacks are black. I can't fault the printing what so ever you won't be disappointed I promise you.

I believe the paper I chose was 300gsm paper, its is also what makes the book feel like a high-end product without the high-end cost. it almost is as thick as card and gives it that customers the impressive no expense were spared on the album.

I would highly recommend this company to anyone needing prints or albums they are a very good company and I will be using their service in the future. my overall score for the album I receive would be 9/10.

Gary Askew 27/06/2016 Gary Askew 27/06/2016

My encounter with a small printing company...

Recently, my sister has been bugging me to find somewhere that will print an oddly sized photo she has. Its basically four portrait orientated photos one under another. it is very difficult to get it printed to the size she would of liked. Then i came across a company call 'Oddprints' and at long last i found somewhere that i could actually get the print made. I am a very nice brother so i thought yeah ill print it here and then surprise her with it. I made the order. Once the order had been made i even opened up a pay pal account just to get this order done. In my excitement i barely read the size of the print i was getting i was just excited they actually prints things in these dimension. I read the size i was getting and it was 4"x18", i was somewhat upset to find that it was to small for my sister. i emailed the company before printing began to cancel my order but it was a Saturday and most company's are shut on Saturday at the time i emailed them. i proceeded to email them anyway, in hope they would read it before printing commenced. yesterday i received an email to say that they couldn't cancel the order, so what they did was refund the money and they are still sending the photo i printed and said they hope i can make use of it still. Now as a photographer i know what good customer service looks like and that was extraordinary that they will still send the print even though it was my error and lack or reading.

I made a decision that in some way or another id use there service again because i don't fear id have any trouble with any concerns or issues in the future. i will not be using them as a professional printing, but i will use them again.

here is there site so you can check them out and hopefully they can provide you will a odd print.

www.oddprints.com

Gary Askew 18/06/2016 Gary Askew 18/06/2016

Bunmi + Collins 2016

Bumni + Collin was such an amazing couple to work with. Collins had a job opportunity in Germany where is currently working and had been for a few years now, and will be moving out to Germany a few weeks after their wedding.

They was a lovely and co-operative couple and gave me the time i needed to get the shots i needed to get for them. It was a beautiful day and a privileged to be apart of that and i am truly honoured i got to be involved in documenting their wedding. There of course was some stress for the bride and groom throughout the day, but the handled it very well and kept there spirits up and smiled throughout. Well, how could they not they was a beautiful couple and you could see how much they love each other.

Let me stop rambling on and I will leave you too look at some of the photos from the day...

Gary Askew 28/05/2016 Gary Askew 28/05/2016

Model photoshoot...

I have done many weddings but one thing that i had never felt i needed to do was organise a photo shoot with model just for the fun of it. Me and another photographer both wanted to collaborate so i felt it was time to reach out and work on a shoot. I've always wanted to do a sunset shoot but as we are both busy photographers we couldn't organise a shoot at the time we needed because of commitment’s then following day. so we did our best.

We started talking and decided to get as close as we could to the sunset time. The next problem we faced was location, I live in London so I wanted to spread my wing a bit and venture out, so we decided we would do the shoot in Birmingham. At this point it was a month away and I wasn't too excited about it yet, the weeks few past and next thing I knew I was on the virgin train heading up to Birmingham. When I checked the weather it wasn't looking good I thought it would have been rainy or cloud. It turned out perfect nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

It was such a great day we went to various locations in Birmingham which included a rooftop which I was most excited about shooting there. The models were great and fun, they got on so well. Here are some pictures of behind the scene, kind of.

A Challenge i faced on that day was i used a studio flash i was completely unfamiliar with but i didn't let me stop me continuing the shoot, and creating some awesome shots. A few reasons why it was challenging is because it wasnt a HSS (high sync speed) flash so i was limited to 1/200th second. Which meant stopping down the aperture letting more things be in focus distracting from my couple. so i had to find a background that complimented them and shown off the beauty of where we was.