The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery on Holkham Beach
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to spend a few mornings on the beach with the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, photographing and filming their summer ride-outs on Holkham beach, just down the road from me here in North Norfolk.
When I was contacted by a press agency asking if I would be interested in doing something similar for The King’s Troop I jumped at the chance. I wasn’t sure how much press interest there would be since we had pretty good exposure with the HMRC (my doubts were proved unfounded!) but I love any opportunity to photograph the spectacle of royal horses riding through the surf so I booked out two mornings in my diary.
To ensure that the ride was as safe as possible the times & dates of the ride were not published since the visits to the beach are a serious training exercise, when it is covered in crowds of people it endangers the public, the riders and the horses (to a degree). When one of the riders gets thrown and the horse bolts back to the shore at full speed, straight towards you, it’s a pretty scary sight I can tell you!
On the first morning (Wednesday) I arrived at 7am, we had permission from the Holkham Estate to fly a drone that morning only so I made the most of it capturing aerial video and stills.
On Thursday morning I headed back to get some more ground-based stills & video. Their final beach ride of the year was on Friday, BBC Breakfast were scheduled to come along & do a live broadcast from the beach so I gave it a miss, happy that I had got what I needed. I didn’t want to get in the way.
Sadly there was a press embargo until late Friday morning (to ensure that the riders could have unencumbered rides on all three days). I was the only photographer on the beach on Wednesday and would have had the scoop for all the nationals had I been allowed to put out the shots that day but I totally respect their decision not to allow the word to get out and held back. Sadly (for me!) on Thursday two Press Association photographers were there getting shots also so I didn’t have the monopoly on shots as I’d hoped but as you will see at the bottom of this post we still got some pretty good national media coverage.
The short film I made of the rides is here…
As mentioned earlier the press interest once again has been good. BBC Look East produced a video from my footage which at the time of writing has had 275,000 views on Facebook alone, it was on BBC Look East last night and the video was on the front page of the BBC National News homepage. Today’s press has been good too with photos in The Guardian, The Telegraph and a double page spread in the Daily Express. It seems I’m not the only one who can’t get enough of royal horses on the beach!
I think that’s pretty much all the beach-horse action I’ll see for the rest of this year now but I’ll be back next summer to do it all again!
Many thanks to The Kings Troop, BBC Look East, Apex News, Holkham Estate and Norfolk Locations.
Norfolk Photographer – a summer round up of my photography & filmmaking
As the dust settles on another incredibly packed summer I have time again to update the blog with some posts of what I’ve been photographing and filming over the last few months.
I’ve photographed lots of lovely Norfolk weddings which I’ll be sharing soon as separate blog posts but I thought I’d do a bit of a mash-up of the other stuff I’ve been photographing on our beautiful North Norfolk coastline.
This year has been a special year for Wells RNLI as they celebrate 150 years of having a station at Wells. I headed over there in early summer to get some drone shots of their boats in action and again on the day of their regatta to document the getting-together of a number of historic lifeboats…
In early June I headed to the Worstead Estate to photograph their Wagyu herd and to sample some of the produce. I was quite excited as I’d never tried Wagyu beef before. We enlisted the talented Alex Firman aka Alex Chef to prepare various dishes to show off the meat and I can confirm that it was incredible!
This year I joined Norfolk Constabulary as a Police Support Volunteer (PSV) to help out on the Police boats operating in the North Norfolk harbours of Wells, Morston & Blakeney. They needed people with boating experience and I guess my 19 years on the crew at RNLI Sheringham probably helped! We’ve had a few interesting trips out on the boat, one night launch on which we noticed the bow & stern waves glowing bright blue with bio luminescence, an absolute treat to see! Below is a blurry shot of it – pretty hard to get a sharp shot in virtual darkness on a moving boat but hopefully it shows the beautiful colour of this natural phenomenon.
I’ve had loads of interesting video commissions this year including some for the Deep History Coast project – a great initiative to promote the North Norfolk coast’s rich collection of finds and prehistoric past. One of the film commissions for the project required a helicopter flight along the length of the coast to capture the full length of the Deep History Coast. I had spoken Alistair MacKinnon, a local business-owner and helicopter pilot/owner, in the past about helicopter flights so we got in contact and arranged the flight.
Below are some shots and a short behind-the-scenes film of the flight, Leanne came along to film some footage of me doing my thing, what a great experience!
My home town of Sheringham has had a rocky summer season due to the well-publicised sinkhole which opened up in the high street right at the start of the summer. I decided it would be interesting to see what it looked like from above so one morning took the drone over the hole for some photos & video. These were the only aerial shots taken of the hole while it existed and generated some press interest. The hole was finally filled in & the road re-opened just as the schools went back at the end of the summer holidays and many local businesses suffered, let’s hope it’s all sorted now and we don’t see any more appearing.
…a more natural subsidence happened just along the coast as a huge cliff fall at Sidestrand took place. It was captured in some incredible footage by fellow photographer Brad Damms, I have to say I was very envious of him seeing it actually happen but I consoled myself with some aerial shots of the aftermath which again made the local newspapers.
I’ve also been busy making a series of short films for Visit North Norfolk, showing some of the fabulous attractions that North Norfolk has to offer, I won’t post them all up here but this is one of my favourites…Sea for Adventure….
I’ve been photographing at Sheringham Golf Club for a few years now. I enjoy golf course photography, captured in the right light they can look really beautiful, especially such a special links course as Sheringham. This shoot was more to show some of the lady members in action and the hardworking greens staff working their magic but we still got some shots showing the majesty of Sheringham Golf course, I may be biased but this is the most stunning course I have ever played on….
One project that has taken more time to shoot than any other this year has been the incredible Bacton & Walcott Sandscaping project – a £22 million initiative involving 1.8 million cubic metres of sand being pumped onto the beaches to protect the coastline from further coastal erosion. The pumping ran from early July to mid-August and was a fascinating process to observe. Below are a handful of shots taken over the course of the project, the first in Britain of it’s kind and hopefully the start of many.
Two of the three films I made for the sandscaping project are below, the third & final film is currently in production…
It was really lovely to catch up with Kimberley & Gareth this summer, I photographed their wedding at Cley Mill back in August 2017 and they returned to the mill to celebrate their anniversary, complete with bump! We had a fun afternoon at the mill and Cley beach getting some maternity shots for them. So lovely to catch up again!
Always finish on a sunset! I love the simplicity of this shot taken one evening while we were out for a walk on the cliffs. Some moody clouds were gathering as a commercial ship passed the windfarm. Shortly after the shot was taken we decided to make a swift retreat to the car and got back just as fat raindrops started falling, timing isn’t just about when to release the shutter!
Most years we are lucky enough to have some really calm weather over the summer while allows the sediment to drop out of the water resulting in great visibility for snorkelling on the North Norfolk coast.
This week has been one of those times and I’ve tried to get out there at low tide as much as I can to take in the beauty of the ecosystem that is the unique North Norfolk Chalk Reef. As you can see from the short film and photos below it is a really magical place, teeming with marine life across the whole spectrum of colours.
The reef stretches approx 20 miles along the North Norfolk coast, dubbed ‘The Great Barrier Reef of Britain’, it is the longest chalk reef in the world and a designated Marine Conservation Zone.
People are always amazed to see the variety of life only a stone’s throw away from the sandy beach, the safe waters off our coast at this time of year mean that the reef is accessible to anyone with a mask & snorkel.
The still photos below were shot on the new Olympus TG-6 – an incredible compact underwater camera. Most of the wider video footage was filmed on a GoPro Hero 7 Black – the stabilisation on this little camera is just amazing although the picture quality underwater doesn’t compare to the TG-6.
UPDATE: Nice to see that my pics have been picked up and are currently on the BBC News site here, also on The Metro site here, and I was pleased to see the shots made the front cover of yesterday’s EDP and pages 2 & 3, that’s a lot of fuss about some crabs & lobsters!
Here’s the film:
And finally a couple of shots of me in action, admittedly taken on a much murkier day than the one in which I captured all of the shots above!
The Household Cavalry on Holkham beach – Take 2: Sunset
It’s been an amazing month for photographic opportunities and the highlights have been the three times we’ve been lucky enough to photograph and record the Household Cavalry on their ride-outs on Holkham beach.
This latest one was a very special ride and one which none of us present will ever forget – we arranged it as a special ride for Major Richard Chambers who is soon to retire after 33 years in the regiment. Richard has ridden with the regiment on their Holkham rides since they very first started coming to the iconic Norfolk beach.
To keep things simple they brought one horsebox with seven horses for this sunset ride and boy did we get lucky with the weather. It wasn’t the best sunset I’ve seen at Holkham but it was certainly the most memorable. To see these magnificent beasts running through the surf with their highly trained riders was a photographer’s dream.
Below are a handful of the shots I took that evening…
I would personally like to wish Major Chambers a very happy retirement and thank him and all of the chaps and ladies of the regiment for the opportunity to document their visits to Holkham this year. A huge thanks to George at Norfolk Locations and the Holkham Estate for allowing this extra ride to go ahead and to ‘Woolly’ the Land Rover driver extraordinaire who drove us to & from the beach, he can handle those deep sand tracks like no other (even when he has a landrover packed with 10 people!)
The full gallery of shots that evening can be seen here: https://galleries.everybodysmile.co.uk/cgi-bin/public.cgi?Id=364682
My talented partner,Leanne (Samphire Films), made another beautiful little film of the evening’s ride….
The Household Cavalry on Holkham Beach 2019
I had been looking forward to this week for a long time, in 2017 I filmed the Household Cavalry on their annual summer ride-out on Holkham Beach here in Norfolk from the drone. I missed the ride last year but managed to organise access to the two regiments (Life Guards and the Blues & Royals) this year and went through the necessary permissions to be allowed to fly at Holkham again.
As you will see below we were blessed with incredible weather on Thursday & yesterday (today it is raining!) so we got some stunning stills & video footage. My partner Leanne (currently setting up her own independent film company – Samphire Films) came along on both days to film some ground-based footage to add to the aerial footage and since I wasn’t able to get clearance to fly both days (to minimise disturbance to the wildlife) I shot stills on a long lens yesterday. I’m very grateful to the Holkham Estate and Norfolk Locations for allowing me to fly on the Thursday, there is a rare nesting colony of little terns at the west end of the bay so I had to make sure I avoided flying too close.
A huge thank you to the lads & ladies of the Household Cavalry for allowing us such amazing access, particularly Major Chambers and Captain Perera who even drove us to & from the beach to save our little legs! It was a huge privilege to meet them all, a real credit to the the British Army.
Thank you to Jason & Graham from Norfolk Constabulary who came down on the Thursday to police the beach for any rogue drone users and keep an eye on things. And finally thank you to our friends Leigh & Steve who came down to assist us – Steve was my drone-spotter for the day and didn’t take his eye off the drone once, while Leigh assisted Leanne as she filmed some incredible footage – including filming from the army truck as they sped alongside the horses at full gallop. What an incredible opportunity!
Below are some of the shots and at the bottom of this post you will find the finished video by myself and Leanne and a link to the full gallery of the photos. As per 2017 the shots & video this year have proved very popular with the front cover & pages 2 & 3 in the Eastern Daily Press (see bottom of this post), a shot being used in today’s Guardian newspaper in their ‘pics of the week’ spread, Country Life magazine, the Daily Mail Online (here), and on the BBC. Enjoy!
Your eyes don’t deceive you, there is actually a naked man in the below photo – the west end of Holkham is a nudist beach, bet they didn’t expect 26 army horses & soldiers to ride towards them that day!
In today’s Guardian…
The full gallery of my still images can be seen here.
Our film of the two mornings on the beach is here:
Finally a sunny wedding! It’s been a really disappointing Spring weather-wise so far so it was a treat to see some sunshine for Sophie and Stuart’s wedding over the border in Suffolk recently.
I started the day’s coverage at Sophie’s mother’s house where the ladies were having the finishing touches to their hair & make-up done in the conservatory – great light for hair & make-up artists and for photographers!
I got stuck into photographing some details and capturing the beginning of the story of their day. I love photographing the preparations, I think they make a great start to any wedding coverage, it’s not for everyone and sometimes people prefer to have the coverage start at the church arrivals but I find the prep shots can be some of my favourites of a wedding day.
With the bridal party all ready, (and looking fantastic!), we headed to the church at Woolverstone. Just love Sophie’s choice of wedding car!
With the formal part of the day completed it was time to head out into the sunshine for the confetti and they didn’t scrimp on petals, it was an incredible shower of colour!
After the confetti I popped the drone up for some aerial shots of everyone outside the church…
…and then onto the group shots under the shade of some trees – people often assume the groups should be done in the open sunshine but this leads to all sorts of horrible shadows on people’s faces, blown out white wedding dresses and everyone squinting in the bright light. My job is to find the best spot for the groups which provides beautiful light and ideally a pleasant but not too distracting background. Often shooting just under the canopy of a tree can work well although it’s important not to go too far under or the green light coming through the leaves can give skin a green tone which is never a good look (apart from halloween!). Also it really requires the sun to be behind the subjects otherwise dappled light falling through the leaves can create some pretty weird looking hotspots on dresses & faces.
After whipping through the group shots we headed off to a secluded spot by the River Orwell for some shots of the new Mr & Mrs Smith. It was great to work with Tomasz Kornatowski from Mooncast Films – a really gentleman and superb filmmaker. It’s always lovely to work with considerate videographers, I have worked with a few so far this year, some real talent in the area.
With the shots at the Orwell complete (and a mini 4×4 off-roading adventure getting to & from the spot!), we headed to Dove Barn in South Suffolk for Sophie & Stuart’s wedding reception.
Their guests were already making themselves at home with delicious looking canapes and champagne/cocktails flowing freely!
After the meal, (and some lovely emotional speeches), myself, Thomasz, Sophie & Stuart headed out into the grounds for some evening shots. It wasn’t quite the ‘golden hour’, sadly, as the clouds had moved in but it was still interesting soft light and we had some fun making these shots.
And so to the end of the day (well for me at least – the wedding partied long into the night while I packed up ready for a 2.5hr drive north back to Norfolk!)
Thank you to Sophie & Stuart and their guests an amazing day, amazing people, beautiful locations and mostly great weather. I love it when a plan comes together!
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Spring into 2019 – a round up of the last few weeks’ Norfolk photography
It’s been an absolutely crazy year so far, definitely my busiest in the 14 years I’ve been in business. So far this spring I’ve photographed a huge variety of subjects from supercars, shepherds huts, lifeboat crews, solar farms, and stunning beachside Norfolk properties to the many wonderful weddings. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to stop & blog anything for quite some time so I thought I’d do a quick round up to bring my blog up to date and then we can get back to business as usual.
I’ll start with a handful of the North Norfolk holiday properties I’ve photographed, beginning with this beautiful new offering from the legendary Cley Windmill. Recently nationally recognised as one of the most romantic places to stay in the UK by the Telegraph and Top 50 Cool Places by the Times, and deservedly so. Their newest room is The Old Cart Shed, beautiful oak-beamed ceilings and styled to an extrememly high standard, this is now one of my favourite rooms at the mill along with the quirky Wheel Room right at the very top of the mill.
I’m always impressed with the high standard of some of the holiday lets coming onto the market in Sheringham and the surrounding area of the North Norfolk coast. Rosehaven is no exception, fully refurbished to the very highest standards, this property is absolutely gorgeous, so many incredible details.
On a similar theme of beautifully renovated holiday cottages is Cliff Cottage, again in Sheringham, very close to the beach and decorated in my ultimate theme – the coast and lifeboats. Small but perfectly formed, the thought and time that has gone into making Cliff Cottage is astounding.
Away from the coast this time – Clippesby Hall, in the heart of Broadland, a camping & touring site with a brand new bar & restaurant area called ‘Base Camp’. While there to get some initial photos of Base Camp they also asked if I would photograph this charming little shepherd’s hut they also have on site. How cute is that?!
No blog post would be complete without some aerial shots. I’ve been busy with the drone this year on many stills and video commissions but I still always love to take the drone up for some aerial shots for pleasure when I get a chance. This is a scene I have shot many times with the drone – my home town of Sheringham. It was a lovely still, sunny evening so I grabbed some shots of the cliffs as the sun went down.
Also on an aerial photography theme I had a commission just inland of Cromer to photograph & capture video footage for a local company providing a nationwide service – Solar Farm Cleaning.
Now to an annual event which I have phoptograhed for the last 6 years – The Hoste Classic & Supercar event at Burnham Market. It’s always a pleasure to see the regular guests who bring along their stunning machines. The highlight for me this year was seeing Max Sowerby’s Frazer-Nash car with it’s 8 litre vintage aeroplane engine, wow that thing is noisy!
Sadly it’s not been a great spring weather-wise and I’ve had a few wet weddings to photograph. Always impressive is how the couples don’t let it dampen their spirits, and it doesn’t mean they can’t have a good set of images to tell the story of their day. Below are a handful of shots from Laura & Jason’s Cromer wedding, a fishing and hunting themed wedding (Laura is a vet and John Davies’ daughter – renowned Cromer fisherman and ex-coxswain of Cromer Lifeboat and Jason is the gamekeeper at a large local estate).
A horrendous squall came through just as the guests were leaving the church. Hang onto your hats ladies!
The marque was literally rocking. I’ve never seen a chandelier swing so ferociously!
Last weekend I was honoured to be asked to photograph RNLI Wells Lifeboat station for a commemorative print to celebrate their 150th anniversary next month. It was a bit of an overcast & misty morning but I think all of the bright colours saved it! I have always admired the amazing ‘Rescue Team’ photos by local man, Campbell MacCallum, so I based this shot on one of his team photos of Wells from a few years back. Sadly Campbell passed away last month so I dedicate this shot to him.
My partner, Leanne, has been learning how to make videos and she came along to document the process of producing the above photo. Below is her short film of the morning, I think it’s a fantastic record. Leanne is now taking commissions for her video work including weddings and commercial shoots. While she hones her craft she is offer the shoots and final video film at an extremely discounted rate. If you would be interested in having Leanne film your event please drop me a line.
As you may have seen in a previous blog post – I started an appeal when I returned from Kenya in February to raise some funds to help equip the rangers at the Enonkishu Conservancy. I was blown away by the support and we raised over £4000 in total. This means we can not only provide the rangers with equipment to assist them in their job of protecting the animals on the conservancy but we’ve also been able to provide much of the funds to build a new rangers’ camp on the conservancy. I love the fact that they have recognised this by naming the camp ‘Shannock Camp’ – officially a Shannock is someone who was born in Sheringham, as were their parents and grandparents.
The camp is needed as they have had three young male lions move onto the conservancy looking to establish a territory. With tensions between Maasai herders and lions always being a concern the new camp will allow the rangers to be close to the lions to ensure they can diffuse any situations which may arise and hopefully allow the lions to establish a new pride – the first potential resident pride on this conservancy.
We are heading back out there in October and really looking forward to seeing these lions, exciting times!
Part of why the last few months have been so busy is the number of commissions for film work which I have secured this year. One of them is to make six short films for Visit North Norfolk, each of them a 30-40 second film showing different aspects of what North Norfolk has to offer. Below is the first in the series. Watch this space for the others, lots of exciting shoots lined up for this.
So that’s my round up, next up is a fabulous wedding I photographed in Essex at the weekend, we finally had some sunshine, woohoo!
Travel photography – The Maldives with SwimQuest
It’s fair to say I had a pretty amazing February with working trips to not only Kenya but also to The Maldives shooting for an open water swimming holiday company called Swimquest.
Being a fully confirmed water baby aka thalassophile aka lover of the sea, to be asked to travel to The Maldives to film/photograph in, on and under the water for an entire week while living aboard a luxury dive boat was a dream come true. To then be jetting off directly from there for two weeks in Kenya to document the work of Biosphere Expeditions (see earlier post) was unreal.
I flew out via Dubai airport and arrived on Mali, the capital island of the Maldives to be collected on the dhoni (dive/swimmer support vessel) to be taken out to the Emperor Divers liveaboard – MV Emperor Voyager. The heat was incredible and nothing prepared me for how warm the water would be when we got in for our first swim. I took a shorty wetsuit knowing how quickly I seem to get cold in water usually but there was absolutely no need for it here when swimming, even when staying in for over two hours at a time, it was like a warm bath!
Each day the guests had two swims of around 2km (sometimes more sometimes less), but the distance and pace was completely determined by the swimmers themselves, it was totally at their own pace and open to swimmers of all skill levels. Each of the sites were carefully selected by Alice from Swimquest and Chris from Emperor Divers to find the best site for calmest water and best visibility with the most fish & coral to see while they swam.
My job was to document the trip through photography stills and video which included underwater footage and aerial video using my DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone – perfect for this sort of job – compact, light and producing superb quality images through it’s Hassleblad optics & 4K video. Just look at the colours of that water!
The sea life was abundant with the swimmers frequently shouting to each other that they had spotted a turtle, eagle ray, white tipped reef shark, etc. I was in heaven!
As well as doing a dive to allow me to get some footage of the swimmers from directly below we also had the opportunity to do some dives for leisure and I took every opportunity. The first dive was on a nurse shark cleaning station in very fast currents. I’d never dived with reef hooks before so this was a first for me, an interesting experience ‘flying’ in the current while attached to the bottom!
Each day we moved from atoll to atoll to find the best swim sites, it was a superb way to get to see so much of the Maldives without being stuck on one resort. I would definitely do this again if I visit the area. Plus you can’t beat living on a boat (in my opinion), the food was absolutely superb and I love being rocked to sleep at night by the motion of the water.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
The absolute highlight of this incredible week for me was when we dropped off the side of the dive support vessel right onto a manta ray cleaning station. To swim with mantas has been on my bucket list for decades and I wasn’t disappointed. We just had masks & snorkels this time so it was a case of taking a deep breath and swimming down as far as our lungs would allow us to spend some time with the beautiful behemoths.
Unfortunately my GoPro dome decided to take this one moment of the whole trip to steam up so the shots aren’t as clear as I would have liked but I’m still pleased to have been able to get this record of one of the most memorable days of my life.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
On one evening of the trip we stopped off at this picture postcard desert island for a bbq and we rewarded with another incredible sunset…
While moored off the island the dive master Chris had another surprise up his sleeve for us – he knew that if they turned on the underwater lights off the stern of the boat young mantas would be attracted by the plankton that came towards the light. We had an incredible couple of hours watching the manta rays doing back flips while we stood watching on deck with ice cold beers. I’ll take that over watching sport any day of the week!
Huge thanks to Alice & John at Swimquest for this opportunity and to Chris and the crew of the MV Emperor Voyager for looking after us so well. Also big thanks to Guy, a friend of mine from way back and employee of Swimquest who suggested me for this job. Really appreciate it Guy, I owe you!
The short film I made for Swimquest is here:
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An incredible Indian wedding at Holkham Hall – Ankit & Hayley
My first wedding of 2019 and what an absolute cracker at the mighty Holkham Hall (one of my favourite, and most regular wedding venues) to get the year’s wedding season started with!
I started the day’s coverage at ‘The Ancient House’, part of The Victoria at Holkham, a beautiful building and certainly plenty of space for Hayley and Co. to get ready for this incredible day they had planned. The night before I had been lucky enough to photograph Ankit & Hayley’s Mehndi party at Socius – a stunning new restaurant in Burnham Market. The gallery of shots from the mehndi party are here, it was lovely to see the amazing designs in henna being created, the food was incredible and it was really great to have a chance to meet the families in this build up to the big day.
I knew the wedding was going to be a colourful event but I wasn’t prepared for just how spectacular it was going to be to photograph, it’s definitely the most colourful wedding I have ever photographed, it truly was a visual feast! From a veritable rainbow of sarees and sparkling jewellery to the incredible floral creations by Jo and the team at Constance Rose florists.
Make up was by Melissa Abel and hair by Victoria Ralph, as you can see both very experienced and talented ladies in their field.
I then headed over the road to The Victoria to photograph Ankit getting ready, what an incredible wedding outfit!
It was then over to the Lady Elizabeth wing to capture shots of the guests arriving and Hayley’s bridal party running through one last rehearsal. The floral work by Constance Rose was mindblowingly beautiful…
I just had to include the sequence of the little lad below, it makes me smile every time I see it. I was grabbing a shot of him running around when he stopped and had a big old sneeze! Ahhhh-choo!
…aaaand back to the main event – Ankit had arrived and after being welcomed by his guests everyone danced down the path to the ceremony room, an absolute moment of joy, it genuinely puts a lump in my throat looking back at these photos, in my mind THIS is what weddings should be about – a celebration of love and happiness and everyone getting in on the moment, this was unforgettable.
I won’t even attempt to explain what each of the little parts of the wedding ceremony represented but needless to say they each have a very special meaning and it was fascinating watching each step of the way.
A huge thank you to Ankit’s cousin Rajen, who was videoing the event for them – AsianWeddingVideo.co.uk – Rajen was a joy to work with but also was kind enough to explain to me each of the stages of the ceremony and what would be coming up so that I could make sure I had the lens pointed in the right direction. Also a massive thanks to my good friend and fellow wedding photographer, Simon Buck, who came along to second shoot for me. There was simply so much going on that Ankit had requested I bring along a second shooter to capture the action when two things were happening in different places at the same time. Simon did a fantastic job, even if it did mean I had double the number of images to process after the wedding. I’ve definitely never had over 6600 RAW files to go through after a wedding day before!
With Ankit, his twin brother Aneesh, and Hayley’s parents Peter & Sharon seated at the mandap, it was time for Hayley to be brought into the room and Ankit had to be hidden behind a sheet of material for the big reveal!
After the most amazing wedding ceremony Ankit & Hayley walked back down the aisle as husband and wife before we headed back to the mandap for a few quick family group shots while the guests made their way to the marble hall for champagne & canapes…
After the group shots I put the drone up for a few quick shots of the hall in this beautiful late afternoon spring light. Thank you to George at Norfolk Locations and Miranda and the team at Holkham for granting me permission to fly the drone at Holkham again, as you can see it really is the most stunning Norfolk wedding venue.
After the canapes the guests headed off for a short break before the wedding breakfast and evening celebrations so I took some time with Ankit & Hayley to get some couples shots around the grounds, we were blessed with beautiful golden light…
Ankit & Hayley headed off to get changed into their ‘western wedding clothes’ and returned a short while later for a few quick shots with the wedding party in the stunning marble hall.
…and then back to the Lady Elizabeth wing for the wedding breakfast provided by Admirable Crichton and as you can see here the room had been transformed with the incredible lighting creations by the talented Sam Race, how amazing does that look?!
The wedding invitations, order of service, table plan and place markers had all been created by Hayley’s father, the extremely talented artist and children’s book illustrator, Peter Kavanagh.
Stunning wedding cake provided by Love Wedding Cakes.
After some great speeches we all headed outside for a firework display by Titanium Fireworks…the same company that provide the fireworks for the London New Years eve celebrations and the Cromer Pier fireworks displays amongst others.
So onto the first dance, but it wasn’t over yet…
Yes, they had their very own Elvis, one of Hayley’s uncles, every wedding coverage should finish with an Elvis impersonator!
So there it is, one of the most incredible weddings I’ve ever had the privilege to photograph.
A huge thank you to Ankit & Hayley for having me as their wedding photographer and to all of their family and friends for making me feel so welcome. Despite it being one of the longest weddings I’ve photographed in recent years I came away totally buzzing, knowing that we had an amazing set of images for them to remember their day. I can’t wait for the next Indian wedding I get to shoot now, please contact me if you have an Indian Wedding in Norfolk planned, I’d love to be involved.
The full gallery of Ankit & Hayley’s amazing Norfolk Indian wedding photos can be seen here.
Wedding Suppliers list
Norfolk wedding Venue: Holkham Hall
Invites, table plans, Order of Service designs: Peter Kavanagh
Florist: Constance Rose
Make up artist: Melissa Abel
Hair: Victoria Ralph
Cake: Love Wedding Cakes
Venue decoration & lighting: Sam Race
Catering: Admirable Crichton
Meal entertainment: The Wandering Hands
DJ: Jeremy Durrant
Fireworks: Titanium Fireworks
Ice cream: Ronaldos
Video: Asian Wedding Video
Second Shooter: Simon Buck
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Aerial photography of Norwich Cathedral and the amazing work of artist Brian Lewis
Back in January I headed to Norwich with well-known Norfolk artist, Brian Lewis, to get some aerial shots of the cathedral. Brian had been asked by the Dean of Norwich Cathedral, Jane Hedges, to do a painting of the cathedral and grounds.
Brian decided that an aerial angle might be interesting, Brian says “Having met Jane, the Dean of Norwich Cathedral, I asked if it would be possible to fly a drone within the Cathedral grounds with the idea that I could make a painting. Knowing Chris, his great photography, and that he’s a qualified drone pilot, we got permission and Chris took amazing shots of all the angles I needed”
It was a real honour to be able to fly at the cathedral, especially considering how tightly controlled any drone flying is within the cathedral grounds (for very good reasons). I prepared all the paperwork including flight plans, a risk assessment, a pre-flight checklist and had the flight cleared with Norwich Airport air traffic control, the Cathedral Estate Management and the Hawk & Owl Trust and we were good to go.
On the day we got a selection of shots for Brian, taking care not to fly too close to the spire where the resident peregrines were hanging out. Brian has been working on the painting for over a month now and it’s looking incredible as you can see although it is still a work in progress. Brian aims for the painting to be one of a series of the cathedral and the grounds.
The original painting, in all it’s glory, will be exhibited at his next Open Studio which runs from Saturday 4th May – Sunday 12th May, 10:30am-5:30pm daily at Bees Hall, 64 The Avenue South, Sheringham, Norfolk, NR26 8DH. There will also be a huge range of other Brian Lewis originals plus hundreds of prints and postcards. Well worth a visit to see the beautiful work and meet the great man himself!
Brian’s website is here.
As a result of the successful first flight (and getting on well with Jane and the estates manager Phil) I suggested maybe heading back for an evening flight to capture the cathedral in a different light. The suggestion was well received and a date planned.
On the evening (a month after we had originally arranged the date) thankfully the weather forecast was good so I headed back to the cathedral and we were blessed with a most amazing sunset. I love it when a plan comes together!
The below shots are a couple from that series. These have been well received by the local media with the Norwich Evening News sharing the shot in their instagram feed and BBC News East of England featuring the aerial photo and using it for their Facebook page cover image. It’s all great publicity!
Many thanks to Jane & Phil for being kind enough to let me fly there twice, I feel very lucky. 
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