Our Contact Details

Please phone rather than email at the moment please. The main website and email is still down. It should be available again soon please try www.pureprints.com over the next few days. If you would like a full price list please give us a call. We offer wedding photography services throughout the U.K.

Home. 01684 593388

Mobile 0794 158 1330

Richard Barley

Wedding Photographer Worcestershire

Relaxed informal wedding photography. This is a temporary website as our main site is down. The style of photography we offer is a mixture of modern reportage and traditional photography. I capture you and your guests enjoying the day and let the wedding day flow without interuption.

Weddings Booked for Summer/Autumn 2008

We still have availability for dates in 2008. If you are booking a wedding photographer at the last minute please give us a call to secure your day.

Kind Words

Which Camera Do I Need To Buy?

Well I am opening a can of worms posting this blog. I have used and still use allot of different cameras and formats including.

1. Large Format 10"x8" Horseman View Cameras
2. Large Format 5"x4" Studio Toyo View Camera
3. Pentax 645 System
4. Canon eos 35mm system
5. Various compact cameras with very good lenses.

So why use so many different Cameras when every body says

"If your a good photographer you can use anything!"

You can use what ever you like but I always think about what my customers want and the quality they require. I try to use the camera gear I have for different tasks that will allow me to bring back the best quality images.

• Landscape Photography - Large Format Cameras
• Stock Photography - Pentax 645 System
• Portraits and Weddings - Canon eos 35mm System and Pentax 645
• Candid Wedding Images - Canon eos 35mm and Nikon 995 Digital

Richard Barley
www.pureprints.com

Flash Photography - Quick Tips

1. Never use direct flash its too harsh.
2. Buy an Stofen Omni Bounce at www.stofen.com
3. Buy a lightsphere by Gary Fong www.garyfong.com
4. Read the blogs I have produced about lighting.
5. Remember to bounce flash off white ceilings its spreads the light and creates a Larger Light Source.
6. Fill in flash looks better if its a bit warmer try an 81A Filter on your lens and reduce the flash output by -2 stops on your flash gun.

Richard Barley
www.pureprints.co.uk

Choosing the right lens for Portrait Photography

The focal length of your lens will determine how far you have to stand away from your subject to get the image your after. A technique I use is to stand at a comfortable distance away from my subject and so they do not feel like you are `too close`. I put a 50mm lens on my Canon 35mm Camera and look through the view finder. I like to be able to see a three quarter length image of the subject with head and shoulders and waist line in the image. I now know if I put a 100mm lens on I can get head and shoulder shots from this distance.

My favourite lens to use for portraits is the Canon 85mm 1.8 set wide open or a 150mm 3.5 lens on my Pentax 645. If you need three quarter length shots you can stand back a bit further. Distortion of your subject will take place if you get to close with shorter focal length lenses. If in doubt stand back...

The longer the focal length the further back you will need to stand and the less eye contact you will have with your subject. If you use 200mm lenses for portraits you may find that when you ask your subject to look towards the camera they can not look straight down the lens for visual impact. With shorter focal length lenses 85mm-100mm you can get high impact eye contact images through the lens.

To make the back ground go out of focus behind the subject focus on their eyes and use an aperture of f1.4 - f4 depending on the lens you use. The longer the focal length the smaller the aperture you may use to keep their face sharp. This will take some experimentation but i use 85mm at f1.8 and throw backgrounds out of focus with eyes and face in focus.

The set up I use for portraits and weddings.

Canon eos 55 - 50mm lens
Canon eos 50E - 75-300mm

1. Full Length Shots - 50mm
2. Three Quarter - 85mm
3. Head and shoulders - 75-300

Richard Barley
www.pureprints.co.uk