A Photographer’s Photographer
Imogen in her Christening gown
I like to think that my photography has come a long way over the last few years. I was convinced that landscape photography was my thing, the beautiful scenery mixed with the relaxed shooting that goes with it. No people to get bored or upset and very little pressure to get it right first time.
Things have changed a little since those days, I now shoot weddings, portraits, sports and corporate photography.. the pressure to get it right is often huge, but I relish it! I find that I get a buzz from shooting weddings, that makes the stress and hard work more than worthwhile. Shooting people is highly rewarding, capturing moments that will never be repeated, moments that people treasure.
Ok, so I’ve stepped up my game and now shoot people on their most important days.. what could be harder?
Christening Gown
Well how about shooting one of those important one off days.. for a fellow photographer!
A friend and fellow photographer Dominic asked me to shoot the Christening of their youngest child Imogen. Immediately, I said yes! I would be honoured. It was only after I said yes that I started to have a few worries. Shooting an important day for a fellow photographer.. one that would have their own style and methods of shooting, is an intimidating experience.
Or at least it could have been with anyone else but Dom. He gave me free reign to shoot the christening how I wished and what a wonderful day it turned out to be.
The Venerable Daniel Kajumba
The Christening was a relaxed and joyful event, especially with the surprise presence of the Venerable Daniel Kajumba who originally married Dom and Claire just over 10 years ago. I tried on the day to capture the little moments that tell the story, such as the image above showing the meeting of Claire’s Mum with the Ugandan Prince, Daniel.
Claire and Imogen
A beautiful moment shared between mum, Claire and daughter, Imogen..
Dom and Lucas
While Dom struggles to contain the energetic Lucas 
Tomas pours the holy waters
Little moments that hopefully tell the story of the day.. Tomas helping the Venerable Daniel Kajumba pour the Holy water for Imogen’s Christening.
In some ways this Christening resembled a wedding day.. it would never be repeated and the photography will be there for Imogen and her family for many years to come.
After the Christening itself, I decided to captured a few of the children playing at the reception..
Tomas
Lucas plays dead
Lucas drinks the Elixia of life
and to set the gossiping tongues wagging..
Kiss of life
Overall, this was a most enjoyable day, and I for one really had a great time capturing these moments.
NB! the last photograph was captured by Dom using my camera.. and that is me holding Lucas back
If you would like to read Dom’s side of the story.. check this out
Cheers for now
Scot
Scot, I can fully understand your standpoint about shooting for another tog, I would certainly be more nervous doing this than shooting for a non tog customer due to the fact you really do have a critical eye looking over your approach, your technique and your results.
Although the thing to look back on and try to figure out is how do you think your nervousness, approach, technique and results would have differed had you not known me, and not known that I know a fair amount about photography. Do you think you performed better or worse because of it? (As far as I’m concerned you did a cracking job and the results clearly speak for themselves, so you certainly didn’t under achieve on my expectations)
The reason I bring this up is that my wife consciously avoids this type of problem every time she goes to the hairdressers by not telling the person who is cutting her hair that she is also a hairdresser, and therefore not placing extra pressure on the stylist who now has to chop away at her hair. Whether or not this actually makes a difference is hard to tell, if fact it would be near on impossible to know, but would that added pressure really make a difference to the outcome of her, your or my work?
As I mentioned above, the results are top notch and we are very pleased with them, which to be fair is exactly what we expected. You’re a natural with people and your camera, mix the two and you get great results. The decision to ask you to do it was a very easy one from a photographic point of view, the only inconsiderate part in asking you was expecting you to have to travel all the way from South Devon to Gatwick in order to do it for us, but thankfully that wasn’t a problem.
Many thanks yet again