Hayley and Pete

After a couple of weeks involving some travelling time and lots of driving, it was nice to get a local wedding this week.

Hayley and Pete held their service and reception at the Novotel in Worsley, Salford. This was quite different from some of the weddings I’ve covered of late, this being a very intimate and personal civil ceremony with only very close friends and relatives in attendance. The very real threat of rain was looming all day but it held off thankfully until the wedding breakfast and stopped conveniently after the speeches, with the sun making a welcome appearance once everyone was fed! This gave us plenty of time to make good use of the beautiful gardens to the rear of the venue.

Hayley and Pete are a great couple with a cute but completely fearless handful of a son who did his mum proud walking her down the aisle. The best man wimped, sorry I mean missed out, on the chance to give his brother a verbal bashing after the meal, leaving it instead in the very capable hands of the bridesmaids who both gave emotional speeches to leave the bride in tears (of joy of course).





















All the best for the future you two. I really enjoyed covering your special day and was made to feel very welcome by your family and friends all day. I hope you both had a wicked time in Cuba on your honeymoon (JEALOUS!) and I can’t wait for you to see your finished album.

FACES OF ECCLES

Last week I held an open photoshoot at Eccles Community Gallery. The idea was to photograph as many people as possible in one day, then display the photographs in the gallery for everyone to see.

I realise I didn't post any information about this on this blog and there were 3 very good reasons:

1) I have been busy wedding wise recently and have lots of work to do (photos to appear soon)

2) I don't even know if anyone actually reads this blog - 2 followers? LAME!

3) I forgot

Now I'm under no illusions about this... Rankin Live it definately wasn't! To prove it, take a look at my state of the art studio set-up below...



A sheet of black fabric from Dunelm nailed to a wall. I forgot an attachment to my light stand so the flash and brolly were strapped on using masking tape! The brolley was actually broke. In the room, I had the choice of either bright flourescent strip lighting or pitch black darkness, no natural light at all so I chose pitch black darkness and a 60 watt lightbulb in a desk lamp for a model light.

Despite all this I had a really good day and met & photographed many wonderful and weird people. Some photos below.










Took photos of over a hundred people on the day, all of which will be displayed from tomorrow (Satuday 19th Sep) for 4 weeks. If you can get yourself down there please come down and have a gander. The art gallery itself is a great little place, made from an empty shop front in Eccles precinct. It is the personal passion of a lovely lady named Karen Illingworth who runs it on her own with no funding, relying on donations and the help of volunteers. I've made her a little website to help with promoting the place, check it out if you get time at www.ecclesgallery.moonfruit.com

Thanks to Salford Online for running numerous articles promoting the events, the most recent one can be seen by clicking here.

Oh and special thanks goes out to Roxanne, Sharon and Charlotte! My glamourous assistants on the day worked wonders - fluttering eyelids, flashing pretty smiles, handing out flyers and frog-marching people to the gallery. The event wouldn't have been what it was without yous!