The first thing to do is to bring your images into Lightroom. In Library mode, click on the ‘+’ sign adjacent to the Folders section. This brings up a sub-menu where you can select Add Folder. The following dialogue box will allow you to navigate to the ‘Jane and John ALL’ folder that you created when you downloaded your cards. Click once on that folder, not on the folders within it. Click ‘Choose’ and an Import Photos dialogue box appears, allowing you to add keywords. I set my initial previews to Standard. The thumbnails on the right should show every frame selected, and once you’ve hit Import you’ll see all your images start to appear in the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen.

Selecting Images

I have just spent most of today on the first run-through of Diane and Terry’s wedding. Once the images are all showing as thumbnails, you can start editing, but if it’s a big shoot, you may want to wait until the progress bar at the top left has changed to ‘Task Completed’.

Dana and I shot 3171 frames on Saturday. A lot of pictures. First of all I get rid of all the panels on each side of the screen by clicking the small triangle near each edge. I just have the film strip at the bottom, and one big image on the screen above. Make sure the film strip at the bottom shows the images sorted by ‘capture time’. I click on the first image and it appears above, nice and big. If I like it, it gets a star by my pressing the ’1′ key. If I don’t like it I do nothing. Using the arrow keys with my right hand, I go from image to image giving all the good ones a star. If I am hesitating over an image, I give it a star.

This first run-through is really to take out the blinks and blurs, and is quite loose. I am aiming to take out at least half the images, and in fact today I reduced the total to 1205 images. I then filter out the un-starred images. The next edit will halve that number again, and then you are looking at a reasonable number to show the client. I aim to show between five and six hundred images. As I go through the images for the second time, I award two stars by pressing ’2′ for the ones I like – it gets easier to compare images in the second edit.

Having completed the edit, arriving at five to six hundred two-starred images, I then go through again, looking for about one hundred and twenty Super Star images. Again, I add another star, pressing ’3′ to pick the very best images. These are the ones I use for the Blast DVD Slideshow we do, and will form the basis for an album design.

All of the two and three starred images are then viewed in the Develop module in Lightroom 2, and I’ll go through that next time.

So I thought I’d write about my current method of working, almost in real time, as I shot a wedding last Saturday, and I can write as I work through the various stages. I hope you find it useful – there is no right or wrong way, just your way.

Downloading files

It would be odd to admit to being superstitious, but much as I love computers, I don’t entirely trust them. I’ve heard that occasionally they break…

So, after any shoot, I download the cards. I do this in the old-fashioned way – no software involved. I create a new folder and call it ‘Jane and John ALL’. Then I open this folder and create about twenty (however meny cards you’ve shot) new folders, each called ‘Jane and John 1′ ‘Jane and John 2′ etc. I put each card into the card reader and simply copy (drag and drop) the images into each folder – each card has it’s own folder. I have numbered my cards, so I also add the card number to the folder title ‘Jane and John 1 (12)’ ‘Jane and John 2 (15)’ ‘Jane and John 3(25)’ etc. It doesn’t matter what order the cards are downloaded. The point of recording the card numbers is to identify a faulty card should you develop one – you’ll know if there is a problem reading a card, or later opening images from it.

I do this process without opening any files. I want to keep the transfer path from the card to the hard drive as straight as possible. You could download cards into Lightroom or Aperture and look at them as they appear, but I prefer to simplify the process and eliminate the possibility of any software corrupting the files.

You end up with a folder containing all your cards’ contents separated out. This is also useful if like me you use a second photographer, and you need to identify their images. I will add her name to her folders, thus ‘Jane and John 4 (17)Dana’. Also useful if you use more than one camera body.

Finally, again without looking at anything, I copy the whole ‘Jane and John ALL’ folder onto a second hard drive as a back-up. Only then (following the ‘always have two copies’ principle) will I format the cards, although it’s more likely to be left until I need them again for the next shoot.

In the next post I’ll go through my editing process using Lightroom.

That’s all folks, the rest will be on my web site in  two weeks time. Hope you liked them!

We know that she’s not good near feet, puppies or young children, and she’ll go to great lengths to avoid any of these. Despite her early upbringing, she is a great people dog, bright and well up for whatever is going on. My routine is to walk her twice a day, and that can be a great respite from the many hours I spend staring at the computer screen. We are very lucky here to have loads of great walks nearby, the park around St Albans Abbey is her usual run.

Suzanne and Gordon were naturals in front of the camera, even though they wouldn’t admit that, and in and around the boutique hotel there were many brilliant areas and backgrounds for photography. Here are a few…

There are four cycle trails through the trees and along the fire breaks within the forest. We daredevils chose the Red and Black routes straight away and off we went. The Red route is described as Intermediate/difficult and has made-up paths, sometimes banked, going between the trees. I imagine any fourteen year old boy whizzing round this course in about half the time it took us, but we were not slouching and enjoyed the trail. 

We then had a break, and set out on the Black route. This was very challenging, with rough tracks, lots of dips,(thank goodness for the suspension) and some very steep pits – we bottled out of The Bracken Pit with its vertical sides! Great fun though and at the end of the day we had cycled for nearly three hours and done about 18 off-road miles. Thoroughly recommended.

Maddy at Thetford

Steve and Maddy

My big feminist wedding

Jessica writes about equality between herself and her husband to be, sharing their lives on an equal basis which makes complete sense to me. There wasn’t a great romantic proposal, rather a mutual agreement that marrying each other would enrich their lives.

‘But never underestimate the power of being in love. Andrew is fabulous and I want to be married to him – due in no small part to the fact that he also identifies himself as a feminist and that an equal partnership is just as important to him as it is to me. So when we decided to get married, we talked about the traditions to avoid (white dress), what to incorporate (both parents walking us both down the aisle) and, of course, how to plan the wedding.’

Although they received a certain amount of online mockery, it seems to me that a marriage based on equal shares, or at least, each person contributing in their own areas of expertise, is more likely to be a lasting marriage. I think it is very important that the wedding day is the way you want it, whatever your beliefs or politics, and although tradition is a sometimes a good framework within which to organise a wedding, breaking boundaries can be both enlightening and exciting.

“Some great packages arrived today and I think I looked at them in the right order;  started with the BLAST which was great. My parents looked at the pictures online and are really impressed my Dad said he sees where the money goes worth every penny.  Ed and I have watched the DVD sooooo many times and I took it to school today.  We also love your choice in music. Edward has seen the pictures and he’s also very happy – we love them.”

It’s comments like this that make shooting weddings and working with fab clients like Lee-Anne and Edward so enjoyable. We had a great time being with them and look forward to designing their album.