Off to the airport in a few minutes and in a few hours we'll be landing in London .... hopefully .... snow permitting!

We're away for just under a week for the annual SWPP photography convention in London where I will be taking a class with a great photographer and good friend, John Baikie on Saturday and a second class on Photoshop on Sunday.

More details can be found here:

http://www.swpp.co.uk/convention/programmes-10/baikie_louca.htm

and here:

http://www.swpp.co.uk/convention/programmes-10/sofie-paul.htm

If you see us wandering around the convention or come to either of the classes feel free to come over and say hello!

 

Ok, so the first post of the year really should be a "Best of 2009" image post, right? Not this year! I have two more sessions from 2009 that need posting before I do a "Best of..."

(If you haven't sussed me out yet, that means I just haven't had time to collate the images yet!!)

On a more positive note two of our best friends, Brett & Lindsey, got engaged last year and we had great fun shooting some engagement photos for them when we were back in London last August. 

Part II of a previous wedding post - Michalis & Michaella!

 

 

Our last wedding of 2009 was an incredible event in Athens, Greece with the stars of the show - Demitris & Christina. After a pre-wedding cocktail party at the penthouse of the King George II hotel with breathtaking views of the Acropolis, we spent another two days photographing the couple for their wedding celebrations. Athens is such diverse city with a mix of history, culture and contemporary surroundings and it was our pleasure to be able to photograph Demitris & Christina against the backdrop of this captivating city.

We also had the opportunity of working again with some of the finest Greek wedding planners from The Genie.

And just a couple of our favorites as larger images....

Back when it was still warm and sunny in Cyprus (ok, it's not exactly freezing cold here!) we were very privileged to photograph Mina & Mikaella's wedding. We had the opportunity to shoot again in the beautiful old St Lazarus church in Larnaca with a pool-side reception at The Golden Bay hotel and then a dinner party later in the week at the Hilton Park hotel in Nicosia. We had a fun time photographing the bride & groom and they rocked their photos! We have the best clients! :)

 

If I have the story right, Mina somehow trod on Mikaella's foot hence the laughter mid-ceremony!! It seems that the priest was oblivious to the going's on! I love these last two photos!!

A few weeks ago (ok, make that almost 2 months ago now!) Paul & I headed back to the UK to photograph Chris & Antonia's wedding. After shooting a whole summer in the sweltering sun, it made a nice change to work in a cooler climate and the UK weather held up for us to photograph the bride & groom in a beautiful local park after their ceremony. It also made a nice change to be able to rattle off my 'instructions' in English rather than having to make do with my limited Greek! Chris & Antonia were an absolute pleasure to photograph and we especially enjoyed shooting all the beautiful Greek traditions throughout the day.

It's always a pleasure working with clients that realize the importance of their photographs on their wedding day and go that extra mile, especially when they make that little bit of extra time on their very special day so that we can create some images they'll cherish and remember for a lifetime.

Mario and Christine were married a few weeks ago in the quaintest little church at Aphrodite Hills. Following the ceremony, we spent an hour or so walking around the very beautiful Aphrodite Hills resort photographing the bride and groom before heading to the golf club for the reception. They and their families were so lovely to work with and we had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with them.

 

 

Only 6 more days left until we photograph Minas & Mikaella's wedding day in the beautiful and very old church of St Lazarus in Larnaca. A few weeks ago we spent a very enjoyable afternoon with them photographing their engagement session and here are some of my favorites from the session...

 

We've just got back to Cyprus from shooting a wedding in the UK and I'm missing the UK already (especially the shops)! I'm just catching up with clients, emails, editing but as soon as I'm all caught up there are plenty of posts to come - two weddings (both of which include the 'money dance' which we'd never photographed before and then did two in a row!) & two engagement sessions.

Lots more to shoot this month too so I need to get my butt in gear and get posting!

And who'd have thought we'd find deck chairs in the middle of London?!

So many photographers write their blogs and week in week out say how wonderful their clients are but Michalis & Mikaella really were wonderful! This couple loved having their photos taken so yes, they were wonderful! Here's another epic photo post....(check out their first dance images - the ones in the shorter wedding dress - one of the best choreographed first dances I've seen!)

Hope you don't mind seeing some more from this wedding!! Here's part II of yesterday's blog post...

Love this one! Ok, this one happens to be another favorite too...!

A couple of 'behind the scenes' photos... please ignore Paul pulling a stupid face, yet again!

A couple of weeks ago we photographed Lisa & Lambros' wedding in Larnaca at the Golden Bay hotel. The couple live in New York and although recently married there, they had traveled to Cyprus to get married with friends and family present. 

I'm going to split the blog post into two parts because there are far too many photos for just one post!

 

And finally one of my favorite wedding shots of the year...

A few weeks later and Paul & I are still not done retouching the photos from the bikini shoot! There were so many fantastic photos and we're practicing some new retouching techniques hence taking so long!

 

Here are the ones I've done so far...

Paul is taking his usual sweet time doing any work ... I guess that's why he wanted to move back to Cyprus! Some of Paul's images below... Probably my favorite shot of the day...

A few months ago we shot an ad for a large and long-standing drinks company based in Cyprus, Kean. They were relaunching an iced coffee and required an eye-catching advertising campaign to get the product up and running. We were very fortunate to work with a great model & actress, Britney Lee. She was incredibly professional and cooperative even when we asked her to clamber over machinery in the drinks factory! In the end the company opted for a simpler image so the clambering around didn't make the cut after all!

About a month ago the billboard went up in town and on the highway - it's kind of cool seeing your work so large when you're driving around!

Part of the bikini shoot (that I've yet to blog) took place on a beach in the morning and later in the afternoon we got to 'borrow' a friend's sailing boat for a couple of hours to finish up the photo shoot. Paul & I never seem to remember to take 'behind the scenes' footage so we were lucky enough to have another friend on board who documented some of the shoot!

Deciding where to shoot:

I can't swim - in fact, I'm petrified of the water so they gave me a life jacket!

Paul had plans to throw me overboard but decided against it as I was holding the D3:

I ended up taking the life jacket off because I couldn't shoot with it on!

Finally, getting down to business

Model overboard.... almost!!

This was the first time we used the Profoto beauty dish - a softbox was out of the question due to lack of space and we'd left the ring flash at home. I'm actually very pleased with the light results from the beauty dish.

Thanks for lighting the sail instead of the model Paul :P

Back to dry land please!