Tag Archive for: photographer

Hunte’s Gardens

As you all know, I love shooting weddings.  It’s the best part of the job out here in Barbados.

When I can get away from boring things like staff wages, VAT returns and fixing the never ending tirade of computer malfunctions and machine errors, there is nothing I like more than shooting a happy couple out in the sun.  And the only thing better than that is when we get to go somewhere new.

The business we are in relies heavily on Hotel world, and so we shoot 99.9% of our weddings in the same locations.  Don’t get me wrong – the locations are always gorgeous, and we are spoilt for choice when we shoot.  With gardens, water features, sugar mills and, of course those beaches to choose from, couples are always staggered with the shots and videos they receive.  But when we get a bride enquire about a wedding somewhere new, we all get a bit giddy at the thought of some new locations and the escape from our (idyllic) norm.

So imagine our delight when Sian received an email from an expectant bride asking about us shooting her wedding at the famous Hunte’s Gardens?  It is a well known spot, tucked away in the hilly area of St Joseph and without a doubt the best sign posted attraction in Barbados.  It always tickles me whenever we embark on an adventure like this – as we invariably get lost on the bumpy back roads when signs we have been religiously following for hours suddenly disappear…but fair play to Hunte’s – they are consistently dotted around the island, leading the horticultural-hungry tourists directly to the beautiful wrought iron gates.

A narrow pathway and greeted by a nice young man, and this is the site that awaits you.

It is beautiful.

Of course, being that we are professional photographers, and that we were coming to see the site namely for the sake of research, we picked the absolute worst time to go to the gardens.  As you will see from the ridiculously hard light, we got there at about 1pm – when the sun is at both its highest and hottest in Barbados…so you will have to forgive me with the crazy contrast and reflective palm trees – but it was our day off and we wanted to make the most of it…so I just gave it my best shot.

As we wandered down the narrow, steep path, you could literally feel the trees ‘breathing’ around us.  By the time we got to the bottom of the sink hole the garden lives in, the air was heavy with humidity, and the smells were all encompassing.

Sian’s hair was glad to soak up some of the moisture too, and within five minutes it had expanded a third in volume…which gave me something to chuckle about as the sweat began pouring off my face like a scene from Airplane.

And so for the next half an hour or so, we wandered around the beautiful gardens, nattering away about the endless possibilities, accompanied only by the songs of the nesting birds above, and the wind blowing through the palms.

It really is quite a place.

Despite the crazy-hard light we had given ourselves to work with, I am fairly happy with the shots we got on the day.  But one of the hardest things I found was conveying the sheer size of the gardens.  Although the grounds are not enormous in acreage, the site is so steep, and Mr Hunte has ingeniously used every available inch to maximum effect.  I am not a fan of this shot, but Sian is, and she is my harshest critic – so if it’s good enough for her then, well, it goes up on the blog:

After a while, we started to wander back up to the old plantation house that overlooks the epic gardens, safe in the knowledge that there would be a rum punch for us at the top of the hill.  That was what the literature said, and that was how Sian had convinced me to leave the cosy AC of home to embark on this little adventure in the first place.

Sian spotted this half munched leaf – obviously a hungry caterpillar – but clearly not a Frangipanni, as the leaf has barely been touched! I love how uniform the nibbles are:

As we approached the building, we were met with the most fabulous site – a fully dressed dining table that looked like something straight out of Narnia.  The whole thing was littered with dried flowers and palm leaves – I have never seen anything quite like it.

After a lengthy discussion of just how ever-awesome this venue would be for weddings, we finally got to the top of the hill, and were met by the wonderfully welcoming Anthony Hunte – the man himself.   Comfortably reclined in a huge sofa, Anthony was deep in conversation with two other visitors – Simon and Christine.  He invited us to sit and have a rum punch, and soon we began chewing the fat.  It was a fantastic afternoon.

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, Anthony unleashed his jewel in the crown – the cherry on the cake for this wonderful venue.

Flora.

Oh. My. God. This dog is awesome.  So awesome that even Sian: champion of Cats – resenter of the canine and slayer of all that drool, fell for her:

Flora did what all good dogs do for the rest of the afternoon.  She did the rounds and made sure everyone was where they should be – made sure her dad Anthony was being looked after by these strangers in her house, and then when satisfied all was well, would come and demand a cuddle from her master.

I am sure I am not the first visitor, and I certainly won’t be the last to Hunte’s that has thought about kidnapping that wonderful pooch.  She really is a corker.  And my camera loved her.

By the end of the evening, we had drunk far too many rum punches, taken far too many pictures of the dog, and had been eaten alive by the pesky sand flies.  At about 8pm we finally left our wonderful host and two new friends, a quick call for a lift home and the adventure sadly came to an end.

But we WILL return!

 

 

Thanks for reading guys x

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Roberts Factory

The last few weeks have been pretty awesome.  We have made some friends, (Big blog to come!)  have had some great news in the family, and some not so great, but all in all we are very happy.

The other day, we had to visit Virgin HQ, and being Barbados, it was in the back end of nowhere.  As we negotiated the twists and turns of the fabled ‘highway 3’, we stumbled across a massive factory.  And I got a little excited.  As my frequent readers may well know, I have, unfortunately, inhereted my father’s penchant for the industrial tech. Trains, planes, boats – anything man made that can rust slightly and I get a little weak at the knees.  Very sad, I know, but that’s me.

I have a really vivid memory from about age 9.  We were on a family narrow boat holiday and we chugged through the heart of this massive, massive factory.  It was one of the most fascinating and eerie moments of my life.  Being 9, it felt enormous – there was steam and smells and noises, a thick film of foam scudded across the murky green of the canal, but despite all of the activity and bustle – there was not a sole in site.  It reminded me of the cover of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous which I actually had in my discman at the time…I was a very spoilt child…

But I digress.

Desperate to take a snap of this new found wonder in otherwise picturesque Barbados, I waited for dusk, bundled my exhuasted wife into the car, and headed to the factory.

I fired off a few frames, and think this is the best one.  Unfortunately there is a massive fence (obviously) around the factory, so I couldn’t get too close, but I like this wide shot, and it is soooo very different to what we normally see him in Bimshire!

As I was standing there, snapping away, Sian called out from the car that she could see millions of fireflies.  I turned to see what she was talking about, and all I could see was the glow of the car’s headlights:

I crossed the road to see what she was talking about, and was amazed by what I saw.  The entire meadow was alive with fire flies.  It really was a sight to behold.  As we stood and gazed out, the grass flashed and sparked with these amazing little creatures.

Being English, I have never seen Fire flies before, and was shocked at just how much they glow.  I tried my best t get a shot of the scene, but unfortunately I think this is one of those moments that you can see with your eyes, and not your camera.  I think a video of the meadow would have worked brilliantly, but the amazing D700 is a photo camera, nothing else.

As I say, I don’t think the photo does the scene justice, but if you look in the lower third, you will see the little yellow spots dotted between the blades of grass.  We stood and watched the field glow like a massive Christmas tree set, and very quickly, the factory seemed boring and pointless.

We enjoyed nature’s lightshow for a good while, got back into the car and headed home.

And once again, we had experienced yet another natural beauty of our new home land all because of the engineers at Nikon that built our wonderful, wonderful camera.

Thank for reading guys

x

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Wedding Videos

Hi guys,

Just a very quick link to our Youtube account (Colorbox Caribbean- www.youtube.com/colorboxcaribbean) We have had a crazy busy few weeks here, as ever, hence the lack of posts recently.  Anyway, please pop over to the Colorbox Youtube account and see some of the work we are doing out here.  This one is a wedding I shot with Charlie and Bill the other day – lovely couple and a lovely day, hope you all enjoy it 🙂

Thanks for reading – more posts soon, I promise!

Ferg

x

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The Humming Birds

In my last post, I talked about the family of monkeys that are setting up shop here on our resort, and how the baby – affectionately named ‘Monkini’ by my dear wife, is growing up at a rate of knots.  Well, just after that post, we had another family start anew on resort – this time in the form of the beautiful, if not tiny Hummingbird.

Here is mum, precariously perched on the end of a bush, in front of the sugar mill and undoubtedly on the busiest pathway in the resort.  We are all a little bemused as to why she would want to setup here, but it is not an uncommon place for the Hummingbirds to nest, so clearly evolution has a plan…whatever that plan is.

Anyway, mum is sat here, in front of the sugar mill basking in the shade and fighting the breeze that is coming in from the sea.  It is really difficult for me to portray just how tiny this bird is – I was hoping that the Sugar Mill would help give a little perspective, but as it is so far away, it actually makes her look even bigger!

To give you an idea, she is probably about 9cm long, beak to tail.  (That’s just 3 and a bit inches for our American friends) And her nest is just as slight.  I stood around at a good distance as she flew in and out of her nest, bringing back twigs and fluff to build her abode.

She would only leave for a few moments at a time, and a closer peak revealed why:

These two eggs are TINY!! Barely the size of a mento each, and left unattended for the briefest of moments whilst the nest is added to and mum eats…Why she picked such a busy and open spot for her nest again?  I have no idea…

So we now have (hopefully!) at least two families growing with us here whilst we soak up the sun and shoot our weddings.  I will keep you posted how our Hummingbird family get on, and will snap away at the monkeys as and when we see them.  I have a whole host of blogs to get round to, but wanted to get my David Attenborough bit out of the way first.

Massive thanks as always for reading guys, hit the subscribe button, tell your friends and generally be merry.

Will be back soon

x

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Happy (belated) New Year!

It feels like forever since my last post…I haven’t written anything this year…so let’s get down to the nitty gritty of it – Happy New Year one and all.  I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and all the other shenanigans that year’s end brings. We, as ever, have been completely rammed at work – millions and millions of exciting twists and turns in the wonderful world of Barbados, and we were also lucky enough to have my family-in-law (well, some of them anyway) come and stay with us over the festive period.

From left to right, that’s my mum-in-law, Sue, my step-dad-in-law, Dave, and little Lou, who is nearly thirteen now…I have known Louis since he was a bump in Sue’s tummy, and he is all kinds of awesome.  But, like most teenagers, he hates having his picture taken.

So it’s not the best place for him to come really…what with snap-happy Ferg so close by.

But we had a great time – the guys enjoyed the beach whilst we (enjoyed?!) the office.  We had a few weddings over Christmas, and the staff parties (working and playing) and New Year’s eve (working) and everything in between.  Hence why the blog has suffered somewhat these last few weeks.

And whilst we played with some of our family, our resident monkeys started to build their own.  We have a dominant male on the resort that Sian has affectionately come to name “Morris.” We have seen him for the last two years or so – he once tried to break into the office on the off chance of finding some bananas, although he would be more likely to find coffee and muffins on my desk.   Anyway, he recently hooked up with a lady monkey on resort called “Mummy”, and the two have had a baby Sian has dubbed “Monkini.”  (This is the abridged version – but you get the gist.)

Anyway, baby has been growing at an alarming rate, and it is very, very cute to see them all playing together on the resort.  Being a nipper, “Monkini” has a wonderful curiosity with everything and Morris usually lets her entertain this curiosity as he wanders around in a circle, snarling at anything that gets too close.

But on my birthday (Christmas Eve) during the slowest game of golf ever, we pulled out of a hole to let some people who actually knew what they were doing go by, and we saw Mummy and Monkini in a tree with no sign of Morris.  He had obviously wandered off to find something for his girls, and we were able to get closer than ever before to the pair.  I felt really bad because the sound of my shutter grabbed Monkini’s attention no end – and she kept trying to jump out of the tree to investigate the noise.  Mummy gave me some horrible looks as she kept playing catch with her new baby, but it did make for some amazing photos:

This is just after Monkini jumped down towards me to see what all the noise was about coming from my camera…Mummy was NOT impressed.

We got the hint and left the monkeys to it, failed a bit more at golf, and then went home.  I haven’t yet seen the monkeys in the new year, but when I do I shall post up some more pictures as baby grows up…it really is such a treat to have such a spectacle on your front door step.

So our birthdays and Christmas came and went, we partied and played and worked hard, and now look forward to another busy and sccessful year.  I have LOADS of stuff to share with you over the following weeks, and I promise the blogs will start coming regularly again 🙂

Hit the subscribe – hit the share, tell your friends nd as always, keep on snapping.

Thanks for reading guys x

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A Wedding Video We Made…

So as a lot of you know, Sian and I went home over October so we could enjoy Andy and Emily’s beautiful wedding day, and also indulge ourselves with a cheeky ‘us time’ for our very first wedding anniversary.   The trip home was awesome, and my boss was kind enough to let me road test a new video camera we may be rolling out amongst the company ships in the not too distant future.

It was great, because we got to make Andy and Emily a video of their day, and I got to try out a new bit of kit.

Because said camera was new to me, I am not entirely happy with a lot of little niggly things..there is unnecessary shake where I was battling with the bizarre focusing system, there is noise where I would not expect there to be, and the thing in general is not as ‘polished’ as our usual work, using the immense D7000s we have here in Barbados….but I am happy enough with it to share with you here.  All the sharp, and artsy looking shots are by Sian, with Josh’s very kindly leant D7000 – you’ll spot them a mile off!

As always, looking forward to the feedback and sharing some adventures with you all over the next few weeks 😉

Thanks for reading guys 🙂 x

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A Rare Phenomonon…

Wednesday was Barbados’ Independence day, which basically means no one can get married, and that I am able to give the team and myself a well deserved day off.  This is always good news.  Even better news was that our dear friends Mike and Jenny, who we met on our first ever contract with Colorbox aboard  the Thomson Destiny, were in Barbados the same day as a port of call on their holiday cruise.

Mike and Jenny are awesome.

Jenny dances amazingly, and Mike is a fantastic singer.  We were very lucky that they could make it to our wedding a year and a bit back, and Mike did us the honour of singing our first dance, along with a genius set.  If you want to hear the dulcet tones, (which I strongly recommend) you can hear him here. 🙂 For an even further shameless plug, BOOK HIM IF YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED IN THE UK, HE IS AMAZING! 😉 (Cheques made payable to me please Mike)

Anyways, back to the fun events of Wednesday…So we were ridiculously fortunate that the guys’ visit coincided with an unheard of day off during the week, and even more so that we got a tiny spot of sunshine during the otherwise miserable weather we have been experiencing lately.

As is now customary, we took the guys up to the Animal Flower Cave for the amazing views.  As we headed over, the short spell of sunshine was replaced with spitting rain.  I suggested we head to Bathsheba.  Luckily Jimbly insisted we head to the Cave, and I am so glad he did.

As we drove down the pot-hole ridden lane that leads to the amazing views, my heart skipped a beat as I saw what looked like a tornado skitting across the water out at sea.  We bundled out of the car as quickly as we could – I ran ahead with the camera in hand whilst Sian scrabbled to get our long 70-200 lens out.  It was awesome.

Later research proved that it was a water spout that we witnessed.   It was remarkably hard to expose for the spout.  As is often the way in photography, your eyes are so much better than even the mighty sensor of our wonderful D700.  Looking out to sea, it was very obvious to the naked eye, but there was very little contrast in the skyline, and no amount of underexposure seemed to make the spout ‘pop’ as much as it did in real life.  I was also greeted with an incredibly mucky sensor when I came to process these photos.  No matter how careful we are with changing our lenses, out here where there is so much sand and wind, it is inevitable to get crap in your sensor…an occupational hazard I guess. 🙁

As such, the pictures are a little less sharp than I would normally like – This is a classic example of me out of my comfort zone! Low light is fine, harsh sunlight with lots of contrast, I can deal with…but flat skylines with little contrast in them are clearly an area I need to improve upon.

And unfortunately time was not on our side.  As soon as I had popped off a few frames, the spout disappeared from the skyline, and a very hot and sticky sun reared it’s head back out for us.  We were so very lucky to have seen the spout at all!

We had to get Mike and Jenny back to their ship before it sailed onto the next port without them, so we had just enough time for a group snap before jumping back into the car and heading for the port.  This proved to be another wonderfully smug moment for me – always having the massive tripod in the boot paid off once again.

So a massive thanks to Jenny and Mike for making the 4000ish mile journey to come and see us – it was wonderful to see you both again, and as always seems to be the way, the fact we had visitors meant we saw another part of Barbados we otherwise wouldn’t have.  I was also made privy to the fact that Mike’s mum is a reader of my blog too…which is massive news.  This one’s for you Mike’s mum, thanks so much for reading – make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss anything, and thanks for giving us all such a lovely chap 😉

And as always, thanks for reading guys x

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Crabs!

Hi guys, sorry, no photos today…but there is a cheeky video 🙂

Sian, Jimbly and I were shooting a wedding a few days back, and I was on film detail.  We were at a gorgeous resort called the House, and the wedding was scheduled quite late – 4:30PM…this makes life very difficult for us, because by 5:30, the sun has set and you have no light to play with…none.  So James did a great job of conducting the shoot quickly enough for us to get everything we needed in the small time window we had.

In between rushing from the sunset on the Beach, and a cake cutting shot in the hotel, we came across hundreds of red sand crabs.  They were just your ordinary, run of the mill crabs, knocking about and raising their comedy pincers in defiance of the hulking humans as we point and coo.  But one crab, James noticed, was very proudly carrying a lollipop stick.

And we thought this was hilarious.

In hindsight, and watching the video back, I am not too sure the comedy will come across, but rest assured – we all had a good chuckle at the sight and hope you do too 🙂

Massive blog in the pipeline by the by…we witnessed a weather phenomenon the other day which I cannot WAIT to share with you all…so please keep posted and I’ll hopefully share with you all over the weekend 🙂


Thanks for reading guys 🙂

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The moon rise

As is now appearing customary, I start with an apology for the delay on things.  Work is getting really exciting – loads and loads and loads of stuff on, and with the world as it is at the moment I can’t grumble for a second.  There are thousands without jobs, so the fact that mine is depriving me of a privilege like ‘blogging time’  can’t be a bad thing.

So, a quick update.  My cousin Den came out to visit us last week, which was awesome.   We got some dives in that made me wish I could take my camera with me…but having already spent well over $3k this year on the camera, I thought an underwater housing would be the nail in the coffin with my very-understanding, but-only-human-after-all wife.  We dove (dived?) the Stavronikita, or Stav to the locals, and it really was up there in my top 5 dives of all time…

Den also insisted that we go sea fishing.  This is something I have always wanted to do, but we never get around to doing it.  One of the best things about having motivated guests is that we actually have to wander off resort (shock horror!) every now and then to go and do touristy stuff.  I will blog about the sport fishing properly soon, but in the meantime here are a few snaps of Den’s big catch.  A beautiful ‘Wahoo’

By the end of the week, we were all pretty knackered.  Work had been busy, and Den was keen to get as much in as possible.  On the last night of his stay  we were treated to a beautiful sunset and it only seemed right to have a lazy game of catch whilst we were bathed in the beautiful soft light of magic hour.

Thanks for a blast Den – I have finally caught up with my sleep now!  Oh – and the pictures we took of the moon that night down at Fowl Bay…I was pretty happy with the final result – hope you like it too! 😉

Thanks for reading guys…more adventures to come 🙂

x

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Tedders and Mel

Tedders and Mel

So, a few months back (all the way in February!) my awesome brother, Ed, and his wonderful fiance, Mel came to visit us as we settled down in Bimshire.

I insisted they have a quick studio shoot and walk around the gardens before they went home, and they have had to wait all this time for me to finally get round to editing them…so really sorry about that guys.

Anyway, I am sure they won’t mind me sharing my favourite shot of the day with you all – this was taken on the tried and true D80 on the kit lens, so apologies in advance for the fluffy nature and high noise…but I was extremely pleased with the REAL lens flare I got – hope you agree?!

More adverntures to come when we finally get on top of all this work, thanks for reading guys, and hope you have a great weekend

xxxx

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