Blog moves to new address!

This Blog is now updated and located at the following address:

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk/blog/

…and you can find our main website here:

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

For wedding photography go directly here:

Excellent wedding photography for South East England

For portrait photography go here:

Modern portrait photography in Surrey, Sussex, London Hampshire and Kent

For pet portraits go here:

Professional pet portraits dog photography, cat photography, animal photography

and for headshots go here:

Actors headshots, singers headshots, models headshots

See you there!

Rob.

Helen and Paul’s Wedding Day, Langshott Manor

Friday 14th March saw the wedding of Helen Heine and Paul Scriven, at the beautiful 16th century venue of Langshott Manor Hotel in Surrey.

Helen and Paul were a lovely couple, and right from the start it was obvious this was going to be a great day. Here’s a confident Paul only 15 minutes before the ceremony, relaxing in the grounds during a break in the weather. With scattered light showers throughout the day, it was going to take more than a few drops of rain to dampen proceedings…

The ceremony included some wonderful heartfelt vows…

and felt intimate at all times…

Guests and their children all enjoyed themselves. Here’s a great shot, with character shining through!

Another dry spell, and a few shots of the boys looking cool.

Of course, we can’t forget our bride Helen, who not only looked fantastic, but also enjoyed and made sure everyone else enjoyed every bit of her day!

A few quieter moments for Helen and Paul to share together. Langshott Manor is such a beautiful location that it is just oozing with character and atmosphere, so it was important to me to try to convey this in our photography.

More atmosphere… this time in the dining area.

…and our happy couple still enjoying the day, and each other

until the first dance of the evening, and it’s now time for Kevin and I to leave.

I’d just like to extend a big thank-you to the staff at Langshott Manor, who were helpful and courteous throughout the day and didn’t once complain despite us having to share a rather busy corridor for some of those more intimate shots, while they were setting up the reception room for the evening disco.

And finally, a big congratulations goes to Helen and Paul. It was a pleasure to photograph your wedding day.

Full galleries here soon: Helen and Paul’s wedding day

Please leave your comments below!

All the best,

Rob.

Quality wedding photography in Surrey

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Charlotte’s portrait session

Meet Charlotte. Aunt Claire bought Charlotte a portrait session as a gift last Christmas, so a few days ago Charlotte came along accompanied by Mum for her photo shoot.

Despite not having done this before, Charlotte soon relaxed and got into the swing of things. Here are a few previews from the session.

Not bad for a first shoot at just 14. I hope you like the pictures guys!

Full galleries here soon: Charlotte’s portraits

All the best,

Rob.

Surrey portrait photography

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Rebbecca’s Cat portraits

Who likes cats?

Take a look at these two beauties… a gorgeous Siamese, and a lovely Russian Blue. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Beautiful aren’t they?

By the way, did you ever wonder how we keep our cats interested when we’re doing a shoot? Here’s a shot of Rebbecca that might just give you a clue…

Thanks for your help Rebbecca. Enjoy the pictures!

Full galleries will be here soon: Rebbecca’s cat photos

All the best,

Rob.

Cat photography in Twickenham

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Jonathan and Russell’s romantic portraits

Meet Jonathan and Russell.

Jonathan contacted me a while ago, interested in having some romantic portraits taken with his partner Russell. The original idea had been around Valentine’s day but my schedule dictated otherwise, so Jonathan had elected to wait until I was available.

Meeting Jonathan and Russell, it was clear that they are very close. A quick chat about exactly the sort of pictures they were after, and we started shooting. Here are the lads at the start of the shoot.

After shooting a few ’standard’ portraits to allow the guys time to relax it was time to start shooting the more intimate poses Jonathan had asked me for. It’s a strange thing to be posing like this for a camera, but both the guys listened carefully as we discussed various poses, and happily followed instructions to the letter.

Anyone who has been to us before will be able to vouch for how bizarre and non-intimate my home studio really is… very little space, and certainly not the most romantic of settings when full of lighting equipment and various other photographic paraphernalia!

With this in mind, take a look at the pictures below, and I think you’ll agree that the pictures really do have a very intimate feel to them.

And if you want an even more romantic look to your room (if the computers, lamps, tripods and stands haven’t put you off just yet)… there’s always candle-power!

Well that’s it for now. Well done guys – I do hope you like the pictures.

Full galleries here soon: Jonathan and Russell

As is usual, any comments are fully welcomed… and if you want your own set of romantic or intimate photos with a partner, why not get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

All the best,

Rob.

Romantic portraits for couples

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Best friends together…

Karen, Sue and Caroline have been friends since forever.

Karen asked me if I’d take some photos of them together: she had this idea of all dressed in black and shooting with a black backdrop. Well, I’m not one to argue so off we went to Caroline’s place to do the shoot for them…

Wayne came along to do a chunk of learning and assisting in equal measures. Here’s Wayne, Caroline and Sue checking lighting ratios before we kick off:

…and a snap of the girls together as requested.

And another…

Of course, I then had to photograph them all individually… Here’s Sue looking pretty relaxed, all things considered;

We already know Karen is a poser of course

…and Caroline, who also got nicely into the swing of things after just a little bit of prompting…

What with girls being girls, the wine was flowing and ‘relaxed’ soon turned into “Yeah baby!” Well who am I to stop them? I’d brought along a bubble machine for Caroline’s boys to play with: no such luck for them, but the girls loved it! Here’s a few more as they ‘relax’ further into the spirit of things…

Good fun, and best mates enjoying each other’s company. Big up to Wayne for all his help again, running up & down adjusting lighting etc. Hope you enjoy the results: leave your comments below, let me know what you think.

Rob

Modern portrait photography in Surrey and the surrounding areas

Full galleries here

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

SWPP award winners, Feb 2008

I don’t enter these competitions very often… truth be told, I find the actual process of entering quite laborious and time consuming, so I don’t enter as often as I probably should.

Anyway with that said, I did find myself with a quiet afternoon one day last month and decided to go completely mad and enter a whole bunch into the February competition for SWPP members’ pictures. Karen keeps pestering – oops, suggesting to me I should make more effort for this sort of thing and I know she’s right really – so in a major effort for a quiet life I humbly did as I was told…

So anyway, all in all I entered a single image into each of a total of 15 different categories, to see what would happen. The results? 7 Bronze Awards, 4 Silver Awards, and a Gold.

Not a bad showing, I’d say

Here’s the award winning images along with their category and the result each one acheived. Some, you will have seen before – I hope you enjoy them.

1. Gold award: Environmental portraiture

2. Silver award: Wedding, traditional

3. Bronze award:Contemporary portraiture

4. Bronze award: Wedding, contemporary

5. Silver award: Portraiture,traditional

6. Bronze award: Sports

7. Silver award: Fine Art

8. Bronze award: Pets

9. Bronze award: Science and Nature

10. Bronze award: monochrome

11. Silver award: Pictorial

12. Bronze award: Landscape

Well, that’s it. As I said, that’s not a bad showing in my opinion – competition is very stiff with international photographers from many countries taking part each month, many producing some really outstanding works of art and deserving every recognition they get – so it’s great to find my work holding it’s own against others with such a wealth of talent.

I’ll try to make some effort again next month – but don’t go expecting such a big bunch going in any time soon!

Your comments are welcomed of course.

Rob.

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

How cool is this dog?

I want to introduce you to Max.

Max belongs to Nina, who asked me to take a series of pictures of Max for her last week. Max has a great temperament, is very friendly and was extremely well behaved during his photo shoot.

The results, were a lovely series of pictures which I think depict Max’s real character nicely.

So take a look at the pictures below and tell me…

How cool is this dog? What a character!

You don’t get much more laid back than that. A star in the making.

Hope you enjoyed.

Rob.

Pet photography in Surrey, London, Hampshire, Sussex and Kent

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Croydon Photographic Exhibition & Awards

This Monday evening (10th March) sees the opening of the annual Photographic exhibition for Croydon Camera club, hosted in the Sun lounge at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon – CR9 1DG.

The exhibition runs until Saturday 15th March, and will be featuring all manner of prints from a variety of club members, so if you are at all interested in photography in or around the Croydon area, I heartily recommend popping in to take a look at the quality and diversity on display there.

The Monday opening will also feature comments from judge Phil Peddy, ARPS, APAGB and presentation of awards to the winning entries. A big congratulations goes to Karen, who will collect the trophy for the best standard class image for her picture of Rome’s “Coliseum by night” (below), while I will be collecting the trophy for best print runner up for my landscape image “Morning Mist”.

Come along… enjoy the photos: the more the merrier

Rob.

Photography in Croydon

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com

Thomas and Victoria’s Wedding Day

Thomas and Victoria’s Wedding Day

Saturday 1st March saw Kev and I at the Vineyard in Richmond, Surrey to photograph the wedding of Thomas and Victoria.

Unusually for me this was to be my first meeting with the bridge and groom, and also unusual was that our first port of call was to be for the ceremony itself.

Knowing the London traffic, we left bright and early to give ourselves plenty of time to get there. Sure enough, our journey took almost 2 hours longer than the trusty sat-nav had told us… but still we arrived early and ready to go.

We met Thomas, waiting with best man Paul at the front of the church. Here they are – looking quite composed, I’d say.

Victoria arrived just a little after 2pm. This was to be my first glimpse of the bride, so I was as keen as Thomas to see how she looked! Needless to say she looked radiant as she walked up the aisle towards her waiting future husband…

Following the ceremony, the reception was to be held at the Templeton Estate just a few minutes away. A few pictures outside in the gardens, followed by some more inside in the warm…

…and then we left the happy couple to enjoy themselves as we toddled off home again.

Congratulations go the the happy couple… and full galleries of the wedding now available here.

All the best,

Rob

Wedding photography in Richmond, Surrey

http://www.roberthooper.co.uk

http://www.sussex-weddingphotographer.com