Done and Dusted - 28/09/09
Ahh, finally. All wedding photos have been edited. There were 580 final images, though I didn't delete any repeating shots. They were all dumped on a DVD for the bride and groom to go through. Normally I would go through getting rid of duplicates for a data DVD and also create a video DVD of the best ones, with a menu and chapters. However, for the moment they will have to put up with what I've given. They are fine with this and want to upload them to a website anyway. Besides, you get what you pay for... The DVD will be done shortly once I've worked through some Christening photos that were taken a while back. Oh, it never ends!

I've also got 16GB of HD video to go through!

Edit This! - 21/09/09
Starting to get a little sick of all the wedding photos I've been editing. I have been working on them in the evenings for a couple of weeks now and my patience is wearing thin. Taking photos in RAW is great as it gives you a more flexibility, but equally it adds a couple more steps to the workflow. I took two cameras with me to the wedding; my normal one and a borrowed one. After spending a bit of time on the borrowed one I had loosely managed to get the colours to appear to match - or so I thought. I'd noticed the borrowed camera was over-exposing, but I wasn't completely sure how to change the exposure compensation - I didn't want to shoot full manual as it would have been difficult flicking between to cameras and adjusting the shutter and aperture settings. Consequently some of the shots from in the church had the borrowed camera burning out the whites. Not a problem with RAW, but still annoying that I had to correct it.

So my basic workflow is to organise and put in to folders, then colour adjust in Lightroom. Export to JPEG and import into Photoshop and then use the levels tool for last minute colour changes, sharpen, and crop. I'd turned off sharpening on both cameras because I think the sharpening within Photoshop is better and it will certainly give you more options.

I'm not sure how Pros do it all really. I guess they use a lot of Photoshop Actions to blitz the photos. Or perhaps they keep every adjustment inside of Lightroom, or an equivalent. It's my first time using Lightroom and I'm very impressed with it so far. There are masses of options in the DEVELOPER panel, but I stayed clear of that as I would simply get bogged down, tinkering with settings.

It is notoriously difficult to take photos in a church, or so I've found. Lighting is poor, which means the quality isn't there. I tend to take the shots at f5.6 to make sure I get the right depth of field, but that means that I'm letting less light in. So I then bump up the ISO a little. Not too much though, as this has bad effect. All of the shots outside are nice and clear and bright, and so didn't need much work. However, the church shots needed some playing with.

All in all I'm happy with what is being produced and I'm sure the bride and groom will, but it's still worrying what their reaction will be. I can see why photographers charge so much. I was taking photos for 12 hours and managed to take over 650 shots. I guess the trick is to take less and spend more time on each shot. Easier said than done when the service doesn't last that long and everyone is gagging to get some booze down their necks!

Lead, Don't Follow - 08/09/09
First climbing session since my holiday. I decided to adopt the same 'warm up' I did last time, where by I simply stayed at a lower grade or two, didn't pull to hard, and made sure I stretched before and after each climb. I found my endurance was much better last time, and tonight's climb was the same too. I eevn managed my first lead climb, which though it was a lower grade than I'm capable of it was vertical, rather than at a slight angle. I thought I'd be kacking it due to my fear of heights, but actually I didn't want to fall of purely out of pride. Clipping in was awkward because although I kept thinking to myself 'clip above your head whilst hanging on a straight arm' each move seemed to make it so I couldn't get underneath and hang. So every clip I had a bent arm, which was gradually making me more and more pumped. I had to rest 3/4 of the way up and shake out a little. I was pleased with myself for getting to the top.

I had another go at an overhang and was doing pretty well, until I got to a bit where the rope had got caught and I couldn't unclip from the quick draw. I got pumped and my feet came off the wall a few times. It took a lot of core strength to keep me on the wall and having one of the staff heckle me did not help. Eventually I pinged off the wall, as did the stuck rope, whacking me on the back of the head.