Andrea Barrett Photography

I was overjoyed to hear that I have won “The Master Photographers Association” Wedding Album of the year 2011. Not only did I get one of the highest accolades in the country but I was over the moon to get the runners up trophy too!! I love to win awards and have been lucky enough to win three hundred of them with my wedding pictures. Winning with “single” images is a great achievement but its extra special to win with a complete set  of different images in a wedding album.

The winning album was shot at Oulton Hall near Rothwell Leeds.The wedding itself had a “1920s” theme to it. I thought about how I was going to shoot it long before I arrived on the day. I decided that, I didn’t want to use “flash” or rather I would use it only where absolutely  necessary. I felt this would just ruin the look and feel of the images. Mark Jordan (my partner) suggested I use two video lights, so with his help and  the help of two assistants holding  two”video” lights we shot the whole day like this. I have to mention the B&G at this point because it was a massive bonus that they were brilliant on the day. Jurga (the bride) just got right into it straight away and she told me she just loved the experience. We took the decision to have all the images in the album black and white as it would have been in the 1920s.

The “Runners up” Wedding Album was an entirely different (as all weddings are) and was shot in the snow at Allerton Castle. We had to “race” around after the wedding ceremony as the couple married quite late in the day and we were losing “the light”. Once again the Bride and Groom were great especially Rachel who wore some lovely boots to trudge in the snow.

I would just like to point out that, I never went out to shoot these weddings to win an award.   I have been shooting weddings for twenty five years and still have the same enthusiasm as I did when I first started in this industry.                     Jerry Ghionis is a Greek wedding photographer and  in my opinion is the best wedding photographer in the world, and  Mark and I were lucky enough to attend one of his seminars in Toronto last year, and I learnt lots and lots of wonderful things but one little snippet I will share here ( I know he won’t mind) He told me to “always try to do better than your last wedding” and I took little bit of advice onboard.

While I’m at the “Lectern”  gushing forthwith, a massive massive  ”Thank you ” for Mark  Jordan who deserves just as much credit as I do, in winning this fantastic award. You always know when Mark’s at a wedding as he’s the loudest one there!!! His inventiveness, enthusiasm, support and sometimes annoying “set ups” that he tries at exactly the wrong time (which drives me mad) has helped me enormously. Respect Mr “J” xx