Bedfordshire Wedding & Portrait Photography by James McClean » Architecture

Trip to London

James — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:40:08 +0000

The London Eye at night

Taken from underneath the London Eye

Big Ben in the evening

The OXO Tower

St Paul's Cathedral

London by Night

I shot these images on a trip to London a couple of weeks ago.

My 5D MK II was at Canon for repair at the time so I shot these with my old 400D and my old manual focus Carl Zeiss Zena Flektagon 35mm 2.4. I love this lens so much but its a struggle to focus through the small viewfinder on the 400D so these shots were a bit of a challenge.

Kerry and I decided it would be fun to go to London for a day trip. We didn’t really have much planned out and ended up going to the National Portrait Gallery when we arrived.

Somehow we ended up walking down to The Houses of Parliament after lunch and walked around Westminster for a while. We then decided it would be nice to pop to the Tate Modern before getting the train home. For some reason we walked from Westminster to Victoria Station; then took the underground back to Westminster!

We then ended up walking over Westminster Bridge and all the way along the South Bank to Blackfriars Bridge; by the time we got there we were so exhausted we jumped on the first train home.

These images were all taken on the walk between Westminster and Blackfriars; if the weather was a little warmer it would have been really nice!

Houghton House

James — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:53:26 +0000

The grand entrance to Houghton House

Some graffiti from the 1920s

Shot from the ground floor looking up through the roof of Houghton House

A detail shot of the brickwork at Houghton House

I have been wanting to visit Houghton House for a while now. I found out about it whilst browsing Wikipedia for articles on grade 1 listed buildings in Bedfordshire.

Having just got my 5D MKII back from Canon (it went in for repairs) I was eager to get out and shoot. The weather is finally starting to warm up which makes it much more fun to be out taking photos.

Malta – Mosta Dome

James — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:29:40 +0000

The grand entrance to Mosta Church

Ornate carvings on the door at the entrance to Mosta Church

The famous Mosta Dome

Another angle of the huge dome

Columns at the entrance to Mosta Church

The front of Mosta Church

We visited the Church on an excursion around Malta, during which we visited many other interesting places.

This Church is truly awesome. As soon as I walked in the door my jaw dropped, I was completely in awe of it. The outside is particularly spectacular by itself, I really had no idea how incredible the inside was going to be.

If you’re getting married here or anywhere else abroad then get in contact I have special rates for destination weddings.

Gozo – Part II

James — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:33:19 +0000

Gozo's Capital Victoria

A typical town house

A man window shopping on a side street

On the way back down into the middle of the city of Victoria

Beautiful streets in the Citadel

Cheesy pic of me at the top - I climbed a LOT of steps to get there

A couple walking along the pathway at the top of the Citadel

Views from high up at the top of the Citadel

More amazing views of Gozo

A view through a hole in the wall

More amazing views of Gozo

Second post of shots from our excursion to Gozo, these are all from Gozo’s capital city Victoria. It was insanely hot when we visited, I think I was the only person on the tour who was mad enough to climb the hundreds of steps to the top of the Citadel. There were only two other people up there when I got to the top! As you can see from the photos there was an incredible view from the top, you could see all over the island.

Gozo – Part I

James — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:49:17 +0000

The ferry from Malta to Gozo

A reflection of our coach with "air conditioning" in Gozo

Ta' Pinu Basilica

Red curtain entrance to the Basilica

The inside of Ta' Pinu Basilica

Ta' Pinu Basilica

Cool tree from the window of the coach

I’m having so much trouble choosing photos to put up on here – I’ve got way too many that I want to share from this trip. This is the first post of three from our 1 day excursion to Gozo.. Yeah I took a lot of photos in Gozo!

This is the first of 2 excursions that we went on with our tour operator, we got to see loads of places that we wouldn’t have done if we were just driving around.

Shakespeare’s House

James — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:54:20 +0000

Shakespeare's House

Seen through a window of the gift shop

Stratford Upon Avon Food & Drinks Festival

Making tasty Crêpes

Abricots & Fraises

Silhouetted Saxophonist

One of the stall owners

Bridge over the River Avon

Ice cream narrow boat

Cool shot of Kerry

Fantastic bridge in Barford

We spontaneously decided to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon this weekend. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too much of a long journey but it took twice as long as it should have, we got stuck in traffic on the way into Stratford as there was a Food & Drinks Festival which we had no idea about!

I only took my 50mm lens so I had to move around to get the framing right on each photo. I love the photo of the ice cream shop/narrow boat, somehow managed to catch a seagull in mid flight – it really was a great example of “The Decisive Moment”.

Malta – Valletta

James — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:15:04 +0000

Church in Valletta

I framed this shot with a bystander's arm

The old signs around the city are from another era

Way in the background is what appears to be a statue of Poseidon - Grandmaster's Palace

I love the vintage feel of this image - an MG B Roadster drives past in Valletta

Kerry and I escape from the heat for a moment

The previous post was really just a taste of what’s to come over the next couple of weeks. I have so many photos from Malta that I want to share on here.

All of the shots in this post are from our day trip to Valletta. We didn’t quite stay for the whole day as it was seriously hot and I wasn’t looking forward to the crazy bus journey back to the hotel. Looking back I think we should have explored a bit more as it was a really interesting city.

Malta – One shot, many more to come…

James — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:05:53 +0000

Strait Street - Valletta

I’ve finally managed to find the time to begin sorting through and editing my holiday photos from last month. I took almost a thousand shots in 10 days so it’s a pretty big task to go through and edit them all!

Anyway, here’s the first shot I’ve uploaded from our fantastic holiday in Malta. This is a photograph of Strait Street in Malta’s capital, Valetta.

“Running almost right through the centre for the entire length of Valletta (from South West to North East) is Strait Street. This has been the most “infamous” street in Valletta almost for as long as it has existed. It was once the place where the knights came to duel and later became the red light district. It still looks rather more squalid then the other streets of Valletta – in fact it is a street that looks very much like a “back street”, despite its great length. It is filled with very dubious looking bars, cafes etc” – From Virtualtourist.com

Visit to London

James — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:33:37 +0000

A view of St Paul's from Millenium Bridge

St Paul's Cathedral

Inside the Tate Modern

A view over Millenium Bridge from the Tate Modern

Escalator at the Tate Modern

A view over the River Thames

The Gherkin

Steps

Another view of St Paul's from Millenium Bridge

St Paul's up close

St Paul's from below

The grand entrance to St Paul's

And again in vertical orientation

Last Friday we were feeling spontaneous and decided to pay a visit to the Tate Modern in London. I love how easy it is to get to this part of London, we didn’t even have to use the underground. We checked out the crazy/awesome/strange modern art and saw all that the Tate had to offer for free, then I bought a couple of photography books and we went for a wander along the bank of the Thames.

I was drawn towards St Paul’s Cathedral all day and it ended up being the focus of most of this post. It’s such an awesomely grand building I just had to shoot it!

Woburn Lake Gazebo

James — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:55:25 +0000

Gazebo on a lake at Woburn Abbey

The Lake and Gazebo in this shot are fenced off from public access, I’ve noticed them whilst driving through Woburn a few times now and decided to see if I could take a look! I couldn’t get very close and I had to shoot through some trees but it was totally worth it for this shot.