Absence, Snow, Panic, Twitter, Relief, Wedding.

Happy New Year All!  I know it’s late but I’ve been away.  In fact I nearly never made it back!  I’ve been in England since January the 1st.  Surrey to be precise.  At the Lakeside for the World Darts Championships to be exact.  I’m not a darts fan but the Lakeside is always fun and it’s just a couple of minutes walk from my brothers house – it would be rude not to attend really…

I was due to fly home on Thursday, but on Wednesday – as you know (unless you haven’t looked outside in a few days) we entered the ice age.  About 8 inches of snow fell that night and the country ground to a, rather slidey, halt.

My flight back to Dublin was due for take off around tea-time on Thursday.  Gatwicks website said all was okay, Ryanair made no mention that the flight was cancelled and Dublin Airport didn’t report any cancellations. So, with the brothers car stuck in the drive unable to move, I set off on my walk to the train station though what is known as Blair Witch woods. Lovely.

Got to Gatwick about 2 hours later to find the flight cancelled. Had to get another one arranged for the next day with no real guarantee that it would fly either.  Now normally I wouldn’t panic at this point.  I knew I’d get home eventually.  However, I needed to be home by Saturday to shoot a wedding.

When I got back to Surrey I posted the following message on Twitter.

“Photographer calling all other photographers out there. May need help on Sat to shoot a wedding. I may be stuck in UK.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better response. I had about 5 or 6 offers within a short period of time from people who had offered to shoot or from people who knew of photographers who may be able to shoot it for me.

Luckily, I made it home.  I got the last flight out of Gatwick on Friday night and was back in the door of my own home around 1am Saturday morning.

A massive thank you to all of those who offered to help. Ryan from Glassey Alley, Julie from Half a Dream Away, Mel Boyle, Anthony Peyper, Andres Landino and David Mielcarek who offed to come all the way from the states – if he could

Anyway – I shot the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony in Trinity College Church and the reception was held in the Guinness Storehouse.  What a brilliantly Irish wedding.  As I left the reception tonight I thought what could be a better way to end a days shoot than to get some shots of the storehouse by night with snow on the ground.

It’s a small slideshow and I used my tilt shift to get that ‘model’ look. At the moment I can’t get enough of it. I hope you like them too.

Click on the image to see the rest.

Isn’t it odd?