James + Lianne - Wedding Photographers in Leeds, West Yorkshire with a relaxed, vintage vibe.

Image of the Week // Project-52 #5/52

James — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:01:31 +0000

As suspected when I started this, Lianne has been taking the brunt of the Project-52 so far but she’s so happy and smiley I can’t help taking her photograph! Here’s another one:

James’ Birthday Week

James — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:33:52 +0000

With our wedding season kicking off next week, James’ birthday week is really the last week of winter we have to take off before we get back into the thick of things before we have time off again in November. So here’s probably the last of our personal posts for a while before a slew of gorgeous brides and grooms smoochin’ it up all over the blog!

We upgraded some of our gear over winter so we tested some of that out with a muddy walk through our local Meanwood Park pre-birthday…

Sufficiently muddy and cold we headed home via Waitrose to make our Reuben’s. We’ve been watching Man Vs. Food quite literally non-stop (as it seems everyone else has lately) and we couldn’t resist trying our hand at some Reuben manwiches! For anyone interested – and there has been interest in these bad boys! – we mostly followed these ingredients but added some Pastrami for good measure. Nom nom!

25 years since James’ birthing day… (FYI: We don’t always look pretty, James does have a morning face too!)

Yep, that’s a Kim Jong-il tongue scraper…!

Some awesome pressies, including a mini-greenhouse for the office.

We headed off to Rib Shakk at the Corn Exchange in Leeds City Centre. It’s a new place to eat that’s taken off very quickly, run by the same people behind Anthony’s who run the Piazza weddings who make getting married at Leeds Corn Exchange possible. We shot a wedding here last year and it was just amazing! The food at Rib Shakk is Deep-South-American fingers-only dripping-with-BBQ-sauce amazingness. We loved it!

Cue post-over-indulgence faces.

Image of the Week // Project-52 #4/52

James — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:30:21 +0000

This weeks portrait is of my good buddy Aidan. We’ve been photographing abandoned buildings together since we met practically on day one at university and we still do it now (it caters to my curiosity and love of old things!). We’d struck out at a location on our first snoop of the year due to some out-dated Google Earth imagery – it won’t be the first time – but after being confronted by a pile of rubble and doing a quick about-face, I grabbed this shot of the A-Dog under a gloomy ‘bow.

Image of the week // Project-52 #3/52

James — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:24:08 +0000

This week we visited James’ parents. James’ dad is a photographer too with his own studio and photographic training courses running in Garforth just outside of Leeds (like that little plug, Dad?) There’s never really a moment when there isn’t a camera being aimed somewhere at someone or at something at their house, especially when we come to visit as it just escalates the camera-geekery that goes on!

This weeks photo is of Lianne and James’ Dad havin’ a squeeze and giggle as they always do.

This photo makes me smile.

Image Of The Week // Project-52 #2/52

James — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:29:15 +0000

This week, Lianne has been working her fingers to the bone on her sewing machine on all manner of projects and I’ve been burning through some rolls of expired film on my 1959 Rolleiflex TLR. This roll expired in 1994 so I thought I’d give it a whirl and see what I could get out of it. I was quite pleased with this one!

New look & 2011 Roundup!

James — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:22:53 +0000

A new year, a new look! 2011 was a good year for us, it was our first full year in business and we did a great many things in that year. We did some amazing weddings including our first international wedding which made us feel like we’d come a long way in such a short space of time. We met lots of new people, clients and suppliers alike and made a wealth of new genuinely amazing friends. And that’s what we love about this job, we spend so much time with people and get to know each other… and after the job’s over and done with, it’s still cool that we can go for a beer with our clients, or party with our industry colleagues.

Last year things kept on rolling on and on and the momentum drove us further and further and eventually things got so busy for us that Lianne’s input and efforts were no longer just a help, she was clearly a fully fledged half of the team. That’s why it didn’t seem right that it was just James’ name on the door (in case you’re new around here, until December 31st 2011, we were called James P Lester Photography…we should have mentioned that!) so welcome to the brand new James & Lianne Wedding Photography! We’re still the same couple, but we’re hitting you twice as hard from now on!

So to kick things off, here’s a selection of a few of our favourite moments from 2011.

February & March 2012 Discounts

James — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:27:47 +0000

As part of a relaunch at James & Lianne Photography and for all you couples who got engaged over New Years we’re offering:

15% off wedding photography for February & March 2012 Weddings

Lucky for all you last-minuters, ay!? Please drop us an email or use the contact form at the top of the page to find out more and check our availability in the first instance. If you’re in a mega-rush, give us a call and let’s have a chat.

Image of the week // Project-52 #1/52

James — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:56:40 +0000

James is embarking on a year long project this year commonly called ‘Project-52′. If the title wasn’t enough, it’s basically a photo a week (he’s not hardcore enough to do the 366 challenge!). The theme will be mostly loosely portraiture leaving plenty of wiggle room for when he’s got half an hour left to do his photo and has to photograph a candle or something, but we’ll be posting a portrait a week up on the blog throughout 2012. So here’s numero uno, Lianne’s sister, Zara:

Oh Christmas Tree…

James — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:53:04 +0000

Lianne and I went to Miller Wedding’s little Christmas shinding last night and we wanted to quickly pimp out the raffle prize we won, and more specifically, Jemma (of The Delicious Cake Company), the super talented lady behind it!

Jemma is actually sister to Simon of Ruth & Simon whose wedding who we shot back in May and we were impressed with the cake she made for their wedding back then. She put this amazing Christmas fruit cake up for raffle at the Christmas do last night and we’re simply blown away by how detailed (and heavy) it is! So, before we tucked into this bad-boy like the gluttons we truly are, we grabbed a few photos of it and envied the piped lettering that’s neater than either of us can write with a pen!

So what this blog post boils down to is:

Jemma = Super talented… book her!
Us = Racking up the 7 deadly sins with envy and gluttony already ticked off.

Lottes + Rob – A Steampunk Wedding at Leeds Parkway Hotel

James — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:43:53 +0000

Straight out of 1882, Lottes and Rob’s wedding has been one of those which we’ve had itchy trigger fingers over all year. When we found out about it, it sounded completely unique and totally up our street. Heck, Lottes and Rob even met whilst they were both studying for PhDs in lasers (I’m told this is cooler than it sounds)! But the point is, these guys are so original and so fun we knew we were going to have a blast on this one…

Before we go any further, I think we need to thank some sort of divine intervention, as Lottes worked so hard making every last little detail for this wedding that it was lucky she had any fingers left for Rob to slip that ring onto. (In fact, I think the engagement shoot was mostly spent moaning about riveting love-heart bunting!) Lottes made all the peacock feather details and they made such a special touch to a unique wedding.

Meanwhile, in a seemingly identical hotel room…

Suited and booted in record time (even with the neckwear fiasco) I whisked them out for a quick portrait shoot.Back at Bridal HQ:Ready to be wed, Lottes’ father arrived in full steampunk inspired regalia to whisk her down to her guests and husband to-be waiting downstairs.The Parkway Hotel adjoins Golden Acre Park on the outskirts of Leeds. A low and lazy golden sun and autumnal leaves made for a perfect setting for group shots and portraits of our newly-weds.Back at the ranch, I had to grab a portrait of this snazzy couple. The effort into the outfit couldn’t go uncaptured!

After everyone had tucked into a hearty meal, and a moving set of speeches the evenings entertainment rolled on. The pumpkin centrepices are Rob’s handiwork but I’m informed that they are also the centre of a pumpkin-guts/spray-paint/parents-garage-floor controversy scandal. If you ask us, they were totally worth it!

And with that, we’ll leave you to simply imagine photos of drunk people dancing. This concluded our 2011 wedding season with a bang and feeling like we were both wholly integrated into the L+R family. Thanks for such a fun day and have a blast on your honeymoon!