Finally back to blogging and hopefuly in 2012, I will have much more regular posts. I am delighted that my first post for my first wedding in 2012 is for a friend’s wedding. As well as being the photographer, Sandra and I were guests at the wedding of Jill and Pepe (Guiseppe) on Sunday 22nd January.

As a regular client of the Ciao Napoli in Bon Accord Crescent (the best Italian restaurant in Aberdeen), Pepe and Nino (Pepe’s brother) have become close friends, and I was delighted to be the photographer at the wedding.

It was a nice sunny day but was very very cold. Everyone was very cooperative and braved the cold to let us get most of the shots taken outside in the nice winter sun. I was using a new Nikkor 180 f2.8 which has a fantastic bokeh and I am looking forward to using it this year. Pepe is a keen photographer and has some nice Canon equipment so he will appreciate the quality of this lens.

The slideshow above is a nice way to view a selection of images and we often create this and give them to clients for their iPads, Smart phones, and laptops, but there are also images to view.

Norwood is an excellent venue and it was a great wedding. I took the formal groups and bridal portraits and David took over and photographed during the speeches and dancing, while I joined the party. Pepe is a big music lover and he had booked a fantastic Soul band from Glasgow  – A-Side Soul. Visit their website to hear how good they are.

It was a great day and an excellent way to start 2012, which is already guaranteed to be a busy year.

On Sunday night, Sandra and I along with friends Angela and Alister Sinclair and their son Don, went to Edinburgh Castle to see the incredible Mick Hucknall and Simply Red in what is going the their last year of touring.

Although a relatively short performance of just over 90 minutes , Mick played a very upbeat set full of energy, and the huge crowd spent most of the concert on their feet singing along with one of the best voices in the music business.

Sandra and I saw him in Glasgow last year when he played much more ballads and used backing singers which was very different to Sunday night but his voice was as impressive as ever.

We had seats relatively close to the font and using my favourite 70-200VR11 lens on the D3s, it was easy to get some good shots. The 80-400 would have given me more flexibility to get a range of shots as almost everything was taken at 200mm, but at the expense of the f2.8 aperture and the super sharp images of the nano coated VR11. After the concert, we went for a late dinner and I downloaded a few images from the compact flash card to my iPad and had a short slideshow complete with Mick singing to show my fellow diners in 15 minutes. The images on this post were sent from my Ipad so are exactly as they were taken with no adjustments or any enhancement.

Click here to see more images uploaded to gallery. The rest of this post (click on more below) includes a slideshow of images set to Mick singing live.

Unlike the Rod Stewart concert at the castle on Wednesday where everyone got soaked we had a lovely evening up to 10.00pm and only the last 2 numbers were performed in the rain.

If you have the opportunity to see Simply Red in this, their last year, I would thoroughly recommend it, and we may go to the O2 in December to see them again as there may be seats available now that another date has been added.

Click here to get details of the O2 concerts.

Tito and Nicole Jackson and Gladys Knight at the AECC, 20th October, 2009

Last night (Tuesday 20th October), Sandra and I went to see Gladys Knight at the AECC. The support act was Tito Jackson. Tito’s set included Blues, Motown, and a tribute to the Jacksons where he enlisted the assistance of 3 great female singers including Nicole Jackson, a cousin of the famous brothers. This opening was so good and entertaining that I was not sure if Gladys could match them.

I should not have worried – from the time she stepped on the stage to the closing number – Midnight Train to Georgia, she was amazing. Her voice is incredible and the audience was in awe of her talent. She was also a great entertainer, and had a superb 19 piece Vegas band backing her. Her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight was a special guest and he joined in a great medley of Motown tracks. She sang all her hits – including Help me make it through the Night, Thats What Friends are For, The Way We Were, and the Bond movie theme – License to Kill.

The only disapointment was that the exhibition centre was not full and so many more people could have heard one of the greats on her farewell tour. Several people commented that this was real talent and echoed what I was already thinking – why would you watch programs like X Factor when there is so much good music to listen to!

There was a very strict no photography policy (which I never understand) so I only got a few high iso shots from my seat in the audience.  I did buy the USB stick of the concert which is already on iTunes and linked to the images I did take so when playing the live tracks, the images add to the atmosphere when watching and listening with Apple TV.

I have been to several concerts this year and have photographs at them all so future blogs will show these – Van Morrison, Paul Weller, Simply Red, and Eric Clapton at the Albert Hall.

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