Documentary Wedding Photography 2022

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Unique Documentary Wedding Photographer

I started shooting weddings back in 2014, just 2 years after turning professional but when Covid hit us in 2020, I stopped and began making jigsaw puzzles from the landscape around Leicestershire, which served me well for the past few years but now the world is opening back up again, I’ve started shooting weddings again and I’ve already had 5 bookings for this year and shot two of them already!
I have made a short film highlighting some of my favourite photographs from the weddings I’ve done over the years. You’ll see that my style is very different to the standard wedding photographer because I don’t focus on the posed photographs. I find them dull and boring. They only tell you who was stood in a line looking at the camera and there’s no story to it. When I deliver my wedding photographs to my clients, they always love the natural ones and find more joy in looking back at those real moments.

So that’s what I do, I focus on the fun element of your wedding.

Have a look to see what you think of my style….

Click the photograph to play the video with a pop out YouTube video.

Booking me to do the photography for your wedding.

If you’re interested in my documentary wedding photography, you can see more of my work by clicking on this link.

If you’ve seen enough and want to go straight ahead and speak to me, get in touch here.

Paul Hands Photography Workshops 2022 Film

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Group Photography Workshops Film

I’m looking for more inventive ways to promote my group photography workshops to the public and have created a short film with myself starring as if I’m being interviewed. I go on to explain what has gotten me into the position of teaching photography courses and what my influences are.

I won’t bleat on too much in writing because this is really about the film that I’ve just made. So please watch it and add any comments but most importantly, if you want to get more information about, click here for the workshops.

Just a short blog today, no waffle, watch the film and get in touch if you want more info.

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Group Photography Workshops

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Group photography workshop and short courses available in Leicestershire for beginners and intermediate levels.

Low Light Night Photography and Long Exposure Group Workshop

I’ve been working professionally as a photographer in many different areas for 10 years this year and have shot as a hobbyist for many more years. You’ll discover a burning passion for photography within me that runs so deep as if I was put on this earth for this purpose. My ethos has always been to be playful with my photography and this amazing skill I can pass on to any student that joins me on one of my workshops.

The Wharf, Hinckley - Night Time Long Exposure Group Photography Workshop

I’ve already ran four group photography workshops this year and have 4 courses available to book in the near future. My workshops are brilliant fun and ideal for photography enthusiasts / hobbyists who want to learn how to be more playful with their photography as well as learn more of the how to do’s.

I always teach people how to simplify setting up their camera and using it with zero complications but at the same giving the knowledge to my clients to be able to understand their cameras better and handing over complete creative control to them by simply explaining an easy way to make photographs in manual mode.
I’ve developed a technique to explain manual mode use that makes life so much easier for my clients.

Then I teach them how to measure the light, use the light with designing strong compositions through form, shape, framing and how to see a photograph that’s worth making.

With my workshops, my clients can take away the knowledge and manage the process on their own outside of my courses. Although many come back to get more information and do more workshops with me. I have loads of repeat customers.

Here’s a couple of reviews from clients that have done workshops with me:

“I spent a great night out learning how to take incredible night-shoot photography. It has re-inspired me to pick up my camera and start having fun again. Loads of insight & experiences shared across the group, well worth attending for all levels.”
— Matthew Lock
“Went on one of Paul’s. Workshops.. Had an excellent time and managed to learn a lot about my camera...will definitely going on more workshops with him .. explained everything in a easy to learn terms ... come away with a bit more artistic eye for a picture...I would highly recommend one of his workshops...its also a way of meeting like minded people .... great bloke and a good instructor....”
— Shaun Poxon

Below is a list of workshops that are currently available in the near future to book on to:

If you need any help or would like to chat to me about any of these workshops, then please hit this button and fill in my contact form. I’ll get back to asap.

The Wedding Film of Darren and Naomi Cornwall

Documentary Wedding Film.

The Wedding of Darren and Naomi Cornwall.

Naomi and Des both finally got married on Friday August 6th 2021 but they’re journey started much earlier back in 2019 when they chose to book me to create their memories for them. They planned to get married at a gorgeous mansion in the midst of the Cornwall countryside in 2020. I’m sure you can guess what turned up to spoil their plans. What happened was they were given another chance to realign their wedding more with their own values and came up with the wedding of the century.
I very happily took the challenge on with honour. I say challenge because if you’re not challenging yourself, you’re not pushing the boundaries and that for me is where the art lies, beyond the boundary.
Darren and Naomi gave me full trust from the beginning, which is all I need to be able to create something they can really enjoy remembering their wedding day. I mean let’s face it, it might not have been easy to remember all of it. These amazing pair didn’t go for the traditional Church and Reception do, Oh No!
They wanted a wedding festival and the effort they put in to designing what was by far my favourite ever wedding, was incredible. Most of their friends and family joined in with helping to create the wedding, a gigantic collaboration of their favourite people.
Anyway, don’t waste any more time listening to me waffle on about how great it was, have a look for yourself.

Ps/ This latest film might just have inspired me to start doing weddings again!

Press the play button in the centre of the photograph below to play the film.

I’m just gonna put this out there, if you like this film and are getting married and would like to have something like this made for you to remember your wedding by, then please get in contact me.

Loughborough's 800th Street Fair 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

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My next and most exciting Jigsaw Puzzle!

I’ve been to the street fair in Loughborough because it was their 800th anniversary of such an age old tradition and have made a picture that I believe is fantastic for a jigsaw puzzle and I’m actually really quite excited about it.

Loughborough’s 800th Street Fair 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

I was reluctant to put another jigsaw puzzle in to production this side of Christmas because it’s such a tight deadline that there’s no guarantee to be ready for Christmas, although it probably will be ready right at the last minute.

I did this last year with The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch and 70 people had ordered one, meaning I’d got some serious pressure on my back. Well I’ve eased that level of pressure a little by only ordering 10 puzzles.

So if you’re in to your jigsaw puzzles and would love to have a go at this one, you need to act fast.

This button will take you straight to the ordering page on my website.

Selling My Own Photography Products

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How my photography business has changed and how I’m adapting to changes…

I’m beginning to use my blog as a sounding board or more of a way to release my thoughts on my artwork and business. Today I’m going to talk about how I’ve had to be like water to flow with my business as it changed during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The Wharf, Hinckley, Leicestershire

I started my business in 2012 at the same time that I enrolled on to a level three photography course at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. I’d alway loved photography but never realised I could do it for a living. I wished I’d thought about this when I first left school because I’ve made billions of mistakes in what feels like hundreds of different jobs.

I’ve never been a very good employee! I always know better, hate rules, can’t apply myself to other people’s businesses as an employee and my nature is really quite rebellious! Believe me I’ve tried. I can’t say I’ve been a bad person within my past jobs because I’m a people person and love to be around others and get on with almost everyone and have stuck it out at some jobs. Three years was my longest reign in just two jobs.

Anyway, I was made redundant from Croner Consulting as telephone appointment maker for Health and Safety and Employment Law consultancy services. It was a tough job, speaking to over a hundred people each day to try and make an appointment for the business managers to go and close a sale.

St. Catherine’s Church, Burbage, Leicestershire

I think I’m digressing as usual!

I opened my photography business initially to be a wedding photographer until I learned more about the artwork side of things through college. Anyone can be a wedding photographer, all they need to do is buy a camera and watch a few YouTube videos. That’s all there is to it really, if you don’t factor in experience and knowledge! I know some amazing wedding photographers and by the same token, many who think they’re that! I also worked freelance for local and international businesses and charities, which was all great until the Coronavirus Pandemic popped over to the UK.

At that time, all businesses were ordered to close, taking all the people I could work for with them and leaving me with nobody to hire me. Of course I wasn’t the only person in the world for this to happen to but this is my journey…

Locked Down, Documentary Project

I had nothing to do, so I began to document the lockdown and ended up making a book and working with the community to tell their stories. My book publisher then began to also make and produce photographic jigsaw puzzles for their photographers and I jumped on the bandwagon to see how it would work.

Booom!!!

As if all I needed to help me get off the ground was a global pandemic!!!

I couldn’t believe it, upon making 6 of my favourite local photographs into JIgsaw Puzzles, right in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle boom was all it took! I guess we all need a break every now and then. Well this was my moment and I grabbed it with all of my hands!

That was my turning point.

Since early Summer in 2020, I’ve been making puzzles now and I’ve been fumbling my way through. I had zero experience of selling retail, especially my own products. It all went amazingly well until the summer of this year 2021. The lockdown was lifted and everyone went back to work. Plus the summer was here and people wanted to be in the garden instead of sat around the dinner table doing a jigsaw puzzle.

This hurt my business massively because I’d been led down the path of abundance throughout 2020 and this was very different. Less people were buying my jigsaw puzzles and I’d been caught out through ordering lots of stock and a reduction in sales. For this I have literally just had to bide my time until things picked up for me. I knew Christmas would be good for me.

Jigsaw Puzzle Leicestershire

The Horsepool, Burbage, Leicestershire

I’m finally getting around to telling you the actual point of this blog. I’ve had to be like water and flow with my business, which controls me more than I control it. I’ve become a slave to my business and I love it!

To move with the times and help my customers have a better experience, I’ve flattened my puzzle pricing out to £20 for any puzzle. I was selling them at £22 because I needed that extra bit of income to help pay for things like my office and insurance etc. When selling my artwork on the local markets, it was sometimes a bit awkward dealing with the additional coins. I’m hoping that by flattening my pricing, it might lead to more sales on the market. So far it seems to be working, let’s see how it pans out on the run up to Christmas.

If you’d like to learn more about my interactive artwork and local Leicestershire Jigsaw Puzzles, please visit my shop.

Mixing your artform with a business.

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Earning a living from selling my artwork is nothing short of amazing!

Since taking photography more seriously in 2012, I’ve spent all of that time making work for my own personal projects with no thought of making money from those photographs. Not because I didn’t want to, I just wasn’t ready and I tried, so many times and failed quickly. I taught myself that the only way I can sell my photographs as art, would be through selling prints and I did sell two prints once to the college that taught me and again to De Montfort University, who taught me my degree.

So I’m not sure if they really count?

Sileby Marina

Sileby Marina

What changed?

An incredible amount of variables led to me selling my artwork. I think the main thing was I’d collected a following on social media and with an audience, I wanted to entertain them with my artwork. I was building something that I had no clue about, I was collecting photographs that had a commercial value and I hadn’t realised it. All of it was unintentional and it steered itself with whatever exploits I got myself in to and I didn’t even know what I was doing as I took baby steps towards doing this with no agenda.
In 2019 I contacted another photographer that I know called Justin Minns, who was making really nice calendars and I felt it could be a way for me to sell my artwork.
That was one of the single most important steps I’d taken in my life because it has led to working for myself.

How it happened for me?

I began selecting photographs and designed my very first calendar and incidentally, it was the very first calendar my home town Hinckley has ever had. It went so well and it gave me a new lease of life for my photography. I was struggling with employment and wasn’t earning enough to support my family from self employment back then.

River Soar Weir

River Soar Weir

In the January of 2020 I did manage to secure myself several commissions for the year that gave me a great start and something to build on. While all this was happening, I’d got my eyes and ears on China with news of the Coronavirus coming from a bat in a wet market!!! I didn’t immediately fall for that and was suspicious from the beginning. A friend of mine was and is still living in China, teaching at a school and I stayed in contact with him during the outbreak to learn as much as I could.

Then I witnessed Covid 19 arriving in Britain and initially because of the incredible levels of fear based propaganda, I fell for it and was having panic attacks at the thought of bringing my daughter up in to this kind of world.

Lockdown was announced and many businesses closed their doors, leaving me with noone to work for. I had nothing to do, so I began working on a photography project to document what we were going through, which spilled out in to bringing community involvement in to it. I published a book with the project work in called ‘Locked Down’.

Then an opportunity to make my photographs in to 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles came along and I thought I’d give it a go but wasn’t overly sure about it at first. I made 6 designs and they all sold out online before they arrived.
So I made some more and they kept on selling out really fast.

Hinckley DIsneyland

Hinckley DIsneyland

What I did to help it along.

It felt amazing because I’d simply fallen into this and it was never a concerted effort to make a business but I’d made a business using my artwork and people were buying my work.

It just happened!

I’ve never been one to miss out on an opportunity like this one, so I began making new photographs with purpose and with a puzzling design in my mind. It became an obsessive hobby / business and still to this day I find it really challenging to find a jigsaw puzzle worthy photograph.

I learned how to do ecommerce and installed it on my website, did everything that was needed to run a smooth operation and it all seems to work.

Now I’m approaching two years since I started with that first calendar and I’ve now got a range of products to share with everyone.

While it’s amazing to be mixing my artwork with a business, it’s a challenge to find the money to pay the rent on my office and meet the demands of running a business. It changes things and even puts more pressure on making good photographs, while shortening the time I can spend making new photographs.
It’s a balancing act and one that I’ve not gotten right in many circumstances but so far I’m afloat.

There’s something to celebrate there!

Visit my shop to see what I’m offering now.

North West leicestershire Calendar 2022

It’s 2022 Calendar season!

The fantastic news is here, the NW Leics Calendar 2022 is ready to be posted out.

Tomorrow I’ll be packaging up the North West Leicestershire 2022 calendars to be distributed to all of you that have already ordered a copy, there’s plenty more available too, so don’t feel left out.

Here’s all the details…

The photographs made for this calendar have been curated from the long term documentary project Leicestershire Photographed and with assistance from the community in North West Leicestershire. I create the photographs from the landscape by using creative compositions discovered naturally in the environment. All materials used are ethically sourced and entirely recyclable.

The calendars are now ready for distribution, so if you would like one, please click on the link below.

My Favourite Jigsaw Puzzle Creation Yet!

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Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Fine Art Photographic Jigsaw Puzzle, Leicestershire Photographed.

This is the backstory behind the creation of what I believe to be one of my favourite and best designed jigsaw puzzle to date.

Sutton Wharf is a locally renowned beauty spot in the Leicestershire countryside and often marks the beginning, middle or end for any walks around Bosworth Battlefield. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered making a puzzle here before now but at least I’ve done it and now have almost 30 puzzles in my posession.

I first visited in the summer of 2020 to see if I could make a puzzle there, we’d just opened up after the first massive lockdown and people were out and about but I just couldn’t make the photograph work as a puzzle. I tried but couldn’t find the right composition (below).

Sutton Wharf, Leicestershire August 2020 - Failed attempt.

I needed the photograph to work, so I created a postcard design from this picture and it’s been very popular already. People haven’t really seen the one I’ve chosen to become a jigsaw puzzle yet, until now!

I wasn’t happy that I hadn’t found a jigsaw puzzle but all wasn’t lost because I’d bought a new camera, the Panasonic Lumix TZ200 and planned to return.

Now this camera is something I’d been searching for, for a long time and I didn’t realise it existed until I’d finally took the plunge to do some deep searching. I needed a camera with a good quality lens, big sensor, a wide range of focal lengths and be small enough to fit in my pocket because I was fed up with carrying my huge dslr and massive lens around with me. The sheer size of it drew a lot of attention to myself, which was not really good nor safe for me to do my latest project Leicestershire Photographed.

Now I can move around relatively unseen and still produce better photographs with enough pixel power to be useful as my art products.

I have the Lumix now and I’m getting very comfortable with it. This is the first jigsaw puzzle I’ve created with my new camera and I have to say that it’s so good to use. I was able to get the right focal length I needed and enough clarity and sharpness to convert in to a puzzle.

Here it is….

Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

All the ingredients were in place for me, not immediately but I stood balanced on top of the bridge railings for about 10-15 minutes watching and waiting for everything to come together. The light needed to change and the right people had to walk in and out of the frame so the puzzle was ready. I also had to work out the composition while balanced on top of the bridge and that was a bit nerve wracking, I just didn’t look down.

Isn’t it amazing what a difference a slight move and angle change makes?

Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle is now available and in stock. So you can either order online or come and see me on the market stall in Hinckley every Saturday or Market Harborough every Tuesday.

Ps/ You might also catch me at one of the local car boot sales this weekend.

Click below to order online.

Raising Funds For The Fire Fighters Charity

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Lancaster Road Fire Station, Leicester.

Recently I’ve been collaborating with Firefighters from Leicestershire Fire Service to produce a jigsaw puzzle of the historical central fire station at Lancaster Road in Leicester.

In connection with my latest photographic project where I’m touring the county of Leicestershire to document people and place in a bid to cover the entire county recording life as it is today for future generations to refer back to historically. I’ve collaborating with the Firefighters to create a photographic jigsaw puzzle for the purposes of creating awareness and raising funds for The Fire Fighters Charity.

Lancaster Road Fire Station, Leicester - 500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

The jigsaw puzzles have began their production journey, which starts with the idea, going out to make the actual photograph, which took three attempts at getting the composition right, the light and positioning of the appliances. Then the photograph goes through post production to ensure the colour and presentation is suitable before sending to my suppliers who then design the boxes.

Although on this occasion there’s been the added communication with the Firefighters and The Fire Fighters Charity.

The prints are then made and pressed on to a 1.5mm puzzle board before being cut in to the individual shapes. The puzzle pieces are then bagged and sealed, put in to the right boxes and then shipped to me for distribution to you.

This process takes an average of 4 weeks.

The Fire Fighters Charity provide confidential, personalised support to the whole of the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their centres, remotely, online and in communities around the UK. Championing the health and wellbeing of all those they support - serving, retired or dependant - They exist to support all fire and rescue service personnel, whatever their role in the service. They’re also here for all those who have retired, as well as for spouses and qualifying dependants.

The Fire Fighters Charity provide confidential, personalised support to the whole of the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their centres, remotely, online and in communities around the UK. Championing the health and wellbeing of all those they support - serving, retired or dependant - They exist to support all fire and rescue service personnel, whatever their role in the service. They’re also here for all those who have retired, as well as for spouses and qualifying dependants.

I’ve started off by ordering a small quantity to test the market - 10 x 500 pieces and 20 x 1,000 pieces.

I fully expect the first batch to have sold out long before the puzzles arrive. I will of course be ordering more but each time a new order is placed, it can take a while before I get to see stable stock. So it’s recommended that if you would like one of these jigsaw puzzles, then please get your order in asap.

The puzzles come out during my Spring/Summer sale where all puzzles are £20, which includes a £2 donation towards The Fire Fighters Charity.

If you’re feeling generous, you can pay £23 for the puzzle where you’ll also get a free postcard of Lancaster Road Fire Station and £5 will be donated towards the cause.

Place your order for a jigsaw puzzle using the product link below…

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500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Lancaster Road Fire Station
£20.00 £25.00
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Donate to The Fire Fighters Charity
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