Fliss & Tom’s Corfe Castle Engagement Shoot | Wedding Photographer Dorset

Corfe Castle had been a location that I have wanted to shoot at for some time. I have covered weddings in the shadow of the castle ruins but I had never paid the entry fee and gone into the National Heritage site. The area provides an abundance of different backdrops to utilise when creating portraits and a perfect place for engagement photos. This Purbeck landmark has to be one of the most dramatic backdrops within the South of England and an absolute must for Wedding Photographer Dorset to use.

Well, you can probably tell that I was looking forward to this shoot, and possible as much or more so than Fliss & Tom! I was just so glad they were more than happy to jump in the car and take a spin down there. I find its always more fun to shoot in a new location as it provides more impromptu moments that just present naturally strong photos. This same approach can be applied to shooting at new wedding venues. It isn’t a necessity to know the location as sometimes this just acts as a brake on creativity – often leading the photographer to replicate the usual / always done safety shots done by every other photographer that has worked the venue previously.

Like many other couples Fliss & Tom have ther own demanding jobs that provide few windows of opportunity to arrange such a shoot. Even harder is to arrange when the weather is onside and perfect and our Sunday morning shoot was looking a little flat and over cast. So just to brighten things up and put a sparkle in my subjects eye’s I took my son Matthew on his first assisting job.

He did well with being my roaming light source, holding an off camera flash gun as well as being a very handy clothes horse carrying a variety of jackets Fliss had bought with her. I can see that this will be the start of a new pocket money bargaining situation!!

The extra use of lighting worked well, lifting many of the images that would otherwise remain flat in the plain natural daylight and giving them an extra sparkle. For engagement shoots, this extra fuss is worthwhile, but still something that I would refrain from in the context of a wedding day. Flash guns and assistants only provide a sideshow and distraction that have no place at a wedding in my opinion.

Im really happy with producing a strong set of pictures marking their engagement period and hope they are as pleased with them as I am. A really fun couple to be around, it was lovely to spend more time with them and a great opportunity to get creative at one of Dorset’s most striking landscapes.

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