Rob Booker Photography • Blog bio picture
  • Hello!

    Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog.

    I am a professional photographer based in Leeds, West Yorkshire and I specialise in taking pictures for the arts, media and music communities. I also love to photograph weddings and most weekends you'll find me capturing amazing details, relaxed portraits and amazing moments for brides and grooms all over the UK.

    Here you can see all about my latest jobs, and read the tales of a jobbing photographer. If you see anything that catches your eye, please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch if there's anything you would like to know.

    Rob.

Natasha & Alastair • Wedding • Malmaison, Leeds

The beautiful Malmaison hotel and restaurant was the host to this lovely wedding in the centre of Leeds.  The whole day was at the hotel, including the ceremony and it’s a great venue if you’re looking to have your day all in one place.  The rooms are beautiful and Natasha & Alastair had the master ‘Depot’ suite booked for their wedding night.  Here you can see a few of my favourite shots from the day.

If you were at the wedding and would like to see the full gallery, where you can download pictures and order prints, you can do so at my secure online shop: www.robbooker.co.uk/shop.  You will need a password which you can get from Natasha or myself.

Malmaison is all in the detail (and the good selection of reds)

This decorations on this cake were handmade by Natasha!

Here the girls were getting ready in one suite, whilst I nipped into the master depot suite to snap a few details there.

Unknown to Natasha & Alastair, the staff at Malmaison were busy adding a few special touches to the room including these petals on the bed.

Here’s the bridesmaids flowers . . .

. . . and Natasha’s

Check out the DVDs being used to prop up the mirror, I’m not sure these are wedding night material.

Here the guys are checking out the best-man’s speech

The man himself putting the final details to his suit.

I took them downstairs onto the streets of Leeds to get a few relaxed portraits.

Check out these 3 shots of Alastair waiting for the moment he sees Natasha for the first time that day.

After the ceremony, I took them out for a quick portrait session outside the hotel.

I love group shots when they’re not too staged and you can see these guys like to have fun with each other.

These were shot around the side of the hotel down by the River Aire.

Nibbly bite-sized food is always a winner.

These mini-burgers rule.

After food and a few drinks, we went for another cheeky portrait session in the restaurant and bar.

This is Malmaison’s stairway of mirrors (It took a while to work out how to avoid seeing me in them)

Onto speeches where Al’s dad kicked off precedings …

And then the best man

Really like this informal way they did the speeches with everyone in the round.

Charlie Johnson15/03/2010 - 4:08 PM

Great series of shots Rob. Loving the post production on the colour shots. Really classy, and understated beautifully.

Suzy Mitchell12/03/2010 - 6:05 PM

Beautifully consistent editing!I bet you have some really happy clinets there. I need to get disciplined with my post production.

Andrea Pickering12/03/2010 - 3:36 PM

The couple are very lucky, they will love them. I love the detail shots in particular and the couple in the restaurant too!

Chris MacKenzie12/03/2010 - 2:32 PM

Lovely work Rob. I love your details shots. My favourites, though, are the speeches and the couple at the bottom of the stairs.

Abby Wilkes12/03/2010 - 1:11 PM

Great work Rob, love the feel, the bride looks gorgeous. The couple will love these beautiful photographs!

Mike Galley12/03/2010 - 12:50 PM

Good solid work Rob, I can’t quite make my mind up over a favourite though, I think It would be the romantic shot of the Bride and groom in the restaurant.

Barnaby Aldrick12/03/2010 - 12:37 PM

Beautiful post Bookstop. Really classy and clean. They’ll no doubt love them all.

ps. Gonna rip that shoe shot at my next wedding!

Lisa Aldersley12/03/2010 - 12:32 PM

These are gorgeous. The details are beautiful and I love the ceremony shots.

James Pearson12/03/2010 - 12:17 PM

Wonderful images! Beautiful portraits and really excellent moments, emotions and expressions captured.

Rebecca Honeywell12/03/2010 - 11:30 AM

These are lovely, love the details and the mini burgers have made me hungry! I really like the romantic shot of the bride and groom in the restaurant.

neil12/03/2010 - 11:14 AM

love them love them!! nice happy bunch of images and some great ones of the couple!

Jo & Theo • Wedding • Bristol City Centre

My first wedding of the year at the end of January involved a long drive down to Bristol.  I shot the pre-wedding images the day before the wedding and you can see those here.  The wedding ceremony was taking place at Bristol Registry Office, which is a beautiful building right in the centre.  Jo was getting ready in The Grand, whilst Theo got ready a short walk away at the Marriott Royal.

The day was perfect and taking a bride and groom through Bristol market straight after the ceremony on a busy Saturday was a great experience.  Check out a few of my favourite pictures from the day here and feel free to leave a comment at the end if you like what you see.

Friends and family can see the full gallery at www.robbooker.co.uk/shop.  Please ask Jo and Theo for the password or get in touch with me.

This is the lovely Fiona from Beehive Brides Make-up, in the middle of finishing Jo’s curlers.  I love it when brides embrace the morning preparation shots and are happy to have it all recorded.

I arrived at The Royal Marriott where Theo and his family where all getting ready.  This is Solomon, Theo’s son beating his Dad off the mark.

I think he has a few more years before perfecting his tie-knotting skills.

Gotta love shirts with details like this, subtle and cool.  Plus check out Solomon’s socks below which were purchased to match.

Here’s Sol again waiting in the hotel foyer, holding tightly a box containing the wedding rings.

Nice relaxed portraits of the boys are what we all like before the ceremony.

I think Solomon was eager to get to the ceremony (or relinquish responsibility of the rings!).  Here I was running in front of him firing off loads of shots.  A bit blind, but caught this one where all the gents are looking good and Theo’s looking at his son.  Winner.

I then headed back to Jo, to catch the last minute Bridal preps and a few of her family.

This is the amazing Camilla who had flown all the way from Italy to be here for the wedding.  She spent ages checking herself in the mirror before finally giving up with this “I think it’ll do” shrug.

“Cheese” cake!

Winter sun is in pretty short supply, and just after Jo & Theo had welcomed all their guest to The Rummer Hotel, where the reception was, I grabbed them for the last few minutes of daylight.

I hadn’t realised the huge group of people that had been waiting for us to finish our mini photoshoot, and Jo was smiling at all the attention.

The reception began with the ladies doing some wine tasting, whilst the gents got taken down to the cellar to do some whiskey tasting.

This is one of my favourites from the evening of Theo chatting to the hotel manager.  It reminds me of The Ratpack.

All the guests got given a bottle of olive oil from Theo’s family distillery in Tuscany.  I got handed one and have to say it’s tastier than anything you get from a supermarket in this country.

Linda Davey01/03/2010 - 5:13 PM

Fantastic pictures as usual, Rob. What did you think of Bristol? It’s my hometown.

Hope & Social • A quick visit

Earlier on today, me and the 3B Media team, Barnaby Aldrick and Phil Barber took a wonder down to The Crypt in Leeds, to check out Hope & Social recording a few new songs for their new album.  More of a quick visit to say hi, see what we were each up to, and talk over some new projects that the both of us want to work on.  There was talk of a one-day write, record and publish a music track, documentary, music video and stills.  How on earth we’re all gonna pull off that one is anyone’s guess at the moment, but the lot of us seemed up for the challenge, so stay tuned for updates on that.

Anyway, below are a few of my photos from the today’s fly-by visit.  Most of these were taken during recording, and being stuck in one place with one lens during the takes was quite restrictive but also quite liberating.

Annette02/03/2010 - 1:10 PM

really lovely shots!

Dean12/02/2010 - 8:54 AM

Great pics. The Crypt looks like an awesome place!

milk12/02/2010 - 8:42 AM

Absolutely cutting photographs there of a dynamic band in action. They capture a haunting nuance of a recording process beyond twinkling teeth and Cola endorsed, leather clad chair swinging.. Inspiring work here Rob, from an inspiring band, quite a pairing!

Barnaby Aldrick12/02/2010 - 12:03 AM

Lovely stuff Captain Booker. Some lovely details and moments well caught…

mark byrne11/02/2010 - 9:36 PM

Excellent images, love the atmosphere captured here.

The Reject Pile • Headshots

Towards the end of last year, I started to introduce a quick-fire and impromptu end to my headshot sessions.  Some people heard the word “improvise”, and ran a mile, whilst others embraced the opportunity for some fun portraits of themselves.  Often at the end of the session when the hard work is over, people have totally relaxed and forgotten that they’re having their picture taken, they tend to be a bit more open to playing up to my camera.  As well as this, during my shoots I tend to catch moments where people are in a different world, either whilst I’m checking the lights, or if they’ve just lost focus for a second, or it can be in mid-conversation and I catch a cheeky smile.  But now I’m keeping this five-minute freestyle for good, so if I ask you to have some fun with the camera, and you’re feeling a bit shy, forget your inhibitions for a minute or two, and get ready for some killer portraits.  Be who you want to be.

Below are just a few of the dozens of crazy snaps I’ve captured of people during their headshot session (I hope they don’t mind!).  Some of these are captured mid-session, and some are the very last shot of the day – when I tell people this is the last picture I’m taking of them, they tend to go all out.

mark byrne14/02/2010 - 4:20 PM

Great series of images Rob, fun and fresh.

Phil B04/02/2010 - 11:07 PM

These so cool Rob – All great shots – No rejects here!

Lee Jackson04/02/2010 - 12:56 PM

Now I’m worried :)

Jo + Theo • Pre-Wedding Shoot • Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

This weekend I had the amazing pleasure of travelling to Bristol to shoot not only Jo + Theo’s pre-wedding pictures on Friday, but then their actual wedding on the Saturday.  I normally like to photograph the pre-wedding shots several weeks before the wedding, but Theo works in Italy a lot (he proposed to Jo in Rome!), so it was difficult to all sync our diaries.  The wedding pictures will be available to look at in a couple of weeks, but first of all here are a few of my favourites from Friday.  We ventured out to The Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol, where in the late afternoon sun, we hit some perfect light and spent 40 minutes braving the wind to get these shots.

Phil Barber02/02/2010 - 12:07 AM

Great set of images Mr B – Flare action looking cool and like Susie loving the B&W shot 3rd from last.

Susie Lawrence01/02/2010 - 6:01 PM

Gorgeous. Love the flare. Especially keen on the B&W third from last. Not usually a big kissing fan (in pics not in life) but with the bridge and the processing this one is really right. Fantastic work – can’t wait to see the wedding.

neil01/02/2010 - 5:06 PM

yeah – lovin’ those and such a great backdrop and good looking couple!! good one Rob!

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