We are Barrie and Bev Downie, wedding and portrait photographers offering artistic wedding photography and contemporary lifestyle portraits.
Barrie is listed as one of the top 10 winter wedding photographers in the UK by Professional Photographer magazine. We are both passionate about the work we produce and travel across the UK and Europe photographing beautiful weddings.
Our studio near Chichester is perfect for contemporary portraits for individuals, families and even pets. We also offer beautiful boudoir photography for your special someone. If you prefer an outdoor lifestyle portrait, we have a variety of suitable locations nearby.
We are very nearly there with the studio, just a few bits of painting and filling left to do and furniture to move in. The official opening will be on March 14th between 10am and 4pm and we would love to see as many people as possible – do come along and say hello!
Work is progressing fast on the new studio. Walls have been knocked down, electrics have been done, plastering is nearly finished. Tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and start cleaning and decorating. We are looking forward to opening our doors in February with an ‘official opening’ at the studio on Mothering Sunday, March 14th. Everyone is welcome to come along for a glass of bubbly, a look round the studio and a bit of fun! We will be offering some very special opening promotions to raise money for St Wilfrid’s Hospice in Chichester. Watch this space for more information….
We have just returned home from a very busy SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers) convention, held at the Hammersmith Novotel. It was a fantastic event, which we were invited to speak at for the second year running. We spoke about creative lighting on Sunday afternoon, which was very well attended and received some great feedback. Thank you to everyone who came along and if you have any questions please do get in touch.
Other than our talk, it was great to network with other photographers both old and new friends. We arrived on Thursday morning and watched the 20″ x 16″ print judging, which is always an interesting and occasionally controversial occasion! Barrie received two merit awards in this competition and he was also placed in the end of year awards in the pet category, with a photo of our gorgeous Labrador, Gillie.
We also had the opportunity to attend seminars by some of the best photographers in the UK and worldwide including Jerry Ghionis (who has been named as one of the top five wedding photographers in the World), our good friend and mentor, Gordon McGowan, Trevor and Faye Yerbury and Julia Boggio and James Derbyshire (they were THAT couple in the You Tube Dirty Dancing first dance video!) They are a lovely couple who have set up a studio in Wimbledon and we are looking forward to going to visit them soon.
The convention hosts an incredible trade show so Barrie was able to purchase the kit to set up the studio and I have invested in some professional video equipment and I will be undergoing some training with Richard Wakefield of FX Films and hopefully will be able to offer a video service from April 2010 alongside the photography business. We were also able to catch up with some of our suppliers and see new products, which we will be offering very soon.
As a final good measure Barrie was awarded the Associate qualification with the SWPP, which is the second highest award they issue. I was very proud of his panel, which looked stunning.
Overall it was a great way to start the year, which promises to be a very exciting and fast moving one for us. We do hope to keep in touch with everyone we met, please do get in touch or come to visit us in the new studio.
20×16 print competition awards
January 18, 2010 - 4:25 pm - Hi Bev, lovely to meet you and Barrie last night (albeit briefly). A big thank you to you both for your fantastic seminar yesterday. Off camera lighting is something which I plan to do much more of this year so it was really great to see Barrie explaining how he achieves the amazing results he does. If I can get results anywhere near that of the images you showed yesterday then I will be very pleased indeed!!
We are very excited to have taken the lease on a building, which we are going to be converting into a new office, studio and meeting/viewing room. The studio is located in Runcton just a couple of miles off the A27 at Chichester. For the past 10 years it has been used as a jewellery workshop so it is definitely a work in progress but we hope to be up and running very soon! We will update the blog with progress reports as we go. If you are interested in booking a portrait session, we will be offering some very special opening promotions so get in touch to register your interest. We look forward to seeing you at the grand opening!
The outside of the studio. We have the cream building and also the part of the brick barn behind. There is ample parking.
The meeting and viewing room area.
The studio area – the stud wall dividing the two rooms has gone giving us a studio area of 24ft x 14ft.
Finally the office/kitchen area (well we all need a nice cuppa!)
December 6, 2009 - 4:15 pm - Absolutely stunning work as always.
December 7, 2009 - 10:21 am - My Wife looks absolutely beautiful, thank you Barrie, fantastic photo's
December 7, 2009 - 5:00 pm - Thank you for all your creativity Barrie I enjoyed every minute and would love to have done even more photos with you. Peter my dearest Husband looked so handsome. We are looking forward to sitting down together tonight and looking at all the other shots. Vee :-)
December 9, 2009 - 10:34 pm - absolutely stunning photos to match a stunning couple! Cant wait to see the rest Emily
January 6, 2010 - 9:21 am - Wow, i am more than inspired by the beauty and difference of your photographs.. Thank you for being an inspiration, and thank you for sharin your heart :) Singapore Product Photography
January 12, 2010 - 7:58 am - Wow what stunning images, absolutely love the 3rd from last one in the "window" awesome and inspiring!
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