If you don’t know already know, we are setting up the Photobooth, this Sunday, 3rd February at Ascot Racecourse and you are welcome to come along, try it, and take some prints away with you. The booths are proving to be as much a part of the wedding and party entertainment as they are recording your guests for posterity.

We will be up and going by 11.00 am and expect a couple of hundred brides along, if the figures from last year are anything to go by. Wind, rain and snow permitting (!) we’d love to see you.

If you can’t make it this Sunday, you can always come and see us on Sunday, 17th February when we will be at the Surrey County Wedding Show at Thorpe Park.

If you need any more information on the Photobooth or for your wedding photography, please give us a call on 01895 468858.

Enquiries so far this week have been from as far afield as Paisley in Scotland! We have quoted for this job, and even with a pretty hefty travel fee, we are still cheaper than a booth company that is much, much closer. It’s an 820 mile round trip!

Zoe (my Photobooth helper who happens to be my niece too) and I had a fun Sunday at Kempton Park Racecourse. Just over 150 brides, or potential brides turned up to take a look at everything that was on offer. I have never seen so many photographers at a single show before. Probably more than 30% of the exhibitors were photographers… Just as as well we were showing something that absolutely none of them had seen before. The Photobooth! We set the whole thing up and invited anybody who wanted to have their photograph taken to pop into the booth and have some fun and they did. All we could hear while people were having their pics done was laughter. The Photobooth is proving to be as much a part of the wedding reception entertainment as it is to capture and record images of the day.

The late night leaflet printing was well worthwhile too. If I hadn’t stayed up until 2.30 am to get them done we would have run out of leaflets!

Since Monday we have had almost a hundred hits on the Rentabooth website and I’m pretty sure it is going to be a big success. It will be a pretty short amount of time before we are going to need a second booth, the way things are going.

If you are reading this as a potential client and you are after a wedding photograper too we are offering £100 off of the normal price of the Photobooth if you book your photography with us and the Photobooth.

If you are thinking of booking, give us a call asap. Dates are booking up fast.

I did say that I would try to write something every week and I’ve made the time to make sure that I do.

Rachel and Ian got married on the 22nd December and came back from honeymooning in the Maldives on the 15th January after spending Chritsmas and New Year with their folks.

We had a blast and all of the shots you have seen on the Rentabooth website were shot with the first booth at their wedding reception. It was a huge success and most of the guests at the wedding had their photographs taken in the booth. That was despite having to walk past the band to get to the room that the booth had been set up in…

The wedding took place in White Waltham and the reception was in Ascot. This shot was taken outside the church while we waited a few minutes for the bells to stop. They were loud and the guests couldn’t hear a word I said so I could gather them together for the groups. It didn’t matter. The sun popped out from behind a cloud for a short while and we came away with some great stuff.

One of my Pixels nightshots. Taken outside the reception venue at around 10.00 pm. The lights, showing how beautiful the venue is at night, came in very handy. Rachel and Ian were glad to get outside the reception for five minutes to cool down from all the dancing.

We have a few wedding shows coming up over the next few weeks where we are promoting the Photobooth side of the business and you are welcome to pop down and see us and have a free booth sitting.

We are at Kempton Park Racecourse this Sunday, (20th January). On Sunday, 3rd February 2008 we are at Ascot Racecourse and on Sunday, 17th February 2008 we will be at Thorpe Park.

Dates will be booking up fast from the shows as the Photobooth idea is so new in the UK and the Rentabooth website is starting to get a load of hits. We have just taken a booking for it in Manchester!

If you are looking for something new and very cool for your wedding reception for 2008 or 2009 take a look at the website and book soon. Images of the first Photobooth album will go up on the Rentabooth site tomorrow. I have a feeling you may like them. I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the bookbinder getting it exactly right and with the personalisation of the cover it looks fabulous. RG

I have seen many blogs over the last couple of years and I’ve often wondered how people find the time to do them regularly. After launching the new Photobooth business which is proving to be very popular it is finally time to bite the bullet and make the time to get a blog going. Here it is! I hope to write a little every week and will write a short piece and post images from our jobs as we go through the year. Fingers crossed that I find the time…

Like the new Photobooth website (www.rentabooth.co.uk) it will be a bit rough around the edges at first while I fine tune it but, like many things it will hopefully evolve into something special.

The main thing is that it will get the Pixels and Photobooth names out there a lot more and you will, hopefully, have a great read and maybe a bit of a laugh along the way.

The concept of the digital photobooth here in the UK is pretty new and we are one of the first to dive in and get our feet wet. Our first job on 22nd December at Rachel and Ian’s wedding at Northcote House was a huge success and they have a very special wedding book waiting for them when they return from their honeymoon that they will cherish forever.

The concept of the photobooth is not new. The first one was launched commercially more than 70 years ago.

What is so new, is the use of commercial digital equipment to produce quality results fast and the idea of a collapsible booth that can be setup at a wedding reception, corporate event or party. It can be themed to your particular event too with different backgrounds for the images or total change on the outside. Want a Chinese theme for the outside of your booth? Give us a call for a quotation.

Professional lighting and super fast professional printers mean that nobody has to wait around for long and print quality is excellent.

As a professional photographer I have been shooting events of all descriptions for many, many years. What I cannot get in my subjects when I am pointing my camera at them, in front of others, is that total lack of inhibition, fun and freedom that the privacy of the booth brings. It happens to young and old. Quiet and outgoing. There is always fun and laughter with the photobooth and all of your guests take away a momento of the party immediately.

Most of the bookings that are coming in for 2008 so far, want the option of the guest book. An extra print is made at the time as the people leave the booth, (Prints take around 12 seconds each!) and the booth assistant will paste it into the book that has been specifically made and titled for the couple. The people in the shots then write a message in the book alongside their images. It provides a lasting and very special reminder of their day and often shows a side of their guests that they may have never seen before. The book is usually handed to the host(s) of the event at the end of the night.

I keep talking of things as if the Photobooth is only available for weddings or civil partnerships. It’s not. It is available for any party, corporate event, barmitsvah/batmitsvah, anniversary or anywhere there is a gathering of people out to have a good time.

We are also currently looking for a way to offer the Photobooth for charity events too. The charity pays us a flat fee for the event and they would then charge people at the event to use the photobooth. Any suggestions? Please send us an email!