Me and my photography
So what's your wedding to me?
Wedding days are among the most exciting and rewarding days any of us ever live through. I consider myself amongst the luckiest people in the world to have the honour of setting down a record of these most special of occasions.
Much like a bride picks her dress, flowers (and groom!) based on her own taste and style I choose moments based on what moves me. The only piece of advice I would give a bride or groom in selecting a wedding photographer would be to look at their pictures. If you 'get' the moments and if they move you then you've probably found the photographer for you. If not, you owe it to yourself to keep looking!
My Style
My approach is very simple; I try to stay discrete and keep looking all day long. I have a love for informal portraits of guests that many of my brides appreciate greatly. I look for a laugh, a smile and a kiss but I won't shy away from the cheeky or off-beat either. For me it's all about the glorious reality and diversity of your wedding day.
Points of View
A short Q&A of questions that people tend to ask me in reference to wedding photography. It should give you a better idea of my approach.
'Isn't film better than digital?'
Is bread better than cake? They are different, just plain different. I use digital and film cameras at weddings depending on the situation and both have unique qualities which I adore. When I shoot film at your wedding I perform a high resolution scan of the negatives and you will receive them on the DVD along with the digital images. I will also send you the negatives.
Why do you give us all the high-resolution images?
Because I don't want to sell prints, I want to photograph weddings. Also see the next question.
Why do some other photographers withhold high-resolution images?
Withholding the right to reproduce your wedding images is a sensible tradition in wedding photography based on the days of film. A traditional film photographer had one master copy of every image in his fireproof temperature-controlled strongroom. It was expensive to buy prints from him because he had to pay for this storage, a quality darkroom with a technician and probably a shop front on his high street too.
Today most of the shops are gone, most photographers are exclusively capturing images digitally and getting a decent print is only a few clicks away on-line; nevertheless, this traditional pricing policy continues.
If you don't want to sell prints why do you offer expensive albums?
This is one important area where I believe the old pricing policy is still justified. Modern digital prints are great and of a very high-quality, in the short term. Truly archival prints that will keep their vibrancy over the years are still the realm of specialist photo printers and this longevity does come at an extra cost. I will individually and painstakingly reprocess all the images as well to bring out their very best. Then there's the physical album itself, top-quality wedding albums are works of art and plenty of them are only available to registered photographers. There is also a huge and sometimes baffling variety. I also know that doing your own wedding album well is time-consuming and generally gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do-list. I think it verges on tragedy how many couples have great wedding photos but nothing to pass round over coffee with relatives or to pull off the bookshelf on a whim, or to show grandchildren in later years.
If you have read all this and still want to make your own album I give you all the materials you need with my standard packages and wish you the best of luck, I'm not here to pressure you into spending more money, just remember that if you ever change your mind I'll still be here!
Do you use flash?
Yes. And no. I will use all practical methods available to me to enhance the quality of the photographs I take at your wedding. Sometimes all I need is a camera, sometimes I need three flashguns and a photographic reflector. If you don't want me to use flash at all I will respect your wishes and adapt but at the same time I ask you to bear in mind the quality of some of the images may suffer.
You do a lot of black & white, can I have all colour images please?
I love black & white and colour photography; I believe the mixture of images on my website reflects that. Most of the black & white images on this site are processed from colour digital images and I'm happy to deliver all of these in colour on your request. The same goes the other way around too – if you would like everything processed as black & white then I will take images with this in mind and deliver them that way.
What camera do you use?
Whatever will get the job done. I will use anything that reliably produces top image quality. Mostly that's a Digital SLR camera with a variety of high quality lenses. Sometimes it's film, sometimes it's a point and shoot camera. I think all that counts is that I bring high-quality equipment that is proven and does not let me down. Even then I bring a spare of everything. This is the most important day of your life and I owe it to everyone involved not to take any chances.
What's your favourite part of a wedding?
Stealing wedding cake, obviously.
The truth is that while most weddings have a similar format each one is unique. It's that challenge that keeps it interesting!
If you've read this far down you clearly care about finding the right wedding photographer for you. Why not have a look at the gallery to see if I fit the bill?
