Portfolio

Documentary wedding photography portfolio

I shoot weddings all the way from getting ready, through the tears and joy of the wedding ceremony itself, to the speeches, first dance and beyond into the night. My style is relaxed and unobtrusive documentary wedding photography – capturing real moments that are full of beauty and humour. As you scroll down I’ll also explain a little more about the pictures and how I approach photographing your wedding.

If you want to see lots of images from my latest individual weddings go to my wedding photography blog.

Getting ready…

The hour or two before the ceremony is one of my favourite parts of the wedding day to photograph – so much is going on. My job is to observe and make pictures that tell a story in an interesting way.

Around the bride or groom, who often appear the calmest of the wedding party, swirls a rising tide of activity and excitement. As hair is fixed, make-up applied and shirts ironed, mums, dads, sisters, brothers, best men, bridesmaids and the rest all dash around glancing in mirrors, making last minute adjustments, confirming and re-confirming plans for getting to the ceremony on time with everything and everyone in the right place.

It’s the perfect environment for me as a documentary wedding photographer to tell the story of what I see in a sensitive, relaxed and unobtrusive way.

The wedding ceremony…

The day suddenly goes into overdrive. Guests are arriving – perhaps meeting up for the first time in years. The excitement builds, the clock ticks, the sudden rush to compose oneself, last minute advice and calming words, the ‘first look’ and suddenly it’s just the two of you standing there, alone but not alone.

Documentary wedding photography is all about observation and this part of the day is the most emotionally charged. I’m now taking pictures all the time, often without anyone even noticing to capture the emotion and beauty of the wedding ceremony, mixed in with the humour and and love. There is a magical blend of formality and familiarity during the ceremony that can make for some of the best and most memorable documentary images of the day.

Just the 3 of us

Although I’m a documentary wedding photographer, most couples want a few relaxed, natural images of themselves together in addition to the ones I take purely candidly throughout the day. To be honest most couples find these few minutes away from the hubbub a restorative pause, a time to be together and talk a little. I often simply suggest going for a walk and keep a distance and only occasionally move in to say a few words or suggest a particular shot. This way I can achieve very natural pictures that aren’t too posed.

Wedding photography as street photography

My approach to documentary wedding photography is often to act just like a street photographer – to observe carefully and then compose pictures that say a little more than your average wedding photo. In the end, I’d like to think that a couple has chosen me as their wedding photographer because they like and value this type of photography – for its humour, its storytelling power and what it can say about the way we are as people. This, for me, is the magic of photography.

Here comes the band…

If music be the food of love… Whether there’s a first dance or not, this is the part of the day when the mood can really change and you and your guests start to let your hair down. I love these shots, from a slow first dance to wedding guests throwing some very unlikely shapes.