A natural style

The selection of images below from this recent wedding really showcases my natural style of wedding photography. Shooting in this "reportage" style with minimal staging -mostly reacting to what is going on and capturing those natural smiles, glances, and interactions - is how I approach the weddings I photograph. I think the results speak for themselves.

I find this natural style generally puts brides and grooms and everybody else at ease, and enables me to capture what is happening in front of me, as opposed to me artificially engineering photos. There is no need for the bride or groom or other guests to be conscious of posing or pouting - I capture the natural smiles, glances and other interactions. 

It means I can blend in to the environment easier and therefore capture images that might be out of reach or out of mind of photographers who shoot in a more staged way (which, do not get me wrong, can and often do in the case of many I know, elicit fantastic results, but it's not my style). It gives me more time to react and snap away to the various goings on. 

The majority of clients are very comfortable with this approach, and adore the final product: an organic collection of images that tell the story of the day as it happened as naturally as possible.

Rapport

One important method which helps support this natural approach, is to become quickly familiar with the key people on the day. I will always already be on familiar terms with the two people getting married - but I also make myself known to the rest of the bridal party, close family and friends, and establish a rapport with them. This really facilitates being able to more easily shoot in my natural way getting close-up when necessary and not being a bother to anyone. I aim to keep as low-key as possible and to not be a distraction. 

This natural style allows me to capture moments of intimacy, tenderness and also hilarity! More often than not these natural images are my clients' favourite photographs from a day's shooting, and are mine too.

Stunning lens

One of my favourite lenses - the 35mm 1.4 - lends itself to getting absolutely phenomenal results with this style. It is quite a wide frame, which enables intimate indoor shots but also captures stunning outdoor skies and landscape. Importantly, it can really isolate the subject when shooting wide open - photographer speak for photographing as shallow a depth as possible on a particular lens. More so than most other lenses, it produces such stunningly sharp images at these settings, which also enables one to shoot in such low light (i.e. indoors) all-the-while producing professional high-quality images.

There are numerous examples below - let me know what you think in the comments.

Christine & Matt

This wedding was Christine and Matt's big day, and oh what a day. They are school sweethearts from the idyllic village Cherry Burton in East Yorkshire, now living in London. The service was at the village church, St Michael & All Angels, and we then ventured on to Rowley Manor, a privately owned Georgian house near Little Weighton.  

My frequent associate, Tom from Giraffe Photography, shared duties with me on this one - his photos are marked below in the captions. We always have a blast shooting together....but this was something else.

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