Trade secrets revealed…

James Stewart is a photographer in the US and joined our Facebook page recently. He had some questions about the way we work and as we had some requests from others as well we thought it might be interesting for photographers and clients alike if we answered those questions here on our blog. We have no secrets and we are very happy to share technical and aesthetic approaches with other photographers. You can use the comments section on here or post on our Facebook page. We would like it to become a regular feature. We may not always have the answers but we will do our best.



So here is what James asked on our Facebook wall:


“Thank you for taking the time to write...I do have a couple of questions. When you are making the photographs I see here...you also take the more formal shots as well right? How do respond if you get clients that want you to do more formal shots and less observational shots? How much of these great shots are made post-wedding? Are there shots you take in many weddings that while they aren't traditional...are sort of your signature photograph? I also notice that many of the inside church photographs are made using natural light, what would you set your ISO to in order to capture enough light? I'm sorry for all the questions, but I would appreciate any help you could possibly give...Thank you again...”



I will take James’ questions one at a time but first I think there is a general theme running through. We tell the story of a wedding day through pictures. We are both academically trained in photography, which is not common among wedding photographers, so as well as the how we take photographs we contemplate the why we take photographs or why our clients want us to. I think that is quite unusual in our profession and goes some way to explaining what we achieve. Every image we make has a purpose. We photograph a wedding with the narrative in mind. We are not looking for single stand out pictures but sequences and series of story telling images, that’s why our slideshows work as well as they do. Because we have read the likes of Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes we understand a little about signs and signifiers that allude to narrative. So we look for the “tells” that complete the story.



So for James’ first question… Yes we do make “formal” group pictures and portraits of the couple. We talk to the couples that book us and we listen to their ideas of what they would like from their photographs and we always aim to please. I have been photographing weddings for 35 years so our “formal” (I’m putting that in quotation marks because they are pretty informal actually) are not bad but that is not what we are known for. So a couple who are looking for a lot of formal pictures are probably better spending their budget on somebody who does that sort of work. Family groups are an important part of the photography of a wedding day, it’s a rare opportunity to get the family together and some people have a knack of avoiding cameras so the formal situation might be a once only chance. But… we recommend that the list of requested formals is kept short, from our point of view, it’s better to make fewer, bigger groups than lots of small ones. We suggest the list is kept to 4 or 5 and one with everyone on if location and weather allow. That’s also true of the portraits we make of the couple. We don’t want to turn the wedding into a photo shoot. We would like our customers to take away an album that helps them to recall their wedding day not a memory of having their picture taken. Also we do not ask our customers to adopt unnatural poses for the sake of the photograph. For similar reasons I have a problem with added filters and effects but I think that might form the basis of another question.



I’m not quite sure what James meant by “post-wedding”. If he meant after the day the answer is none. All of our wedding pictures are made on the day. If he meant after the ceremony, the answer is most of the formals. The tradition in England is for the Bride and Groom not to meet on the day until they are at the altar, or in front of the registrar when the ceremony begins. Polish weddings, we have done a few, the Bride and Groom arrive together. So we usually do the formal pictures after the ceremony at the reception venue. Josh sometimes photographs the Groom, parents and attendants before the ceremony and I might do the same with the Bride.




I don’t think we really have signature images. We often see pictures recurring that we have made before but that’s probably because there are similar events going on that add to the narrative. We both like reflections, in mirrors, windows even shiny cars. We tend to use foreground objects out of focus, or shoot through naturally occurring frames. Guests can make great objects to frame and shoot through. We like using cars and buildings and we live and predominantly, work in one of the worlds most beautiful landscapes so it would be wrong of us not to make something of that. Principally though we respond to the personality of the wedding and the story of the day.



James said that he noticed that many of the inside Church pictures are made using natural light. All of our pictures are made using available light. Either natural daylight or room lighting. We don’t use flash or added lighting. We might, on occasions, use a reflector to bounce light back into a portrait or group picture. There are two reasons we don’t use flash. One, we want to preserve the atmosphere of the day. Added lighting is for the sake of photography only and although it can be done beautifully has nothing to do with the way it is on the day. The second reason we don’t use flash is we like to be unobtrusive, as soon as we fire a flash everybody knows there is a photographer in the room. So, ancient buildings and English weather all add up to very low light levels. Back in the day when we shot on film we really struggled, push processing film to add punch to underexposed highlights and non existent detail in deep, dark shadows. But we have arrived in the digital age and using the equipment we have now is like we have discovered the alchemist’s quest. We use Nikon D700’s. They have a full size sensor that offers up low noise even at very high ISO rating. We are more interested in noise reduction than we are megapixels so the D700 is our ultimate bit of kit. They are also small and fairly inconspicuous, we don’t want to stand out as photographers. In Church we may find ourselves working at 1600 ISO but first dance pictures are often made at 6400 ISO. We use noise reduction software in extreme circumstances, if we have had to pull detail out of shadows. We also add film grain effects. For two reasons, grain appears more attractive than noise and tends to mask it and two because we still love the look of Tri X deved in Rodinol.



I hope that helps, James and anybody else who may be interested. Please add comments or questions and we will answer them in a further post.