WE have a new blog...

If you have arrived here looking for Wedding reports and slideshows they've all gone to the new site. You can find them here.

New site, new blog...

If you have just found your way here through a search, or if you have us bookmarked, you may notice there's not a lot going on right now. Well that's because we have moved.

Go to our new site here, the blog and site are all integrated now so you won't have to keep shifting around.

Best wishes
Steven and Josh

An interview with Steven.

There's a great new blog aimed at Brides, Grooms and photographers. It's called Photography 1827. The owner, Kathryn Andrews, talks about and shows really good wedding photography, particularly fine art and documentary styles. There are also articles on fashion and style for weddings, it looks good as well.

So last night I answered Kathryn's questions and sent her some of my favourite images from over the last few years.

Click here to go have a look.

Documentary wedding photography workshop

So here it is, the link to the details and the form to register. This should appeal to just about any wedding photographer because Megan will enlighten us on how to market a wedding photography business and Josh will show us how to make the best of our RAW files and album designs. I'll have quite a bit to say about our style of wedding photojournalism. So have a look here and register your interest.

Documentary Wedding Photography Seminar

Over the past week or so we’ve been shouting on Twitter and Facebook about the seminar/workshop, whatever you want to call it we are planning for 26th and 27th November.



It’s really exciting for us because we will be inviting just a handful of our fellow wedding photographers to our studio in Bowness. They will be able to have a good look around, see our sample albums and the way we work on a day-to-day basis. It’s not just a chance for them to have a nosey, although they are very welcome. We are going to give them an insight into what makes us tick as documentary wedding photographers.



I’ve talked about this on here before but it is worth another mention. My choice to approach wedding photography the way I do was no more contrived than the pictures we make. As a young wedding photographer in the seventies and to almost the end of the eighties, I was always uncomfortable asking intelligent people to adopt contrived poses for the sake of making, what I considered to be an inaccurate record of the wedding day. That was the way all wedding photographers worked then. I don’t know if I understood why it felt uncomfortable but I know that the couples didn’t take to that sort of direction particularly well either, maybe it was because I was so young or maybe I just was not the right type of personality.



I had always been interested in the idea of photography as a means of telling stories. When I first got into photography, as a very young, smooth faced art student, I collected a series of books on photography from Time Life publishers. Those books drew a lot on the archive of Life magazine and photo-stories by the photojournalists that graced its pages. Photographers like W Eugene Smith, Margret Bourke-White and Alfred Eisenstaedt. It wasn’t long before I discovered Henri Cartier-Bresson and his, for me, life-changing essay, “The Decisive Moment” written in 1952 but just as valid now. I still love reading that essay, and I go back to it often. All of it struck a chord for me, but his idea that the photographer can be an observer, a collector of images and a re-teller of stories, but did not influence or manipulate beyond the selection process seemed to be in contrast to the way I had been trained to photograph weddings.

“…Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor manipulate the results in a darkroom. These tricks are patently discernible to those who have eyes to see…”
Henri Cartier-Bresson from “The Decisive Moment” 1952.



In 1988 a friend and fellow photographer, asked me to photograph his sister’s wedding. He knew what I thought of wedding photography at the time and sympathised with my interest in impartial story telling. So, with his sister’s blessing he suggested I work the way I had always wanted to. That was the start and by the mid nineties that approach had become fashionable and what I was doing was in demand.

There are some very important theories that go toward setting the philosophy and methodology of getting really successful, emotive, powerful story-telling pictures. There are techniques, methods and a set of personal ground rules that establish not just the look of the images we produce but our whole approach to wedding photography. So, in a nutshell, that is what we are going to be talking about on the 26th and 27th November.

As well as all that from me, the delegates will hear from Megan Henshall.



Megan is an expert in branding and marketing wedding and portrait photography businesses. She has worked with, and contributed to, the success of some of the biggest names in our industry. When it comes to numbers she knows her stuff. She is also very in tune with our typical customers (as if there was such a thing), she understands what it is our clients want from us. Because she is not a photographer, but works everyday with images, she sees our work and the work of the other photographers she works with, from a similar perspective to our clients. That means she is able to help our clients use our images in albums, frames or any other presentation that relate to the customer’s needs and desires. She will talk on those subjects and subjects that will help photographers set their price, brand and product range to fit the market they want to serve.

It’s all very well making stunning images and creating wonderful products but we photographers still have to convert that jumble of zeros and ones into recognisable images. In our business, as well as making some of the team's stunning images, that’s Josh’s domain.



He will give a presentation on our workflow, colour management (that includes how we get those punchy, film like black and whites), editing and processing. He will also talk about and demonstrate the JAD software we use to design our gorgeous Jorgensen albums.



If you are or aspire to be a documentary wedding photographer go to the link and register now.

New Sample Album

I know we usually do this the other way round, but sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and get all adventurous... So, if you go and have a look at our Facebook page, you can get a glimpse of our newest sample album, while you are there why not join it? If, however, you would prefer to see it in the flesh and that is by far the best way to see it, give us a call 01539 454 83 and we'll get the coffee on.

A Velvet Hand, a Hawk's Eye...

We have just joined a group of wedding photographers called "Wedding Photographer's Network". They have a directory, we are in it, and they also have a blog. It's a great site with some really interesting stuff for both photographers and Brides.

Last night Steven wrote an article for their blog. It's about how he approaches his style of wedding photography. It's called A Velvet Hand, a Hawk's Eye. That's a quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson's "The Decisive Moment", Steven's favourite piece of writing of all time.

You can read the article here.

New Profile Pictures...

As part of the promotion effort for our latest project (little hint at it two posts down) we made some new profile pictures. We've used them on our new site as well and we thought it would be nice to share them here.

New wall art...

We go to a few places to have prints made. One of them is the Printspace in London. They say nice things about us.

We have been meaning to get around to having some new prints made for the walls here at the studio, so yesterday, we had a delivery from the Printspace. They are all from recent weddings, several from Italy. We will make some more in the next few weeks but these will do for now. Here are a few of them.

Something for photographers...

Steven has been photographing weddings for 35 years and for the last 20, in a documentary style...

We can't say too much yet because we are still working on it and there is somebody else involved, we'll tell you who very soon, but let's just say if you are a wedding photographer, you like the way we work and you could use a little help, keep 26th and 27th November free.

We will tell you everything in the next week so keep watching.

Pictures for friends

We work with a lot of wedding suppliers, some on several occasions. Over the last few years we’ve worked with Aqua Hair and Beauty a lot. Gareth asked me ages ago if I could find some of images from more recent weddings that they have worked on.

This has been a very busy year, we’ve photographed more weddings this year than we have in any of the last ten years, and so it took a while. Anyway, I finally sorted some out and I will drop them in to the salon during the week.

In the meantime I thought you would like a little slideshow. Click here.

New site, nearly there...

We have been working a bit more on our new site and I think we are nearly there. We've added galleries and changed the copy. There are even new profile pictures...handsome devils, they are... It would be great if you would go and have a look and maybe leave some feedback.

Here it is...

They're here...

Andy and Michelle here is a special blog post just for you.

Waiting at our studio are 3 bragbooks, a folio box of prints and a gorgeous Medium Styla album with your wedding story. As well as all that there will be a jug of very strong , hot fresh coffee and a plate of those triple chocolate biscuits you love so much.

Just to prove the point we made this picture in the style of a 1960's pack shot.

Give us a ring 015394 454 83 and we'll make a date.

Up and down the M6

We are recovering today. On Thursday of last week we went up the road to Linthwaite House Hotel for Mart and Suz's wedding. Then after a couple of meetings on Friday morning we set off to London and then Surrey to photograph Sian and Phil's wedding on Saturday. We finished working at their wedding at around 9pm and set off back up the road to Knutsford where we spent the night before driving the final leg up the M6 to Bassenthwaite for Lisa and Gary's wedding yesterday.

The first one should be on here tomorrow.

Josh is not a fan of being the centre of attention

Sometimes an image looks better when the subject is not looking into the camera. Here's a tip for photographers, don't just tell the subject to look away, find something, or somebody and ask your subject to look at them. So, Josh is directing reflected light back at Kirsty and Steve says "look at Josh". He gets so embarrassed, where should he look? Steve knows he hates it but it does help the image along. This time Jim's Uncle Chris was on hand to capture the full impact of the moment. Thanks for the pic Chris.

New web site

We are working on a new site. It's in very early development but we would love some feedback, especially from past present and future customers. Tell us what you think compared to our old site. Click here to have a look. Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Don’t lose the plot…

A couple of months ago Steven got an E-mail from “Photography Monthly” Magazine. They wanted to run a feature on how to tell a story of a wedding day in pictures, so who else could they ask? He did it and, as we were working on James and Bridget’s pictures at the time, we used mostly their images to illustrate the article. Three copies arrived in the post while we were away so I guess it’s in the shops now. We got some good coverage, over 6 pages, even a picture of Steven himself printed in two places in case you weren’t sure what you saw the first time. The magazine is only £3.99 so go get one now.

By the way, did I just say "while we were away?" We’ve just shot a wedding in Tuscany. We flew out for Svetlana and Martin’s wedding on Tuesday and got back on Thursday night. We are processing the pictures as I write this. Wow, what amazing light. The wedding was fabulous and the pictures are fantastic. We are working with Rob and Sarah tomorrow in North Yorkshire so we won’t get the slide shows from Italy on here until after the weekend, yes I did say slide shows. We did a sort of post pre wedding shoot in Siena the evening before the wedding. That will be one slide show and the wedding will be another. Post pre wedding because we already did a pre wedding shoot in London with Svetlana and Martin last year. Remember?

They talk about us in London ...

When we first moved to our studio in Bowness we had display prints made by The Printspace in London. They are a chic lab in Shoreditch who work for some of the big names in fashion, fine art, advertising and editorial photography. They asked if they could use our image of Tamsin for their advertising.



Of course we were flattered that they asked and it has done the rounds of the trade shows, they are planning to use it on their web site as well.

A couple of weeks ago they contacted us again and asked if we could send them some images that they could put on their blog along with a short write up about us.

Here it is.

Sorry to mess you around...

So, we tried another blog. We had so many calls and E mails from people who said they couldn't see the new blog properly. Seems it didn't work with some browsers so we've gone back to the old one. Sorry to mess you around. We think it looks better than it did and if you've missed us we have published a months worth again on here. Keep watching this one then.

Steven and Josh

The Wedding Photographer as an Impartial Observer. First Posted 25th May 2011

Years ago, when I first worked as a wedding photographer there appeared to be only one style. Every picture was posed and wedding photographers seemed to dominate the wedding day. I didn’t enjoy that very much and I heard that couples and guests didn’t either. I did other sorts of photography work, advertising, industrial, architectural, Press and editorial. I always did a few weekend weddings, early on, I did them the way I was trained, but it never felt comfortable.



I was always very interested in documentary photography. Work by people like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliot Erwitt and W. Eugene Smith inspired my personal work.



One day I got thinking about documentary photography and weddings. What a great subject a wedding would make for a documentary photographer. At the end of the eighties a photographer friend of mine asked me if I would photograph his Sister’s wedding. He could have done a great job himself but he was an Usher and a guest. We talked it over and with the blessing of everyone involved I set about it as a documentary photographer would. We agreed I would do some posed pictures of the Bride and Groom and the principle guests but the majority of the pictures would be in a “fly on the wall” style. My chance to try a new approach to wedding photography had arrived. I had a great time but I never really saw the pictures because I handed the films over to my friend. From that wedding on though I decided I would work as a documentary photographer whenever I was asked to photograph a wedding.



Around the same time that I started working in this way, as is often the case with trends, other photographers began to offer a similar approach. What happened next was a new style of wedding photography. I thought long and hard about what it was I was offering. Choosing to work this way was not a purely stylistic decision. It was in response to the “photographer dominated” style of wedding photography that was around at the time. I heard loads of complaints about photographers spoiling the celebrations by taking a long time over posed pictures. I also believed I could make beautiful documentary pictures while working virtually unnoticed.



I decided the way forward for me was to formulate a philosophy, a kind of manifesto of wedding photography. What I didn’t want to do was take over, I didn’t want to set up or contrive pictures in any way and I didn’t want to influence the day. My involvement as a photographer would end with looking for, and making images that would be both flattering and tell the story of the wedding.



Photography is all about light, the word comes from the Greek and literally translates as light writing, the traditional wedding photographer would position the subject in the best light or add lighting to create an interesting or beautiful image. As an impartial observer I couldn’t do that, I would have to look for the light, position myself and wait for my subject to move into the best position. Traditional photographers posed their subjects and encouraged a suitable expression with banter or requests to smile. The impartial observer has to watch and move and follow until the elements that make a strong, story telling image come together, what my hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson calls “the decisive moment”. As a wedding photographer, my job is to collate a series of “decisive moments” that will work together in sequence and series to create the story of a wedding day.





In those early days I made a lot of the pictures on black and white film and printed them myself in the darkroom. I made some pictures in colour because couples have usually thought long and hard about the colours they want to use on their day so it is important to record them. Black and white though is an excellent story telling medium. When you look at a colour picture the first thing you notice is the colour, even when it is subdued colour can be a distraction. Even though now we can decide at the processing stage whether we are going to make colour or black and white we still favour black and white for about 60% of the pictures. We offer customers the choice to have all of the pictures in colour but almost all choose to go with our decision.



So now there’s two of us. Part of our job as impartial observers is to be as unobtrusive as possible. That does not mean that we hide with long lenses like voyeurs, it means we blend in to the day and conduct ourselves in a way that doesn’t draw attention. As much as possible we will avoid using flash, for one it is intrusive and secondly available light is often more attractive and realistic.



It’s not all “fly on the wall” though. Couples still ask us to make 4 or 5 group pictures so that they have an assured record of some of those that shared their day. It would be remiss to not make a beautiful portrait of the Bride and Groom soon after they are married. Even with these posed pictures we are very careful that the pose and lighting is very natural and in no way contrived.



Together we photograph around 40 weddings a year all over the UK and beyond in our narrative style as impartial observers.



Steven Taylor