In early 2007, I decided to buy my first digital Canon Rebel XT, and although I've come a long way since then in the way of upgrading my camera bodies (now owning a Canon 40d and a Canon 5DMarkII). I was ready to take on the challenge of a more advanced level of photography and was anxious to produce a higher quality of images that a point and shoot could not do for me. Or at least I thought.
I started throwing myself into books, and looking at images of people, and how those images where achieved. I was hungry and anxious all at once to find my sense of style. But how was I able to do that? I now owned this advanced piece of equipment, and I felt I needed to produce incredible images in order to be able to push the limits of how good this camera would perform against all cameras I had owned in the past. I was thirsty to learn.I was introduced to this couple, in the fall of 2007 while photographing some friends downtown just for kicks and to play with the settings on my camera and learn how they worked. The couple was getting married in the winter time and had asked me if ‘I had a business card’. A business card? I wasn’t even self-employed as a photographer, and they wanted my business card? Something told me, that the comment my friend made to me long ago was starting to make sense – so, I offered to shoot my first wedding in December 2007. And from that moment on, I ventured into the world of wedding photography.
My sense of style is that of emotion. I aim to achieve emotional photographs that tell the story of how the couple’s day unfolded. I’ve often had my clients tell me that they felt as if they were revisiting their wedding day all over again. I’ve had testimonials where they’ve cried, they’ve been overjoyed and they notice that I don’t just ‘take photographs’, I ‘make photographs’ and that I engage myself in the days festivities to gain a good perspective of how it unfolds. To me, that is a very powerful statement that I’ve inherited in my daily habits as a photographer. I believe having a relentless passion for photography in order to achieve the desired result plays a huge role in how I shape my style and my vision. How I approach my clients is based on an understanding from a bride’s standpoint how she would envision her wedding photographs to look and communicate with her as best as I can to bring forward HER sense of style as well as my own. I believe that if I don’t have passion, I cannot achieve my dream of being a successful wedding photographer.
I’ve read endless blogs of other photographers, watched endless interviews of world renowned wedding photographers, and became heavily inspired by the works of Australian photographer Rob Heyman. I watched an excerpt from a series of interviews from a video called “Masters of Wedding Photography”, and his interview really captured me. I was able to resonate with him simply because his key component in his photography was emotion, his ‘as-it-happens’ style, and the way he interacted with his subjects and his adventurous personality, and his use of natural light that gave way to the expression of his photography. I appreciated his marketing approach of how he does not ‘sell’ his work, but that people ‘buy’ his work. His photography speaks for itself, and his exceptional use of color and black and white in his photographs inspires me to utilize color and black and white as part of expression in a photograph and to perfect this skill. Expression draws the viewer in. Black and white photography creates drama, while color accentuates the subject by way of contrast and makes the photograph come alive. Coupled with the relaxed and real-life style of his photography, I’m inspired by his belief that a photograph does not necessarily need to be tack sharp at all times, but if properly done, and artistically applied, you can capture the essence of the subject ‘in the moment’ and that even the slightest motion blur and grain in a photograph can be very artistic in nature, and in the end, it’s the ‘moment’ captured that counts.
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