From Zero to Six Figures: Editorial Wedding Photography with Zach & Grace

The reality is, we've never known what we're doing. We've bumbled our way through our entire career. We've been pretty lucky. We've put ourselves out there. But we're really a testament to take an opportunity, giving it a go, learning on the job and just being really committed ultimately to the results that the client's gonna get.

Uh w I mean we both come from backgrounds where photography has played a part in our lives. So my dad ran his own business um doing SEO photography videos for other companies.

We were basically we didn't want to live a normal life. We were looking quite desperately for a way that we didn't have to play the game and Buy a house and go through the motions and do all of that. Our first date was a two-day road trip through Wales, where we stayed together.

a local festival, which was the worst experience of my life because everyone obviously was wrecked. And full disclosure, I'd been to that festival years before and I'd been that person. And I realized, oh God, this is awful. So we were poking around, going like We must be able to make money with this camera. How can we do it? Yeah. So we we were going to London, it was London Fashion Week. I'd read kind of

I I was kind of into fashion when I was younger, but I was also quite overweight and out of shape, so I could never really wear any of it. But I kinda like read the Street Style blogs and things like that. I was interested. Um and I kind of just thought, oh, I remember Street Style. That was a thing. And that was obviously a big thing from, you know, 2013, 2014 onwards. This would be about twenty fifteen, I suppose.

But just it was an environment that we could thrive in when we could also watch all of these other photographers work. And the crazy thing about the street style industry and fashion weeks in general is you can be shooting alongside literally the top photographers in the world. Like it's an amazing place where you can be seeing who's shooting for Vogue, who's shooting for Harper's Bazaar, you can see the people who are shooting House for Dior and you can go and chat to them.

It's crazy. It's a crazy, crazy environment. And we got hooked. You know, that first time we started speaking to the right people, spoke to a photographer, an American photographer called Mike Ipp, who had been an editor at a newspaper, he'd studied journalism.

Quite old school, but he he basically just showed us the ropes and he just loved to talk and we loved to listen. So so we got on really well. And he broke down what the fashion industry looked like from the fashion week and the street style perspective. And it's basically this incredible opportunity that exists if you're a photographer looking to go out

and start taking photos in the fashion world where brands are putting on their runway show. They're inviting celebrities, influencers, editors of magazines, they're inviting, you know, big buyers at, you know, whatever department stores and things like that. And their top spenders. And as a bit of extra marketing, they're dressing all of those people in their clothes. So they're loaning out the latest collection to those guests. as a side b side business, a side form of marketing for them.

All these street style photographers can be taking photos of these super well dressed guests outside the show, and it's not paparazzi, it's not that style, it's a different thing. And then those photographers can sell those images to magazines or to agencies like Getty. So is this kind of like Side on industry that exists next to the runway shows. Okay.

what do we want to do with our lives? And obviously we were doing the fashion stuff, we were having fun. Um, but he'd he'd done wedding photography as well, you know, as not as his main thing, but he'd photographed quite a few weddings. And I think that was one of those moments where we kind of looked at the work we were doing and thought, this is great, but it would be great to do something a little bit more meaningful.

But there's a cutoff. Six months later, that image that you've taken is irrelevant. Like you have to keep showing up, you have to keep creating work. And in fashion, obviously your work is critiqued in a different way. You know, it's it's I wouldn't say it's torn apart, but any kind of commercial work is looking at it a different way. And what we realise with weddings, and we'll share how we specifically got into weddings, but what we realise once we're in weddings

was the complete flip, the reversal of that, where suddenly the work we were creating was treasured forever and the work we were putting in wasn't going down the drain in six months. We didn't have to worry that all of that was just going to be overwritten. what we created for one person or one couple or one family lasted forever. And and that was an incredible thing.

We were we were permanently broke but we were having an amazing time and we still had jobs at home as well when we weren't shooting. And that's why I say it's like people can go that oh you worked in fashion, it's easy for you. No. It was an incredible way to train your eye and to become a great photographer and learn from incredible people. Terrible business. Oh god, awful business. And talk about imposter syndrome like

You know, one day we'd be doing a day job at you know, back home in Bournemouth where we're from, and then three days later we'd be on the end of a runway in New York. You know, it's like we were we were shells of people. We had so little confidence at that time because we were living these two completely different lives.

But in fashion, obviously it's that stereotype of everyone looks down at the wedding industry. You know, it's like if you go to weddings, like, ugh, you've sold out. And I remember going back to fashion week.

in 2022 was the last fashion week I shot and we went to New York. I shot New York and a bit of Paris, but I lasted two days at New York Fashion Week, reconnecting with everyone. It was after the pandemic, it was incredible. But at that point we'd fully transitioned to weddings, built an amazing business.

And I was having conversations with the photographers who were my friends and who I'd spent years with and suddenly I couldn't understand them anymore. It was like we were speaking different languages and they were running around working so hard for their shots, doing everything and I just went

I just called Grace and I went, I'm just can we just go for lunch or something? Cause I'm fed up of this. You know, and it was snowing as well. It was like one of those movie moments. It was snowing in New York. Everyone's grinding around. I'm slipping on the ice. I'm just like, My hands are frozen. I I'm done. Like I'm out of

natural light, flash, whatever whatever goes, you know what I mean? And and you've got to do it instantly. You know, there's no t doovers. You know, you can't have a I remember chatting to a studio photographer and they were saying, Oh yeah, I'll have a team of people here and we'll shoot for five or six hours to make sure every little thing's perfect. We don't get that. You get ten minutes if you're lucky.

It's a really it's a completely different thing and it is a lot more challenging than shooting in something like fashion. But I think it's like anything, isn't it? We all kind of go like, Oh, that's not as easy as us, you know, oh not as easy as us, not as whatever, that's whatever I'm trying to say. Yeah, whatever it is. Or that they're like wedding photography, oh that's for cop outs. Like anyone can do that, that kind of they've got it that's what I was trying to say.

That's almost what I said, wasn't it? The words were there, but they weren't in the right order.

you know, make people feel comfortable, whatever it might be. There's a lot more to it. And and in a way, actually, I think what's interesting about the wedding industry is a lot of those things, and this is where we struggled, is a lot of those things that we valued, like interpersonal skills. aren't valued in industries like the fashion industry.

Is that actually, when you look at it, fashion had actually trained us for that. Because we weren't shooting campaigns, we were based around the fashion weeks, even down to the fact. the pressure you feel at the end of a runway is the same pressure that you feel at the end of the aisle. You know, uh fashion when you at the end of the runway and the music drops, the lights go down.

And the pumping starts, you know. You generally don't get dance music coming down the aisle, you know, like techno house, whatever. But it's the same thing. You get that same feeling, you know, when the bride's just about to come down the aisle and everyone goes quiet, everyone stands up and you go like that

really make the most of these other skills that we had, the other attributes we had, and allowed us to develop and become better people and better people people and be rewarded for that. Whereas in the fashion industry, kind of just like the commercial, whenever you're in a situation where you've got big teams coming together to create one specific product on a small scale.

you don't need that full skill set and it's not rewarded. Weddings, we have to wear all of those hats. And the better we can be, the more successful we can be.

fashion with a very editorial style. So, you know, I'm interested to n understand whether you started in the style you've got or whether, like most of us, you sort of evolved into it over time.

you know, I could maybe buy him a pint. That's probably about all we could get at that time. We looked like we were living the glamorous life, but we were so broke. So it was like, brilliant. We can do weddings. So we got to work and we figured out how to film a wedding. And we watched the classic like wedding film school. We watched some like Philip White like promo videos he'd done and and all that and

We went, okay, we can do this. We bought some microphones. We had some stuff, but we kind of like we bought the kit we needed and a gift to ourselves. And not to them. And um yeah, and we shot video for them and they loved the idea of it. And we went, God, what have we got ourselves into? Mm-hmm. It turned out to be pretty decent, and we put so much work into learning how to do it.

That that became our entire existence, wasn't it, in the lead up to it? And the months leading up was like, God, we're doing this and it's our friends. Oh no, like we actually have to do a good job. And we actually did a commendable job, I would say. But it we did not come into it in glamorous weddings. So this was our friends back down in Bournemouth

Quite quite simply from there, A we've got this wedding video that's in our portfolio now. Fantastic. B there's not a lot of other videographers out there. And in twenty seventeen, certainly, there just you know, there's a lot of incredible videographers now. There there was definitely a gap in the market and definitely in our area to create quite just we just created like nice clean wedding films. Like they weren't anything, they were I don't know how I would describe them.

And our next weddings were actually even less glamorous than that one, weren't they, really? It was like pub gardens, you know, that kind of thing, like classic barn venues, ninety-seven percent DIY touches. Like

Um twenty twenty we decided was the year. And it it coincided conveniently. Um Grace was working for my parents at the time. So there's something going on there as well where, you know, Grace came and worked for my parents, then I left their business. Um, unglamorous business. My parents were wrapping up to go and retire to France. So we went, perfect.

We don't want to take over their business because they've made it look really hard and it doesn't earn a lot of money. So that sounds like a bad idea. That's not the life we want. My dad always told me, Don't do what I do. And then I joined him in the business and went, Yeah, I see why you say that. Yeah. Like, okay. This isn't good. Why did you let me do this? Anyway, so Grace had come in doing the accounts for that after Grace's father had passed.

She quit her job and came and worked for my family's business. It it made a much nicer life for us, didn't it? And allowed us to pursue this. So Grace was hanging on in twenty nineteen till my parents wrapped up the business, which was gonna be twenty twenty. They were retiring to France, they got in before Brexit, which was lucky for them, and before the pandemic, so they were locked away on a farm.

quite happy, not knowing what was going on in the world. Um so we went, twenty twenty is gonna be our first year. January twenty twenty. That was it. We had our first photo job booked in. We were gonna offer photo and video. We were both going full time. This was it, the business had started. We burned every bridge effectively.

We were this was it. This was our time. And we got one wedding in, I think. Yeah. And then world collapsed. And we went from having I think we I don't know how much we had booked in. We had a good amount of jobs booked in. It was going to be a decent year.

Or we do what we need to survive. And so that's what we did. We sold a lot of stuff. We were delivering Amazon parcels. Then we started being able to filter in a few little commercial jobs and things like that. And then we had our first wedding in the August or September.

you know, it was all on faith as such. You know, it's like we weren't we'cause we couldn't book jobs, we couldn't get anything in. And we were still we still, even as the year went on, had couples cancel. And we just paid money back. You know, we weren't gonna hang on to it. We weren't gonna whatever. We wanted to we wanted to

be positive. You know, that's just kind of who we are, I suppose. It's like we didn't want to cling on, we just wanted good energy as such. So it was getting worse while we were getting better. And it coalesced so that we went into twenty twenty one. ready as completely different people. At that point we had one photo job in our portfolio and a private party we'd done at, you know, a family home the year before. And we built our entire business

our photography business off the back of that one gallery in October. And it and then when we, you know, got another wedding. Then we had two in our portfolio. We had three in our portfolio. And we were still doing video which which helped us survive at that point. But then by twenty twenty two we reali we'd already realised that video wasn't right. And I was r I did all the editing and I was really struggling with it mentally.

I don't know, I think I've got just like pure PTSD from video editing now. But like the mere thought of editing a film, I'm like you know, it's really, really bad.

Yeah, I think we just got completely burnt out. And twenty twenty one was a good year. We did really well, even though we could only shoot for the first, you know, the last six months of the year or whatever. But twenty twenty two was absolutely incredible and we blew through six figures, built an incredible business, we moved to London.

totally overworked ourselves, totally burnt out, but it was this full slingshot of all the work we'd put in at our lowest was paying off suddenly. And we started building that photography business and in October 2022 we'd been we had a day when we had one photo job on the Thursday down in Devon. And then we had a video only job in the Cotswold. and thursday's wedding and i think they paid they paid about three thousand for photo

and you can't do that. With photo we'd really found our calling. We went and did that job on the Saturday in the Cotsworld. And it was an absolutely chaotic wedding where everything ran behind. Everything was just all over the place, a complete nightmare. And it was a job that Personally, I had never felt so incompetent in my entire life. It was like every single thing I did on that day was panic and and it we nailed it. And actually the the bride's dad was a film producer.

I was really high in clients, talk about the pressure and We absolutely nailed it and it came out amazing. But it was one of those jobs where you know what you had to put in to make that happen was just unbelievable. The p like my heart was racing all day long. Everything you set up, they changed something at the last minute. The planner would say one thing, but something else would happen.

Pew and we left that job and I went I was like having a breakdown like I knew we nailed it but like you know, I'm in the car and I'm like I saw the I just wanna open the door and just roll it out. You know, and just like

I overthought all that, you know, like years down the line I'm still thinking, Oh, is it is it the right time or is it not? Oh, dunno, dunno, dunno. So I I have mad respect for people who sort of

this and do I think obviously doing it together helps is it's been the total opposite for me. Like every other area of my life, I cannot make decisions. Ask me what I want for dinner? No idea. When it comes to comes to our wedding, you know, business and making choices about this, it's like It's always been really like, let's go, let's do it.

Um one of the things I wanted to actually, you know what we're gonna do? Let's talk about the editorial style at this point. Yes. Because there's a lot of debate, as I said before we said hit record button. There's even a lot of confusion about what editorial wedding photography is. And you guys are unashamedly editorial. Um, you know, I I asked in some Facebook groups and I got some varying descriptions.

of for example, it's very posed, it's expensive looking, um, it's shot with direct flash. Um one of the more probably ones that I sort of thought Ah actually fair. You know, it's intended for magazine publication. What's your take on editorial style wedding photography and how would you define it?

And it's become the kind of you know, the prior of the industry in a way, certainly from the more of like the documentary side. I think the irony is that it's it's rooted in the documentary style in the first place. And really what it's about is And I've kind of described it like this before, but it's really like a documentary approach, but with more of an eye for detail. And it's not just an eye for detail in general.

But what we're doing is we're taking that look, that aesthetic, that kind of like true to life color. Cause that's a really big thing as well that I would just say about our fashion. career is for as creative as you could be when you shoot fashion, you still need to represent garments in the color they're supposed to be in.

So it's interesting like that. And when you come to something like weddings, you have all of these different styles. So really editorial, a lot of it is just going back to that kind of aesthetic where you're showing you're not leaning on heavy kind of alterations to colour to kind of convey a style. It's more the overall image. So it's

They're capturing guests, you know, they're they're telling the story of the day. But there's just a little bit more of a No, I wouldn't say prioritization, but there's just that bit more focused on these kind of like magazine worthy images. And that could be couple shots, particularly like portraits, or it could just be capturing certain moments

in a more kind of focused way. You know, so like the the classic would be like the Champagne Tower. You know, like that's the big one at the moment that everyone's showing. These kind of like semi stage moments, but A lot of the time these shots, they are staged, but they're not staged just for the photo. They're staged because, you know, they're a moment that you could say is forced, but it's because the couple wants to do that. They want to have that moment in the same way

Everyone's been photographing a cake being cut for years. That's just as staged as a champagne tower is. That's just as staged as a couple's portraits are. So really it's where you draw that line about where do you say this is real or authentic or not? I think with the editorial style it

It's a lot of it's about creating these certain images. And I think a lot of the kind of fear or negativity around it is the idea that couples are s are prioritizing the photos over their wedding or over the experience. But really it's a part of it. It's something, you know, it's fine, I think, for couples to want a couple of really amazing standout portraits. It doesn't mean they want the whole day to feel like a photo shoot.

And likewise when couples are being posed, so you'll see if you have a look at our website, you'll see couples who are kind of posed. But they're not like uncomfortable, they're not static, they're not whatever. And what we realized, and this is where we have quite a unique

take on the industry is we must have worked with forty or fifty different wedding photographers when we shot video. So we have seen a lot more of the industry in terms of on the day than most photographers have, far above and beyond. And and we've second shot as well. And even when you second shoot, you're not seeing it from the same way. From video, you really do have this different perspective. And what we would see.

happening is that couples who had quite a you know, because we had kind of a documentary approach to the video side, there'd often be kind of a more documentary photographer. And something that we saw happen was that couples actually felt more uncomfortable because they weren't getting enough direction.

And they wanted these photos to be great, but they felt self conscious that maybe they were doing something wrong. So when we approached photography, we went, you know, and this is where we kind of just ended up as editor or wedding photographers. It's not a conscious decision we made, but

we would help our couples really get those gorgeous photos. We knew that they wanted them. Our couples would love some of those standout images. And a lot of the time is because they aren't comfortable in front of the camera. They're not posy people. But they would love to have those images. So they need a little bit of help. They want to look, you know, that they want those images to be that bit more special.

They don't know what to do. And we would see all the time couples, and some even would say to us, like, We don't know what we're doing. Like the photographer's not telling us what to do and and we feel really self-conscious and it created this pressure. So in a way, from our perspective, the editorial style is just kind of embracing that a little bit more, understanding that there's plenty of couples out there who aren't all about, you know, showing off. They're not all about the photos.

They want those authentic moments. They want someone who can kind of carry that documentary style in. But they would really love some of these standout images. And uh, you know, it's a style that it's a full spectrum. Of course there's weddings that are quite literally

being shot with the magazine features in mind. But the truth is, that's happening at every style of the industry. You know, it's not just editorial wedding photography that's like that. The fine art photography world is just like that as well. You'll see amid you know weddings that are heavily, heavily curated and moments that are completely fabricated for that. So it really is a spectrum. It's it's not there's not one type of wedding that's like this.

The considerations we're making, we care about how our couple feels in that image. We care if they're comfortable. But we also care if their clothes are sitting right, if the dress is sitting right, you know, if everything's being showed off where if their hair and makeup looks great. We're caring about those things. And and that's why I say it harks back to fashion where you look at

You know, if you you could take the ama most amazing perfect runway photo, but if the model's foot placement is off, they're not gonna run that image. You know, it's not a perfect photo. So it's a similar thing where it's just The things we're paying. paying extra attention to are maybe slightly different to what someone who's purely documentary is paying attention to.

That's it. And is it the same thing with like fluffing the dress out, I presume, if they've got a train on it, don't take photos but it's all like bunched up in a box.

How is the in that case, like how would the br dress designer look at that image? Would they be happy with how their garment is being represented? Would the florist be happy with how the flowers are in that image? Not obsessively, but taking note of all of these different things and balancing all of those things.

quite not sitting right or you know, w we're not going in there and and changing things or messing around with things. We're we're s we're still capturing stuff in a very documentary way, you know, those natural it will be really for the couple's portraits that we're looking and and taking that. A little bit of extra time just to put that extra attention.

We know if they're not comfortable in those images, it does not matter how great that photo is or how great their dress looks. That's not going to be a great image to them. And at the end of the day, they are the person who these photos are for or the people these photos are for.

So all of it is a balancing act and it is, you know, you do draw a line somewhere where you go, Yeah, the dress isn't quite sitting right. But if we stop everything now, that damages the day. You know, and that's what weddings are, isn't it? It's having to make those calls and go

Should this happen, should this not happen? Maybe at times it can be just giving a little nudge to someone who can then do something. Maybe if a dress isn't sitting right, but maybe you can catch the eye contact of the bridesmaids who's closest, and then they go, Oh, yeah, that was my job, and then they just

tidy up the dress in the ceremony because you know that bride, that's going to be really important to them. So it's it's making all of these minute decisions throughout the day with this kind of big picture in mind.

If you want to be successful, look at what other successful people are doing. You know, if other people have understood the market and are doing well, you can look at them and go, okay, that that's working, that's not working, whatever. But you you know, a few years ago we completely clocked off and we don't use social media ourselves.

and their family and friends respond to images. So we will look when someone downloads and this is an ongoing thing, you know, but you'll see when someone registers for that gallery with their email address and you'll see who it is and we'll remember that it's the bride's mum or it's their best friend or it's them.

And then we'll see the images that they download from Pixie Set, the images that they obviously love and what matters to them. And then that's all being stored. And we're thinking, okay, that image is that kind of image works really well there. And seeing what people share.

seeing what works for other businesses. And the way that we market our business is almost a hundred percent organic and it's through the rest of the industry sharing our work for us. You know, we post on Instagram, but a lot of the time it's posting for other people to be shared. So we're also looking at what

images of our own that other, you know, venues, bridal designers, whoever share, because that's also giving us insights into what matters to those people. And it's all building that picture of what works. In terms of creativity and exploring our own creativity, The way we build our relationships with our couples and we focus on comfort and them first and build that trust.

It allows us to get more creative on the day in ways that we feel organically in the moment, like what we want to try and what we want to do. And we also take an approach. to how we take the couple's portraits, so portraits especially, where we break up the couple shoot throughout the day.

So we're never really shooting with our couples for more than 10 minutes at one time. And it allows us, among other things, to get really good shots, safe shots as such in the bag, but also build their confidence, build our confidence, and then get more creative.

So we'll literally spend a minute or two with them then. And what that also allows us to do then at that first point is to check in with them and then brief them on, because they're lost at that point, of course. So just to remind them what's gonna happen for the confetti or whatever, whatever we're gonna do next. So a few photos, nice, genuine, always such amazing, authentic portraits at that moment when they finally come together.

Couple portraits, quick check in, leave them to it. Let them enjoy that moment while we go off and do whatever we need to do, sort people out for confetti or group shots or whatever it is now.

as they kind of ran back to speak to people. So one of the massive things that we do, this whole balancing act, is we want to get those amazing portraits, but we also want our couples to enjoy every minute they can of their day. So the gap that we use is as guests are going from the end of the drinks reception into the dining space or whatever, that's when we take our couples.

five minutes before that call for dinner, that gives us ten, fifteen minutes, where our couple is missing nothing. They're missing nothing from the day.

you know, where the guests were because it's now clear. So we'll do kind of a loop. So that's the next time that we'll all that's kind of like our go-to for portraits all the time. And because we shoot quick, there's usually still enough time where we'll be able to give them, you know, three, four minutes getting specific, three, four minutes in the schedule before they then have to come in for their entrance. So they still get time for themselves.

they can, you know, go to the loo if they need to, whatever it might be, and we can go in ahead, get ready for the entrance. So that's a really good window. The next things that we'll do is either If it's great light, maybe we'll pop them outside during dinner, if they're cool with that. If they're happy to leave the you know their dining space and go and grab some shots, cool. We'll only take them if we feel like it's worth it. We'll only take them you know, it's always

Could we like are these shots really gonna matter? Not in a negative way, but is there something unique about this moment that you shouldn't be here, you should be over there? And if not, we'll leave them to it. And we'll obviously leave it completely up to them. But we might do that during dinner. We might Do something in the cocktail hour, again when guests are leaving.

Leaving the dining space, going to wherever they're having the cocktail hour. Maybe at that point, you know, if it's not height of summer, we'll be popping a flash on at that point, doing some direct flash. If we've not done that, then maybe there's an outfit change. So that's another opportunity there. Or it could be portraits at the end of the night.

Or something that we do is before they kind of open the dance floor, maybe pop outside or to a quiet space they can practice their first dance. That's a classic one, isn't it? They can have a little practice where you can get some more in the moment shots. And by breaking up the shoot like that something happens that, you know, we saw was a problem.

before is where couples were getting tired of shooting, quite frankly. They were feeling that fatigue. And maybe if they weren't having a great experience, it was getting worse and worse for them. And we'd often see the photographers struggling. And when we first started shooting, it's like Yeah, if you shoot for half an hour, sometimes you just start running out of ideas. What it does by breaking up the shoot is

A, it gives like a positive feedback loop. Before you know it, we're done. The couple's like, if they were worried, they're like, oh great, it's over. Oh, brilliant. Now they're actually excited for the next one. Because we've spent more time talking, chatting, catching up, having a good time than taking photos. But also if it doesn't go great, if the couple's really uncomfortable and you're really struggling to get them to be in the moment.

you can just call it, you know, and go, Okay, look, I've got some shots, like let's leave it. And then everyone takes a deep sigh and goes, Oh, thank goodness. And you can go away, look at those images and go, what can I do better in an hour? You know, and it gives you that opportunity to regroup and rethink. Overall, it just completely changes our couple's experience of having their portrait taken.

Um, usually like thirty minutes into the dancing, forty five minutes into the dancing, at the end of the band's first set, you'll have that moment where you go, Right, I need to go and interrupt them now to say that I'm heading off. God, this is awkward, what do I do?

me uh a good opportunity, a good thing we've we've done, and we we don't actually do it so much anymore, but we used to do all the time. We'd go over and we'd say, hey guys, like we're just about to head off. Would you like to come and do a few quick fun flashboards? Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. And it's just a really nice way to just like take a few like kind of closing photos with Flash that just gets them feeling good and gets them feeling

The ones that ended up like pride a place on socials at least, we don't know what's on their wall most of the time, but was those end of the night shots where they really had that energy, they really had that

Quite often though, they just say no. Um not bothered.'Cause you've got enough you've got enough during the day, they're having a party, they're not bothered. The priority is now dancing on the dance floor and I'm happy with that as well because I've got enough nighttime shots now that it's not a big deal if I don't have another one, do you know what I mean?

When we started we tried to avoid Flash to start with'cause we did not want to set up lights. And as you said, our view of using Flash at weddings was having to have speed lights on stands with triggers and whatever. And and having and we saw stands get knocked over, we saw photographers messing around dragging all of this lighting kit.

And we thought, well, you know what, why don't we just do what we've seen every fashion photographer do, you know, at fashion weeks and just stick a flash on top of the camera because it's practical. And I think that's why people are doing it. You know, it does look cool. It harks back to those old like

whatever New York club photos and and how people are shooting on, you know, the red carpets and the garlas and whatever. But also it's just really practical. A speed light in the bag, chuck it on the camera. I use a trigger and actually have it in my hand to give me more control. But It's just a simple way to shoot. It's unobtrusive.

Um I actually shoot on one Sony A7R four, which I you I have that because it's good for campaigns and things like as well. I'll probably chop it into this because I don't really need it. Um the A7 fours are great. We like that prosumer middle ground.

A, there's two of us. It would be a big investment if we went all A9s, just practically speaking. But the truth is we used to shoot on Canon like one DX. For video we had the C one hundred. When we're in fashion we had all the top kit, um, we realized in weddings we don't need it, it's a balance. So Sony A seven four, so two of those each other.

One thirty five mil lens, one fifty mil. Specifically we use the Sony thirty five mil one point eight because it's very small. Optically, it's good enough. Great lens. You can shoot it into most light and it's okay. Back there it struggles a little bit, but the payoff is it's so small. You you're still happy to pick up that camera at midnight.

It's fine. The other lens we use is the Sony 55 1.8, the Zeiss. Again, tiny lens, amazing. First lens I ever bought for Sony, back in the black hole of e Mount in 2017 when we switched. And Sony had about three lenses and none of them were the lens you need. The fifty five, I've had it forever, I've dropped it seventeen times. It's had two lens hoods. Still going strong, fantastic.

Sony Zeiss too.

Um that sums up the lenses we have. We have a spare like I carry a twenty eight mil lens, the old F two with me, just in case I need it. That's like a backup. One of us will have that on us.

I'd seen that that had just come out and it was battery operating. Also, it's like the time it takes to charge one of the batteries is about the same time it takes to use up the battery. So it's like you can always go on an infinite loop. So I was like perfect. So that is a lifesaver for us. So if it's winter and if it looks like it's going to be raining and we might have to do group shots inside, then we take that with us.

And likewise we obviously do a lot of work in London. So if we're somewhere like the Rosewood or Claridges or wherever we were the other day, the Ned, where we're gonna do family photos inside. then we'll take that flash with us and that guarantees that we're gonna have good light. But also because it's battery, you know, it's rechargeable, whatever, we don't have, you know, it's minimum fuss. Takes three minutes to put up.

And you can pack it back down and someone can just hold it. So we do take a bit of extra kit with us on certain days.

and a photographer who we've far surpassed, I'm happy to say. But she said about another photographer on this wedding you know, she was just like gossiping or whatever, and she said in a derogatory way, You know, and they bet they've never even developed film before. And I and I went, huh yeah. And I had it. And I went.

I don't like you and I'm gonna prove you wrong. So I went home that night and I ordered chemicals and I and I sat there and I developed film in the sink and I went off and I've got I mean you can't see in the background here. I've got No, I was like, what a pathetic thing to say. I was just like, how gross. So I went out and I did it and I went, it's not even hard. We go on that. I'm good at good at developing, bad at not leaving terrible scratches over everything, because I'm always in a rush.

Anyway, that's what we're about. Like so I use the pro photo with the trigger so that I have control with my hand. So I can create more flattering life than just direct flash. And the joy of that having that set up as well and going pro photo is obviously I use that trigger and it means I can use the same trigger to pull out the bigger flash if I need to and have that versatility.

One of the things that I found really fun coming into photography was all the different presets you could use and how you could manipulate images. Something that's actually I found a limiting in fashion is that you couldn't do any of that suddenly. Unless you were shooting a big campaign, then maybe you could get creative, but Most of the industry just needs true to life colours. That's kind of it. I think you can do a lot within editorial wedding photography, the spectrum is huge.

To have that look, you do kind of need that preset that's keeping those colours true to life. Nothing too contrasty, nothing too saturated, you know, just quite

an example or a blueprint that actually resonates with you and see how you can fit within that framework. Knowing the editorial the editorial style is broad, you know, Does what you like actually fit within that? Do the kind of weddings you want to shoot and you're engaged by fit within that? Because the truth is to run a successful business is not about a style, it's about the result you can give to a client.

And if you're doing something that's incongruent and you're just doing it for the sake of it. you know, would a couple really want that? You know, you have like there's a lot of there's a lot of competition out there, there's a lot of options for couples out there. And I think that's why some people are struggling. It's not because what they're doing is wrong, it's because they're not being congruent.

Rydw i wedi bod yr ysgrifennu wedi bod yn ysgrifennu neu'n ysgrifennu neu'n ysgrifennu neu'n ysgrifennu?

And through the season we're still filling our calendar. So in June we were filling our calendar for July and August. Like we've just taken a book for two weeks' time. Like that's how we run our business. It's affected by how we use marketing.

And we're not we don't use SEO. We don't use those kind of like traditional methods. We find most of our work, like most of our couples find us through Instagram. And it's not because we have a load of following, it's you know a big follower account, it's not because we get a load of likes. yw'n gwneud yw'n gwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

They connect with us and they book us. And that can happen two weeks out, it can happen, you know, well, it can't happen two years out'cause we don't open our books. So but yeah, I think um No, so I was gonna say, um business-wise, I think the there's a couple points I'd just like to make on editorial Wedding Photography, which is interesting. I think the big the big benefit of the editorial style at the moment

is it's not like if you were to transition to an editorial start, if someone was looking at that as like the grass is greener, it's not something that's going to give you an immediate return. It's not something that's going to give you short term success. But the benefit and the way it's benefited our business being in this style is that the ceiling is very, very high. So because it is the style of the moment, there's no denying it, it's coming, it's coming all around us.

Um you're seeing it all the way up to the highest level weddings, to those celebrity weddings, maybe in a way that fine art photography was having five, ten years ago. It's now editorial wedding photography and we're seeing it.

at that top, top level and everything in between. So what the benefit of being in the ed and we're not out here trying to convert people. Cause like I say, if it's not congruent, you shouldn't be doing it. But at the same time, if you like this style and you want to transition. the benefit is that the work you're creating now can take you up and up and up. So we have weddings that, you know, we shot at half the price, you know, clients paid half as much, that still books us jobs that

double the prices now and will continue to book us jobs. It's an aesthetic that maybe it could be on a small wedding. But they have that editorial style and they've put that attention to detail in. So you're creating portfolio that they can book you a really high-end wedding. And that's something that's very, you know, that would be a smart business decision as such, is that the fact the ceiling is very, very high.

How can they adapt? What's the what's your tip and advice for those who want to adapt the weddings they're currently shooting, which might be a barn or even a local registry office? You know, have you got any tips for them to try and create those images that will sell for and attracting those Bigger budget rides.

So there is an element of like the chicken of egg chicken or the egg thing, which is like what comes first. For us, like that's where we've used style shoots, editorial shoots, or we've shot behind the scenes with planners. Or, you know, for some people it could be second shooting on weddings. Like the the most proactive thing is to get onto those weddings that look better.

You know, and that's not always going to be necessarily by booking them. It could be by creating some portfolio that then attracts couples who maybe their whole wedding doesn't look like that, but they're having those editorial touches. The thing that we then did. So that's what we did is we we created editorials, we created a handful of images that connected with couples who were having something just a bit more stylish. So, you know, getting a model couple.

Going to a designer, getting some dresses, getting the guy in a nice tux, you know, and getting some of those images to go on the homepage. Not passing it off as weddings, but creating imagery that is an advert for ourselves. that connects in a way other businesses connect with their target clients. Because that's something we're guilty of as photographers is

We don't utilize our ability to create images in the way that other businesses use our ability to create images. You know, if you're creating A company, you think of who your target client is and you create a marketing campaign that appeals to them. We can do the same. So that was the first way that we did it, is we started.

getting a handful of images that could go on our website that would connect with couples booking you know, planning a wedding that was a bit more stylish. Maybe it was black tie, maybe it was the designer they were going for. And then on those weddings, while a lot of that wedding wasn't super stylish, but maybe they, you know, the guy wore a tux, you know, little touches like that.

What we'd do is we'd make sure that we would get usually some couples' portraits, whatever it might be, maybe it's portraits of the bride or the groom separately or their parties. in a way that maybe isn't connected to the rest of the wedding. Because this is the effect that's gonna happen. If a you know, it's just basic branding stuff, but if a couple lands on your website and they see images that don't look like their wedding, they're not gonna feel like You're the photographer for them.

What you can do then and what our business looked like early on was and it to me as it still is a little bit is kind of what we show, but Even if the rest of the wedding doesn't look incredible, even if it's a barn wedding, but maybe the couple's wearing like slightly more elevated outfits.

you could get some couple shots that maybe don't show the barn in, quite simply, show something that's a little more vague, you know, and start giving little touches and looking through the portfolio and finding looking through the real weddings and refining them down.

And maybe removing the images that are a little bit too far away from the kind of weddings that you want to book. Maybe it's hopping in and cleaning up images, cleaning up the background, getting rid of the yellow hairspray bottle out of prep. Making those images a bit tidier, getting rid of the guests in the background, getting rid of the T X six fifty that some animal like us has put on the groom for the ceremony.

Oh yeah, we do it. Um so little things like that. And then again, if you wanna you know, if your style is quite different, changing the preset out, you know, like finding ways. And that's what we're seeing photographers do now that we're teaching is You know, you think you haven't got the right images. A lot of the time, if you really look at your galleries, you can build together.

you know, you can put something together that looks more refined, that looks more in that direction. But it all starts with understanding who the couples are you want to book and the kind of weddings. You know, it's not shooting in the dark. It's not saying I want to book luxury weddings or I want rich clients.

is going, what kind of wedding are they planning? If I can show them something that looks like their vision for their wedding, they're going to fill that connection. And for us, as we said, At one point we only had one real wedding in our portfolio and then we had two. You know, ev we always hear people saying, But I don't have the work I need. You don't need that much work. You're not gonna be able to charge top prices if you've only got one real wedding.

But there will be couples who will take a chance on you. But it has to be a refined brand. And for a lot of people the the greatest success they're seeing is actually stripping a lot of work off of their websites, not sharing so much on social media, getting a more refined, you know, set of images that they're sharing. That can be really, really powerful.

are limiting. They're putting limiting belief limiting beliefs into photographers' heads and then their businesses are struggling because of it. We have seen dozens and dozens of photographers who are struggling to pay the bills. because people have said they shouldn't do style shoots. And I think that's insane. I think even if you had an opinion on it, it's not something that be should be said out loud. Because the truth is that we've seen and we've proven

is your success is down to you, not what someone else is doing. People's businesses aren't failing because other photographers are doing style shoots. That's the truth of it. There's a big movement against photographers who only show style shoots. If those photographers don't have real weddings to show

and couples are still booking them, those weren't couples who would book you or pay your prices. That's the truth of it. There will be couples who aren't that invested in their photographer and they're fine with a photographer with not a lot of experience. And we're all lucky that there are because we all got those opportunities early on. So where it becomes maybe unethical.

You obviously cannot pass a style chute off as a real wedding. Like, and and this is to me, it's completely binary. Like, it's absolutely fine to use them, just like a car advert uses a family getting into the car. Just because the couple isn't married and it's not their real child, it doesn't mean it's unethical, is an advert. And that's the same thing that a style shoot is.

The truth is, if you are using styled shoots and literally saying they are a real wedding, yeah, that's not right, is it?'Cause that's disingenuous and it's unethical. If you're using it to showcase a style, to create something that attracts a target client that someone connects with, there's not really a problem with that, is there? It's exactly the same marketing strategy that literally every other business has been used for. And I'll just say

I'll just say though, the irony is though, is that the same thing is that we're All of us as photographers, or most of us, have probably done a campaign shoot or some form of commercial shoot for a business with models to create images that aren't real. So why would it be any different for our business? As long as we are not passing it off as a real wedding, there of course isn't a problem. And if even if your whole website and portfolio is just styled sheets,

That's fine, isn't it? Couples know that, you know, as long as couples it's clear that they're not real weddings, then that couple is making a decision and going, Yeah, they've never shot a real wedding. But they take really good photos on shoots, maybe we'll give them a chance. But if a couple was really passionate about that and really cared, they wouldn't hire them.

If you use the images you took from the workshop, can you really recreate that in a wedding condition? And and that's the sort of grey sort of But if you go to a style shoot like we did last month, or not last month, in October, where you're left to your own devices, you style it yourself, you sort of like pose the models, you find the light, you do everything yourself, absolutely nothing wrong with using those images.

But that's where the market dictates. If if you're showing work that you can't create, it's it's that's obviously tragic and it's not great, but that's a completely different issue. That just means you can't do the job you're saying you can.

And and this is it is I I think the the takeaway point or like the final point that I need to like blurt out and be really offensive is It's what we learn and the reason that we don't say anything negative is a general rule, like you won't hear us spouting outrageous opinions or whatever.

or putting anyone down, generally. Genu I say that, generally, that sounds terrible, but like well, I might, you know, occasionally. Grace might annoy me. But the truth is, what we realized is we heard so much of this advice when we're in fashion, we heard so much advice like this in the wedding industry. Most of the time, the people telling people they shouldn't do things are not people who have successful, thriving businesses and happy lives.

And at the end of the day, what we realized is we want to aspire to have all of those things. We want to be happy, content people and have a thriving, successful business and have a roster of happy clients. it doesn't go hand in hand with putting other people down and saying people shouldn't do things.

And it's up to clients to look at that and go, Great, well they they've taken these amazing images. They can definitely shoot a real wedding and that's it. And as your real weddings elevate, you can then create better shoots, better aspirational things like that and keep riding that.

and a video course that you get lifetime access to. It's called the editorial wedding photographer. And it's basically a complete solution for building or transitioning to the editorial style and building a successful business.

how you know, to make those decisions and to to transform in that way because you don't have that feedback of, is this good or is this not? Am I going the right direction or not? So we wanted to create something to actually help people go through those changes. And, you know, with support from us in terms of like following that editorial direction.

So it's that kind of ongoing support and it also has one to one calls in there. So every couple of months we have one to ones with each student and work through things. So it's the course we wish we had, but we're kind of self starters. But then it's that extra support for people to actually make those changes and get that feedback directly. And a lot of what we do, which isn't what I imagined it would be, but

A lot of what we do is helping people stay accountable, helping people implement changes, but then also have the confidence and the mindset to see them through. So When Grace said hand holding, it really is genuinely hand holding. You can come and meet us in person, we'll hold your hand. Like it's that it's that insane level of support that we realise works and the result.

That photographers are getting are unbelievable. So we've had photographers, you know, quadruple the amount of inquiries they get. We've had photographers almost double their price. And within a few weeks of hard work, of refining their website, you know, really working on doing long website reviews, things like that, a lot of different coaching, but within weeks.

start getting the right inquiries coming in and then start booking the right jobs. So we have a photographer who upped their price from I think about two and a half thousand to three and a half thousand. And about two to three and a half. And they've booked we work with them over the last month. They've only been in the program a month.

A lot of one to one support there, bit of extra to really implement the changes, really figure it out exactly what's going to go on that website, everything like that. Really narrowing down the portfolio, a lot of refinement, a lot of hard work on their end.

showing up incredibly long nights as we've been told. Yeah. But in the last week they've got five bookings at this new price. Which five bookings in a week is insane anyway. But five bookings after increasing their price by fifteen hundred after years

years of being stuck at the same price and even going backwards. So we realized that so much of it wasn't about the actions that you take or the changes you implement or what you show, but it's also that confidence to Stay consistent with the changes and give it enough time to see them through.

Uh and the relationship counselling that we should have had. Um a fast track. Doing it right the first time. The biggest gift we can give is to help people do it right the first time. A lot of our students have been doing it for ten plus years. A lot of them are more documentary style photographers, some of them more diehard style documentary photographers, um, who have who have seen the writing on the wall and gone the people around them are struggling.

They're struggling. They're maybe even filling their calendar, but they're not satisfied by the weddings they're shooting and they know it's time to make a change. They either ride it out and go down with everyone else complaining. I don't want to sound negative, but they either go down, you know, and complaining

It's not masses of output, you know, or input. It's consistency. And the big thing that we teach in there is our how we use Instagram to market our business. Because we are, as I said, we're extreme. We don't even I don't know if you can find us on Google. You you'll definitely find pages you shouldn't look at.

That are like hidden pages from years ago. Like we don't put a second into SEO. We are hardcore all about Instagram. And three years ago, we were the worst possible people on Instagram, self proclaimed, because we don't use it ourselves. But we developed a strategy from learning from a lot of different businesses and seeing what they were doing that brings us

At the minute, over four hundred inquiries a year just from Instagram alone. And it doesn't cost us anything. In the last month we've had fifty inquiries come through from Instagram. It's insane. Even we look at it and go, it's insane. And it's that's the same strategy, you know, that Students are using and seeing a complete change in their whole business, complete turnaround and having that confidence.

And everyone's asleep. I've actually been told that people listen to us as they go to sleep, so I don't know whether to take that as a compliment. The the other thing that we have. So firstly that. So you don't need to make any investment to learn from us. And you can find trainings out there on our website and on the podcast. But the other thing that we have that we're just launching at the moment. is called the posing master class. And it started out as a way for us to share.

how we approach the couple shoot, exactly as we described how we break it up, how we build relationships with our couples, and basically how we guarantee that we capture those magazine worthy portraits on the wedding day itself.

with confidence, even on the toughest weddings, and making sure that we and our couple have a great experience. We've just added to that course and we're relaunching it now, where it's now got an editing section as well. So we show you how we take those raw images that we've captured on the day. the choices we make in editing, how we clean up those images to make them more magazine worthy, how to make them more polished, that bit cleaner.

And we also have a preset in there as well. So we have an editorial style preset that you can use. So the idea of it now, especially at this time of year, where we are in winter, this is something that you can take, you can learn a new approach, which honestly has been massively transformative to so many photographers.

who were taking that kind of like half hour port tech portrait session approach before. Splitting it up has changed the way a lot of people shoot. We've got incredible feedback from it. But this time of year where maybe you're not shooting,

you can use the editing section in the preset to start re editing some of your existing portfolio. Maybe not now if you're like us, you're going into Christmas as a backlog. Don't add the pressure. But In the new year, when you've got that time and you want to make a difference, this is a product that not only is going to teach you that approach, but will help you re-edit some of that existing portfolio and

You could use this to actually completely redefine your brand in winter and get ready for that January, February, March booking season and start attracting those new couples. So that's uh it's only a ninety-seven dollar product. Low cost. We have a lot of um