Madonna & Alex

The Pose

Its no secret that I'm not a fan of the stiffly posed wedding photographs. Do I do posed photo's as well as unposed? Yes of course I do, however if you look at my work compared to a lot, then you will see that people look extremely relaxed and happy. When people are relaxed with a tiny bit of guidance, they pose themselves naturally.
I cringe at photo's where its obvious that a photographer has used the following formula:-
"Groom you stand like that + Bride you stand like this + Bridesmaid 1 you put your hand on your hip + Bridesmaid 2 you hold this. ect ect" Do you know what that sum equals? A waste of peoples time.
Weddings are not photo shoots! The more time you take up setting up uncomfortable poses the more of their special day you are taking away from them.

Prabudh and Vanisha

Mr and Mrs Zorlander

I have stated previously that photographers are generally pretty poor at marketing. I have been terrible at it over the years, and sometimes its a wonder how I have been doing wedding photography for over 20 years.

Apart from a website and an ad on freeindex I do no advertising. Most of the time my clients come from word of mouth. Others have been lucky enough to stumble across my website. 

I believe there are some terrible photographers out there that are more successful than me due to their marketing skills being much better.

That's a shame really not only for me but for the couples that didn't book me for no other reason than they didn't know about me.

By far the weirdest way I have received wedding bookings is through something that has nothing to do with marketing at all.

In 2002, an amazing new gaming service began called Xbox live. This was something that allowed me to play games with friends that had moved away to various ends of the globe without leaving my sitting room.

What I didn't predict is that some guys I ended up playing with were people that I had never met before in my life.

Stranger was the fact that I have ended up doing a number of their weddings and am now good friends with them.

Below are a very few random pictures from a wedding I did recently at St Andrews which I never would have been asked to do if it wasn't for Xbox live.

A pre wed shoot on a cloudy day

We were warned of terrible weather this day! Possible storms and the shoot could easily have been cancelled. My theory was that you don't get to choose the weather on the actual wedding day so let's go for it.