About me
This is what it feels like sometimes
This page is something that has taken me 3 years to write. Even now as I type this I’m struggling to find a concise way to summarise who I am and what I’m about both personally, professionally and also how it relates to my photography.
So let’s go with professional first.
I’m all about colour. I love the vibrancy of life, the way that despite all of the gloom which seems to be around us we can be so easily distracted by the love and life in a photo… and when captured the right way, get lost in it.
I like and respect all the different styles of photography, the contemporary, the vintage look along with the more reportage black and whites. I still shoot film and I love all these things. But my approach is this. Colour is king. It’s the best and will be the last reference point with regards the still image.
Photographic styles come and go and I strongly believe photography should be as timeless as possible. So whilst I can go crazy with vintage effects and colours when asked I always deliver a clean product. Like making a cake, you can add ingredients but it’s impossible to remove them after the fact. A good, honest image doesn’t need to be obscured by a haze.
I also love the camera tech that is available right now. It’s pushing boundaries and standards. It’s never been a better time to have a wedding photographer.
What I will say is this. 99% of the people I shoot for don’t like their picture being taken. So whilst I will step up to formal photography when I need to I strike a good balance between the formal side of things and the relaxed side. The majority of the time nobody really knows I’m there or what I’m taking a picture of.
Now the tricky bit, the personal stuff.
I’m considered outgoing. But in reality, I dislike intently having my photo taken and I feel awkward at parties without a camera in my hand. But give me a camera and a reason to be there and I light up like the fourth of July. I become a real people person!
I’ve always been creative and if you’ve already gone through my galleries you’ll see most of my weddings are quite unique in the images captured. This is because every wedding has a life and soul of its own. Part of being a good photographer is being able to walk into a room, pick up on that vibe and to ride it throughout the day.
Reading people and emotions is my strength. Predicting what is happening in the next instant and knowing how I’m going to capture, process and frame each image before I’ve even pressed the shutter button is something which comes easy to me.
These good qualities stem from a bad past. Moving around a lot when I was small made life at school…tricky. Hiding in the library staring at National Geographic magazines, reading dictionaries (of all things)…. having parents with a rocky relationship….and you get the idea….all these things made me more emotionally switched on.
But there are always positives to every bad experience and I learned how to understand them and turn things around for use in my work.
And I think this is an important point. Anyone, well, everyone is now a photographer but you have to be more than that…. you’re emotional support, a wedding planner, cravat tier, toastmaster, first aider, flower expert, the guy who calls 999 when Auntie Mabel has a funny turn and everyone freaks out…you also have to be a couples rock on the day because whilst most suppliers come and go we endure.
I don’t always shoot weddings. When I’m not shooting people I sometimes take myself away to shoot landscapes. Just me, the camera and a wide open space. It lets me breathe a little and the silence lets me reflect on past work.
But I love working with people the most. With weddings especially there is this warm glow that stays with you for weeks afterwards. Being around lots of happy people for a whole day lifts you up and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else now.
So this is a very concise, open handed version of me, it’s tricky to unfold yourself as text and I’ll probably make some changes over time!
And I love my dog
Regards,
Chris
