When couples ask for “Vogue-style” wedding photos, they rarely mean they want to spend their wedding day on a fashion shoot. They mean they want a few pictures that look like they belong in a magazine: strong light, a considered frame, the two of them looking like themselves on a very good day. And they want the rest of the day to feel like their wedding.
That combination is most of what I do. My work has appeared in Vogue and Marie Claire, and the editorial portraits are what most couples book me for. But the portraits take fifteen or twenty minutes, not an afternoon.
What makes a portrait look like a magazine page
It’s rarely the pose.
The light. Magazine pictures are lit on purpose. At a wedding I’m looking for one good source — a tall window, a doorway, the last hour of sun — and putting you in it. When there isn’t one, I bring a small flash and make one. Flat, even light is fine for a group photo. It’s never what makes a portrait.
One strong background. A corridor, a staircase, a plain wall, a street that runs away from the camera. Editorial pictures leave things out. I’d rather have you small in a frame with one idea in it than big in a frame with six.
Direction. Not posing in the stiff sense. Small things: where to stand, which way to turn, what to do with your hands, when to stop looking at me. Most couples are surprised how little I ask for, and how much difference it makes.
Fifteen or twenty minutes
This is the part people don’t expect. I don’t take you away from your wedding for an hour. We pick a time that suits the day, often just before dinner or when the light is best, walk somewhere close, and you’re back with your guests before most of them have noticed you’d gone.
The reason it works in that time is preparation. I’ve usually found the spots before you arrive, so we’re not wandering around looking for them. It’s a few minutes somewhere good, then somewhere else good, then done.
The rest of the day
For everything else I work the other way round. No directing, no set-ups, no standing where you’re told. I stay out of the way and photograph what actually happens: the nerves in the morning, the ceremony, your friends at the bar, the speech that goes on too long. Quiet throughout.
The editorial portraits are the pictures that go on the wall. The documentary ones are the pictures you’ll look at in twenty years to remember what the day felt like.
What helps
- Clothes that move. A skirt that catches the air, a veil, a long coat. Movement photographs better than stiffness.
- Time in the timeline. Twenty minutes, written in, at a point when the light is good. That’s all.
- Trusting the odd suggestion. Some of the best frames come from a corridor or a back staircase you’d never have thought to stand in.
- Telling me what you like. Send me a couple of pictures you love, from anywhere. It tells me more than any description.
Where it works
Almost anywhere. Grand London hotels like Claridge’s and the Savoy are obvious. But a register office wedding at Old Marylebone Town Hall followed by twenty minutes on the streets of Marylebone works just as well, and so does a country house corridor or a City side street on a Saturday. If you like the look darker and moodier, I’ve written about that too: dark and moody wedding photography.
Questions couples ask
Will we spend a long time posing?
No. The editorial portraits take fifteen or twenty minutes, at a time that suits you. The rest of the day I photograph as it happens.
We’re not comfortable in front of a camera. Does this still work?
Yes, and most couples say that. I give you small, specific directions so you’re never left wondering what to do, and it gets easier within a few minutes.
How much does it cost?
The portraits are part of every wedding I photograph, not an extra. My London prices are £1,350 for five hours, £1,800 for eight and £2,200 for eleven. Everything is on the prices page.
Tell me your date and your venue and I’ll let you know straight away whether I’m free. Get in touch here.
Barrie
More on the portraits
A few pages that go further into how the editorial pictures get made, and what they look like on a real wedding day.
Patricia & ThomasA register office ceremony, then twenty minutes in late September light around the streets nearby.
Posing, and how I directWhat I actually say during the portraits, and why none of it sounds like posing.
Dark and moodyThe same approach to light, taken further: expose for the face and let the rest fall away.
Couture dress designersHow different dresses behave in light, written from photographing them rather than selling them.
