Here is something nobody in this industry is going to tell you: we all look at each other’s work constantly, and it is making everyone worse.
I have been photographing weddings in Lake Tahoe for years. I have shot High Camp in a snowstorm and Wailea Beach at sunset and a backyard in Truckee at 9pm with a borrowed flashlight. I have driven through blizzards to make a ceremony and I have hiked out of bounds to find light that did not have seventeen other photographers standing in it. And somewhere in all of that, the wedding photography industry decided that everyone should look exactly the same.
You know the photos I am talking about. The couple standing in a field, slightly out of focus, golden hour hitting at the exact angle that has been replicated approximately four million times on Instagram. The bride with a veil blowing in wind that may or may not have been created by someone off camera. The groom looking at his shoes while contemplating whatever grooms contemplate in stock photos. These are not bad photos. They are technically fine. But they are not your wedding. They are a version of a wedding that someone else decided looked good on a grid.
They are not your wedding. They are a version of a wedding that someone else decided looked good on a grid.
I got into this work because I was already carrying a camera everywhere. I worked for a newspaper. I photographed bears walking down residential streets in Tahoma and politicians arguing in conference rooms and local kids doing things on skis that should probably be illegal. The common thread was that none of it was staged. Nobody was asking the bear to look more natural. Nobody was positioning the city councilman for better light. Things were just happening and I was in the right place to document them.
That is still how I work at weddings.
What I actually do
Show up early. Stay out of the way. Do not ask you to do anything that feels fake. Find the light, find the moment, and make a photograph that looks like your day actually felt and not like a mood board someone pinned at 2am six months before the wedding.
I am based between Lake Tahoe and the California coast. Most weekends I am at Palisades Tahoe, the Ritz-Carlton, or somewhere in the Sierra Nevada chasing light that is doing something interesting. Sometimes I am in Maui. Sometimes I am at a backyard wedding in Truckee that turns out to be the best thing I shoot all year. I have photographed weddings from Jamaica to Yosemite, Santa Rosa to South Lake Tahoe, and a few places that did not have names.
Who I am built for
The couples who book me are usually people who have looked at the Pinterest boards and felt nothing. Who want photos that feel like them and not like a template. Who are slightly suspicious of the idea of a three hour portrait session pulling them away from their own wedding reception. Who want to actually have fun on one of the best days of their lives and trust that the photos will be there when they get back.
If that sounds like you, we should talk.
If you want someone to spend forty five minutes getting the veil angle right, I am probably not your guy. No offense. It is just not what I am built for.