Visionary Photography

Speaking in front of a crowd is difficult. Speaking in front of a crowd of people you know, is ten times more difficult. No matter who you are, no matter how confident you are, it’s a tough undertaking for anyone to do a reading at a wedding. Nerves can grip you, dry your mouth, leave you tongue tied. You can even jumble up sentences.

And when you do, it can be comedy gold.

Helen’s cousin was tasked not only with driving one of the fantastic vintage wedding cars, but also with the first reading, a lovely passage from The Book of Ecclesiasticus:

“Happy the husband of a
really good wife; the
number of his days will be
doubled.”

When the above passage came out as “Happy the husband of a really good wife, his days will be numbered…” in a genuine mistake, Tang Church in Athlone erupted in laughter. The bride, the groom, the priests… I nearly dropped the camera myself. It was a wonderful, wonderful moment and set the scene for the fantastic wedding of Helen & Denis. The celebrations continued long into the night in Glasson Golf & Country Club.

Enjoy!

Una & I worked together many times at weddings, so when she asked if I would photograph her wedding to James, I jumped at the chance. Una & James are two of the funniest people you could meet, and when you put them together with a couple of hundred friends and family around them, it was a recipe for a blast of a wedding. It was ‘a proper session’, as one of the guests said to me. I couldn’t have put it better myself!

Enjoy!

The 2012 wedding season is now in full swing, and what better way to kick it off than a blog of Clare & Brian’s fantastic wedding. We were blessed with a gloriously sunny (but breezy!) day in Co. Wexford as Brian & Clare tied the knot in Castletown, before celebrating the occasion in the magnificent Seafield in Gorey.

The hailstones are pelting off my window as I type this, which makes me even more jealous to think that Clare and Brian are currently sunning themselves on honeymoon in Mexico!

Enjoy!

Carly moved to Ireland from Perth on a whim a few years back. Somehow, she found herself working behind a bar in the quaint Kilkenny town of Graiguenamanagh. In walked an Irishman called Paddy who ordered the first pint of Guinness that Carly had ever served. Fast forward to January 2nd 2012, and Carly and Paddy were married in the magnificent Duiske Abbey, mere yards from where they first met!

Enjoy!

Bridal bravery was on show for Deirdre & Graham’s New Years Eve wedding in the Wineport Lodge. Despite the wind and rain coming in from every angle, the adventurous newlyweds still courageously ventured out onto the pier for some photographs, before running back inside to avail of The Wineport’s legendary hospitality.

Enjoy!

Sarah and Graham were married on a cool but dry December day, or ‘a nice soft day’ as an Irish Mammy might say. A wedding ceremony was performed by Graham’s own cousin in the University Church on St Stephen’s Green, followed by a reception in The Shelbourne – it just doesn’t get more Dublin than that! By now, I hope they’re both sunning themselves by the beach, oblivious to the near hurricane we’re having at home.

Enjoy!

Before I give you a preview of the stunning wedding of Michelle & Matthew, I just want to say a brief message of thank you to all my clients who have been incredibly patient over the last few weeks. As some of you know, my mother has been seriously ill in hospital for the past couple of months following complications after surgery. After a spell on life support, she is now making excellent progress and we hope to have her home early in the new year. My turnaround time for wedding photos and albums increased dramatically during this time, and I really appreciate the understanding and patience of those affected. I’m delighted to say that I’ve caught up with the backlog now, and all weddings shot before December will be ready for collection before Christmas!

I could not have asked for a better wedding to get the blog rolling again. The stunning Michelle married Matthew in Keadue Church yesterday, surrounded by beautiful snowcapped mountains and frosted treetops. The sublime Kilronan Castle was the venue for the reception where both families celebrated in style, with open fires and mulled wine to warm the brave souls who came outside for photographs.

Enjoy!

The fourth and final heat for the Irish Photographer of the Year Awards was held on Monday, and I’m delighted to have received another diamond and six golds, bringing this year’s tally to four diamonds and seventeen gold. Many of these images will go forward as submissions for the Irish Photographer of the Year 2012 awards this coming January.

If you’re interested in how the awards work, please read this blog post I wrote about the awards a few months back: http://visionary.ie/blog/?p=1489

You’d be hard pressed to find two nicer families than the Healys and Quinns who came together to celebrate the wedding of Kate and Tadhg. Kate arrived at the church in Kilmacrennan, Donegal in style, in Splitty the 1973 VW Camper van, oozing in character! After the ceremony, Splitty brought us to the breathtaking Glenveagh National Park, a stunning backdrop for photographs. Last stop on the Splitty tour was the elegant Villa Rose hotel in Ballybofey where celebrations continued late into the night.

Enjoy!

The decision whether or not to have a videographer shoot your wedding is a big one. Bigger than you may think. I often hear people say afterwards that they regret not having a video.

I hear an equal amount say that they regret their choice of videographer.

Before I begin, I would like to stress that I am in no way ‘anti-videographer’. Absolutely not. If I ever got married myself (send application forms to the usual address…) I would have a videographer.

A mistake that people make regularly, however, is mismatching their photographer and videographer. Often they will get a videographer quite late in the planning stage, almost as an add-on, or a nice to have. They do this without thinking of just how much this can influence the wedding day.

There is an enormous amount of activity happening on the day of any wedding. More than enough material for any videographer worth their salt to capture and tell a fantastic story for the bride and groom to relive.

There is the tension and the excitement of the morning preparations. The anticipation at the church before the bride arrives. That electrifying moment when the bride reaches the top of the aisle and embraces the groom. None of that needs to be ‘directed’ and no extra scenes need to be created.

Let me give you some examples of behaviour I witnessed at recent weddings that influenced me to write this post.

A bride walks down the stairs. Her mother is waiting for her. There is a telling, proud glance between them, right before they throw their arms around each other.

“Right, now just pop back up the stairs and we’ll do that again. Mammy, if you can stand this way this time so we can get a better look at your face, nice and natural, ok, let’s go, just like before…”

When they watch the video and see the moment on film, they’ll know it’s not the true moment as it happened. They’ll remember it as a cringeworthy pantomime moment, enforced on them by a man they barely know, who they have paid a lot of money to help preserve the memories of their wedding day.

There was another moment quite recently on the morning of a wedding where the bride and bridesmaids were pressured into going outside, in the rain, still in their bathrobes. There they were made to do a staged performance that was so embarrassingly tacky, it wouldn’t look out of place in a Jedward video. It was obvious to everyone that they didn’t want to, but they didn’t want to cause a fuss, so they let the videographer do exactly what he wanted. The whole moment was about as natural as Katie Price’s face. According to his website, this videographer prides himself on capturing ‘personal moments’ in a ‘respectful way’. He later had the entire bridal party dance together in a car park for almost 15 minutes. Why, is completely beyond me.

There are dozens more incidents I could mention. The videographer who stops the bride and her father walking up the aisle because his camera is not yet ready. The videographer who asked the priest to move over a bit on the altar. The videographer who brings a stepladder onto the altar. The videographer who plants a massive CRT television (the big old box kind TVs) on the altar so he can see how his video looks as he records it.

This is a personal opinion, and entirely subjective, but to me, the very best videographers don’t interact with the bride and groom on their wedding day at all.

Why? Because they don’t have to. They are talented and skilled enough to know that there will be masses of footage (sounds terribly cold, I know) available to capture, simply by witnessing the day as it unfolds around them. The best videographers know when something is about to happen and are ready to record it as they see it. They don’t go through a wedding day thinking ‘Oh, I still haven’t got the shot of them walking away, I must make them do it’ or ‘Oh, I must remember to get them to do *insert random unnatural activity here*’.

I am acutely aware that there are photographers who carry on in the same way, so I must stress, this is not intended to be a ‘Photographers v Videographers’ rant. As I mentioned earlier, the mistake lies in matching up the wrong photographer and videographer.

If you have hired a photographer because you love their approach of capturing natural moments, their ability to capture said moments will be severely affected if you hire a videographer who likes to direct.

It’s like red wine and Monster Munch. It just won’t work.

Luckily, there are fantastic videographers out there. I am delighted when I learn that people like Keith Malone or Ian Whelan are working at a wedding with me. I know exactly where they will be at any point in time on a wedding day – usually at my side, or somewhere else where they’re not trying to win an award for Best Stage Direction.

There is one part of the wedding day where I will step in and set up some shots, broken into three stages. The family shots, the bridal party shots and then the bride and groom themselves. I pride myself on keeping this part of the day short and fun (usually 20 minutes or less), yet still capturing beautiful images.

Good videographers will capture fantastic footage during this time. Bad videographers will wait ’til its finished, then do the whole thing again with whatever preconceived setups they have in their head. The result? The ‘video shoot’ takes twice as long as the photo shoot, and the bride and groom end up missing huge chunks of their wedding reception.

Just like almost all wedding photographers in Ireland incorrectly market themselves as ‘reportage’ photographers, most videographers call themselves ‘fly on the wall’ and ‘unobtrusive’. Despite the claims, most are not.

Off the top of my head, Keith Malone, Ian Whelan, Richard Finlay, Danny from Smart Video, Martin Healy and David Coyle an Maurice O’Carroll are names that immediately spring to mind as excellent videographers who will do nothing to intrude on your day and capture it in a professional, discreet way.

That is by no means an exhaustive list of good videographers, there are several more all around the country.

I want to stress the point that I am not trying to convince you not to get a videographer. Not at all.

Just think about the reasons why you have booked your photographer.

Then apply that same logic when selecting a videographer.

The result will be a day that runs smoothly and naturally, and will leave you with fantastic mementoes in both video and photos!