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If you’re planning a destination wedding, picking a photographer can be a daunting task. To help you out, we caught up with Katrina Wallace and Andrew Mejia of Sedona Bride (sedonabride.com). They are a husband and wife duo based in Sedona, Arizona that specialize in destination wedding photojournalism. Here, they offer their best advice for tying the knot in style.
What influences your work?
I find inspiration from the historic work of the masters of photography. Henri Cartier Bresson was the master of capturing the decisive moment and I love classic fashion photography by Lillian Bassman. We also love fine art, new and old.
Andrew's inspiration comes from his background in oil painting and fine art. He likes painters like Mondrian, Kandinsky, Rembrandt, Seurat, as well as modern photojournalists who've taken pictures for newspapers and magazines over the last 60 years.
What makes you different from other wedding photographers?
We can't speak for other photographers, but we work very hard for every client. This, in turn, encourages us to always push ourselves to become better and strive for better images. Some photographers might shoot a single frame of a moment or detail and leave it at that, but we're always looking for that better angle, or perspective, or waiting for that perfect moment. It's a labor of love for us. We're into what we do, and we always put all of ourselves into our work.
How do you two work as a team?
A lot of photographers have a second photographer who is not the same person at every wedding. We almost always work together, and because of that we're able to read each other's moves without having to speak. We often try to document the whole day together, but sometimes we split up. For example, when the bride is running late I'll often stay with her and finish documenting the preparation photos, while Andrew will go photograph the groom's preparation. Having a solid second photographer really allows the main photographer to take certain calculated risks and shoot from more creative perspective—a perspective the photographer might not have taken without the coverage of a great second shooter. What's more, being a husband and wife team allows us an interaction and synergy that one single photographer probably wouldn't have with his/her hired second shooter.
Film or digital. Why?
We shoot digital, but are in the process of incorporating film back into our workflow. Digital is fantastic because we are free to really shoot as much as we want. We pay for it on the back end with huge amounts of editing, but we always find amazing moments that might have been missed had we been restricted by confines of film.
We are incorporating film into our work again because we simply love the organic qualities that film offers: the grain, the imperfections, and the way certain film renders color.
What advice can you give to couples looking for a wedding photographer?
Find a photographer whose work speaks to you. If you can imagine yourself in the moment the photographer has captured, then that photographer is probably a good fit for you. You can be sure you love a photographer's style by seeing several weddings they have photographed, and not just the best of the best of their images. We like to create slideshows of the highlights of the wedding day, which is a compilation of the best 100 or so story-telling images of the wedding day. We show those slideshows to our prospective clients so they can really get a great feel for our style and see the consistent quality in our work.
What are some new wedding photography trends you’ve been noticing?
We have noticed for a couple of years that there has been a push for adding textures and heavy post-processing to images. While we do like to process our images to have a softer, more film-like quality, we've resisted the “textures trend,” which we believe lends an overly artificial look and will date the image. We believe that wedding images should be timeless, since they are often considered a family heirloom.
Another trend we've noticed is what is sometimes called a "day after session." Most of our clients plan a destination wedding, and thus plan to spend a few days at their destination to enjoy the locale after the wedding-day pressure is past. By having an extended portrait session the day after the wedding, we can do a lot of things and explore a lot of reality we otherwise would not have seen because of time or lighting constraints. It's a win-win situation because the bride and groom can actually spend their cocktail hour with their family and friends and still have a really great set of images of themselves together on the day after session.
What advice can you give for a couple planning a destination wedding?
Find a good wedding coordinator that either specializes in the area or specializes in destination weddings. The weddings that go the smoothest and have the best personal details are the ones planned and stylized with a wedding planner.
Also, find a photographer that takes a photojournalistic or documentary style approach to weddings. Photographers with that style will be able to document weddings beautifully in any location, not just those they are familiar with.
What are your top 5 must-take shots?
The preparation. That includes the groom too—shots of the groom shaving are just as fun as the shots of the bride getting ready.
Family and friends, especially during the ceremony. There is usually a mom or grandmother crying, and often our clients don't even see what actually happened at their wedding until they see their wedding images.
The look on the couple's faces when they see each other for the first time that day. It can be a time we've set up before the wedding, or going down the aisle. It can be a really emotional moment.
Real, romantic pictures of the newlyweds. Everyone snuggles in different ways and we want the real character to come through in the images. We generally do not pose our clients because they will naturally create moments together that are infinitely better than any posed image.
Story telling images, whether it's the details of reception tables with the guests dancing behind them, or the gentle touch of a dad holding tightly to his daughter right before the ceremony. We're always looking for those details that will tell a story, those things anyone could guess might happen at a wedding, but that you will generally never see an image of.
Visit sedonabride.com to learn more about Sedona Bride.
—Darcy Newell
