002: Alan Law – Consistency, Creativity & Documentary Wedding Photography

May 5th, 2020

“Get Close. You will feel the wedding more and empathise with what’s really going on. Have confidence in yourself that something great might happen in front of you. Create visually interesting frames that show their personality. “

ALAN LAW

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. In today’s episode, we are joined by the fabulous Alan Law  – we are mega excited to have him on the show.

Alan is an international multi award-winning photographer (including Wedding Photographer of the Year 2016 (TWIA / SW), Best Reportage Wedding Photographer 2015, 2014 & 2013 (SWWA), and Fearless Award Winner) – what a line up! Alan is totally grounded and puts huge emphasis on being authentic, true to yourself and is a huge advocate of documentary wedding photography. So much so, that he was the founder of This Is Reportage in 2017. TiR is now a hugely popular documentary community for photographers and a prestigious awards body too!

Check out some of the biggest points from Alan’s interview below:

Can you tell us a little more about This Is Reportage?

I set it up to be really celebrating the documentary side of what we do because that has always been integral to me. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s moments matter most. It really is true, and I was concerned a little bit at the time in the industry. I thought everybody was doing these off camera flash back lit portraits, which is fine. It’s good, and I wouldn’t be able to do that. It’s a great skill to do that, but I just felt like lots of photographers were doing it because they thought… They were seeing that these images were getting lots of likes on social media, and it’s not what weddings are about really. I wanted to create something that really puts the documentary side back to the forefront. Yeah, just went for it 2017. It took a long time to build. I’d hoped I’d get like 50 members, or 100 members within a couple of years, but now it’s got over 600 members, and it’s been awesome. The talents of people all over the world honestly is mind blowing really. I love to be able to show that. Yeah, we have awards for single images, which we call the reportage wars, but it’s also really important for me to have awards for a series of images. They’re called our story awards. They’re for a series of 15 to 20 images all from the same wedding, and still no portraits, nothing posed at all in them. It’s all about celebrating photographers, their consistency, and creativity to capture all the moments throughout the day really.

What would you say that your top tips are for a photographer that’s looking to improve their documentary wedding photography?

Come to Law School. No, I’m joking. No, one of the biggest things for me honestly, and it’s probably not good now during the coronavirus time, but I’ve always shot really closely. I’m a massive advocate for that, so I shoot like 80% at 24 mil, or 25 mil now. I’m on the Sony. I love getting really close. I think the images are so much more intimate. It sounds really pretentious, but you do anticipate moments a lot more because you’re feeling the wedding more rather than if you were miles away at the back of the room with a 70 to 200. I don’t think you can capture. You can’t empathize with what’s going on so much, so definitely that is my biggest tip. Definitely shoot close.

Patience as well, patience is a big deal, so not just being a headless chicken, and thinking you have to capture everything. Having confidence in yourself that something great might happen here in front of you, and sticking with a scene even if you hear a massive laugh over your shoulder. Don’t go to that straight away. Stick with the scene. Something great might happen there if you just stick with it for a minute, couple of minutes, maybe even longer sometimes.

Don’t just capture… Visual interest is so important, so I think it’s important not just to get loads of shots of just people standing there looking board, or just people mid-conversation. Wait for something that shows their personality, gesticulation, a touch, or a certain maybe a look, or whatever it is. Don’t just think that our job is just to document what’s going on. I think we have to be capturing the emotion, and the action, and the important moments really, and capturing visually interesting frames.

What’s the hardest lesson that you’ve learned as a wedding photographer?

There are so many lessons on that. Obviously you end very topical now, and it’s probably an obvious answer to that though is it hit me when this happened, and we realised how bad it was going to be in that both of my businesses, my own wedding photography, and This is Reportage are both in the wedding industry. When this happened I felt so guilty that I’d got my family reliant on an income from these two, from one industry really. That had gone to pot really, in the next few months at least, or maybe a year. We just don’t know.

That was scary, and that’s a lesson that maybe diversification… I thought I’d diversified a little bit in having Reportage, and my training in wedding photography, but it’s still within the wedding industry. I think if you can have so many different baskets, and if they can be not industry specific I think that would be a great thing to have. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Alan for coming on and sharing his thoughts and ideas on documentary photography, his experience of awards and how they can change your business & much much more!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally