Unposed, Documentary Photography & Films
YORK PLACE STUDIOS
Celebrating the unscheduled beats and seemingly insignificant moments that tell the real stories of life through the lens.
Documentary Wedding Photography
Renowned brother and sister documentary wedding photography duo Liam and Dominique Shaw capture the unexpected, spontaneous occurrences of a wedding between the scheduled events to capture the true life, community, personality and humour of a wedding day. Nothing posed, nothing staged, just real, raw, documentary moments captured with a creative twist.
Wedding Videography
Creative documentary wedding videographers Alex Shaw & Matt Thompson never pose the action and are allergic to cliché. Filming documentary style, they capture not just the bride and groom but the whole story of a wedding day, celebrating friendship, family and fun.
Family Photography
Forget perfect.
Family life isn't neat and tidy. Everyone doesn't always look prim and proper, you don't always stand in a line smiling sweetly. Family life is playful, it's disorganised; it's about laughing from your gut and seeing magic in the mundane. Family life isn't perfect. It's so much more than that. Capture the memory, not the fairytale.
Family life isn't neat and tidy. Everyone doesn't always look prim and proper, you don't always stand in a line smiling sweetly. Family life is playful, it's disorganised; it's about laughing from your gut and seeing magic in the mundane. Family life isn't perfect. It's so much more than that. Capture the memory, not the fairytale.
Event Videography
With vast expertise in both visuals and sound, the team at York Place Films look to capture not just the headline events but the feel and atmosphere of the occasion, placing the viewer right at the heart of the action.
Studio Photography
We believe that portraits should be more than just a pretty picture, they should be an explosion of personality. Our colourful, characterful headshot portraiture aims to bring real life to your walls.
STAY IN THE MOMENT
TO A LOT OF PEOPLE, WHEN THEY THINK 'DOCUMENTARY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY', THEY THINK "YORK PLACE STUDIOS" - THEY REALLY ARE THAT SYNONYMOUS WITH THE CRAFT
- THIS IS REPORTAGE
Documentary Wedding Photography & Videography
Candid, documentary style wedding photographers and videographers, shooting London, across the UK and worldwide.
"Our job is not just to exceed our couple's expectations, it is to exceed their imaginations."
Why choose documentary style photography?
Life doesn't happen while you're smiling sweetly down the lens, it happens when you're lost in the moment, living and feeling every second. The greatest memories of your wedding can't be planned, staged or predicted, the best stories are yet to be written. All that matters is the moment.
Memories are not about look, they're about feel; the feeling of being surrounded by everyone you know and love, in one room at one time, with no other motive than to celebrate and enjoy. It's that feeling that guides our photography, that ensures that no two weddings can ever be the same. Because weddings are a celebration not just of two people but of a family, of a community. And to us there can be no more compelling subject to photograph and film.
Memories are not about look, they're about feel; the feeling of being surrounded by everyone you know and love, in one room at one time, with no other motive than to celebrate and enjoy. It's that feeling that guides our photography, that ensures that no two weddings can ever be the same. Because weddings are a celebration not just of two people but of a family, of a community. And to us there can be no more compelling subject to photograph and film.
Our entirely unposed, documentary style of both wedding photography and videography celebrates not just the scheduled events but the spontaneous occurrences that reveal real personality, highlight familiarity and relationships and showcase the fun, laughter and extraordinary atmosphere or your wedding day.
Watch the video to see us in action and hear more about our ethos, motivation and documentary approach.
What Is Documentary Wedding Photography?
How do we approach your day both in photo & film?
Nothing Posed, Nothing Staged ....
Documentary wedding photography is about capturing real moments, completely without posing or intervention in the scene. As documentary style photographers and videographers our mission is to read the scene in front of us, understand the possibilities of what could unfold and use creative composition to capture it in the most beautiful and interesting way possible.
But whilst documentary wedding photography often relies on telling stories through multiple frames, our personal aim is to ensure that each individual frame should tell a compelling story in its own right. Put them together and your wedding story is told in full, but take a single frame out of context and we hope it will hold a power all of its own, not just to those who were in attendance, but to those who were never there at all.
Whilst all wedding photographers shoot parts of the day unposed, the documentary wedding photographer specialises in seeing beyond the obvious action, finding the potential in the smallest detail and knowing where to be in order for unpredictable, spontaneous events to take place right in front of them. Whilst all those big, wonderful, pre-planned moments (the rings, confetti, the first dance) will of course be captured, we also look to find the magic and beauty in the unplanned, ambiguous scenes - the scenes of people being people: real, raw, humorous and characterful.
Whilst all wedding photographers shoot parts of the day unposed, the documentary wedding photographer specialises in seeing beyond the obvious action, finding the potential in the smallest detail and knowing where to be in order for unpredictable, spontaneous events to take place right in front of them. Whilst all those big, wonderful, pre-planned moments (the rings, confetti, the first dance) will of course be captured, we also look to find the magic and beauty in the unplanned, ambiguous scenes - the scenes of people being people: real, raw, humorous and characterful.
Documentary Wedding Photography? We (literally) wrote the book on it!
"Is This Something?" is our expansive workshop book, all about the art and craft of documentary wedding photography. The book (selling internationally) is a thorough explanation of our concepts and process, told through the course of a wedding day. Find out more on our dedicated publishing and education site:
www.seeminglyinsignificant.com
Popular Wedding Articles
Read more of our thoughts and concepts on the theme of wedding photography and videography.
How Do We Bring Street & Wedding Photography Together?
Our passion for street photography has long influenced our wedding work. Read how techniques learnt photographing cities around the world has changed the way we think about wedding photography.
Wedding Photography & Videography - The Key Similarities & Differences
Our photography & videography works seamlessly side by side, yet some shots work best in film and others in photo. Read more about how these two different mediums converge and diverge to create the ultimate coverage of your day.
What Is Documentary Wedding Photography?
Read our in-depth explanation of what documentary wedding photography is, how documentary photographers tend to work, why a documentary approach might work best for your wedding and what distinguishes one documentary photographer from another.
Documentary Wedding Videography - Capturing Things Naturally, Moment to Moment
Unposed, documentary photography is an established genre, yet documentary wedding videography remains, perhaps surprisingly, a less common style. Read all about how we approach your day and bring scenes to life.
Documentary Vs Reportage Vs Photojournalist - A Glossary of Terms
Unposed photography comes under many titles, but what do they really mean?
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
Finding Photographs In Everyday Life
Whether we're shooting street photography, wedding photography, family or even iPhone shots, to us there's no difference. Whatever we document, we shoot with purpose. It's not about genre, it's just photography; it's just how we see the world.
Street photography is not just our hobby, it's our practice ground - the place we experiment with new ideas and hone our craft. It's where we learned to push the boundaries of what documentary wedding photography could be and capture new perspectives that were previously invisible to us.
Because we don't want to capture the same shots week in, week out. Every time we pick up a camera we want to create something new, something that excites us as much as it excites our brides and grooms. The more opportunities we open our eyes to, the more creative we can be on the day.
WATCH DOMINIQUE SHOOTING STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN LONDON IN FUJIFILM'S X-E4 LAUNCH COMMERCIAL
Documentary Wedding Photographs recognised in International Street Photography Competition.
Our wedding work has long been influenced by street photography - so much so that two of our documentary wedding photographs were finalists in the world-respected London Street Photography Festival!
An Internationally Respected Authority on the Art of Documentary Wedding Photography
SPEAKING EVENTS
The York Place team regularly speak and offer workshops at the biggest photography events in the world. Recent appearances include Ireland's "Doc-Day" - one of the world's biggest documentary wedding photography events, "BODAF" in Spain, "Transversal" in France, "Limitless" in Bali and Main stage talks at "The Photography & Video Show" in the UK.
AMBASSADORS
York Place Studios have been asked to be ambassadors for some of the world's leading photography brands, such as Fujifilm, Pic-Time, Digitalab and Narrative select. At York Place we only work with companies who share our values of innovation, creativity, quality and a fantastic customer experience.
AWARDS & PRESS
Whilst we now spend our time judging rather than entering awards, York Place has received numerous prestigious accolades, such as top place in the wedding category of the Rangefinder Awards, Top Fearless Photographer in the UK and multiple documentary wedding photography awards, including from "This Is Reportage", WPPI and WPJA.
BOOKS
Our book "Is This Something?", has been described as "The definitive go-to book for documentary wedding photographers." Selling all over the world, the book aims to celebrate and explain in detail the philosophies, ideas, techniques and principles that, to us, make documentary wedding photography such an incredible art form.
NOTHING POSED, NOTHING STAGED
THEY ARE INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE ABOUT SHOOTING WITH A TRUE DOCUMENTARY EYE. NOTHING IS STAGED OR POSED BUT STILL VERY INTENTIONAL AND CRAFTED. THEY OFTEN SHOOT WIDE AND USE LAYERS TO BUILD A SCENE AND RELAY A RICH NARRATIVE WITHIN EACH FRAME
- PROFESSIONAL PHOTO MAGAZINE
Discrete,
Creative,
Immersive.
Whether we're photographing your wedding, filming it, or both, our mission is to truly capture the spirit of your day. Our unified documentary style of photography and filming perfectly compliment one another, creating a seamless, comprehensive narrative of your wedding, showing not just what our brides and grooms got up to but everyone who was there on the day - the relationships, in-jokes and aspects of personality that remind you of who your friends and family really are. Because your wedding is not just a celebration of your love, it's time spent with all those closest to you and you never know which moment will prove the most important to you in time. That's why we want our photographs and films to be more than a memory - we want them to place you right back in the scene, even if you were never there to begin with.