“The way you both capture moments is just incredible, bringing the small tucked away interactions out into full glory – it’s just astounding. We are so, so glad you joined us for the journey.”
January, the dawn of a new year, was, in typical York Place fashion, greeted with pretty much radio silence. So have we begun 2024 by lounging on a beach sipping Martinis, not a care in the world?
Not exactly …
Instead we’ve been celebrating the “off” season with our own very special brand of relaxation – rebuilding the website (coming soon), completing wedding edits, carefully analysing and evaluating the last 12 months of images, creating brand new talks & workshop material and shipping out copies of “Is This Something?” to countries surely far too far away to have possibly come across our work.
But the silence ends here, because, in what is more or less tradition by now (though we took a break last year to finish writing our book) we’re now entering “speaking at conferences season!”
Here’s where you can find us in the next few months:
Doc Day, 20th February, Dublin (Talk) docday.international
York Place Workshop, Dublin 21st February. seeminglyinsignificant.com/dublin-photography-workshop – ONE ticket left!
The Photography Show, Birmingham. photographyshow.com (We are on the Fujifilm stand 18th & 19th March selling and signing books and we are speaking on the 18th).
Northern Exposure, 28th March, https://www.northernexposure.wtf/
Transversal Workshop, France, April 2-5, 2024. transversal-workshop.com
When agreeing to give a talk we always challenge ourselves to create something new and write unique talks that we hope will inspire introspection. That’s particularly the aim for our upcoming Doc Day appearance where we’re going to be tackling the big question (perhaps the biggest in all photography!): not just how we take particular kinds of photograph but why?
The motivation behind a photograph; the intentions and processes that guide the individual photographers hand has always fascinated us. Why did they click the shutter in that particular fraction of a second? Why did that scene resonate with them? What precisely are they trying to communicate to the viewer in that moment and why choose that photograph over any number of others they might have taken of the same occurrence? At a wedding it might seem obvious – we’re taking images that show a wedding day – yet each individual photographer has a different take on a scene and personally, outside of the ceremony, the stories we like to tell are rarely the most obvious choices. In fact, many of the stories we’re attracted to are not directly about the wedding at all.
The wonderful thing about photography is its subjectivity. What classes as a great photograph to one person might appeal less to someone else. It’s all about what resonates with you, but for us a great photograph, whether we personally connect with it or not, always has clear intent. As a photographer, having a thorough understanding of why – what story or feeling you want to communicate in each frame is the key to creating a consistent body of work. Because the more you know what you’re looking for, the more you find it. But not only does asking “why?” help to identify the stories that move you, it also guides every decision that goes into telling them.
And if we’re successful in communicating our ideas then those that resonate with the story are going to be the perfect couples to work with. Which brings us to Alexandra and Joshua …
When this lovely pair contacted us about photography for their Greenwich Yacht Club wedding we realised that we had a shared ethos – creating connections with people. That laid the ground for a beautiful partnership and a set of photographs that resonated as much with Alexandra and Joshua as they did with us, because we all agree on what we love about photography.
And when that happens; when you click on that level …
That is when magic happens.
Dominique & Liam
