Photojournalistic meets Artistic – a Shoot in the City at the SWPP Convention

Last weekend saw Morag and I down in London for the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers Annual Convention for 2010.

The convention is a mix of trade show and educational seminars and we had a very busy weekend trying to absorb as much information as possible.

Morag focused on the product side of things whilst I tried to rub shoulders with some of the best photographers in the business and glean as much information from them as I could.  Morag picked up on a number of potential new products for us and we’ll be investigating these further in the next few months.

I attended a number of seminars and the stand-outs for me were the seminar with Gordon MacGowan and the practical workshop I did with Trevor and Faye Yerbury. Together they represent the very cream of Scottish (and UK) Wedding Photography so it was a great opportunity for me to learn from the masters.

Gordon’s seminar focused on the fine details to look for when posing couples for their bridal portraits – as I’m primarily a photojournalist I was interested in gaining any tips I could to improve the more artistic side of my photography. Gordon is very down to earth and even describes himself as the “Gordon Ramsay of Wedding Photography”, so it was a very entertaining seminar.

Sunday morning I spent in the company of the very charismatic Trevor and Faye Yerbury – the Yerbury’s are almost a Scottish institution, with the family photography business dating back to the 1800′s.  You might think that a company with such a history may be steeped in the more traditional side of photography, well how wrong you would be – Trevor and Faye’s work is at the very cutting edge and they provide great inspiration.

The workshop I attended was entitled “Shoot in the City” and focused on the scenario of working with a couple to take their bridal portraits in a strange city with little preparation – Trevor focused on how to rapidly seek out interesting backgrounds and how to quickly interact with the couple to get some real passion in the images. Trevor and Faye’s photographs are simply works of art, so it was a real joy to get some insight into how they work.

The shot on the right is from that workshop and features the delightful models Nicola Johnston and Steven Duffy. As well as being models, they are both trained actors, so they very quickly adopted their roles as the “newly-wed couple”.  Trevor and Faye directed the models and setup the shot for us, so I take no credit for how stunning this shot turned out – but I have learned how to look for similar setups in the future – so watch out for the occasional bit of “artistic” rather than “photojournalistic” work from me in the future.