We’re excited to announce our first Wedding Photography Is Art workshop, delving into the technical and creative process behind our photo art, presented by us, Hollie & Patrick Mateer. It’s all happening this October in Manchester. Let us help you level-up your documentary wedding photography.
Date: Sunday 6th October 2024, 11am to 6pm. Join us for food and drinks afterwards, too.
Location: ‘Revolución de Cuba’, South Central, 11 Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5QR. A short taxi ride or 20-min walk from Piccadilly train station.
Your investment: £400 (limited places available). £100 deposit taken now to secure your place (details below). The remaining balance due two weeks before the workshop.
What’s included: a full day’s education on documentary wedding photography presented by us; lunch, refreshments and snacks included.
Don’t be an imposter, be yourself: this is the ethos behind ‘wedding photography is art’. We’ll discuss how the day we realised this was the day we began to create the work we’re known for today. We’ll explain that we don’t compare ourselves to others and don’t follow trends. We’ll show how we create authentic work that stands out from the crowd and resonates for our clientele. Work that speaks about us as artists and people.
Wedding Photography Is Art is for photographers of all abilities: experienced wedding photographers, aspiring photographers starting out on their professional journey – and everyone in between. Whatever your level of experience ‘Wedding Photography Is Art’ is for you. We’ve won lots of awards and we’ll touch on this in the workshop as you’ll see below – but this workshop is about far more than winning awards. It’s about everything we do as documentary wedding photographers, as artists and business owners.
Programme
- Simplifying the approach – we’ll discuss how we photograph each stage of a wedding day and explain how we maximise our creativity by keeping our approach simple.
- Our artistic style – how we create images that stand out from the crowd, both in camera and through editing. We’ll discuss why we believe what we do is ‘art’.
- Composition is the key – why we believe that composition is the key element to every image we take.
- Ripping up the rule book – how we stopped following conventions and forged our own path in wedding photography.
- Framing and cropping – how we use subtle and dynamic crops to enhance our raw images.
- Narrative – building moments from the first shutter click to the last – how we develop a meaningful narrative for each wedding we shoot.
- Thinking ahead – how we think ahead and anticipate moments before they happen – being in the right place at the right time to capture the unexpected.
- No slack time – there’s always something to capture – how we stay creative during the quieter periods of the day.
- Awards – we are lucky to have been successful in many awards and have become experienced photography award judges. We’ll talk about how to win awards to help with your marketing and branding. Which awards to enter and how different photography styles are better suited for certain awards. Tips on This Is Reportage awards, Masters awards, Fearless awards, PKIR awards. We’ll also cover how winning awards has challenged us to develop ourselves creatively.
- Branding – awards aren’t for everyone and branding is much more than winning an award. We’ll explain how we’ve developed our own unique brand of documentary wedding photography.
- Working as a duo and shooting solo – we’ll discuss how we work together and sometimes, shoot weddings on our own.
- Finding our clientele – how we find our ‘ideal clients’.
- Our equipment – the cameras, the lenses, the flash equipment – everything we use on a wedding day.
- Storytelling – how we layer our stories, image by image, to keep the viewer of our blogs, social media posts and This Is Reportage stories engaged.
- Technical and creative analysis – how we created some of our best known images and why they have ‘impact’.
- Inspire, don’t influence – in the age of the influencer and the algorithm we’ll explain why it’s important to be inspired by others, but not influenced.
- Community is vital – how being part of our wider photography community has helped us develop as people and artists. We are looking forward to widening our own personal community through Wedding Photography Is Art.
A little about us: We live in Yorkshire with our beautiful family and we photograph weddings all over the UK and abroad. In 2025 we’ll be presenting at the Fearless and Masters Conference in Belgium.
Hollie is the youngest winner of the TWIA National Photographer Of The Year award and the only solo female winner of the This Is Reportage Photographer Of The Year award. Also a Rangefinder Magazine Rising Star, Hollie is presenting at the 2024 NineDots Gathering.
Patrick won the prestigious TWIA National Photographer Of The Year award and has twice appeared in the This Is Reportage Top 10 Photographers In The World list. He has also been named twice as the WPJAs Top UK Wedding Photojournalist. Patrick presented at the 2022 NineDots Gathering.
Together we won the Photographers Keeping It Real Photographer Of The Year award; we were named as one of the best photographers in the UK by Professional Photo Magazine; we have made the Fearless Top Photographers In The World list multiple times and both made the Masters Of Wedding Photography Top Photographers In The UK list.
Securing your place: want to book on the workshop? We’d love to see you there! Pay your £100 booking fee and we’ll look forward to seeing you in Manchester, this October. Please use the PayPal button below to secure your place.
Kind words: We love working with photographers to help them develop their work, refine their approach and above all, empower them on their way to reaching their full potential. Here are some kind words from photographers we’ve mentored:
“Being mentored by Patrick and Hollie was a no brainer. The amount of detail in their critiques was amazing. They were honest, straightforward and full of fantastic suggestions and ideas. Taking their advice and reworking some images I even went on to pick up several new awards. If you’re thinking of investing in photography education or training, you really cannot go wrong with Hollie and Patrick”. Alex Benyon (Alex Benyon Photography).
“Both Hollie and Patrick are great photographers – and lovely people. Through their feedback and guidance I managed to win my first ever This Is Reportage and Fearless awards. I have since continued winning awards, which I know is down to their guidance – and I use the advice they’ve given me at every wedding I photograph”. Barnaby Staniland (BGS Weddings).
“Thank you once again for your wisdom, advice and guidance with the mentoring sessions we’ve had. I’m already feeling the difference at weddings, but also during editing, too”. Lewis Fackrell (Lewis Fackrell Photography).
“The best investment I made last year”. Robin Goodlad (Robin Goodlad Photography)