Ross Harvey walks you down the aisle of his amazing career shooting glamorous weddings
The sun is blazing outside. It’s mid-july, prime time for weddings, and Ross Harvey is feeling pretty happy with how the summer is progressing. He’s shooting fewer weddings than he used to but that’s exactly as he intended, so he concentrates on the high-end, destination spectaculars, which he describes as ‘supercharged weddings’. Unfortunately, many of these are under non-disclosure agreements, which means he can’t share too many details, but that doesn’t stop us from prying just a little bit…
Despite the NDA, can you give us some idea of how spectacular these weddings really are?
They choose the best of everything. Take the music, for example; there will be a world class ten-piece band who’ll work their way around the dance floor, interacting with guests. They will often have famous people perform for them. Everything is just bigger – the budgets must be amazing.
I shot a wedding in France a couple of weeks ago; I can’t say anything about it, but it was on a private estate and they had something like 10 different houses on there. Even the finger food they brought up during preparations for the bride was probably the best I’ve ever had. It’s a different way of living – absolutely fantastic people too.
You’ve scaled down the number of weddings so how many do you shoot in a year now? Around 10 to 15. It’s been about 15 so far this year.
That’s fewer than I thought.
Well, I’ve been there and I’ve done it with shooting loads in one year. Some people I know shoot a hundred, but they don’t edit and they don’t do any admin. They literally just turn up to a wedding and shoot and then that’s it.
Being a one-man band, the most I’ve done in a year (and being responsible for everything; admin, editing and so on) was 45. I thought, ‘I’m never going to do that again!’ It’s just too much work because I still put the same amount of work into the editing postprocessing – no corners cut at all.
When I teach workshops I always say to people, whenever you book 10 weddings, put your prices up. If you book 10 you’re going to book 20. If you keep doing that, you’ll start to shoot less but charge more.
You’ve been a full-time wedding photographer since 2010; what was your day job before then?
It was little bit different, I was a graphic designer and usability consultant. Who were you working for?
I was working for myself but also predominantly for a company in Norwich who used to work in turn as a contractor for big banks and renowned brands such as Sky, Barclays, Natwest and so on.
It sounds like you had an artistic eye from the very beginning?
Yes. When I was very young one of the first things I asked for was a pen and paper. I’d just doodle and draw all the time as a child and that naturally evolved into graphic design.
As my father was a programmer I ended up earning a master’s degree in advanced computer science,
following in his footsteps. I taught myself graphic design during my time at uni and jumped into a web developer role after leaving. It was the perfect combination of both technical and creative skills.
Have those graphic design skills helped with your photography?
I couldn’t take any credit for my photography skills without that previous experience. It’s uncanny how it worked out really because the master’s degree meant that I had a technical background in computers and the graphic design was invaluable for colour theory and composition. It’s a really powerful combination. So, when did you get bitten by the photography bug?
I wasn’t bitten. I was severed! Hah. I was utterly taken by photography. In 1996, I bought a camera on an impulse and I literally fell in love with it, taking it on holidays and shooting landscapes, insects and flowers, as beginners do! It developed into wanting to be a fashion photographer.
When did you start seriously thinking about photography as a logical career path?
That hit when I started to shoot weddings. It was just a hobby before that. I suppose I was pushing fashion and modelling work around 1998? Then it flipped to weddings very quickly and started to snowball.
Were you doing weddings for friends and personal contacts to begin with?
Yes. Some of my very first jobs were corporate headshots for the company I was working at, then one of the employees asked me to cover their party and I realized how much I loved the social side of things. From that my first wedding was booked. I think I charged around £200 and I’d never second shot for anyone, I jumped in head first, but I knew my gear inside out and felt prepared. After the first wedding I was completely hooked.
Becoming smitten by photography is one thing, but why did you choose weddings over all the other types you could have done?
Weddings are a combination of everything; documentary, portraits, fashion, landscapes and so on. However, it’s the artistic freedom to shoot someone’s day exactly how you want to shoot it and have the couple to trust you implicitly that really gets me.
There’s a lot of banter and you make friends. That’s an unexpected bonus of shooting a wedding and there’s not many jobs where you get to do that week in and week out.
So, if someone was to say one wedding is much like another, you’d burst out laughing? Absolutely! That’s a popular misconception. There are photographers who don’t interact socially, they just float around the edges and don’t get involved with other people or the guests and there are some photographers who take the same shot at the same venue every single time. I have a friend who owns a venue and she says that she can predict where a certain photographer will be at a certain time of the day like clockwork. I could never do that, in the moment creativity thinking on your feet is so rewarding.
What is it about your approach that makes your work stand out from the competition?
I’d say it’s trusting my creative impulses. I’m always keen to experiment. I was doing things in the UK and sometimes the world before other people were doing it. That OUTDOOR RECEPTION spring and summer are the peak time for weddings, when ross travels mostly to europe and many receptions are held outdoors. Nikon D750, Nikon 24-70mm f/1.4g obviously garners interest from other photographers, which starts to build up your brand (and confidence).
Nowadays everyone is quite similar, but I climbed up the ladder, so to speak, before the industry went crazy. There are hundreds of photographers and countless conferences now, it’s so competitive, but I managed to reach the top before that wave.
Consistency is also crucial, I pride myself on my editing, presentation consistency and professionalism. I’m not a single photo person, I’m a storyteller so I make a point of telling a story for each wedding. That also means I have to make every single image work flawlessly with all others.
What kit do you usually decide to pack for a wedding shoot?
I have two D750s, which is probably
When people see how much I edit in workshops they just can’t believe it. But it’s all part of the brand, it’s all part of that cleanliness and elegance