Year in Pictures | 2021 | Documentary Wedding Photography Devon
Documentary Wedding Photography Devon
2021 was full of suspense… would wedding season actually happen this year? We crossed our fingers and hoped for some normality to return.
I don’t know about you but I found the winter lockdown especially tough. I was entering the final and most crucial phase of my MA in Documentary Photography & Photojournalism at UAL so news I’d be homeschooling alongside this wasn’t ideal! The first two months I juggled studying and created work alongside homeschooling my five year old, Lila. During this time I also started a collaboration with the V&A as a research partner for their Glasto@50 project. Many of the memories, photographs and stories that I gathered about Glastonbury Festival for the people’s history project I started last year became part of a wider archive. You can read more about the V&A project here. One of my personal highlights was being invited to chat about the Glastonbury Pyramid stage on BBC Radio 4 World at One, alongside Peter Hook from New Order – never have a I been so nervous!! You can check out the full interview on our press page https://www.myglastonburystory.com/press
I shot my first wedding in June this year, a small intimate gathering at Hartland Abbey in North Devon. I absolutely love this venue and Lila & I especially enjoyed watching Malory Towers, shot on location here, in the weeks following. I also photographed an LGBTQ wedding shoot at Sharpham House, which was awesome!
In July wedding season finally kicked off properly, although some restrictions were still in place for gathering indoors. Guests at Purton House in mid-July enjoyed alfresco dining in the apple orchard, which was gorgeous to photograph. Later on the band played out of large bay windows as the lawn turned dance floor! I’m a big fan of outdoor weddings so I totally enjoyed these outdoorsy covid-safe solutions. I also noted that this year outdoor weddings finally became legal at last, which meant no more crowding into tiny gazebos with terrible light.. Yipee!! A win for all 🙂
As the season rolled on it was truly wonderful to see life and weddings returning back to almost pre pandemic days. One of my favourite things about this year, aside from the increase in outdoor weddings, was the increase in autumn weddings as people postponed their dates into late 2021. I’m such a fan of autumn and winter light so this was a real treat. I was lucky to photograph two autumn weddings this year at River Cottage. I love this venue and the garden was especially magical in autumn. Their ginger cat Marmaduke made several appearances too!
In autumn I also received an honourable mention in the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron awards, Fine Art Series for my MA final Major Project. This was a lovely surprise and I’m looking forward to exhibiting some of my work about wildflower meadows and biodiversity loss in Barcelona next year. You can read more here https://www.thegalaawards.com/17th-jmca-pro-single-documentary-to-fine-art
Happy New Year to you all and especially the lovely couples that I have been lucky enough to share some time with this year. Thankyou for inviting me along for the ride. May 2022 bring us all many more special moments together.
You can check out my other yearly roundups 2020 and 2019
Documentary Wedding Photography Devon