Picture perfect: how to make it as a wedding photographer

Experiment with interesting angles and risky compositions, says wedding photographer Steven Rooney. Photograph: Steven Rooney

Not so long ago, the wedding photographer was the man in the smart suit with the flashy camera who lined the families up – the bride's, the groom's, then all together – outside the church door. His work was concentrated in a fleeting window of about half an hour, reeling off as many shots as possible before the guests began to groan. Then, with the cutting of the cake, his responsibilities ended and well before the dancing was over he could be back home.

The early 21st century wedding photographer bears little resemblance to this old caricature. Today they work within a fast-growing, highly competitive, dynamic industry, straining to portray the wedding day in their own unique style. Some work like photojournalists, gliding invisibly between the guests, looking for candid moments. Others choreograph scenes with all the sophistication of film directors, capturing shimmering dresses, leaping groomsmen or epic backdrops.

The most important thing to remember is that it's a business you're running, and not a hobby anymore.

Ann-Kathrin Koch, wedding photographer

Meanwhile, the barrier to entry remains low. Anyone with a camera can set themselves up as a wedding photographer and pitch to one of the quarter of a million couples getting married in England and Wales each year, part of an industry across the whole UK that is worth an estimated £10bn. The lure of the money, the freedom of the job and the scope for turning a hobby into a business ensures that the sector is a competitive one. So what does it take to succeed?

Steven Rooney, a wedding photographer from Southport, has watched the evolution of the profession. As a boy, he learned his craft from his grandfather, a teacher who used to photograph weddings in his spare time. Those times with his grandfather's Canon AE1 camera and Ilford black and white film were the genesis of Rooney's career. Though originally trained as a teacher, he kept up his photography and one day a friend asked him to shoot his wedding. It was the stepping stone into a career that has seen him become one of the north-west's leading wedding photographers.

The outline of a bride and groom Photograph: Steven Rooney

The support of his friends and family has been key to Rooney's success. His brother designed his first website, a friend who worked for an accounting firm helped him to set up as a limited company and then his wife, Sally, joined him. She takes care of the admin for what is now a family business. "She holds our business together," Rooney says. "She's much more organised than me, she also designs the albums, runs the house and looks after the kids while I'm shooting weddings."

Rooney's business expanded slowly. It was a gradual slide into weddings rather than a sudden move from teaching. For Rooney this was important as he could build his portfolio steadily, picking the assignments that interested him. "I followed American photographers like Jeff Newsom and began to develop a client base of people who liked my style. There are lots of different techniques: double exposures, long exposures, pictures of stars, painting with light."

Business is also going from strength to strength for Ann-Kathrin Koch, a Birmingham-based, German wedding photographer. Koch has a reputation for beautiful documentary shots, a style of visual storytelling that she puts down to her training as a freelance film editor.

Like Rooney, Koch built her business gradually. "I was able to do both the film editing and the wedding photography for quite a long time," she says. "I had started out with photography in my early 20s, using websites like Flickr. The community back then was all about Flickr and I would take pictures of everything around me and post them. It also got me interested in how others did what they did."

Social media was not just a training ground for Koch, but also a source of clients during her first year as a wedding photographer in 2011. She says: "I did a handful of weddings that year – friends and connections through Flickr. I then started to blog about everything I was doing – mostly it was about photography, but it was not exclusively about weddings."

The waiting game: a bride takes a pitstop on the way to her wedding. Photograph: Ann Kathrin Koch

In 2012, she went full-time and shot 26 weddings. Since then the numbers have continued to rise; Koch sets herself apart by using a Hasselblad H2 film camera and medium format film, and benefits from an growing digital profile and word of mouth recommendations. Last year, she travelled 33,531 miles through 13 different countries.

It is intensive work. Katrina Otter, a wedding and event planner, points out that there is so much more involved for photographers than before. "They are really involved in the planning process. Often they meet me or the couples beforehand to plan how they're going to tell the story of the day. Then they have to work in different environments and adapt quickly to changes in conditions – the light or the weather."

Both Rooney and Koch acknowledge the importance of making this connection with the couples prior to the wedding. It's part of the hidden work a wedding photographer does. Rooney explains, "When someone enquires, I speak to them about the wedding. I think this is very important. We meet up at their house or we find a cafe. More often than not we get on, and we talk about the day."

But, Rooney explains, that is just the first part of the process. He adds: "People often say, 'This is a nice job, what do you do for the rest of the week?' They don't realise that afterwards you go home, back up the cards, back up the backup and render the files, chose which to edit, then spend about 10 hours editing before uploading them into a gallery or a slideshow and getting back to the couple."

Ann-Kathrin Koch trained as a film editor Photograph: Ann-Kathrin Koch

It's a workload that aspiring wedding photographers might underestimate, and it's also one of great responsibility. Rooney admits to taking a backup of his photographs on holiday for the sheer terror of losing them. Another common pitfall is being asked by friends to work for free. Koch cautions against this: "The most important thing to remember is that it's a business you're running, and not a hobby anymore. If you are running it as a hobby you'll always lose out in the end. It's not a sustainable business that way."

Far from being an added-extra, for Otter, the wedding photographer is an essential part of the day: "On my planning list it is pretty much top of the list after the venue. I have so many friends who have decided to save on their photographer so they can put more towards the dress, the alcohol or the food and they really regretted it afterwards. You will always notice your wedding photos, much more than you'll look back at your shoes."

Here are five wedding photography from Steven Rooney:

1) Practice - a lot. Take your camera everywhere with you until you know it inside and out and can use the dials and buttons without looking.

2) Always have backups and spares. Spare cameras and lenses, disc drives and backups of your work. When you pay the bills with your camera you can't risk anything going wrong.

3) Charge what you're worth and work out what your income and outgoings are to be to make sure you're earning what you should. A good accountant can really help with this.

4) Try, fail and improve. In order to be unique and stay creative try different things, interesting angles and risky compositions. Be yourself and develop your own style.

5) Keep in touch with other photographers. It can be a lonely job sometimes but there are some great photographers who are happy to help you along the way, from social media groups to official organisations, networks and training courses.

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