04/09/2026
We Hate Having Our Photograph Taken!” — You’re Definitely Not Alone
“I hate having my photograph taken.” If I had a pound for every time somebody had said that to me during a wedding meeting, I could probably have retired from wedding photography by now. Sometimes it's both people, although quite often one half of the couple is perfectly happy about the whole thing while the other looks genuinely horrified at the thought of spending their wedding day in front of a camera. Then comes the usual explanation: “I'm really awkward in photographs,” “I never know what to do,” or one of my favourites, when somebody points at their partner and says, “You'll have your work cut out with this one.”
The funny thing is, after 18 years photographing weddings, I've realised that most people who tell me they're terrible in photographs aren't terrible in photographs at all. They're uncomfortable being photographed when they're thinking about being photographed, and those are two very different things.
Most people aren't used to having a camera pointed at them
Unless you're a model, actor or someone who spends an extraordinary amount of their life on Instagram, there's really no reason you should automatically feel comfortable standing in front of a professional camera. Most of us aren't used to it, yet suddenly your wedding arrives and you've got a photographer following you around on one of the biggest days of your life. You've spent months, sometimes years, planning everything, you're probably already feeling a mixture of excitement and nerves, and now somebody has appeared with a couple of fairly substantial Canon cameras. Being told to “act natural” at that point isn't particularly helpful. 😂
That's one of the reasons my approach to wedding photography has always been relaxed. I don't expect you to know how to pose and I certainly don't expect you to spend the months before your wedding studying photographs online trying to work out what you're supposed to do with your hands. That's my problem, not yours. Your job is to enjoy your wedding; mine is to make sure I've got the photographs.
Relaxed wedding photography doesn't mean leaving you on your own
There's sometimes a misunderstanding around natural wedding photography and documentary wedding photography that photographers who work this way simply stand in the distance and never interact with anybody. That's not how I work. There will be huge parts of your wedding where I don't need to interfere at all. During the ceremony, reception, speeches and all the bits happening in between, I'm looking for real moments and photographing the day as it unfolds.
But if we're spending a little time taking photographs of the two of you and you need some help, I'll give you some. I might put you somewhere because the light is beautiful, suggest you move slightly because the background works better or give you enough direction that you're not standing there wondering what on earth you're supposed to be doing. What I don't want to do is spend the next hour positioning every finger, tilting your head three degrees to the left and asking you to stare lovingly at each other until neither of you can remember what a normal facial expression feels like. 😂 That's where people start looking uncomfortable, and I want the photograph to look like you, not my interpretation of how a wedding couple is supposed to look.
You don't need to practise posing for your wedding
There is so much wedding content online now that it's incredibly easy to convince yourself there are things you need to learn before your wedding. How to pose, where to put your hands, how to stand, which side is your best side, how to walk towards a camera and even how to create the perfect candid photograph — which is a slightly ridiculous concept when you think about it because a candid photograph stops being particularly candid once everybody has rehearsed it. 😂
You really don't need to learn any of that for me. In fact, I'd rather you didn't. If I photograph you laughing because I've told you to look at each other and laugh, I've photographed two people pretending to laugh. If I photograph you laughing because something genuinely made you laugh, I've photographed an actual moment between the two of you. One is something we've created for the camera; the other is something that happened on your wedding day, and that's the bit I'm interested in.
What if you're genuinely nervous about the camera?
This is where a pre-wedding photoshoot can be absolutely brilliant. I don't think every couple needs one simply because somebody somewhere has decided it's another box that has to be ticked before you can get married, but if you're genuinely worried about being photographed, or you both keep telling me how much you hate cameras, spending a little time together before the wedding can make an enormous difference.
And the point isn't that I'm going to teach you how to pose. Quite the opposite. We can choose somewhere relaxed, go for a wander and take some photographs without the pressure of a wedding schedule around us. You'll see how much — or more accurately, how little — direction I normally give, and you'll get used to the slightly strange experience of having me wandering around with a camera. More importantly, you get to know me and I get to know you. I learn how you are together, you learn how I work, we chat, take the mickey out of each other a bit and somewhere along the way the camera becomes considerably less important.
By the end of a pre-wedding photoshoot, I'm not hoping you'll walk away thinking you've learnt five excellent wedding poses. I'd much rather hear, “Oh... was that it?” because once you've realised there's really nothing particularly scary about having your photographs taken, we've already solved half the problem before your wedding day arrives.
Your pre-wedding photographs can become part of the wedding
There's another reason I particularly like doing pre-wedding photoshoots, and that's the Guest Signature Frame. Rather than all the photographs from your shoot simply sitting in a gallery somewhere, one of them can become part of the wedding itself. We choose a photograph of the two of you for the frame and, on the wedding day, your guests can leave their names and messages around it. Afterwards you've got something personal that you can actually put on the wall rather than another wedding item disappearing into a drawer or cupboard never to be seen again.
I've always liked the fact that it joins two different parts of the wedding journey together. The photograph comes from that period beforehand when you're still planning everything and the wedding is ahead of you, then the messages around it come from the people who actually shared the day with you. If you originally booked the pre-wedding photoshoot because you were nervous about being photographed, there's something quite nice about that particular photograph ending up surrounded by messages from your wedding guests too.
When the wedding day arrives
If we've already done a pre-wedding photoshoot, hopefully photography has dropped quite a long way down your list of things to worry about by the time the wedding arrives. There isn't a stranger turning up on your wedding morning whose only previous contact with you has been an email and a booking form. We've already spent some time together, you know I'm not going to turn your wedding into a twelve-hour photoshoot and I already know a little more about you both.
Even if you haven't had a pre-wedding shoot, though, my approach on the wedding day is exactly the same. I'll photograph what's happening, organise the photographs that genuinely need organising, such as your family groups, and we'll spend some time getting lovely photographs of the two of you. I'll help when you need me to and then I'll leave you alone to enjoy your wedding. In fact, the less you're thinking about me as the day goes on, the better I'm probably doing my job.
There's a point at many weddings where people simply stop noticing the camera, and that's when things become really interesting. Nobody is checking where I'm standing or immediately straightening themselves because they've spotted the photographer. People are talking, laughing, hugging, dancing, crying and generally getting on with having a wedding. Those photographs are incredibly important to me and they're one of the reasons I've always described myself as a natural and relaxed wedding photographer.
I want a finished gallery to contain the photographs you'd expect, of course, but I also want it filled with all the little things you couldn't possibly have planned: the expression on somebody's face during the ceremony, your parents watching you when you're looking somewhere else, a friend crying with laughter during a speech or children who have completely abandoned whatever the adults thought they were supposed to be doing. And then there are the photographs of the two of you when you've forgotten, just for a second, that I'm there. Nobody needs to know how to pose for those photographs. They just need to happen.
“But I never like photographs of myself”
That's another one I hear a lot, and I understand why. We're all used to seeing ourselves in mirrors and phone photographs, and most of us are considerably more critical of our own appearance than anybody else will ever be. But wedding photography isn't really about creating hundreds of photographs for you to sit and inspect yourself in afterwards; it's about preserving what the day felt like.
In years to come, I don't think you're going to look at a photograph of yourself laughing with somebody you love and worry that your hand wasn't positioned perfectly. You'll remember the person, you'll remember why you were laughing and you'll notice people in the background who perhaps aren't around anymore. The photograph gains value because of who is in it and what was happening, not because everybody executed the perfect pose. That's one of the things 18 years of photographing weddings has taught me: the photographs that eventually become important aren't necessarily the photographs anybody expected to become important.
Your wedding photographs should still feel like you
If you're looking for a relaxed wedding photographer in North Yorkshire or the North East because the thought of having your photograph taken fills you with dread, you're exactly the sort of person I regularly work with. You don't need modelling experience, you don't need to practise poses and you definitely don't need to spend your wedding day performing for my cameras. I'll help when you need help and blend into what's happening when you don't.
And if you're genuinely nervous beforehand, that's where a pre-wedding photoshoot can really earn its place. We can spend some relaxed time together, get you used to how I work, create some lovely photographs before the wedding and choose one for your Guest Signature Frame at the same time. By the time the wedding arrives, hopefully the cameras are no longer something you're worried about.
Because I don't need you to be good at having your photograph taken. I just need you to be yourselves, and I'll take care of the rest.
www.discoveryphotography.co.uk
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