Festival Brides Love: Toby Lowe Photography

Festival Brides Love: Toby Lowe Photography

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Afternoon Folks,

We have another great photographer to share with you under Festival Brides Love. For those of you who are new to our festival pages, Festival Brides Love is a regular feature, usually on a Wednesday, where we run Q&A's or featured posts on the awesome suppliers we promote. Every single one of these suppliers offer something unique for your wedding and have been vetted for the excellent service they supply.

Today we are introducing you to the talents of Toby Lowe, a Cornwall based wedding photographer who promises to deliver relaxed and natural images of your day with a bespoke fine art edge. His style is reportage which means he will capture the special moments of your wedding as they happen in a candid and unobtrusive fashion leaving you to crack on and enjoy your day.

We asked Toby a bit about himself, why he loves capturing weddings and what sort of packages he could offer for your wedding....

Well, my name is Toby and I am a wedding photographer based in Cornwall. It is such an amazing place. Beautiful beaches, wild rugged coastline, dramatic moors and picturesque countryside. It is a great place to live and it is a fantastic place to work as a wedding photographer. We just have so many incredible (and often unique) venues and locations. You can really let your creativity take over. In fact the whole of the South West offers so many opportunities for creating beautiful bespoke images. I feel really lucky to do what I do.

That is a really good question. In my other life I have played in a lot of bands so have been lucky to not only go to, but also play at, a lot of music festivals (my main instrument is the fiddle). The question for me, therefore, is not so much which festival I would like to go to, but where I would like to go to a festival. That answer is easy. I would love to go to a festival in the far north of Scandinavia. I have a fascination with the place both photographically and musically. There is just a strange draw to the place for me. To combine a photographic / festival trip there would be incredible.

It was kind of a natural transition. I have always loved photographing people. Although I used to do a lot of editorial and journalistic photography, I hadn't really touched on the wedding world. Then, as life has a habit of doing, one day I found myself photographing one. I absolutely loved it. I found that there were so many stories to capture and document. I know this is often said, but every wedding day is genuinely unique. You can be so creative throughout the day. Now, weddings take up most of my photographic life. I have never looked back.

Well, the best way to describe my photographic style is reportage with a bespoke fine art feel. I love natural unobtrusive photography. The photographers that I grew up following all had a very 'fly on the wall' documentary feel to their work. My approach is to always blend in to the day to document it, rather than take over the day. I know some photographers prefer to take centre stage. That is not for me. I just feel you get more natural photographs and a better document of the day if you take a more subtle approach. The fine art aspect is based around my style of shooting and the way I see the world. I love the balance you get of including landscape and place within wedding photos. Outdoor or rustic weddings are definitely my favourite, which is why I love weddings that have a festival style and feel.

It has to be the people. Everyone wedding is a story. That story is not just the bride and grooms though. In many respects a wedding is greater than the sum of its parts. Put it together and you have so much. It is always fascinating piecing together the relationships between people on the wedding day. If you are naturally gregarious and social, being a wedding photographer is an incredible lifestyle. The other part is the creativity that you can bring to the day. There is so much you can do with the approach you bring to the day. Best of all is when you get a couple who share in that love of creativity. Those weddings just leave you on a high for days.

My main packages are a Full Day and Full Day Plus Wedding Album. For destination weddings outside of Cornwall and Devon I provided a bespoke package. I am always happy to discuss with people what they are looking for.

Well, firstly a photographer who works to understand them and what is behind their day. If you want to shoot, beautiful, natural looking photographs you need to develop trust. To get that trust, you need to develop a rapport with people. A wedding photographer has such an important role, before, on and after the day. My approach is to develop a relationship with the couple before the day. That may be over coffee and cake, or it may be over Skype! The important point is that they need to be able to see past the lens to the person behind it.

When it comes to the wedding day, my approach is relaxed and unobtrusive. It's the old photographers adage, 'be cat like'. If you are relaxed, you just blend in. I have never been one of these photographers who wants to take over the day.

The last thing is the bespoke fine art style to my work. I love creativity. I always want there to be a shot that makes the bride and groom say, Yay! We find it together. When you do find it, it's the best feeling in the world.

My advice is always the same on this. Choose your wedding photographer based on these two important questions.

1. Do you like their work and portfolio? This seems so obvious, but it really is essential. Check out their website and social media to see as much of their work as possible. Compare it to other photographers work. If you can, arrange to meet to look through more of their work and to have an informal chat about your wedding day.

2. Are you comfortable with the them? How do you feel about them being with you throughout the day? This is really important. Most of your wedding suppliers will not actually be there on your big day. Your wedding photographer is there every step of the way. You have to feel relaxed in their presence.

Be true to yourself

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