How I became a Wedding Videographer
So this is probably not how you expected this blog to start but hear me out…..
I’ve always had a keen interest in the outdoors, for pretty much as long as I can remember. I enjoy fishing and it is without doubt an obsession of mine. I spent many years fishing around the South Wales Coast and I have always enjoyed partaking in all disciples of freshwater fishing. By the age of 12 I’d managed to get a position in the Welsh Youth International Fly-fishing Team. It was an incredible experience which I was fortunate enough to do 4 times by the age of 16.
A fun filled day on the River Wye fishing the float with my good friend Owain.
Little did I know that a few years down the line social media would spring up and take the whole world by storm. Admittedly I was a little late to the party, we actually in truth… I was more than a little late I was extremely late. I actually missed the whole myspace phase and the early days of Facebook, but I eventually go on board in 2017 when I had a few friends who would show me these amazing instagram posts from other anglers from all over the world. Needless to say I was impressed and wanted to get in on that action. I wanted the become instagram famous! Of course that didn’t happen because lets face it… i’m just your average guy who likes a bit of fishing plus my photos were awful!
It took around a year of posting a select few photos to instagram before I decided enough was enough. I wanted to get amazing photos like the ones that made me join the platform in the first place. So I took a leap and I purchased my first camera, a Canon 800D DSLR. Now I could capture better photographs of my prize catches, before returning them safely to their home.
My biggest ever pike at a little over 26lb, caught on a lure too!
In truth it was nothing short of a wakeup call when I realised that I had no clue what I was doing with that camera and unfortunately I was still getting better photographs when using my phone. I needed to learn how to use that thing so that’s exactly what I did. I started to play around with the camera more and more and surprisingly I began to understand the settings. I won’t lie… it was a shock to me too!
It didn’t take long after that to realised how much I enjoyed photography, and all of a sudden… my new passion was born!
Fortunately for me I have several friends in the fishing world who also shared the same passion for photography, (we all loved a cheeky Instagram post) so much so that photography soon became as much of a talking point in our conversations as the fishing trips we endlessly discussed.
A year or so into my newfound love for photography, I decided to start filming some of my fishing trips with friends. We started to share these videos on our fishing YouTube channel and to our surprise we received some fantastic feedback from a lot of different people. Some we knew and others who we didn’t. That sparked a fire in me to continue down this path and i’m so thankful that it did.
A beautiful Common Carp caught at the iconic Caerphilly Castle moat, during one of my filming sessions in 2022.
The natural progression from there was to start making some fishing films for small companies within the industry so that’s exactly what I did. I’ve met some amazing people and build up some brilliant friendships with people from literally all over the world. I have loved every minute of it and loo forward to meeting more fantastic people in the future. I have done this for the past 3 and a half years and what an experience it has been!
When I first started to work for these smaller fishing brands I soon reached a point where I was starting to love Videography more than anything else, I just could not get enough of it! It was at this point where I decided to take my new hobby and turn it into a freelance business.
A perfect pike from the amazing Llandegfedd Reservoir.
In August of 2020 I bought my first professional Sony Mirrorless Camera, dedicated for video, from Carmarthen Cameras, in West Wales. I then jumped straight on Facebook Marketplace (just like everyone does these days) and I started to hunt for some deals on professional camera equipment.
This is where I met Keri-John Lovell. Not only is Keri the most amazing Photographer I’ve ever seen, but he’s also the kindest and most loyal person you’d ever wish to meet. He’s now one of my closest friends. Our friendship is without doubt the best thing to come from all of this.
Anyway, I’m going off topic….
I Purchased my first Professional Sony Lens from Keri and during our very brief, but totally geeky conversation about all things camera related, we spoke about our experiences, him working as a photographer and me a videographer etc and he eventually invited me to join him at a wedding. Let’s just say I was a little shocked and dint think he was too serious at the time. we shook hands and I left with my new lens and I was raring to go. I had some fishing videos to film!
After completing another few YouTube videos I just could get Keri’s offer off my mind. After some very careful consideration and a talk with my Wife I decided to reach out to keri to see how genuine his offer was. Log story short, he was 100% serious so I decided to go for it… Oh boy am I glad I did!
Sophie and Elliot’s wedding at the stunning Canada Lake and Lodge was literally a turning point in my life. It opened my eyes to the world of wedding film making and I instantly fell in love with it. It was everything I’d been searching for, it was fun, emotional, challenging and most of all it was incredibly rewarding. That was almost 2 years ago now and its crazy how quickly time has flown by!
Sophie & Elliot - My first wedding experience as a wedding videographer
2 and a half years on, I’m still loving my job; I get excited for every wedding I film and love building personal relationships with all my clients. It really does take some beating.
It’s safe to say that these days fishing is becoming more and more of an occasional treat for me as I’m now completely indulged in the world of weddings… And I wouldn’t have it any other way!
