059: Emma + Rich – Booking Chilled Couples, Taking Fun Photos & Choosing a Positive Attitude Whilst Shooting

April 20, 2022

“Be yourself – because we are all unique, special individuals”

EMMA + RICH

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Emma + Rich!

Emma + Rich are award-winning photographers based in Yorkshire, UK, and are known for their fun and creative, and often quirky wedding photography. They believe everyone looks good when they are having fun and pride themselves on bringing a positive attitude and chill vibe to every wedding they shoot.

Over the years they’ve dedicated themselves to getting better and better at what they do. They were named Rangefinder Rising Stars in 2021 and are the winners of numerous other awards and accolades. They also love helping other wedding photographers in curating their work and keeping inspired when shooting the least exciting parts of a wedding day.

Check out some of the biggest points from Emma + Rich’s interview below:

What’s your advice for photographers that they really want to be taking those fun photos but often it’s just not the first thing on their mind?

Emma:
For us, one of our mantras is get the safe shot and then play. So we get the safe shot.

Rich:
We still get all those expected shots, the standard wedding shots that you expect to see in a wedding album.

Emma:
But then we just keep shooting.

Rich:
Yeah. Keep going, keep going. I think most of us, any experienced wedding photographer is going to be able to get those shots in the bag fairly early on, and then… Well, I don’t know what other people do, but I’m like, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Now what can I get that’s better?”

Emma:
“Now what can we do?”

Rich:
“What can I do to play? Now what?”

Emma:
It’s a big day. There’s always something going on. There’s always something happening. Someone once told me very early in my photography career, and this is not necessarily right or wrong, but, “If there’s nothing happening, you’re in the wrong place,” and that stuck with me as well.

I would imagine that you book quite fun, carefree, chilled-out couples that just want to have an amazing time. Without knowing you guys, knowing your business, knowing your couples – that’s kind of the vibe I get. How do you do it?

Emma:
I built the website so much as to put people off as to attract people.
So there’s double chins. There’s big smiley faces. There’s cake. There’s drink. There’s warts and… not warts and all, but almost warts and all. We want people to see reality, and most people that book us say, “The pictures look real and I could feel them.” They’re the most two important things: “They look real and I could feel them.” It’s not like an ethereal dream of what you expect a wedding should be, it’s-

Rich:
Yeah. I think very early on we decided… we had more of an idea of the sort of weddings we didn’t want to shoot rather than what we did want to shoot.

How do you make sure that you’re shooting in that positive mindset, that positive state?

Emma:
We lie to ourselves. Some days we might be having a horrible day. Some days I get really bad headaches, or something might happen where I’m not feeling too good. I have bad knees at the minute we’re trying to figure out. Things like that. I might be in pain and I’m like, “Right. Today I’m going to have a good day no matter what.”

Rich:
I think a lot of this comes from… as I say, we both had our mental health problems and to cope with that we learned mindfulness, which is the process of identifying your emotions, your physical reactions to them. Listening to what’s going on and going, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m feeling bad because so and so.” So as soon as you start to recognize these little triggers that set you off, you just go, “No you don’t, brain. I’m not listening to you today. I’m going to shoot a wedding.” It’s getting control through mindfulness.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Emma + Rich for joining us on the show!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally