New Kidz On The Block

After five years on the wedding scene, Jon Jenkins LSWPP (Jinx) and Richard P Walton LSWPP (Waltography) are a force to be reckoned with, adopting their own style for weddings, resulting in excellent images. They have a very different approach to most photographers and the chemistry between them when working together has given the brides some excellent images.

It hasn’t always been like this. In December 2007, after his worst year in wedding photography, Jon was taking a well deserved Christmas break and was pondering over jacking the whole lot in. The previous year had gone from bad to worse, and he had lost the sparkle that he once had. Added to that, bad weather, bad venues and bad brides just made the whole thing spiral out of control. The quality of his images was deteriorating and he just couldn’t pick himself up. His motivation for weddings was at its lowest and in January, on returning to work, he had to make a decision, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of his customers and the people he worked with. It was either to quit or to give himself a kick up the backside and go for it. With just one week to go before the SWPP Convention, Jon decided that was going to be the start of a new era for him. The Convention changed his motivation completely - getting inspired by some of the top names in the industry and seeing all the amazing images on display was the boost Jon needed to rekindle the dying flames. Now just one year on, things are much different for Jon, with many of his images receiving gold merit in the monthly competitions. He’s gained more qualifications, is a very active member on the SWPP forum, writing articles for Imagemaker magazine and now even talking at the Convention himself. He has managed to blow the old cobwebs away and has passion and enthusiasm for wedding photography that he once never thought he would get. If you asked him a year ago where he would be in his career a year later, he would never have dreamed he would be where he is now.

Jon doesn’t care anymore about weather, venue or bride. He takes every wedding with the same approach and works to get the results no matter what the day has to offer. Give him any situation and instead of letting things get to him, he takes it on the chin and looks on things as a challenge. He believes ‘you’re only as good as your last wedding’. The results of last year have been excellent. When submitting the first set of images for his Associate panel, all but one were taken in 2008. He believes there is gold at every wedding and aims to get a ‘Gold’ standard competition image from every wedding.

To add to his talents Jon has a special ace up his sleeve that helps to get those award-winning images. It’s not a new camera, or lens or Photoshop plugin that he thought might have been the answer to his prayers when he first started out. But The Extreme Wedding Photographer himself – Mr Richard P Walton LSWPP. Every Saturday, Richy takes time out from his work as a car and band photographer to work with Jon on his weddings. He’s not the usual middle-aged, belly-a-bit-larger-than-normal, wedding photographer but brings a new exciting approach to weddings. Don’t think Richy is the assistant on the weddings, he’s far from it, he’s a co-photographer and works as a team with Jon.

Team Work

Think of a crème brulèe without the crispy topping, perfectly cooked new potatoes without the butter, a nice mug of coffee with 1½ sugars and not the usual 2. All perfect meals as they are but with that little extra, it adds something that makes it complete.

Jon believes that one answer to his success is his team work with Richy. No doubt that Jon can achieve the results without him and has on countless times, but when working with Richy, it takes a little of the stress away and adds that extra sparkle. Jon’s approach is primarily to shoot for the bride, give the customer what they want first and make them happy before you think about anything else. He very much advocates the phrase ‘shoot for dough before you shoot for show’. His job is to get the bog standard images in the bag and the customer happy before he thinks about awards and panel pictures. Whereas Richy loves to remind Jon that you should ‘Shoot for show before you shoot for dough’ reiterating ‘once you’ve learned to shoot for show the dough will surely come’. He has a point but Jon would rather see the bride happy with her boring, looking at camera 10x8 for Grandma, than a bride pondering over whether she really likes the photo of her with her husband bending her so far back that they had to cancel the honeymoon due to the amount of physio required. Despite their bickering banter, it does work well and has made for some extremely happy brides and some fantastic images. While Jon is working hard to go through the list of groups and getting the main job in hand done, Richy is usually looking for locations for the romantics that he can adopt his unique style to. This usually means Richy finding a tree to climb so he can get a nice overhead view of the bride and groom or some funky background to position them against. All Richy’s talk about how he shoots for himself and not for the bride is a little misleading – on asking him why he was climbing the tree to get ‘that’ shot, he states quite clearly that “you have to give the bride and groom something for their money”. All brides have been to weddings before but never seen a photographer make the effort to climb a tree, get on the roof of a car or balance on a railing just to get a better angle on a shot. This approach has made Richy quite a topic of discussion on weddings and has resulted in many guests taking photos of him and forgetting about the bride. Richy explains, “Wedding photography is an expensive purchase to most people, no matter how much you pay, and you have to give the brides value for money. If you make an effort, the brides remember that. Although I do some of my more extreme stunts for my own amusement, weddings can get boring sometimes! And Uncle Bob ain’t gonna be shooting over your shoulder for that one!”

This does work well with Jon’s ethos that how good you look on the day can be just as important as the photos. Jon remembers one couple in particular who on coming into the studio to collect their preview album, rushed in, hugging and kissing them both, handing out bottles of wine and thank-you cards saying what a great job they had done and had not even seen a single photo yet. While Richy gives them value for money in his athletic approach to weddings, Jon doesn’t even try to perform such feats, which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t make an effort – seeing Jon work on a wedding is non-stop action, all the time he’s calculating how much time he needs to get everything in; he has to do all the worrying, while running around and still getting the job done. He can’t remember a single wedding where he hasn’t broken into a sweat. Whilst doing all the hard work, he still has to put the smile on: “I love weddings, I love the atmosphere on the day and hopefully I add to this”. Getting the balance right is important, making sure every photo they have asked for gets done and to do all the shots that the bride will want to see on return from honeymoon but that they don’t think are important on the day are what Jon has to contend with. Jon works hard with great determination to do his best for the bride, so even if they can’t see that on the day, they will appreciate it when it comes to collecting their finished album.

As well as making the bride and groom happy, Jon and Richy believe that they too have to enjoy the wedding themselves. When they have a fun couple or a couple that are happy to pose and put in extra time, it makes their job all the easier and they are the first to admit that the photos are better as a result. Having had many a ‘brideziller’ and a father-in-law from hell to contend with, they still get results and have a good time between themselves. “Weddings with no atmosphere are always a struggle so we have to lift our own spirits and entertain ourselves, having a joke between us usually keeps us entertained.” The difficult brides are getting fewer for the boys as their marketing and approach does seem to be attracting brides who want more fun photos and photos that are more creative. More and more brides are going for less formal groups and more bridal party fun shots and are putting in more time for them to get good romantic photos. Over the years, Jon’s confidence has grown and when talking to brides at the pre-wedding meeting, he no longer just accepts everything they want. He shows them an album of his favourite shots and when they point out an image they really like, he just simply tells them that if they want that shot he will need time and co-operation. Seeing the images that they could have is when they put effort in and trust the photographers.

If you would like to know more about their unique shooting style, they will be giving a talk, as well as a live shoot at the Convention 2009

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