Lumenry is two wedding photographers working out of a small studio in Cooks Hill, Newcastle. We photograph about thirty weddings a year between Nelson Bay and Terrigal and out to the Hunter's vineyards, always together, and we've been doing it since 2016.
A demo site: Lumenry, Nell and Theo are invented. Every photograph is licensed stock, the photographers in them included.
Nell spent eight years on a regional newspaper, photographing council meetings, footy finals and the odd flood, which is where she learned to see a moment coming and be in the right spot when it lands. She shot her first wedding for a friend in 2015 and stopped taking newspaper shifts a year later.
On the day she stays with the two of you: the morning, the vows, the portraits. She's the one quietly suggesting you walk to the end of the jetty and back.
Theo came to photography from the darkroom at the Newcastle art school, printing other people's negatives before he made his own. He still edits every gallery as if each frame were going on the wall, one at a time, by hand.
On the day he has your guests: the grandparents in the second row, the speeches from the back of the room, the cousin who didn't know anyone and ended up on the dance floor.
If the first kiss happens with your eyes shut, that's the photo. We'd rather miss a perfect frame than make one up.
Celebrants ask for it and guests deserve it. We work from the sides and the back with long lenses, so nobody watches your vows past our elbows.
Fifteen minutes, one group at a time, read out by someone loud. Then everyone gets back to the party.
No presets run over a whole wedding. Each frame is looked at, fixed and finished on its own, which is why galleries take six weeks.
Nothing from your day goes on our site or social media unless you've ticked the box. Unticked is fine.
We're at the venue an hour before anyone needs us, and we leave after the last thing you told us matters.
Before digital, a photographer handed you a contact sheet: every frame from the roll, small and grey, and a grease pencil to circle the ones you loved. The circled frames went to the darkroom and came back as prints. Choosing was part of it.
This site works the same way. Every photograph waits in black and white, and the moment you pick one up, by hovering or tapping it, it comes up in colour. It's a small thing, but it's how we want you to feel about your own gallery: that it's a roll of your day, and the choosing is yours.
Your own gallery comes in colour, and the frames that look better grey come twice. You'll find the whole roll of sample weddings on the light table, and what each collection includes on the collections page.
We work from a converted terrace a short walk from Darby Street. It's where we edit, keep the albums you can leaf through, and meet couples who'd rather talk in person than on a video call. Visits are by appointment, mostly weekday evenings, because our weekends belong to other people's weddings.
Nell and Theo, both of us, on every full day. We don't send associates or subcontract a busy Saturday to someone you've never met. If your date is booked, we tell you so and recommend people we'd book ourselves. A half day or an elopement is usually Nell on her own, and we tell you that before you book, not on the day.
It's happened once in ten years. We each know a handful of wedding photographers in the Hunter whose work we trust, and they back us up the same way. If one of us can't make it, the other still comes and a trusted second fills in; if neither of us can, you'd hear from us straight away with a replacement and a full refund of anything that changes.
Often, and happily. We don't film, so most of our couples book a videographer too. On the day we agree with them who stands where during the ceremony and the speeches, so neither of us ends up in the other's shot. If you haven't found one yet, ask us for the people we've worked well beside.
Digital for the day itself, because a wedding doesn't wait while you change a roll. Theo carries a film camera too, and if you'd like a roll of black and white film shot through the day, say so: it comes back as prints and scans a few weeks after your gallery, grain and all.
Black, plain and quiet: dark shirts or dresses, flat shoes we can kneel in. The idea is that your guests forget we're there. If your wedding has a dress code, a colour or a theme, tell us and we'll match it, within the limits of shoes that work on a wet headland.
Elopements and engagement shoots, which are really part of the same work. We stopped taking family portraits and corporate jobs a few years ago so we could give weddings our weekends and our weekdays, the editing included. The full list of what we book is on the collections page.
Tell us a little about the day you're planning. Nell or Theo will reply, usually the same evening.
Newcastle ▸ Hunter Valley ▸ Port Stephens ▸ Central Coast
