Wedding photography portfolio: Every frame on the table
Our wedding photography portfolio, laid out the way we look at our own work: every print on one lit table, black and white until you pick it up. A roll from each of our four areas and one of elopements and engagements, from Newcastle's beaches to the Hunter's vineyards.
Sample photographs: this is a demo site, and every frame is licensed stock.
What's on the table
Newcastle
City, harbour and the East End
City weddings in terraces, old halls and rooms with tall windows. A lot of a Newcastle day happens indoors and in half light, which is where black and white earns its place, and where a curtain or a doorway does more than any backdrop.
Hunter Valley
Vineyards and open country
Long country afternoons: big old trees, open paddocks, fog sitting in the valleys until mid-morning and light that turns gold an hour before you expect it. Plenty of room to walk away from the crowd for ten minutes.
Port Stephens
The bays, from above and at the water
Jetties, rock platforms and clear green water, with the wind in every veil. Where the venue and the rules allow it, a few frames from the air show how small two people look on a headland.
Central Coast
Headlands and family weddings
Mostly close and warm: portraits by the water, guests in the frame, the last of the sun behind the cliffs and a bride by a window before anyone else is dressed.
Elopements & engagements
Across the four areas
The shorter rolls: elopements with two witnesses and engagement shoots a few months before the wedding. Hands, rings, a doorstep, and a lot of laughing once the nerves go.
How to read a wedding photography portfolio
Every photographer's portfolio looks good. It's the best twenty frames from a year of weddings, chosen by the person who took them. That's why it's worth reading one closely, ours included, before you book.
Look for the hard light, not just the golden hour
Sunset portraits are easy to love and fairly easy to take. Look instead for a ceremony at one in the afternoon under a hard summer sun, or speeches in a dim marquee. Those are the hours most of your day happens in, and they show what a photographer does when the light isn't helping.
Count the guests
Your wedding is mostly the people in it. A portfolio of couples alone on clifftops tells you nothing about how your grandmother will look. Find the frames with family in them, with kids under tables, with friends mid-laugh, and see whether they look like moments or like a lineup.
Ask for a full gallery
Any photographer can find twenty great frames. Ask to see every frame from one whole wedding, ideally one like yours: the same season, a similar venue, a similar number of guests. If the full gallery is as good as the portfolio, you've found someone consistent.
Check it's one person's work
Some studios show a portfolio from several photographers and send whoever is free. Ask who will be at your wedding, and ask to see their work specifically. It should be the same eye from the first frame to the last.
When you're ready, read how we cover a whole day on the wedding photography page, or send us your date and we'll send full galleries from weddings like yours.
Questions about the portfolio
Are these real weddings?
No. Lumenry is a demo site built to show what a photographer's website can do, so the couples are invented and the photographs are licensed stock images. A real photographer's portfolio should be their own weddings, every one, and you should be able to ask for the full gallery behind any frame you like.
Can we see a whole wedding, not just the best frames?
You should always ask a photographer for this. A portfolio is the best twenty frames from a year; a full gallery shows you what you'll actually get from your own day, including the speeches in a dark room and the family photos at two in the afternoon. We send two or three complete galleries from weddings like yours once you've told us your date.
Why is everything here in black and white?
Because this site works like a contact sheet: nothing shows in colour until you pick it out. Your own gallery is delivered in colour, with black and white versions of the frames that suit it, so you can choose for yourself which way each one goes on the wall.
How many photos do we get from a full day?
Usually between 600 and 900, edited by hand, from an eight-hour day with two photographers. Half days come in around 350 to 450, and a two-hour elopement around 150 to 250. We don't pad a gallery with near-duplicates to make the number bigger; a frame is in because it's worth keeping.
Will our photos end up in your portfolio?
Only if you say yes. The agreement has a box for it, and it's unticked until you tick it. Some couples are happy to share everything, some only the landscapes, some nothing at all, and every answer is fine. Nothing goes on social media without the same yes.
Do you edit people to look different?
We fix the light, the colour and the odd stray hair across a face. We don't change shapes, smooth skin until it looks like plastic, or remove anything that's part of you. If there's something you'd like softened, a bruise from the hens' night, say, tell us and we'll do it on the frames that matter.
Your roll is next.
Tell us your date and where it is. We'll send full galleries from weddings like yours, not just the best frames.
Newcastle ▸ Hunter Valley ▸ Port Stephens ▸ Central Coast