Profiles

When you think about it, a great wedding photographer has to have the lighting knowledge of a studio expert, the agility and unobtrusiveness of a street photographer, and the unerring sense of timing of a Cartier-Bresson. Nor is that an end to it. The truly successful wedding shooter also has to be a skilled diplomat and behavioural psychologist in order to cope with the surging emotions of a special day. And of course he or she can't ever miss any of the must-have shots of those not-to-be-repeated moments (the aisle, the rings, the kiss).



You might reasonably expect that in order to become a success in such a demanding and hotly contested field you would necessarily face many years of hard graft as you learned the trade. Marcus Bell knows all about hard graft. Indeed on the day of this interview he'd been up since 4am scouting a wedding location for clients of his busy Brisbane studio. But Bell did not come into the business after a long apprenticeship. A little over 15 years ago he was working in a bank, and dreaming of doing something he loved for a living instead.

In a way it seems that photography was waiting for him - or maybe waiting in him. At age 16 he inherited a camera when his father died. Although his dad was a factory manager at the time of his death, he had for many years previously run his own photographic business. It seems to have been genetic. 'About three years ago,' said Bell, 'I found out my grandfather was a photographer as well. So it was obviously a generational thing, there was a calling I never knew existed.'

It wasn't until he reached his early twenties that Bell discovered his own latent passion for photography. The passion really started to bloom when he met one of the doyens of Australian photography, Doug Spowart. 'He had this image gallery where he did tuition. I was just a young kid, really, but it was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. He taught me maybe five or 10 years of knowledge over a six-month span. [The techniques he taught me] are things I still do today when I go out shooting. I was blessed to meet him.'

In the beginning his photographic interests ran to landscapes and streetscapes, but one day about nine years ago he attended a seminar that, he said, 'made me realise that you've got to love what you do. That's when I found the passion for wedding photography. I was taking all the tools I'd learnt through streetscape and landscape photography and bringing them into wedding photography.'



As you look through Bell's wedding work, the influence of the early love for the landscape and streetscapes is evident in many of the images. He steers away from the conventional set-pieces favoured by his less imaginative competitors and instead places his figures in dramatic landscapes or catches them at moments of peak emotional intensity.

To be a successful wedding photographer you cannot afford to leave anything to chance. It is essential not only to have a plan, but to have a Plan B and a Plan C - at the very least. As his early morning site reconnoitre underscores, he plans meticulously so that he can be relaxed and focused on the big day.

Bell likes to have a chat with clients early in the piece so that he can get a feel for who they are and have an idea of the emotional dynamics he's likely to encounter on the day. 'You bring a sensitivity, a confidence, even a persona to those couples. People instantly see that you're there for good reasons, they welcome you into their lives. I think first impressions definitely count; your mannerisms, your intentions being clear, [that you will] fit in and not cause any problems.' And, he added, 'once you start delving into the personalities and the private lives then you're on the way to images that are going to be dynamic and very important to them; that they'll appreciate for the rest of their lives.'

With the preparation groundwork taken care of, Bell is free to work more creatively when events begin to unfold. This isn't to suggest that he's at all casual about his role. 'I put more pressure on myself to really build the image - rather than getting the couple to build the image. I believe that by allowing the couple to just naturally be themselves, I will end up with a superior image,' he said. 'So I challenge myself, [whether it is] the lighting available to me, the camera angle, the choice of lens or even the choice of aperture. Maybe if I was to pan and use a really slow shutter speed rather than have everything crisp and sharp... not so much experimenting but using skills as a photographer I've learned over the last 15 years to make creative decisions very quickly in a whole variety of different situations.

'I realise that the more prepared you are, the more easily you can let all those plans go out the window and just go on the seat of your pants. You're so well prepared and you know that no matter what you do now, you've thought everything out and you're going to make the right decisions first time every time, even though these may be totally new ideas or even locations.

'It's a little bit like learning the rules of composition. You can't break those rules until you've learnt them really well. It's the same [with shooting a wedding]. You've really got to know what you're doing before you break the rules.'

However creative Bell gets on the day, he always ensures that he has what he calls the safety shot. 'That's going back to what Doug Spowart taught me 15 years ago. You work a subject and perhaps take a series of six images. It could be the first image or the last image in that series that is the one you go with, that is, I guess, the hero shot.'

Running a successful studio operation (and his operation has seen a steady 20 percent year-on-year growth since starting) would be enough for most photographers. But while weddings are the Studio Impressions central business, Bell and his team have also developed a range of software tools for professional photographers. 'About a year ago we created a product called Quickflow that works within Photoshop and allows you to process all your images,' Bell said. 'It makes it really simple once you've done your raw conversions, you can basically just press a button and tell it the sizes you want to save that file at, and put a branding watermark over certain files.'

In addition, he added, 'we created Instant Effects which offers 40 different presets that allow photographers to create infrared looking black and white images, old '70s toned images, black and whites, colour enhancments and so on. One of the instant effects I created called 'Jazz Envy' won the 2009 AIPP Highest Scoring Print Award.'

Such is Bell's expertise in raw workflow and post processing techniques that he has become an 'Adobe Ambassador'.

'It was a challenge as I learnt to deliver what I know. I get asked to talk in front of thousands of people in the US as a keynote speaker at conventions. I've just come back from Brazil, doing a talk where it was again a very large crowd at a show that attracts something like 30,000 people.' Over the last four years he's had presenting gigs in Japan, France, the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.

When it comes to his personal work, he has to try to fit it in around his now very crowded schedule. 'If I'm flying back through a region and if I've got a couple days I can spend shooting, I'll force myself to do it. I've been really concentrating on learning and rethinking how I can go beyond anything I've created before and to really push myself. I've got this new zest to learn as much as I can and to be as good as I can be.

'I guess I've realised over a long period of time that your photography is an extension of who you are as a person. Your own life experiences shape who you are and therefore it naturally has to shape your photography and how you see the world.'


See Photo Review magazine Issue 42 for the print edition of this profile which includes additional images.

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