John DOlan

"It is two o'clock on a Saturday. My call time is three. The wedding is at five. My camera bags rest by my hotel room door. My suit hangs in the closet, pressed and ready. I lie down for a light ten-minute nap to empty my head of the timeline, the planning, the personalities, the weather. The best I can do is put my brain in neutral and let the play begin."

If the fact that Martha Stewart wrote the foreword to his book (The Perfect imperfect) sets an expectation in your mind (is there anyone in the world unfamiliar with megabrand Martha Stewart Weddings?) the first act of John's book will turn that expectation on its head completely. Ten years into your career as a wedding photographer you think you can only dream of being surprised by a set of wedding photographs. Then you open John's book and question everything you ever thought you knew about wedding photos. 

Motion blur and soft focus before they were cool faddy instagrammy trends. If I was Martha Stewart and could have anyone in the world photograph my kid's wedding, I'd pick John Dolan too. I don't need to see the curated perfection of the detail of the day, maybe I don't even need the expected beats of the story of the day. Maybe all I truly need is to see the play that is my life through John Dolan's lens, to see the beautiful magical hazy imperfection of it, the place where all the beauty lies, the beauty I miss when I try to make events and characters anything other than what they are.

Is this documentary wedding photography? It certainly feels real, unscripted, unposed, brimming with real life characters and emotions but it doesn't seem to fit that mould either. Is this “editorial”? Some sections of the internet who claim him want to tell me it is. But this feels more like motion blur and soft focus with a truth telling purpose, not an editorial "look". Maybe it's none of these. Maybe this is photography at a wedding that defies any kind of catagorisation. And that's the biggest compliment you're going to get out of us.

For over 25 years John Dolan has been a leading figure in contemporary wedding photography never losing sight of the authenticity, truth and beauty that give his photographs their timeless value. An advocate for the art of photography at weddings and a dedicated educator we're beyond excited to hear him speak on the Doc Day stage.