Friday, 23 March 2012

Friday Friends - Laura Michelle, 'Power' photographer!


Laura Michelle Photography
Laura Michelle Photography
My Friday Friend this week is Laura Power of Laura Michelle Photography. I have been waiting to write this for such a long time, and at last I can share this amazing lady.
Laura first came to me for bridesmaids dresses after a vintage wedding fair, I was in the changing rooms at the time and Anna pointed at her across the room saying this girl just came over and wanted a dress. Laura was at another wedding dress stand and didn't come back, so I assumed she was the one that got away!

Thankfully she emailed me a few weeks later and came to visit the studio where we chatted bridesmaids dress and she told me she was a photographer. I thought nothing of it until I looked her up and fell head over heels in love with her blog and photography skills.

This is just a selection of my favourites, she is able to make beautiful the most mundane things and she was the only option when it came to shoot the bridal collection. I'm a complete control freak and we usually do all the photography ourselves but Laura is one of those people you can totally trust and is great to be around all day. She's also one of those uber talented people who doesn't have any idea quite how talented she is.

Here are a few other things about this wonderful photographer:

- Laura has seven (yes, 7 like a doctor) years of photography study behind her, a degree, two years of black and white study and two years of colour study

- She's super passionate about photography

- She has so many different cameras, lomo cameras, Polaroids, all sorts of gadgets to make amazing images with.

- I loved that she said that it doesn't matter how expensive your camera is, it's the skill in using it. The two photographs below were taken on a cheap digital point and shoot.

- She's a very lovely person that you would want at your wedding, not bolshy, just lovely.

- Laura will capture the most amazing moments when your not looking and get images of your family that perfectly represent their personalities. At the same time she is brilliant at directing models/brides to look your very best.

- She's very well traveled, has a black lab named Alfie and is getting married herself this year too! 

- Here are the photos Laura took at her first bridesmaids consultation at the studio.
- Here are the behind the scenes images of the bridal shoot! 


This image Laura took whilst in San Francisco of a couple at sunset, this is how great she is at capturing split second moments, even with a crappy camera.

The ceiling in the Bellagio Lobby, Vegas

My favorite image of the bridal shoot taken on the beach.

I know, once again I must seem like I'm totally over the top about this lady but she is wow factor, up and coming and soon to be up with the very best. I was blown away when I saw the shots from our bridal collection, the above image is exactly what I dreamt of and there was no way I could have taken this image myself.

NOTE: Now I've seen some terrible wedding photos, the type you want to hide they are so bad, taken by people who call themselves professional photographers.. And that's the one thing from your wedding that you keep and look at again and again. The photographer is even more important than the dress!

We all need to value genuinely talented photographers like Laura far more, it's certainly not just pushing a button on an expensive camera.