www.andrew-davies.com established 2005 and specializing in Wedding Photography in Northern UK

Andrew and Ruth are highly experienced Full Time Professional Photographers based in the North East and covering the whole of the UK and have been photographing weddings together for the past 5 years. Andrew and Ruth are both North East born and raised so have a great deal of knowledge of the area, its people and its venues.

They are both photographers ( not photographer and a lighting assistant / bag carrier like with some companies ) and have personal photographic backgrounds running back 15 years including producing publications , advertising, design and commercial work for major companies including PD Ports, AV Dawson, Psyche, Riverside ECHG, Prestons of Potto, Sliderobes, Butterwick and NHS, which can be seen in our commercial pages.

Andrew also has a love and amazing talent for landscape photography many works of which have been published over the years in magazines and newspapers including The Sunday Sun, Evening Gazette, North East Life, North East Vision and People Magazine. The 'eye for a landscape' is something not many wedding photographers have and comes in very useful when photographing the many amazing and beautiful venues they visit.

Landscape Art Link

They dont outsource any work and we have two family members who assist in photography and who are also involved in the industry to help out in case of illness. So Andrew and Ruth photograph and edit ALL of their own weddings and are FULL TIME photographers.

Andrew and Ruth very much social people and great at interacting with others whilst also being able to be completely unobtrusive and not run or ruin a day. After all its one of the biggest days of your life and you want it to be perfect. They can also help with that making the things that need to run on time and using their vast experience of over 50 weddings a year to foresee issues and come up with solutions and plans. Its sometimes the little things that make the biggest difference !

On the technical side they run with Full Frame Canon Cameras and Pro Lenses Flash Guns and equipment and use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom for the processing of the shots afterward, our processing is done on shot by shot basis and not batch processed so takes time. Thats what produces results - if a photographer promises you prints back in a couple of days - stear clear ! Using the highly regarded Graphistudio company in Italy as preferred Album Partner and produce the album designs themselves and proofing them with you before printing. There has been nothing but praise for the design and finish of these products.

You are also provided with the edited photos on disk of your day with a license to print for your own use and they dont have any watermarks etc and are high resolution jpegs in format so you can use them for printing and sharing online. They dont provide the older style DVD slideshows that you cant get the photos off and dont charge extortionate prices for you to have prints done - the photos are yours to print and share with friends and families.

It is a completely self run business and no work is outsourced, that way they remain in complete control of the goals and strategies aimed for. The website is completely designed and maintained by Andrew, as is all the online SEO work and advertising. They cant be found at wedding fares and dont pay venues to appear in the back of Glossy Brochures ! One such wedding photographer who appeared at fares and in brochures recently made the front pages of the National Press for the disgraceful level of his work , he was also a member of one of Wedding Photography Professional bodies , which is another thing they dont waste their time with. If you want recommendations then you need to speak to and listen to previous clients, simple as that, and they have loads on the reviews page above and can put you in touch with any you want to speak to. If their was an award for Happy Clients then we would win it every year !

Andrew and Ruth are looking forward to meeting or speaking with you and would very much like to hear from you with any questions you may have about booking them, their contact details are at the link above.

Choosing your wedding photographer

Some good things to know about Wedding Photography ..

There are less than 300,000 marriages in the UK every year and probably in excess of 50,000 photographers , that means for a photographers business to survive on weddings is very difficult indeed and any company that has survived more than three years has done so due to good work and reputation.

A high up entry in a search engine can be bought and paid for or can be the result of the backing of a PR type company employed to do just that - it is not a measure of quality photography in any way or form. It pays as with all of your wedding planning to do plenty of research.

Neither can anything be gleaned from a glossy website as these are all now just templates bought online and then personalised by the photographer and may explain why when your looking at sites why they all look the same with similar graphics and text.

As you will well know in this modern age of advertising there are many things that look a lot better on the tin than they taste when you open them ! Wedding Photography is no different. Its the photos that matter not what the label looks like. So take your time and view plenty of results, pages and different photographers work online to help in narrowing down your choice.

Many of the top wedding photographers listed in Google are not Professionals and practice wedding photography on a weekend or during gaps in their day jobs / professions , they have neither the required experience nor the skill or time to carry out a professional job of wedding photography. Some do not even hold public liability or indemnity insurance. This is all fine if you are on a limited budget and cannot afford to be looking in the £1000 ranges and above but you should know not to expect the highest quality either.

The things that should be of main importance when choosing a wedding photographer are straight forward and simple:

You should LOVE their work ! first and foremost that is what you will be left with at the end of the day. If in any doubt you should meet them at their home or office and know where they are if you need to contact them. You should also be able to connect with them on a personal level as they are going to spend a great deal of time with you on your big day so need to be social and friendly people too with skills in dealing with people and situations that may arise.

Also be on the look out for firms that hire out photographers to capture your day , are you really going to pay someone to outsource the work ? that would make no sense, and if you are going to do that then you may aswell make sure its as cheap as possible as you have no idea what your going to get. These firms tend to advertise themselves generically with directory sounding website names and often contain no details on the names of the photographers or people involved.