Alison and Stephen are wedding photography specialists photographing weddings and civil partnerships with their distinctive style across the UK. In an interview with WeddingSutra, the photographer duo of Purvis Gisborne describe their unique job, the memorable experiences with wedding photography, their photography style and offer advice to to-be-weds.

The photographers
We are wedding and portrait photographers based in the east midlands of UK. We're a married couple who share a passion for photography and we really enjoy being able to work together. We thrive on the excitement that a wedding day brings.

What cities do you work in?
We photograph weddings all over UK.

Your Photography Style
We're very much about telling the story of a wedding day and looking for the moments that occur between people that make the story come alive photographically. Our work is modest and un-choreographed, with no interference or manipulation from us. We do the normal posed and formal groups that are expected, but keep the posed shots to a minimum and focus much more on documenting the wedding day.

Your choice of camera/ lens
We use a combination of Fuji and Nikon digital cameras with Nikon fast prime and zoom lenses. Most of the time we work with natural light as it's important for us to be unobtrusive. When additional lighting is necessary we keep things simple and use Nikon's SB800 flashes. Sometimes we use remote wireless flash which allows us a variety of flash techniques, usually just during the dancing in the evening.

Black & white Vs. Color photography - your thoughts
Certain images do lend themselves to being either colour or black and white. Some suit additional artistic treatments, but the rule for us is ‘less-is-more’. Whichever treatment is used it should always be about conveying the story of the wedding with the photograph. Although we work on every image in Photoshop the majority of our images only have simple colour and tone adjustments to make sure that they look their best!

Indian wedding photos suffer from excessive use of flash - what's your take?
We mainly use available light and only use flash when the environment is very dark. When we use additional lighting we use techniques like bouncing the flash rather than direct-on flash which can look harsh and produce strong shadows. It's all about technique and if flash is used well it shouldn't be too obvious.

Post processing and Album design
We shoot in JPG and use Photoshop to process each image individually; mainly enhancing colour and contrast but not overdoing the processing and keeping the images feeling real and natural. Our albums are currently matted style albums, but we're also starting to offer so called coffee table books where the images are printed directly on the page. Whichever album style we use the emphasis for us is always about the storytelling and using simple design that lets the images do the talking. Each album is unique to that particular wedding. The whole process is computer designed and so we can create bespoke designs for each client.

Your favourite wedding photos
Our favourite photos are those which capture an emotion and bring back the memories of the day for the clients.

A wedding photography experience that you wont forget
That's a question that's just too difficult to answer! Every wedding has something different which makes it memorable for us. We photograph a lot of different weddings and Indian weddings make up about 5% of the events we photograph so for us an Indian wedding is always a rare pleasure. One thing that stands out with all the Indian weddings is that, the couple, their family and their friends welcome us so dearly!

Advice for to-be-wed couples
We don't visit venues before the wedding day; we always check the venue out on the actual day. The light on the day is the light we get to work with! Although we make sure that we show the venue at its best photographically, the venue is purely a backdrop and our style is much more about the interactions between people, the venue always comes second to that. Just as we don't dictate the wedding neither do we dictate decor, makeup and clothing. Brides and grooms can make their own decisions on how they want to look on their day. Variety is certainly the spice of life.

Purvis-Gisborne Photography
www.purvis-gisborne.co.uk,   01246 290 757