Rangefinder Magazine has a qualified circulation in professional photography of over 61,000! You can imagine our excitement when we where first asked to be interviewed and featured in the publication a few months back. I had to keep my lips sealed and wait for the magazine to be printed.
We have been featured in the March, Wedding Photography Special Issue which has a bonus distribution at the WPPI Convention in Vegas. Around 12000 or more photographers attend WPPI every year.
The Article:
Chanelle Segerius-Bruce knows fashion photography.
In her work as a freelance retoucher for famed shooter Mario Testino, she spent countless hours poring over images for high-end clients like Vogue and Dolce & Gabbana, making the tiniest tweaks to perfect the images. Her discerning eye and knack for detail, which have made her in high demand as a retoucher, has catapulted the South African-born Chanelle to the upper echelon of wedding photographers.
“In my fashion work I am exposed to a lot of really creative imagery that influences my ideas when I’m working with wedding clients,” Chanelle says. Chanelle shares a home and studio 90 minutes outside of London with shooting partner and husband, Craig Bruce. “I like to think that we mix documentary style coverage effectively with highly creative, portraits of the bride and groom.” …
See the rest of the Article in full at the bottom of the post….
This first double page spread was a wedding at Wotton House in Dorking
First shot was a wedding at The Andaz in London. Second shot was an Overseas Pre Wedding Shoot in Prague.
Model shoot in Paris and one at Denbies Vineyard in Dorking. Confetti shot was the wedding at The Andaz in London again.
Asian wedding in Surrey and a Destination Wedding in Mauritius.
The Article Continued…
For inspiration, Chanelle keeps a scrap-
book of fashion images that strike her. She
also tries to incorporate a lot of movement
in her work—her clients have appreciated
her fashion-forward thinking, which has also
kept her from falling into a creative rut.
“I try to be very careful about fads,
and avoid the shots we’ve all seen done
before,” Chanelle says, an active member
of the Wedding Photojournalist Asso-
ciation (WPJA). “I try to steer clear of
elements that might date the image; the
goal is to keep it romantic and atmo-
spheric—timeless.”
While Chanelle says that she loves a
creative shoot with the bride and groom,
nothing can beat capturing the real emo-
tion of the wedding day. “As we’ve become
more experienced, we are better able to
predict when things might happen so we
are ready for the shot,” Chanelle says. “The
genuine emotion can’t be emulated.”
Her portfolio, chock-full of these emotional
images, has garnered the attention of several
publications that have run spreads of her
work, including China Cosmopolitan Bride
and U.K.-based magazines Wedding and
Perfect Wedding. In addition, Chanelle and
Craig have won other accolades for their
work, including Portrait Photographer of
the Year in both 2007 and 2008 through
Digital Photographer magazine’s annual
competition.
It’s fitting that Segerius-Bruce Pho-
tography has been featured in magazines
around the globe, since Chanelle and her
husband love nothing more than circling
traveling around the world with cameras
in hand.
When Chanelle and Craig first moved
to the United Kingdom from South Africa
in 2001, their goal was to travel to as many
European countries as possible.
Aside from Chanelle’s fashion and retouching
experience, she says her travel work has
been the other notable influence on her
wedding photography style.
“Travel is really what ignited my inter-
est in photography. Craig and I honey-
mooned in Zanzibar with our first digital
SLRs. It probably wasn’t everyone’s idea
of a great honeymoon, but we loved
it,” Chanelle says. “Other couples prob-
ably thought we were funny, wandering
down the beach, photographing the local
people and scenery.”
Chanelle ticks off Paris, Cyprus and
Prague among the destination weddings
they’ve shot in the few years since her stu-
dio opened. But her favorite wedding so
far? “So far, I’ve loved Mauritius [an island
nation off the African continent in the
southwest Indian Ocean],” says Chanelle,
who appreciated the laid-back, island vibe.
“Different locations have different mer-
its—we also did a post-wedding shoot in
Prague that was absolutely stunning.”
Destination weddings allow the couple
to indulge their love of travel photography
and to hone their craft—like on a memo-
rable trip to Paris for a client’s wedding in
2008. They planned a five-day shooting
spree on the streets of Paris with fellow
photographers Gordon McGowan and
Barrie Downie.
“We shot from morning until night with
two models, and Craig and I modeled our
wedding gear,” Chanelle recalls. “Shooting
with other photographers is just one of the
best ways to improve and anyone starting
out in the business can do this type of
thing to learn.”
In addition to comparing notes with
other photographers, Chanelle says she
has been fortunate to have great mentors.
In particular, she has worked closely with
Julia Boggio, another notable wedding
photographer in the U.K.
“I second shoot for Julia, and she’s been
a big inspiration from the business point of
view,” Chanelle says, who also frequently
listens to photography tutorials and pod-
casts while desk-bound during retouching
assignments. “I devour as much new ma-
terial as I can to educate myself,” she says.
Keeping it Fresh
Because Chanelle strives to constantly
improve and avoid the humdrum wed-
ding shots, how does she keep a wedding
assignment from feeling stale?
“We are still quite new, so all of this
is still very exciting and I hope we can
keep that feeling,” she says. “We tend to
do a mix of Asian, traditional English,
Jewish and destination weddings, which
is quite nice.”
Chanelle acknowledges that at some
point, creative juices might not be flow-
ing quite as fast, but she hopes that she’ll
remember why she got into the business in
the first place.
“Every wedding has something unique
about it,” Chanelle says, who planned her
own wedding three years ago. “Weddings
have gone up a gear with great ideas being
shared so freely on blogs and in magazines.
The styling is often quite creative, and I re-
ally enjoy shooting the details and all that
has gone into the wedding planning.”
Chanelle, who shoots with Canon equip-
ment, uses natural light as much as pos-
sible, but has to make adjustments for the
low light during a U.K. winter. “In most
of the churches we aren’t allowed to use
a flash, and that’s when the 5D Mark II
works really well,” she says. “And for a win-
ter wedding, it is dark at half past four in
the afternoon, so we really need to know
how to use artificial light.”
Chanelle tries to keep her camera bag
light for weddings. She favors the Canon
50mm f/1.2L and the Canon 85mm f/1.8
USM for portraits of the bride and get-
ting-ready shots; she pulls out the Canon
70–200mm f/2.8L IS for back-of-the
church shots, and the Canon 16–35mm
f/2.8L for wide shots. She keeps extra
equipment and lenses out of sight and off
her shoulders, so she can move quickly
and not be hampered by a heavy bag.
After the Wedding
Like the fashion world, the wedding
world is subject to passing trends—so what
does the fashionista photographer see hap-
pening to the very trendy “trash the dress”
photo sessions?
“The ‘trash the dress’ term is a great
catchphrase, but I think most brides we
work with don’t want to trash the dress,”
Chanelle says. “I think the idea behind
‘trash the dress’ is to do a really creative
post-wedding shoot and I think that is
something that people will continue to
want; a ‘cherish the dress’ rather than ‘trash
the dress.’ ”
When the shooting has been completed
on a wedding, Chanelle and Craig return
to their quiet life in Surrey, a rural area far
removed from the bustle of London. While
they appreciate their proximity to London
for weddings, they relish the relative quiet
of their town, where Chanelle
breaks from her work for one-
to two-hour daily walks, while
Craig hops on his mountain
bike for time away.
“You have to be careful
when you work at home,”
Chanelle says. “It can be a
real challenge to separate
your business life from your
home life.”
Chanelle and Craig share
in the post-production work,
with Chanelle focusing more
on the fine retouching. They
aim for approximately 25 to 30
weddings per year; Chanelle
fills her time in the slow wed-
ding season with retouch-
ing jobs, and is grateful for
the variety. She also recently
ventured into the instruction
realm, teaching retouching
courses under the umbrella
of Julia Boggio’s studio —Julia
Boggio High.
Among her many commit-
ments, Chanelle also makes
the time to guest blog on
wedding sites and updates
her own blog as much as pos-
sible, finding it one of the best
ways to get her studio’s name
out there. Through her blog
and Facebook page, she feels
that clients have a real chance
to get to know her before hir-
ing her—hopefully ensuring a
good client-photographer fit.
One thing is clear from
her entries — Segerius-Bruce Photography is where fashion meets fun.