Samantha + Michael | Iceland Vow Renewal | Reynisfjara
I’ve now been doing wedding photography in Iceland almost for as long as i’ve been a professional photographer! It’s become such a special place, that I always feel honoured to visit. Back in December I hopped on a plane back to Iceland, to join Samantha & Michael for their intimate vow renewal on Reynisfjara, the black sand beach on the South Coast, along Route 1.
Iceland in December is quite surreal if you’re used to the balmy comfortable and wet climate of the UK. Not only the bracing cold, but the lack of daylight hours. We had a grand total of 4 hours 30 minutes of daylight for the entire shoot, so it had to be planned to perfection, to make the absolute most of that time. That said, I think this shoot felt as far from “Iceland in winter” as possible. Beautiful mild weather, with incredible sunlight all day long.
I met up with Samantha & Michael in Reykjavik at 9am, and we drove together in the darkness of the night for the first 90 minutes. Very slowly the deep blue glow beyond the horizon got warmer, as we approached the huge imposing cliffs running along the South Coast of Iceland. We hopped out for a few quick pictures before reaching Reynisfjara, to make the most of the beautiful sunrise.
We saved the main section of portraits to the black sand beach, where Samantha & Michael took some time to renew their vows to each other as the sun rose behind them, over the Atlantic Ocean. The waves crashing along that section of the coast sounds like a constant loud roar, but it feels like such a peaceful location, and an idyllic place for them to share a really personal moment of renewing their commitments to each other.
Although we only get just over 4 hours of sunlight in the depths of winter in Iceland, the positive is that the sun doesn’t rise that high above the horizon. So those 4 hours feel like a constant beautiful golden hour. We could shoot portraits throughout the day, without much concern for finding patches of shade.
We explored the cave and basalt columns on Reynisfjara, before making our way round into Vik to visit the beach there, which has a very different feel to it. From there we headed back in the direction of Reykjavik, stopping at Dyrhólaey. The view from the top of the cliffs is one of my favourite spots in Iceland, and never fails to make me feel incredibly small!
By this point in the day the sun was on it’s way back down towards the sunset, so we managed a very quick trip to Sólheimajökull glacier but made a fairly quick exit as we wanted to save the best light for our visits to the waterfalls of Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss which looks absolutely incredible at that time of the day, and was a wonderful conclusion to the trip to Iceland. All the very best to Samantha & Michael, who it was a pleasure spending the day with.
Best of 2022 | Will Fuller | London Wedding Photographer
I can’t believe I’m already sat here in rainy cold January at the start of another year. It felt like in 2022 I blinked and the whole year happened. After the slow start of 2021 due to still being in lockdown, I had built it up in my head that every year I get a few months of quiet before the busy wedding season kicks in. Not at all the case in 2022! But in hindsight it was great to be busy throughout the year for a change.
At the start of December I started flicking through all of my edited images from the year. In 2021 I delivered around 24000 images, but in 2022 I managed to push that to over 30000. Do you have any idea how long it takes to individually go through 30000 pictures and narrow it down to just over 100? A long time. Which is why I’m only posting this in mid January! I’ve done my best to include at least one or two pictures from every shoot, but with so many smaller shoots it’s been tricky to keep the numbers to a reasonable amount.
2022 saw me travelling all over the country again, and visiting some new incredible places. So many beautiful venues that I would love to photograph at again in the future, which I’m hoping to share more of later this year. I’ve also managed to fill the weekdays with so many fun couples shoots in London. I’ve absolutely loved meeting so many people from all over the world, and spending a couple of hours wandering around, taking pictures, and chatting about life! And I’ve also been lucky enough to travel back to Iceland twice for two wonderful shoots.
2022 was also the year of evening outfit changes, baby Guinness’, dogs at weddings, amazing golden hours, wild evening parties, over 100 miles of wandering around London, and an utterly obscene quantity of pre-wedding Starbucks Luxury Fruit Toast.
I’m so thankful to have been able to spend another year doing such an interesting and varied job, to the point where often it doesn’t actually feel like work at all. Thank you to all of the wonderful couples that I have shared 2022 with. Below are just a tiny selection of all of the pictures I delivered, in no particular order.
Best of 2021 | Will Fuller | London Wedding Photographer
As with all years, I have spent a few days going through every single edited photo that I delivered from 2021 (Just a few shy of 24,000 in total). Or should I say, the last 6 months of 2021, as up until June we had no idea what the summer would bring! We spent the first half of the year anxiously waiting out the lockdown. And then almost overnight went to one of the busiest times of my life work-wise! A little bit of a shock to the system to say the least, but so much fun too.
Thankfully, the vast majority of wedding plans went ahead and it felt so good to be out shooting again. I have personally felt a shift in the way that I work too which I didn’t expect. I used to spend a lot more time on a wedding day hunting out those big eye-catching epic portraits (I still love taking those, don’t get me wrong!), however in 2021 it’s felt like there has been SO much more emphasis on just getting together with friends and family for a celebration. And I have found that I haven’t wanted to drag couples away from that! Not nearly as much as I used to anyway, and as a result a ton of my favourite photos from 2021 have ended up being the little in-between moments that really make a wedding day.
Thanks so much to all my wonderful couples from 2021. It really has felt so great having these slices of normality on wedding days, even when the rest of the world isn’t quite back to that point yet. I’m so looking forward to another fantastic year in 2022. Hope you enjoy having a flick through my year in pictures!
