Velvet Tones

Maurice O'Carroll, Velvetine Studios - (c) Roger Overall 2009

Not your average wedding photograph, I’ll grant you. In fact, it’s not really a wedding photograph at all, though it was taken at a wedding.

This is Maurice O’Carroll of Velvetine Studios, one of Ireland’s leading videographers.

We worked together on a wedding in Cork in mid-July and this was taken during the meal at Barnabrow. Dinner gives photographers and videographers time to recharge before the evening’s speeches and dancing. I’d never worked with Maurice before, and throughout the day we’d barely had a chance to exchange three civil words to each other so it was good to get a chance to chat over dinner.

We got talking about light and documentary photography, and I took the photograph above to illustrate a point, though I can’t remember what it was. I love the light in the picture, so that may have been it.

Maurice has a different approach to most videographers – at least, it was new to me. He produces a non-chronological story of the day that hangs together brilliantly.

Most importantly from my point of view, he’s one of the new breed of videographers who don’t need an entire outside broadcast unit to film a wedding. He works in the background and is aware of lines of sight – that is, he makes sure he’s not in line with photographer’s cameras as much as possible. It sounds like a small thing, but it makes a massive difference to a documentary wedding photographer like me. Fortunately, many of the videographers I work with these days are similarly aware. It helps that most of them are good guys too, willing to work with a photographer rather than against them. That’s good for everyone, especially the bride and groom.

Maurice also shoots with no fewer than three cameras during the wedding ceremony, giving him both back up and a range of angles to choose from.

I may, or may not, I’m not saying, have accidentally knocked over one of his cameras while I was up on the church balcony. It could have been anybody really.