France Wedding Photographer | Pat Denton Of Revelation Studios | An ISPWP Member Spotlight

Pat Denton’s Bio:
Pat is an international press photographer for the London based agency WENN (World Entertainment News Network). His worldwide published images include: Madonna, Robbie Williams, Sharon Stone, Lenny Kravitz and Claudia Schiffer. He started doing weddings in Paris in the ’90s and founded Revelation Studios specializing in ‘reportage’ weddings in 2000 after moving to Cannes on the French Riviera.

Contact Information:
Pat Denton, France Wedding Photographer, ISPWP Member
website: Revelation Studios | email: patdenton@free.fr | phone: 0492591721

1. How did you get your start and why you chose to do wedding photography?

While I was the Paris based photographer for WENN, I had several requests from friends and business acquaintances to cover their weddings. At that time there was no such genre as ‘wedding photojournalism’ and my contacts were looking for someone with a fresh approach. At that stage I had not planned to seriously market the weddings, but it kind of developed hand in hand with the advent of digital cameras, which we press photogs had to keep up with – with all the competition, we had no choice!

Digital really changed my life – it enabled rapid, candid shooting, with no limit on the image quantity and allowed immediate viewing of tricky lighting conditions. This meant I could get away from the ‘old school’ of shooting on a cumbersome medium format film camera and always doing a similar set of a limited number of posed shots.

The early digital cameras were hideously expensive and the quality was restricted to producing half-page newspaper photos. Fortunately for us (and ultimately the consumer) the computer driven digital industry means really good R&D and the latest generation of pro digital cameras produce quality unthinkable a few years ago.

2. What are some of your favorite local venues?

We are very fortunate here on the Cote d’Azur (French Riviera) to have some of the most spectacular wedding venues in the world. People are continuing to use the south of France as a destination wedding, and most of our clients are from overseas – USA, UK, UAE, etc. Many have second, or vacation homes here and we are happy to be associated with fabulous wedding locations such as: Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Chateau de la Napoule, Chateau de la Chevre d’Or and Villa Schiffanoia (see our ISPWP Real Wedding Album).

3. What’s your favorite part of the wedding day to photograph?

We strongly recommend to have, at least, the bride’s preparation covered. We always get some great family and friends (bridesmaids) interaction and it’s a good opportunity to get to know each other and feel more relaxed about the shooting. Bridal ‘Boudoir’, or ‘photos de charme’ are also a specialty of ours and we are fortunate to have three established female photographers on the team – Bex, Marta, and Helena – who are great at making the bride feel comfortable, should she want to have these additional ‘intimate’ shots (which can just be for the couples’ eyes only and don’t have to appear in any albums!).

4. How important is it to hire an experienced wedding photographer?

In a word, essential. I have heard nightmare stories from guests who have had bad experiences with ‘an amatuer photographer friend’ who had subsequently lost all, or a lot of the images due to ‘technical difficulties.’ Even a consummate professional photographer who is not familiar, or experienced, with weddings may miss key shots, or not know how to handle certain situations and therefore produce sub-standard work. I, myself, continually attend seminars in the US (WPPI, Las Vegas), UK (Focus on Imaging, Birmingham) and Paris (Salon de la Photo) which all feature presentations from the worlds’ best – you can’t learn too much!

5. What do you think makes a good wedding photographer?

The best wedding photographers are very comfortable working with people. They have the ability to relax an often apprehensive couple (mostly the groom!) when alone during the portrait session, and to control large groups and get their attention when required.

A background in press photography I find is most useful, getting that all important ‘decisive moment’ and the ability to shoot fast, and still get your shot, really helps.

You should at least have a knowledge of fashion photography, to help ensure you are capturing the style elements of the wedding – the hair, beauty, dress and even the venue and surroundings.

Finally, I think it goes without saying that you have to be accomplished with portraits. The wedding day is one of the moments when people are looking their best, not only the Bride and Groom, but family members also have the opportunity to be immortalized by a professional.