Together they make up navyblur, a young and exciting photographic studio in Northern Ireland. They took the official photographs of the Do What You Love retreat, and rather than be intrusive they actually added to the experience. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm they are two of my favourite photographers ever!
Christine and Xander met in Canada and love bloomed over late night discussions of photography (or at least that’s how I imagine it…) Xander studied photography formally but didn’t really like the heavy technical focus of his studies. It was only when he was let loose with his own projects that his photography really came alive. Christine finds her passion in photographing people in a way that makes them happy. I love that.
I am delighted to share this interview with them, where they talk more about making people’s wedding days special, being a working (together) couple, and life behind the lens.
1. What is it about photography that first drew you in?
XN – For me it was the ability to take something that I had dreamt up in my head and then use the camera to create it. I’d be so excited that it actually worked! The things I imagine in my head don’t always work, but that’s ok – you’ve got to learn to run with the things that do and let go or develop the things that don’t.
CB – I really hope this doesn’t come across as cliché or soppy, but I loved the people side of it – taking photographs is genuinely rewarding. Photos make people happy for a whole load of reasons. I just feel blessed to know that we can use our talents to offer a service that brings happiness to others!
2. How would you describe your work? (in terms of the kind of images you take, and also what you take photos of – weddings etc)
Both – Ultimately fun! We do things within the shoot to create photos that will make people laugh at the time, but then laugh again even more when they look back over the images. We’d also happily describe our work as energetic, colourful, fresh, real and full of love.
We are mainly wedding photographers, and at the moment this is exciting because people are beginning to realise what they can do with their day to make it more unique to them. We happily take on other work in quieter times like family shoots and commercial work. We want to use the same techniques no matter who we’re working with – we really do try to have fun with whatever we’re shooting.
3. There are so many wedding photographers out there – how do you make yourselves stand out from the crowd?
We want to sell ourselves as much as our photos – they work together to create what we do. So our USP is us two! We are part of our brand, so we know that we want to build relationships with the people we work with, and not make them feel like they are part of a factory line-up rolling past us as we point and shoot. We believe that if people like us they will like our photos because so much of our personalities are thrown into what we do.
Also, and very importantly, we don’t hard sell. We put ourselves out there and make sure people see the photos we’re taking, but we would never back someone into a corner and give them reasons why they should choose us over another photographer. We firmly believe the clients we get are meant for us because we click and it works.
4. When you were working with us at the Do What You Love retreat I was blown away by your enthusiasm whatever time of day or night. Where do you get all that energy from?
Ohh thank you! We had such an amazing time at the retreat. May was actually a crazy month for us and looking back it’s funny to think we had any energy at all, but thank you for the compliment! We are conscious that we don’t ever want to come across as grumpy or uninterested photographers, but I think the best thing is it that no matter how tired we are, as soon as we meet other people we work off their energy. At somewhere like the DWYL retreat, there were so many interesting people with amazing stories it was easy to get excited with them about what they do.
It also helps that there are two of us – we definitely bounce off each other. Adrenaline plays a massive part. At times we have back-to-back jobs or early morning flights but because we love what we do, it’s easy to get excited in the moment, and then crash and sleep later!
5. These days nearly everyone has an iphone or digital camera and sees themselves as a ‘photographer’. How do you feel about that? Do you think that has a negative impact on the work available for professionals, or does it increase people’s awareness and respect of quality images?
This could be one of those ‘well, yes and no’ answers! I think it’s great that so many people have cameras and can take photos. It definitely adds to the awareness of photography and people are accepting it more as an ‘actual’ career. It’s hard to write the ‘downsides’ without sounding negative and moany because for each of them you could easily twist it into a positive, so bear with us as we simply make observations based on your question… it’s not necessarily that these downsides are affecting us.
So one thing with everybody having cameras is that some of them are point-and-shoot, then you upload your photos to computer one hour later and then straight to Facebook.. quick and simple. Our system isn’t like that, so it is hard to explain to people the amount of time and effort that goes into photography. There’s the evening before a shoot’s preparation, the long hours on the day, the uploading when you get home (no matter what the time) and backing up, the picking and eliminating from thousands of images, the careful editing, the trickier editing, the resizing for web, the uploading to online galleries, the blogging…
The only other problem we see is the classic buying of a great important-looking camera, and starting to offer photography for a ridiculously cheap price. We completely appreciate that there are benefits for some – photographers need to start somewhere, and some people are working to a budget – but it can become a problem when people base their choice on price alone. That’s not what we’re about. Not in an arrogant way at all, but we want people to have seen our photos and know that we’re the photographers for them.. not just because we were cheaper than the next person.
We’ve always thought that no matter how many photographers there are out there, there are still more clients/people needing photos taken, so there is room for us all. As navyblur we suit some people, but possibly not others. Our main hope for every person though is that they get photos that they completely love.
We have a lot of professional photographer friends and would like to hope we’re encouraging of their work and the clients they get. It’s the nicest thing within our industry to make friends rather than feel like they are your competition. That way you’re happy for them when they’re doing as well as they deserve to be!
6. What are the top three tips you would give to people wanting to take better pictures?
XN – 1. Read up on everything! Reviews on equipment, youtube videos on your camera, forums about your subject area.. use the internet as a tool.
2. Practice – by yourself, with friends, with family, with other photographers.. practice! Go on courses, very practical courses.. A lot of learning within photography is about trial and error.
3. Have confidence – look back at your favourite photographer’s oldest work and you’ll see that they have come a long way since they started. That can give you confidence that as long as you work at your skill, it will pay off in the end.
CB – 1. Get inspired. Look at locations everywhere you walk or drive, buy magazines, read blogs.. but don’t compare yourself! Do NOT compare yourself to others.
2. Photograph things you love! If you don’t enjoy taking photos of landscapes, it’s may not be best to take on many jobs taking photos of landscapes… you’ll likely be left uninspired, you won’t look forward to doing your work and you won’t grow in the style you want to.
3. Develop your style using things you’re good at. For us, we soon latched onto the fact that we can either make people laugh, or give them scenarios that end up with them laughing at each other, and we loved seeing laughter in a photo – so it’s something we aim to bring out in every session we do. If you love dramatic scenes, work at that, if you love abstract, do that. You’ll attract clients who love what you do and want that style, so make sure it’s something you love to look at yourself. And don’t stop developing. Don’t just settle once you think you’ve done something great… enjoy what you have done but then continue to work at something fresh and new within that area.
7. I have to congratulate you on your engagement! (Lots of people at the retreat thought you were the sweetest couple they had ever met…) What is it like being together inside and outside ‘work’?
XN – Easy! I love it! We pray together at the start and end of each day, and are so thankful that this is the life we get to live.
CB – We genuinely love it. We have so much fun being together, and it’s just an absolute bonus that we can ‘work’ together too. We never have that ‘urgh, I just need to be alone’ moment so that’s pretty handy! We already know each other’s personalities from being in a relationship together, so work-wise it just flows into it. We did have to learn how to separate work and home life – I think that happens to anyone who owns their own business or works from home – but as long as you’re determined to separate the two it’s easily achievable.
8. As you prepare for your marriage and an exciting new chapter in your lives, is there a big creative dream for your business that you share?
CB – I think we’re both pretty big on the fact we want our business to be personable and built on relationships, we have some not-so-big but still as exciting dreams about a viewing space for our clients. We are also excited about the fact we’ve been working throughout the UK and Ireland.. it’s opening us to the fact of where we could be in a few years time, whether our main base will still be in N. Ireland or over in England. We’re happy to just be in the moment though and see where it takes us.
XN – I think we could easily see the wedding and commercial market being our main place of work. But with commercial I think we have the possibility to be and do so much more. We’d love to spend time in other countries working, ideally commercial work, the dream would be shoots for big or simply quirky clothing companies where we could bring our style into that… or if Vogue needed us to do some massive editorial I’m sure we could squeeze that into our schedule…!
Thank you so much for this chance to share our thoughts and feelings on photography, it’s important to look back and be thankful for what has been and gone and get excited for all that is ahead.
[All images courtesy of NavyBlur]
Find out more about Xander and Christine on their website or blog, or connect on Facebook or Twitter]
