Martin Ellard Wedding Photography

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Martin Ellard Wedding Photography

Natural and relaxed, documentary wedding photography telling the story of your day

23/12/2024

How much joy can there be on one dance floor.
Lauren and Rich were my first wedding of 2024 back in March and they kicked off what has turned into yet another incredibly fun year🫶🏼
My favourite moments from the year will be in my Best Of 2024 coming soon.

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21/12/2024

Andy and Ben’s beautiful day at the stunning Caer Llan near Monmouth. A small wedding with close family, friends and a whole lot of love.

19/12/2024

My background in documentary photography goes right back to the early 90’s. I wanted to be a sports photographer when i left school and gained some freelance experience. But when i came to Swansea to study photography i had moved my goalposts 😋 to photojournalism. One of the part-time lecturers spotted my passion and helped channel it into story projects. During my studies I was incredibly lucky to get some work experience at the London office of the legendary Magnum photo agency which really helped inspire me. The mining project was a culmination of this.
After university i spent eight years as a national press agency photographer, then another five as a freelance photojournalist, before weddings found me and changed my life🥰
Over the last year or so i rediscovered the mining images in storage and started scanning the negatives to produce a zine, which is now available and has amazingly travelled to various countries around the world.
It will always be one of my favourite story projects, and an important point in my career.
The last slide is a very young me after a shift at the coalface.

18/12/2024

One of the informal and fun parts of a wedding day is straight after the ceremony. That time just before the canapes come out, when everyone is excited to see you married, to hug, to cry, to cover you head to toe in confetti.
Everything is raw and real and it’s SOOO good for photos.

17/12/2024

Kids at weddings bring a certain unpredictability which can often create very special moments.
One of the joys of being self-employed for the last twenty years has meant that i’ve been able to spend a lot more time with my kids than a lot of dads, and it’s something I’ll always be grateful for.
So i’m always on the lookout for moments that tell either a little story about kids and their parents or show them having fun when their parents aren’t there to see them.

12/12/2024

I’m already looking forward to King Arthur weddings in 2025. I’ve seen so many amazing memories created there this year❤️
Kristy and Tom didn’t stop grinning all day long.

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08/12/2024

More Tug-of-war at weddings please💪🏼
Things got very competitive at Beth and Jamie’s wedding, even when it started raining.

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06/12/2024

Falcon and Chris are you sitting comfortably? Because your wedding photos are about to drop. What an amazing day, the family, the friends, the car, the veil, the church. I enjoyed every second, and i hope the photos bring it all flooding back.

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05/12/2024

Here’s some more of my street photography. Serendipitous details. Taking these walks not only gets my head clear for the hours often spent in the office editing, it also makes my brain look for random details and react to them quickly.
Call it documentary brain training, looking for shapes, patterns, matching colours, humour, all the things i try to bring to my wedding work to tell stories.

04/12/2024

Here’s some more of my street photography. Taking these walks not only gets my head clear for the hours often spent in the office editing, it also makes my brain look for random moments and react to them quickly.
Call it documentary brain training, looking for shapes, patterns, matching colours, humour, all the things i try to bring to my wedding work to tell stories.

01/12/2024

Lauren and Martyn, incoming wedding gallery🙌🏼
Here’s a little glimpse of some of the little, and big moments of your day at the King Arthur Hotel.

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29/11/2024

Beth and Jamie, wedding photo alert🙌🏼
Here’s a little preview of some of the amazing moments from your day.
Teddybear’s, sporting events and sheep, along with some amazing family and friends.
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18/11/2024

Laura and Stefan’s friends giving 200% on TikTok.
If you’re going to do it, do it with Maximum Effort🤌🏼

16/11/2024

Another street moment I took during the conference earlier this year. This is more of a reactive juxtaposition.
I saw the lady on the phone, i saw the wings, my camera was held low and i took one shot. Luck plays a huge part in street photography, sometimes it just doesn’t come together, accepting it and moving on is hard, but there is always something else waiting around the corner.
This applies very much to documentary wedding photography. There are clearly the main parts of the day you must capture and are so important, then there are the parts inbetween where if you look hard enough and are open to them, they will come and go in the blink of an eye. Sometimes you miss them, someone walks in front of you, you see it but you’re too far away, or it just doesn’t quite make as good a photograph as you imagined.
But sometimes the stars align and thats where the gold is. (Cliche’s abound, soz)

16/11/2024

Continuing on from my last post. Street photography has been something i’ve used to develop a kind of muscle memory for my brain, to see things that at first glance are not obvious, or dismissed as boring. For example, a family shopping at christmas, shopping bags everywhere, but amongst it all i noticed this boy carrying something else.
For the “you shouldn’t photograph the backs of people” street crowd, I think this shot works because we can’t see any distracting faces.

16/11/2024

I’ve had an amazing few days at the Gathering, maybe, possibly, probably the UK’s largest wedding photography conference. I met old friends and made new ones and gathered a ton of inspiration and ideas for my business and for the wedding year to come.
The awesome person that is who spoke at the Gathering totally backed me up on my website homepage photo of choice 👀and has encouraged me to show more of what inspires and drives me, and it’s often not wedding photography.
If any of you are familiar with my other account you’ll know i’m a HUGE documentary and street photography fan, i’ve been doing it for over thirty years, and it was the realisation that i could shoot like this at weddings that gave me a massive lightbulb💡moment years ago.
Street shooting is still a passion, more so in the last few years, and to be honest it’s become as much a mental health exercise as just a lot of fun.……….

So this is a moment at the Elvis Festival in Porthcawl last year and probably the strangest thing I saw in 2023🤣

08/11/2024

Kristy and Tom your wedding photos are ready, check your inbox 🙌🏼
What an amazing day at the King Arthur Hotel in Gower❤️
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Not long until my first wedding of 2024, so here’s a little look back at what happened last year❤️ #swanseaweddingphotographer #southwalesweddingphotographers #documentaryweddingphotography #nontraditionalweddingphotographer #reportageweddingphotography #weddingsinwales #welshweddingvenues

POV, image breakdown. One of my favourite party shots from Jess and Mike’s wedding at @shackrevolution #documentaryweddingphotography #reportageweddingphotography #herefordweddingphotographer #discowedding #weddingdiscoballs #povwedding

What a fabulous, colourful, amazing wedding with Jess and Mike at Shack Revolution in Hereford🩷🪩💃🏻🕺🏼 #shackrevolution #shackrevolutionweddingphotographer #hereford #herefordweddingphotographer #miamivibe80sband #discoweddinginspiration #documentaryweddingphotography

Just stay in the moment, don’t plan a wedding plan a party 🤟🏼. #weddingphotographersinswansea #southwalesweddingvideographer #weddingdancefloor #documentaryweddingphotographer #editorialweddingphotographer #reportageweddingphotography #swansea #kingarthurhotel

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