William Innes is a talented wedding photographer who originally wanted to be a landscape photographer. He loves the action of the wedding day, and while his home base is L.A., he’s passionate about traveling the world. Check out more of William’s work. All photos © William Innes
Tell us your interesting path to becoming a wedding photographer.
I never dreamed of being a wedding photographer. I actually wanted to be a landscape photographer. Ten years ago, two events weeks apart from each other changed my plans. The first event was a local group’s meeting that featured a wedding photographer speaking – I wanted to leave when I heard the subject was wedding photography, but was stuck in the front row with nowhere to go. I stuck it out and was fascinated with the subject material. (I am happy to report that I am still good friends with that wedding photography 10 years later).
The second event was a call from my nephew up in Canada asking me to come and photograph his wedding. I explained that I had never shot a wedding, but he thought my landscape images were good and he had no money to pay for photography. I purchased Bambi Cantrell and Skip Cohen’s book on wedding photography, studied it for a week and flew to Canada and shot my first wedding. I had such a blast and have never looked back. I have been a full time wedding photographer for almost nine years.
What do you love most about shooting weddings?
The action! I love things that move quick and weddings are definitely an adrenaline rush. There is never a boring minute. I also like how most people are happy and excited about the day – that’s why I don’t mind photographing the wedding party and families.
Many photographers talk about the importance of personal projects. Is personal work important to you?
That’s easy. Travel photography is my other passion. I have visited over 43 countries and love to explore other cultures. I actually speak around the country on travel photography for Panasonic Lumix cameras. Just last year I has the joy of photographing in Morocco and Prague Check Republic during two separate trips.
What have you learned about achieving balance in your life between personal life and the demands of being a photographer?
That’s its very difficult to do. The best way I found is to actually schedule personal time into my calendar. I do this for simple things like bike riding with my wife, a relaxing pool day with my grand kids and all my personal travel plans.
How do you integrate Fundy Designer into your workflow and business?
I teach a program on photography workflow and Fundy Designer is talked about quite a bit. I encourage photographers to outsource anything that they hate or cannot do economically. That use to be the case with album design. After owning every album design software program in the world I gave up and outsourced all my album design because it was so frustrating and time consuming. After discovering Fundy Designer – laying out an album is fun and it only takes me 10 – 15 minutes. I really wished this program had existed years ago.
For more information on William Innes, visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
