Josh and Shelby photographed by Emma York
By Kelly Gibson, from Manhattan Magazine, Summer 2017
Manhattan Magazine: A recently engaged couple approaches you to shoot their wedding. What should the couple have prepared for their first meeting with you? What questions should they ask?
Josh Hicks: Shelby and I have been handling our photography business in a unique way the past couple of years. Instead of having clients come prepared with questions upon questions, we just simply ask our clients to bring their real, true and genuine personalities to the table. We love getting to know our clients’ hearts, passions and zeal for life over all. We want to know what makes them spark. Then we can connect on wedding dates, locations, etc. But our main goal of this business is to capture a real, genuine story for our clients. To us, it isn’t about the most epic portrait, but rather it is about the emotions and the events that unravel on their day, and we believe that starts with getting to know them on a personal level first and foremost.
MM: What are your favorite wedding moments to photograph? Why?
JH: Real, in-the-life moments. When emotions shine through photographs without any words or captions needed, those are the real moments we strive for.
MM: Talk about the dynamic of shooting weddings with your spouse. How is that experience? Has it changed the way you photograph?
JH: Shelby and I overall complement each other really well. Shelby sees the intricate details of the day and of the moments, while I am able to creatively make composition work in portraits. Our strengths work together excellently to capture the images desired by our clients, while strengthening our own weaknesses by working alongside each other.
MM: What was the most rewarding wedding you’ve shot? Tell me about why it was moving or powerful.
JH: We had a client contact us. Her mother was just unexpectedly given a couple months to live. This client and fiancé were planning a small wedding day to be cherished with all their loved ones present. She was inquiring about wedding photography and did not have a budget for her day. Our favorite part about our motives? Working with clients especially through the hard times in life, so onward we went.
With the bride and her mother cherishing moments together on her mother’s hospice bed to the moment her mother was able to stretch out into a wheelchair for the first time in many days, to the tears and moments that were captured amidst the family portraits as they touched their mother for one of the last times and the love that was so strongly and powerfully experienced by all present – that day was one of the most genuine, real, emotion filled day we have ever experienced and ever captured. Being able to deliver photographs that were handed over just days after her mother passed is such an incredible thing. To give moments for a family to cherish for a lifetime stretches beyond words. We would never take back that experience we cherished with this couple. Moments triumph over money, and emotions conquer posed portraits.
MM: Do you keep in touch with your couples?
JH: Absolutely. We love that part of our business. Many of our clients reach out again for maternity and family photos. We are able to treat them to coffee or dinner every once in a while, and we love being continuously engaged in their lives.
MM: How long have you been married? Tell me about your wedding? Favorite moment? What would you change about the day if you could?
JH: We have been married for almost a year. Our wedding day was a small, meaningful day tucked back in the Rocky Mountains. Our favorite moment? Our day had lots of little favorite moments. Waking up the day of, in one of our favorite, most magical places and being surrounded by people whom we genuinely love and care for. It was a personal day where we were able to intimately focus on what the day is supposed to be about. We would not change one thing about our day. We let it flow organically, pouring out our love for each other and the small handful of guests present in the best way we possibly could.
MM: Do you have any advice for couples on their big day?
JH: Not to get carried away in the stress and expectations, but to enjoy the simple moments. Breathe in the smallest of memories and just be yourself, taking it all in as the day goes on.
See more of Josh and Shelby’s work here: http://www.joshhicksphoto.com/