DWF – Let’s start off with a little bio, tell us a little bit about yourself.

ROB & LAUREN - Rob and I met nearly 5 years ago when I stumbled across his personal blog, and left him a comment. I had a blog too, he left a comment on mine, we chatted, and love blossomed. True story. Blogs are more useful than you think Shortly thereafter we decided to do the requisite “backpack through Europe for a month” thing. At the time neither of us was into photography at all. We brought point and shoots. And a crappy $15 tripod, since that’s what you need to take good photos, right? That tripod ended up slowing us down with every shot we were taking, and made us actually think about what we were doing. We fell head over heels in love with photography on that trip, and decided we would become photographers. We returned home, bought a snazzy Canon 10D, started to teach ourselves, and embarked on what will be a life long journey as photographers. We were both still in University at the time, and finished up our Psychology degrees, while working on the start of our business. Once we graduated we hit the ground running and never looked back.

In our first year of weddings, we ended up shooting a ton of South Asian couples. It was an incredible experience, and we learned so much about the culture. We were so inspired that we decided to start a personal project called The Wedding Travelers. In January of 2008 we spent three months traveling and shooting in Vietnam and India. We were truly fortunate to be invited to shoot two completely different weddings in India, and it was honestly a life changing experience. We will be doing another trip this winter, and are unbelievably excited to explore, learn, and do what we can to preserve these cultures before they become completely Westernized. Weddings are such a culturally significant event, they are the perfect window into the heart of a people.

DWF – How did you become a wedding photographer?

ROB & LAUREN - When we first decided to become photographers we were certain we’d be travel photographers. We love traveling, and photography, so it just makes sense, right? It’s actually not that easy to be a National Geographic photographer with absolutely no training or experience. Go figure. So we were just learning everything we could, reading forums all day, when we stumbled upon modern wedding photography. Yowza!! It was bright, fun, exciting, original, and completely creative. We were enchanted. We let all our friends know we wanted to be wedding photographers, and got invited to a friends’ cousin’s wedding to shoot. Yes. We were Uncle Bobs. Turns out the actual photographer was terrible, and the couple was ecstatic about our images. We made a sample album, put the word out, and the next season we shot 30 weddings. I think at that point we were fully and completely wedding photographers.

DWF- Who or what inspires you as an artist?

ROB & LAUREN - First and foremost, it’s light that inspires us. We try to make beautiful light the foundation of our work, so seeing a small glimmer of golden light filtering through the leaves of a tree gets us so excited it’s kind of weird. Our clients also inspire us. When they open up, and share who they are with us, what they love to do, and why they love each other, we become flooded with ideas about how to tell their story in our images. Beyond that, we’re truly lucky to have a lot of really really close photographer friends. They share their thoughts on photography with us, and get us so excited about the art that we are walking on air after hanging out with them. I guess in short, people with passion inspire us.

DWF- If we needed a photographer today why would we book you? What makes you unique?

ROB & LAUREN - Well, I think we’re pretty cool We’re young (23 & 25 in case you’re curious), relatively hip (we don’t let people know how nerdy we really are!), we like to goof around and tell jokes, and just genuinely enjoy being around interesting people. Our clients are pretty much the same way, so we get along with them really well. We’ve developed a lot of really great friendships with some of our clients. I think a lot of people hire us for those reasons alone. But on the creative side of things, we push ourselves every single day to be creating true art. We want our work to be appealing to everyone, not just the couple who are in the photo. We will use whatever methods are best to create that art, so we have been branching out into other mediums to do so. We’ve recently become enamored with film, and are now using it alongside our digital work to express our vision. Our clients dig that we love to do something different, so I guess that’s why they book us! Rob is also pretty cute to look at

DWF- If you had to pick a favorite “Tool of the Trade” what would it be? and why?

ROB & LAUREN - Can I say light again? Naw, I’ll find something different. Actually in terms of an actual “tool” I’m gonna go with Lightroom. It’s a seriously powerful program now, and is the only thing we use when processing our images. Everything recent on our blog has only gone through Lightroom, and Photoshop now exists primarily for cosmetic retouching. It’s really cool how much a powerful program changed the way we work! I guess that’s what digital is all about. Your images are at the mercy of your software, so make sure you know how to use it!!

DWF – Care to share your favorite photographs?

ROB & LAUREN - These images are some of our recent wedding work, as well as a few from our Wedding Travelers trip to India last year. Hope you enjoy!

DWF – How about some final words to live by?

ROB & LAUREN - Have an open mind, ear, and heart. You can always learn something new from every person you meet. Truly listen to the people you’re talking to, they have some pretty cool stuff to share. And try with all your might to be a positive and loving person. It’s not always easy, I know. But if you continue to work towards that goal, nothing but goodness can come your way. If photography is your passion, pursue it with 110% of yourself. Never be satisfied with “good” work, and strive for something truly transcendent.

Lauren Simpson & Rob Lim

Location - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Business Name - Rob & Lauren Photographers/The Wedding Travelers
Years in Business – 3.87 Years
Websites -www.robnlauren.com & www.theweddingtravelers.com
Blog - www.robandlauren.ca

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