SEAN PETTIS
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Hello! My name is SEAN
and I have been a photographer for my entire life.
Both of my grandfathers and my father were dedicated photographers, enabling me to grow up with a camera in my hand. When I was a small child, my dad showed my sister and I how to make pinhole cameras out of papier-mâché. After building the cameras, we took some test photographs before turning the bathroom into a darkroom to develop the film. To my astonishment, the cameras worked perfectly!
Shortly thereafter, we went on a family trip to Yosemite. At the time, I only had a disposable 35mm camera I was given, but it was all I needed. While witnessing a setting like Yosemite as a kid, I was in awe. The place looked impossible. All I remember thinking at the time was how fortunate I was to be able to take photographs and to bring the memory of that place home with me in a physical form. To me, it was magic and I was hooked.
When I was 15 years old, my dad unexpectedly passed away in a car accident, leaving my mom to raise my sister and I on her own at a time when I was quite the hellion. Like most teenagers, I didn't really know what I wanted out of life. That changed pretty suddenly one day when my grandfather gave me his old VHS tape recorder. I started directing my friends in playful little short films as a way to spend the Summer vacation. After a few shorts, I made two garbage feature-length films and officially declared myself a filmmaker. I had found my calling.
Here I am in 1994 taking a photo of my Dad with his trusty Nikon, one of the cameras I inherited when he passed away. I shot a wedding with that camera just last week.
A bit later (2002) I pooled all my resources, bought a proper video camera and shot my first wedding. I was working as a videographer at the time, not a photographer. It was a low-stakes gig I did for peanuts for a family member, but it showed me how fun and fulfilling the wedding industry can be, plus I got to work with a camera in my hand! This is the point, where I'll explain that I've been active in the wedding industry for over two decades as a wedding videographer. What started as a side gig while I worked as a marketing filmmaker and photographer for a series of ambulance companies quickly became my full-time job, thus Wedlock Cinema was born. This is how most folk within the wedding space know me, Sean, the videographer.
During this time of my life, weddings weren't the only thing I filmed. Since my early days as a filmmaker, I've directed and filmed many short films and have been hired as a director of photography on a few feature films. This is an extremely intensive but satisfying way to make a living.
Here I am (left) while on location for the feature-length horror film BLOOD WINE while the co-directors (right) discuss what to do next.
Photo courtesy of The Press Democrat
I had some small successes in the independent film world, earning a few awards at Oscar-qualifying film festivals and screening my films alongside some of my favorite directors of all time. All of this passion growing inside me was split in two directions: directing and cinematography. With directing, I was really into the psychology of it all. Trying to find the most concise way to utilize human communication to portray a set of emotions to actors so they may best understand their narrative contribution to a scene is what directing is all about. Cinematography utilizes my life-long passion of image-making through camera composition, exposure and movement to further bring out the relevant emotions in a narrative. Understanding both these arts allowed me to use them in harmony to tell stories.
The film industry has a few benefits. Yes, he's as cool as you'd have hoped.
Before focusing entirely on Wedlock Cinema, I regularly filmed weddings for five or so different wedding media companies. There was a time when I was shooting three weddings a week almost every week. I can't tell you how many weddings I've filmed, but it's in the high multi-hundreds. The entire time I was working as a wedding videographer, I was moonlighting as a wedding photographer for my friends and those who specifically asked me to photograph their weddings. The weird thing that became immediately apparent to me was that I preferred photographing weddings rather than filming them. I love doing both and both are very different, but working as a photographer gives me more creative freedom to express myself. At a wedding, the photographer is typically expected to be the director during any of the staged moments, while the videographer has to make something out of the bits they're given. Photographers vary greatly in their ability and willingness to collaborate with videographers during a wedding. I have tremendous respect for all my photographer friends who have been so creatively collaborative with me over the years. In the end, both roles are extremely important to the couple and therefore photographers and videographers must learn to co-exist and respect each other's different roles.
When I'm taking photos for fun, I almost always shoot on film. The old process of running film through a camera allows me to interact with people and places in a way that brings me a sense of grounding and peace.
This brings me to present day. I'm a photographer and a cinematographer. I love both art forms, their overlapping traits and their differences. Wedlock Cinema remains active, but I am channeling more of my energy into wedding photography these days. While I still provide both services, I never offer them as a hybrid, because doing either properly demands one's full attention. I love how much more I'm able to connect with couples as a photographer. Videographers are forced to work quietly in the background, so their voice doesn't compromise important audio they're responsible for capturing. As a photographer, I can be my outgoing self a bit more and connect better with couples. The more I know the couple, the more I'm able to take photographs that exceed their desires. This is what it's all about: creating images that will be treasured throughout the generations, while keeping the entire experience chill and lovely.
