Hi there, thanks for visiting my site.

I’m Stephen, an Irish wedding photographer living in Co. Kildare with my wife Polly and our three children.

I'm what's known as a documentary wedding photographer. We cater for people who dread the thought of old-school wedding photographers.

Many of the couples I've worked with came to me saying they don't like having their photo taken. I'm uncomfortable in front of the lens myself so I can empathise. The photo below with my daughter is about five years old - I should probably update it (a few grey hairs have appeared since) but I don't have a lot of shots to choose from!

So what brought me here? I bought my first film camera back in the '90s, and eventually studied photography to degree level, but after graduating I took a long detour into live sports television - on-the-fly replays, analysis, montages etc for all the biggest football, rugby and GAA games.

As I got a bit older, the act of preserving memories with photography seemed to take on a greater importance. The obsession really took hold as our kids came along and I found myself constantly running after them with a camera in my hand. I also fell under the spell of the great photographers like Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, Alex Webb, Harry Gruyaert and many others and tried to take their lessons into my own work.

Luckily weddings were a smooth transition once I decided to move in that direction, which is five years ago now. There were a lot of parallels with live TV in terms of dealing with pressure and getting only one shot at things. The first couple of years (pre-pandemic) I shot a lot of weddings all over Ireland and I found I loved witnessing the range of emotions on view. Wandering into a high-octane wedding morning and being presented with a unique cast of characters is still exciting. Each wedding is a blank canvas.

I love to shoot a wedding as unobtrusively as possible, engaging with everyone but not interfering, just keeping an eye on how they are experiencing the day, focusing on the important stuff. I'm trying to take a reading of how it all felt. I probably won't spend much time upstairs fussing over shots of shoes or the dress when the real memories are being created in the kitchen.

I bring both digital and film cameras to every wedding as I love the imperfections and the impressionistic, timeless look film can provide.

Please get in touch (weddings@stephencorkeryphoto.com or via the Contact page) for any other details on how it all works, pricing or to chat over any questions you might have. It would be great to hear from you.