October 23, 2025, 4:30 PM
Guided tour in Ukrainian
Guided by: Julia Ogińska, photographer and educator at BWA Gallery
Ian Weldon – the author works as a documentary photographer in the North of England predominantly photographing weddings, whilst also working on long term personal projects and commercial assignments. With only a brief period of studying photography at a local college, Ian is primarily self- taught.
He lectured on photography history at the Sunderland Visual and Performing Arts College and his long term project, I Am Not A Wedding Photographer, was exhibited at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, in 2019 and was the first exhibition of wedding photography in a fine art context, ever. He was featured worldwide in major publications including, The Guardian, The British Journal of Photography, Vice, Creative Review, BBC World News and CNN to name but a few.
A book of the work has been co-published by RRB Photo Books and The Martin Parr Foundation.
“I am Not a Wedding Photographer“
Originally a way to make money to work on ‘other’ long term documentary projects, weddings actually became the project.
After a short period of trying to fit into the perceived rules of wedding photography I found more pleasure in approaching the subject in a documentary style, following in the footsteps of photographers that I had studied and admired – Martin Parr, Helen Levitt, Bruce Gilden and the likes of. The standard approach became less important and I began to focus on my response to the subject.
The more I presented these photographs to my clients, the more it became apparent that an alternative approach was welcomed by couples who were seeking something other than a fantasy of their wedding day. The work itself is a response to an industry that is mostly driven by popular trends and fads, and a real alternative the usual schmaltz associated with wedding photography.
The photographs presented here span a 15 year period of wedding commissions shot in the UK, Europe and the US.
Real, unfiltered, chaotic, humorous and brutally honest. This is how it happened.
