All right, today we have on the show, Natasha Lamalle. Welcome. Hi, thank you. Yeah, so Natasha is a wedding photographer based in D.C. but does weddings all over, I'm correct. But Natasha, tell us a little bit about just yourself and you as a wedding photographer. Yeah, so I'm French, I grew up in France, but I met my American husband in Prague in the Czech Republic so we have a very romantic story usually. People are like, oh wow. But I followed him back to the U.S. and he found a job in D.C. so I followed him in D.C. and you know my background is in journalism. I was a local journalist in the newspaper in France and when I arrived in D.C. I didn't have a job and I cannot write in English, my competence steps are French. But I always had my camera with me everywhere I went and I started to see that wedding photography can be cool. It doesn't have to be posed and boring and I contacted a bunch of photographers that I thought were more like me, meaning with photojournalism background and yeah, that's when I realized, oh wait, photojournalists are wedding photographers too and that was really exciting for me. Gotcha, awesome. So how long had you done photography before you before you started into weddings? Oh my god, like in high school I bought a 2P XL camera and I was preparing my friends. Because I always wanted to be a journalist I thought, well I should know how to use a camera because it was the age where if you wanted to be a journalist you had to know to do everything. And you know as a high schooler who already knew what he wanted to do, I was like well I'm gonna you know start working on my skills. And you know it turns out I probably like to take photos more than I like to write, though I'm still freelancing so I still write a lot. But that's how I started. I did a diploma in France towards photos so it's like kind of a baccalaureate in photography. And then I just continued to include my photo into my journalism work and released and you know maybe actually for my local newspaper I shot my first wedding. Because there was this couple that married in my village and I went and I you know took pictures for the newspaper and that was the first wedding I ever shot. Awesome, yeah that's really cool. I for myself also I do a lot of wedding videography here in DC and I started, I don't do as much photography now, but I started off as doing photography. And yeah it's crazy how you know a lot of a lot of us as wedding professionals started with something else and then moved to weddings. For you that transition to weddings what was something that like that you've enjoyed most about weddings or something that drew you to to do weddings? I think what excited me about weddings is well first of all I was kind of looking for a job right and you know you can't really survive in journalism except if you're hired by a newspaper. And I was doing all this awesome you know reporting on people but it didn't pay much. I was like well how can I make money doing what I love? And I was like okay I'm going to make money doing what I love and that's when I started to think about weddings and that's when I started to look through okay what's like wedding photography in you know it was 2015 or 16. And that's when I was like oh okay I can do cool photographs for people and people would pay me for that. So I got really excited I started to you know contact photographers and save and shoot and I just that was a new industry for me it was a new world. It was people that valued my photo that valued me as an artist and I think compared to the journalism world where you have to beg when you're treated very poorly I did like that people saw some worth in me and were nice to me. And also weddings are just such a it's you know the joy starting in the morning till the evening everyone's so happy I mean who would not want to work in the framework of everyone is happy anyone loves you and then you make great photos and oh my god thank you so much I'm like this is the perfect job make people happy. Yeah yeah for sure I mean a lot of people you know I've heard I've heard from other you know photographers and people they say oh weddings are stressful I don't want any part of my face and it's definitely a lot going on but I love it you know it's just it's just like you said it's the happiest day of someone's life and everyone's happy and you get to you get to document it. But I guess for you what is your how do you approach a wedding or what is how would you say you kind of try to see the day you know unfolding and how do you approach that to take images of that? So I think weddings are still stressful for me of course uh but not because I'm scared of um missing a moment because the way I approach photography is every reading is unique so I don't promise anything to my clients. What I promise them is to capture great moments and create for them really unique images uh and that's stressful because you know I really cross my finger I'm like I need that epic shot you know that is one or two pictures that they're gonna fall in love with uh and that's the stressful part but the way I approach it is very documentary um you know I barely post people even when we do portrait session I usually make them like do something um more in like action shots uh I you know I think posing is I don't know how to put people I kind of do invoke cover or whatever it's and it's not my style and usually that's not what my clients are coming um you know when they come and inquire with me the first thing they say is we hate posing that's why we inquire with you I'm like because I hate posing too so yeah that's awesome. How would you say so you said you started in like what 2015 2016 time frame how has how would you say your style and your approach has changed since then up to this point um I think yeah so compared to like I feel like other photographers that uh started photography and weddings at the same time have been photographing for 10 years and so what I started to do when I entered the wedding industry is to bring the style I had with me into the wedding world which is documentary as much as possible but of course being in the winning industry in America and being surrounded by all these posing shots and the must-have and you know so I think my style it started to evolve and be like okay I guess yeah family formals are important so I should work on them um you know portrait sessions are still important so I need to work on them and so I think what I did is you know I kept the documentary part I worked on it you know better moments better composition uh search for the light but also worked on my portrait skills and I'm still working on them uh I don't think I am where I want to be but definitely uh using the flashes I don't I didn't use flashes in photojournalism that was not you know you don't need that you can crank the eye so it doesn't matter but it's a bit different and I think from yeah starting to use flashes and start to know how to use it to my advantage to be creative I definitely unlock something in um in the quality of my images actually actually okay uh well I think I think we're about at our time um so just I guess one one final question to wrap up that I'd like to ask um uh how about for for maybe for a couple for a bride or groom who is currently planning a wedding um and is maybe looking at maybe they also don't like posing maybe they're looking at you know kind of a more photojournalistic style um but they're looking to to choose a photographer um and even just throughout the entire wedding planning process any advice for for someone in that position uh sorry your question advice to clients you mean yeah advice for a bride or groom who is currently planning a wedding uh well I think knowing what styles are out there is the most important because I feel like a lot of people come to me and they're like oh my god I didn't know it was possible and that's kind of scary because I'm thinking well I guess a lot of people end up with the photographer they might not like that much because they didn't know that this study existed and next this site existed so for me the first thing you know I you know as a couple looking for photographers make sure you know what kind of style is out there because there is probably someone that is exactly your vibe and what you're looking for you know someone that's maybe very colorful or someone that's very posed like you know very magazine cover someone that's very you know green and airy you know which is the main style but you kind of blur all the other styles out I mean I think there is at least style as there is wedding photographers there is a lot of them a lot of different personalities but you know there is few main styles that I think are leading the industry and I think that's very important to know which one you're more drawn to gotcha all right Natasha Lamalle everyone on natashalamalle.com I believe her website is beautiful I will link it below please do check that out it's a beautiful website Natasha thank you so much for being on the show yeah no thank you so much take care yeah bye