Unlike other genres of photography, shooting weddings allows photographers to not only to be in the right place at the right time to capture something magical, but for those willing to think outside the box and plan in advance, the creative avenues are unlimited.
© Mauro Cantelmi, award-winning wedding photographer
Mauro Cantelmi is one such photographer. Having shot his first wedding at just 17, over thirty years ago, and been hooked ever since, the Melbourne-based wedding photographer enters competitions every year, using them to give him drive and fuel his passion. His aim? To get better each and every year. This approach to his photography means that he can produce fresh and interesting images for his clients all the time, despite essentially working with similar subject matter each week.
We chatted with Mauro to learn how and where he gets his creative inspiration from and how he keeps his work constantly inventive and impressive.
Photography found Mauro at age thirteen, when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. He picked up a camera at school as an escape and the first photo he took won an award. He called it Alphabetical Eggs, a picture of a plate with eggs on it standing on a “tablecloth” made of pages he’d torn out of his school dictionary. (He didn’t like English at school.) Mauro’s teacher encouraged him to enter it into a competition. The first win made his escape rewarding, and by the time he went to college he was already armed with an immense amount of knowledge.
Mauro’s first professional job came when he was working in a wedding and portrait studio in Carlton, Melbourne, as a darkroom technician. “I really didn’t know what I was doing because, obviously, I was really only printing the photographs, but I sort of knew what was expected,” he says. Mauro’s boss thought he was ready. The photos Mauro took proved him right. Still, he never really wanted to be a wedding photographer. Fashion was his thing, but he’d arrived in photography during a heyday for no-holds-barred weddings. He was earning two, sometimes four, times more than his friends.
The secret of a long life
Mauro is very clear about the most important lesson he has learned in business. It’s having a great team. “And treating your staff like family,” he adds. “Sometimes you need to go beyond for them with things like bonuses, because you’re only as good as the people around you.” His second lesson is to never be complacent. “Keep challenging yourself with everything that you do.” That keeps you, what he calls, “squeaky clean”, thinking about the art, rather than the income. Mauro’s third lesson is to surround yourself with other photographers, enter competitions, and attend events like conventions, to mix it with the world’s best.
“The PRO-G40 SSD has been a real godsend here, because of its super-fast transfer speeds up to 2,700 MB/s3. As we use this drive as the ‘single source of truth’ for consolidating video from all sources, the file transfers are amazingly quick,” says Val.
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Once the event comes to a close, Val likes to drop rough cuts onto a timeline right away. They often make their way to the nearest cafe to start reviewing and transferring footage, to ensure no footage is lost if something unforeseen occurs, such as camera card corruption. During this stage, Val uses the SanDisk Professional PRO-G40™ SSD to jump straight to transcoding and editing, right from the external drive.
“When I look at someone else’s photograph, and I really like it, I get this jealousy welling up inside of me. And I think to myself, ‘Well, why didn’t I photograph that, so I’m a very competitive person,” he confesses. Being competitive, he adds, counts.
Awards’ rewards
Mauro’s competitiveness also feeds into how he uses awards, that he says have been an important role to the development of his photography. “My theory in photography has always been if you’re going to do something, do it 100%, or do not do it at all. That’s number one. I guess. The awards have been a platform in order for me to consistently push the envelope,” he says. When someone else gets a better photo than him, or he feels he should have thought of the idea, he is motivated to do better. He admits that can be a bit selfish. With every job, he is working hard for the client, but also for himself.
“Because I just don’t know when another award shot is around the corner,” he notes. Awards are also motivational in that, as a consistent award winner, he feels the pressure, the expectations on him by others.
How to keep creativity alive…
When it comes to boosting his creativity, Mauro has a top five:
- Whatever shoot you’re doing, always try something new. “Explore your horizons with simple things like using a different light source or a different technique, a different camera, way of composing or cropping, or a different flash unit.
- “Pre-empt” your photographs. Have a preconceived idea in your head that’s absolutely crystal clear by breaking it down and working out exactly how you are going to make it happen.
- Be loved, be surrounded by people, and don’t always take yourself too seriously. When you’re relaxed and in a good state of mind your creativity can flow.
- Play around with the new equipment, always exploring something new.
- Have a great team around you, “people who can throw in those extra 2% and 4%,” he notes. And listen to their ideas.
…and how to get out of a rut
That dreaded creative rut. Mauro has one infallible solution. Let it go and move on. Start something new. “You can’t push sh*t up a hill,” he says. “I guess I get my inspiration from life, from looking at famous artists, to even just watching TV,” he says. “Ideas come from my head. I can’t explain how they do, but they always have. Maybe genetics play a little role? There are several photographers in the family, and, going back, even paparazzi photographers in Rome.” There’s also Mauro’s competitive nature. If he likes a photographer’s work, such as that of Henri Cartier-Bresson, he’ll take on board what he likes and make it his own.
Advice you never expected
When it comes to advising other photographers, Mauro’s first and most important advice is charge better.
“Photographers are a different breed now than I guess I would call myself. The main problem with photographers today is they’re just not charging enough.”
He understands that photography is an industry that has really been watered down and that the young cohort may be going from casual jobs getting paid $40 an hour to doing something they love. But they need resources and building income allows photographers to build those, he maintains.
“If you're getting into a rut, it’s because you don’t have the resources you need. At the end of the day, you need a studio, you need lights, you need help. If a photographer can do everything by themselves, that’s great, but you’re always behind the eight ball.”
Then combine resources with a good state of mind (which means exercising your brain as much as getting a massage, or doing whatever else you need), and the desire to always do better to be the best you can, Mauro adds. “I walk out of every shoot, still thinking, ‘Damn, I could have done better.’ If you have all three things in place, you’re always improving yourself,” he concludes.
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