Connecticut shoreline · Newport · Boston · The Berkshires · The Catskills · Wherever you’re celebrating
Shukhrat
About
Wedding photographer, Southington, Connecticut
I photograph people the way they are with each other.
Born in Bukhara, at home in Connecticut, and usually in place a beat before the moment. Here is how I see a wedding, and why.
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Shukhrat Kamalov, Connecticut wedding photographer, photographing a wedding editorial hosted by Sarah Brehant Events
“You spend so much time on your wedding day with your photographers, it’s really important to feel comfortable with them, and we certainly did. Although we hardly know them, they felt like friends.”
Meghan and Hal
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In my own words
I am Shukhrat. I started photographing people unposed around 2008, for no one but myself, and that habit still decides how I see a wedding. Watch first. Know the people. Be standing in the right place before the moment arrives.
Weddings added the other half of my work: the portrait. A composed, carefully lit photograph of two people at their best is its own craft, and I treat it that way. A wedding gallery needs both, because years from now you will want the portrait on the wall and the photograph of your grandmother laughing at the table.
How I see a wedding
I look for relationships. Who steadies you. Who makes you laugh when you are nervous. Which of your friends will be first on the dance floor and last off it. I learn those things before the day, so I know where to look when it matters.
I look at the setting as closely as the people. The house, the grounds, the way your planner and florist finished the room. These are part of the story and I photograph them with the same care as a portrait, on digital, on 35mm film and from the air.
And I take portraits seriously. I scout the locations, choose the hour, and guide you through them with a clear plan. You do not need to know your angles. That is my job, and I enjoy it.
Every photograph is edited by me: true-to-life color, natural skin, a good share of black and white, consistent from the first frame to the last. When I am not sure a color is right, I check it against the rest of the day, so every frame matches what you remember.
The weddings I know
Rachel and I were married in Uzbekistan, over a week, from one house to the next. Since then I have photographed Persian, Jewish, Romanian Orthodox, Vietnamese, Chinese-Jewish, Hindu and Catholic celebrations, and I know without being told when to cover my head, when to take my shoes off, and which portraits not to make in front of the parents. If your wedding carries traditions your photographer will need to understand, tell me on our first call. I will have studied them before the day.
Bukhara, 1984
This is my father holding me in Bukhara in 1984. It is one of very few photographs I have of him. He died about five years ago, and I would give a great deal for one unposed picture of him laughing at a table.
It was made on film. Someone pressed the shutter, and nobody saw the picture until the roll had been developed, days or weeks later. There is something about a moment held on a physical negative, made once and waited for, that a screen has never given me. It is one of the reasons I started shooting film again, and why I offer it to select couples.
That is the photograph I look for at every wedding. Your father, your grandmother, the friend who flew in from far away. The people who make the day what it is, as they really are.
The team
On Signature and Weekend weddings a second photographer works beside me, and an assistant runs the day so I can stay with you. An elopement or a small celebration is photographed by me alone. Our son assists on the day and is a licensed drone pilot, so aerial photographs are made while I stay on the ground with you. At home there are six boys and very little quiet. A wedding day feels peaceful by comparison.
A few particulars
Based in Southington, Connecticut, and photographing weddings wherever you’re celebrating: Newport and the Rhode Island coast, Boston, the Berkshires, the Catskills, and the Connecticut shoreline. I travel often for weddings further afield. I speak English, Russian and Uzbek, which has been useful more than once at a family table.
“He had a calm, confident presence that helped us relax and be ourselves, and the results were beautifully authentic images that feel true to who we are.”
Cassie and Brent
