Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Meadows.
Hi Daniel, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up amid the green hills of Lancashire, England was a blessing. It was where JRR Tolkien spent many months in the 1940s working on his Lord of The Rings Trilogy and indeed, I grew up right around the corner from Sir Ian McKellen’s school. Just beyond the towering brick and stonework of a town built for the Industrial Revolution lay some of the greenest and most beautiful views.
My father was a wedding photographer and videographer in the county, and my Mum worked at a printer producing wedding albums. I remember his home dark-room experiments well, and being fascinated with the Pentax ME Super he used for work, and the functions of each lens. I’m lucky to have and still find a use for that camera today.
It seems fated that I would become a wedding photographer myself! I worked for over ten years in Britain’s fashion and advertising industry, assisting many truly world-class photographers, and I now work photographing weddings, events and commercial projects here in Houston.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Few roads to success are easy, and for anyone looking to run a great business as a creative, there are always pitfalls to avoid. Burnout is always a danger so prioritize physical and mental health and ensure regular breaks from those fifteen-hour days. I’ve been fortunate enough to find a great team to reduce the burden and have well-tested systems in place to ease my way through the whole client experience but the relentless pace of the early days of a start-up and the stress of the financial uncertainty can be overwhelming at times. If you and your labor are your whole brand and product, you must prioritize you!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I started in the fashion world as a retoucher, or photography post-production specialist, and assistant to some outstanding British and international photographers and ad agencies. My advocacy for changes in the culture of retouching, particularly when it comes to the excessive reshaping of women’s bodies, saw me interviewed by British state broadcaster the BBC and other national news, plus websites like Slate and regularly in other major trade magazines in print and digital form.
I was fortunate enough to have worked post-production on ad campaigns for brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton and had work featured in Hearst and Condé Nast publications including Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, and I now work primarily as a wedding photographer in Houston, with some fashion, branding & lifestyle projects.
I always enjoy hearing that our work ‘looks like a fashion magazine’, because that has absolutely been my goal all along. To have come from childhood around wedding photographers to arrive at my own wedding business via ten years around high-end fashion has been a pretty formative journey. It has certainly informed the way I tell stories through photography. I’m framing every shot like I’m shooting it for a spread in Vogue, I look for the cinematic, that editorial spark that drives the narrative in every shot to tell a story and immerse the viewer fully in the feeling of the moment.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
In creative arts, collaboration can be a huge benefit to all involved. ‘Styled shoots’ where weddings & events vendors come together to test out new ideas can be an excellent source of fresh content for everyone, especially in slow seasons, so never be afraid to reach out with your product and service to other vendors, to photographers and videographers, and see if they’d be interested in putting together an editorial piece to showcase everyone’s work in a mutually beneficial way.
The same goes for test shoots for hair, makeup and fashion, if you have a potential career as a model, stylist, makeup artist, clothing designer or hairstylist in a major fashion market in the future, I will absolutely work with you so please do reach out!
Some of the best work is created away from the deadlines and guidelines of client projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.danielmeadowsweddings.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielmeadowsweddings/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanielMeadowsWeddings
Image Credits
Daniel Meadows’ headshot credit to Heather Cahoon
