Today we’d like to introduce you to William Hall.
Hi William, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Will Hall and I am the founder and lead photographer at Perla Images, an editorial wedding photography studio working in Boston, Cape Cod, Newport and Nantucket.
I did not start in Boston, I started on the South Shore. I shot for free, then I shot for very little, and every time a booking came in I split the deposit in half. Half kept the business alive and half went straight back into ads. That was the entire business plan for the first few years. It worked because the work had to be good enough that people forwarded the gallery to a friend. A paid client cost me half a deposit. A referred client cost me nothing. The whole game was shifting that ratio.
For a long stretch the work was concentrated on Cape Cod, and I am grateful for it. The Cape taught me weather, logistics, and how to shoot a wedding day that is running ninety minutes behind with the light going. It built the venue relationships I still have. But it also has an edge to it, and after a few hundred coastal weddings I could feel myself repeating a look rather than making one.
Boston is where the work got interesting again. The architecture, the pace, the way a city wedding refuses to be tidy. This past winter a couple called me the day before their Boston wedding to say the venue had cancelled on them due to a massive blizzard, twenty four hours out, with a nor’easter coming and their guests already in town. We made a plan and I drove up before the snow started. We shot in the narrow window we had, Back Bay in that strange silver light that comes right before a storm, her veil moving in the wind that was building. I drove back south as the first flakes hit the windshield. Those frames are some of the strongest in my portfolio, and I have thought about that day every season since. The best work tends to happen at the exact edge of where most people would have stopped.
That is why the studio’s centre of gravity is moving to Boston. I am opening a space in Fort Point, and Boston is where I am building the next decade of the business, with Boston, Cape Cod, Newport and New England as the wider coverage area rather than the whole map.
Two photographers on every wedding, always. Coverage starts at $7,000. Over two hundred weddings in, I still only want the couples who would rather have photographs that feel true than photographs that feel safe.
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?
No. Anyone who tells you the road was smooth is either lying or has not been doing this long enough.
The first struggle was structural rather than dramatic. For the first several years every decision was made under a cash constraint, and the business could only grow at the speed the work itself could fund. I split every deposit in half, ran one half back into ads, and lived on the rest. That teaches you discipline, but it also means you spend a long time unable to buy your way out of any problem. You have to work your way out of every single one.
The second was that I am self taught. There was no studio I came up through, no mentor watching my back on a wedding day. I learned in front of real couples on the one day of their lives that does not get a second take. Every mistake I made was a mistake made in public, with something irreplaceable at stake. It made me very good very fast, and it also cost me a lot of sleep in the early years.
Then there is New England itself. The season is compressed. Weather here is not a background detail, it is a variable you plan around from the moment you sign a contract. Nor’easters, fog off the water, tents that stop being an option at four in the afternoon. You learn to build a day that survives its own worst version.
The hardest one was quieter than any of those. After a few hundred coastal weddings I could feel myself repeating a look rather than making one. That is a dangerous place for a photographer, because the work still sells while it is happening. Fixing it meant raising prices, taking fewer weddings, turning down couples I would have said yes to five years earlier, and moving the centre of the business toward Boston where the work asks harder questions of me. That was a much scarier decision than any storm.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am the founder and lead photographer at Perla Images, an editorial wedding photography studio working in Boston, Cape Cod, Newport and Nantucket. The tagline is For the Fearless Lover, and it is not decoration. It is the filter I use to decide whose wedding I take.
The work is a blend of documentary and editorial. I shoot the day as it unfolds and I look for the moment before the moment, the half second before someone realizes they are being watched. I step in to guide when something needs guiding, and I step back when something is happening that I would not want to disturb. Then I bring an editorial eye to the frame itself. The light, the composition, the architecture behind the couple. A wedding is not a series of events to be documented in order. It is a day that has a look, and my job is to find it and hold it.
I shoot digital mostly with a little bit of film What I am known for, more than any single image, is consistency under pressure and unique compositions with interesting lighting. Weather, timelines that collapse, a venue that cancels twenty four hours out. Couples in Boston and on the Cape hire me because I am calm on a day where a lot of people are not.
Over two hundred weddings in, with 116 five star Google reviews, the thing I care about is still the same. Most couples have been to weddings where the photographs felt stiff or generic. They want a gallery that looks like them and that still holds up on a wall in fifteen years, not a folder they open twice. If that is what you are after, and you would rather your photographs feel true than feel safe, that is exactly the couple I want.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Three ways, depending on who you are.
If you are a couple planning a wedding, start at perlaimages.com/boston-wedding-photographer. Pricing is published openly on the site, so you can see exactly what a wedding costs before you ever talk to me. There is no gatekeeping and no discovery call required to find out a number. Send an inquiry through the site with your date and venue, or text me directly at 617.652.6799 during business hours. I answer my own messages. I book a limited number of weddings a year, so dates for peak season tend to go early.
If you are a planner, florist, venue or coordinator in Boston or on the North Shore, I would genuinely like to hear from you. I am moving the centre of my business into Boston and building a studio space in Fort Point, and the part of that I care most about is the people I get to work beside on a wedding day. I am easy to work with, I stay out of your way, I hit the timeline, and I share galleries fast so you have images to use while the wedding is still recent. If you have a styled shoot, a venue that needs current photography, or a couple who is not the right fit for you, I am reachable.
If you are a photographer looking to second shoot in New England, reach out too. I run two photographers on every wedding, always, so I am always looking for people who are steady and quiet on a day and know how to work an aisle.
And if you just want to support the work, look at it and share it. That is genuinely how this business has grown.
Pricing:
- Hour Wedding, $7,000. Boston, Cape Cod and Newport. Eight hours of editorial coverage, second photographer always, engagement session, timeline and family shot list planning, sneak peeks within 48 hours, gallery with 24 month cloud backup, travel across MA, RI, NH and ME.
- 10 Hour Wedding plus Welcome Party, $10,000. Full day storytelling. Ten hours of editorial coverage, second photographer always, three hour welcome party or rehearsal coverage, engagement session including travel, handmade 10×10 fine art album, gallery with 24 month cloud backup, travel across New England.
- Multi Day and Destination, starts at $15,000. Welcome party, wedding day and farewell coverage across the full weekend, up to three photographers, 35mm film integration, engagement session anywhere in the U.S., handmade 10×10 fine art album and a duplicate parent album, worldwide travel.
- Add ons: three hour elopement $3,000, one hour engagement session $900, additional photography hour $850, handmade 10×10 fine art album $1,200, duplicate parent album $800, three hour welcome party or rehearsal dinner coverage $2,500, drone aerial coverage $500.
- Two photographers on every wedding, always, at every price point. Full pricing is published openly at perlaimages.com/pricing so couples can see real numbers before they ever send an inquiry.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://perlaimages.com/boston-wedding-photographer/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perlaimages/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/perlaimages
- Other: https://perlaimages.com/pricing/
