Andy Pauquette uses natural light and a photojournalistic eye to observe and capture moments. His style is less about a must-have list of posed shots and intrusive flashes, and more about entrenching himself into the intimacy of the event to capture the emotions surrounding a couple’s wedding day. For Andy, the photographer at your event should be less a director and more an observer.
Andy got his start in photography at an early age. He was born in California, but he and his family moved a lot as he was growing up. By the time he was six, he had been across the country three times, much of it on old Route 66, which he would spend a fair amount of time photographing as an adult. Though he grew up wanting to be a musician and has spent much of his adult life making a living that way, he took up photography while traveling and it has become a passion. While touring as a bass player in the 90’s, Andy got his hands on a pawnshop Pentax K1000 and it became his constant companion. It was fully manual—no auto settings at all—and built like a tank. It gave him something to do while the crew set up for gigs. Wandering around towns, shooting whatever he saw, photography changed his life. It had a similar appeal to him as music—both an artistic outlet and an excuse to buy gadgets!
Andy’s first wedding was almost his last. He felt it was too constrained and stylized. Then, he discovered the inspiring wedding work of a new breed of wedding and event photojournalists. In the era of photographers trying to capture contrived poses, placing hands just so, etc., the wedding photojournalist became the proverbial fly on the wall and captured events as they happened. As soon as Andy had a chance to shoot a wedding in this style, he was completely smitten. Twenty years later and over 400 weddings under his belt, Andy is still smitten with the process and loves providing couples with a series of high quality artistic images that allows them to rewind and relive the blur of the day.