An Intimate Conversation with Two Wedding Photographers – Val Nanovsky and Peter Lane

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Peter Lane is a destination wedding photographer based in London. He is best known for the lighting techniques he uses in his wedding photography, glamour and bridal boudoir.

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Val Nanovsky is a green wedding photographer based in Vernon, Connecticut. His work incorporates timeless bridal beauty and breathtaking modern landscape photography.

Where do the names “Trash the Dress” and “Drown the Gown” come from?

Peter: There are a number of labels in today’s wedding photography created by photographers’ endless creative approaches in marketing their work. I’ve heard about “Rock the Frock”, “Fearless Bride” … and I can also come up with a couple of funny names – how about “Broom the Groom” or “Nail the Vail”… I have coined my own version of Trash the Dress called “Trash the Stress”. But in the end all those are just words … literature and poetry.

Val’s take

Why “Trash the Dress”?

Peter: “Why store the dress?” – I used to joke with my English-speaking clients offering them ” Sthrow the dress” photo-sessions. They would always ask me what that is… …“we’ve never heard about it”. “Well”, I would say,  “My fellow wedding photographers have never heard about it either ”

Basically, it is “Store the dress or throw it away”. If you store it it’s already forgotten. No memories anymore. In wedding photography “Trash the Dress” is on the opposite end – it is supercharged, it creates vivid memories, it is romantic, beautiful, glamorous …it is pure fine-art.

Val’s take

Talk a little bit more about Trashing the “STRESS”.

Peter: “Trash the Stress” came into existence in Moscow where most of my clients over there don’t speak English. When I tried to translate it for them, “Trash the dress” didn’t ring a bell and they totally rejected it. It is an old tradition in Eastern Europe to preserve the wedding dress after the wedding.

That’s why I changed the scary-sounding “Trash the Dress” into “Trash the Stress”, trying to offer post-wedding creative photo-sessions without ripping, biting, painting and mauling the dress. The accent falls on the bridal beauty, artistic creativity and taking fine-art images rather than trashing the dress and throwing it in the garbage. There is plenty of time for set-ups, different lighting scenarios, posing experiments, creativity and fun.

Val’s take

What is unique about you when you do this type of photography?

Peter: Every wedding photographer has a favorite style of shooting. I try not to stick to a certain style and love to play with them and mix them together. That’s what’s beautiful about wedding photography – it’s not attached to a certain genre. I prefer to shoot Trash the Dress sessions at more than one location and in more than one genre – if the location, time, budget and bride’s whites meet together. Morning or late afternoon on the beach with glamour lighting, after sunset on the roof of a high building or a bridge with fashion lighting and poses … The uniqueness is not really about me but about the bride. Every single one of them is different and beautiful in her own way.

Val’s take

How are you different from each other in what you do?

Peter: I see one major difference – in the way we use light. As a glamour photographer I incorporate more lighting in my wedding photography. In the studio I like to set everything up, and at a wedding I am a photojournalist. During the wedding day everything moves fast and my goal is to capture the story and the emotions.

Val is an incredible landscape photographer. I admire his talent. His vision goes way beyond the viewfinder and captures the bride as part of the nature around her, creating two images in one. The result is an out of this world landscape with a strong center of attention on the bride (and groom), surrounded by this gorgeous scenery.

…Two different approaches bringing together a lot of beauty. I am located in London, and Val is in Vernon, CT – I can’t wait for the moment we’ll have a chance to shoot together.

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Val’s take

Peter Lane Photography – Destination Wedding Photography all around the world