Esther Gibbons is a wedding, elopement, engagement, event and portrait photographer based in Montreal, Quebec. Her photography is natural and authentic, with a focus on documenting real moments between people. She works tirelessly and has terrific timing to catch people at their best. Her down-to-earth, friendly approach puts couples at ease and helps create natural portraits. She began shooting weddings in 2009 while studying photography at Concordia University. Since then, she has photographed weddings of all types, from intimate family getaways in the Quebec countryside to huge celebrations at Montreal’s largest wedding venues. She especially loves being able to witness each wedding day from behind-the-scenes and having privileged access to tell each couple’s story. Thanks to Montreal’s multicultural character, she is also lucky to photograph weddings from a diverse range of cultures. [Montreal Wedding Photographer]

If you told me ten years ago that I'd be a wedding photographer today, I would have drawn a blank face. You see, ten years ago, I was knee-deep in academia. I was a researcher, studying parenting. I was having babies (three). I was moving from Toronto to Kingston then to the Netherlands to pursue said studies... All my life I've loved to draw, to write fiction, and to make music. But I tried to put those things aside when I turned 18 because it was the 'sensible' thing to do. I got a BSc and an MSc and a PhD. With every extra letter, my soul died a little bit more. That all changed in late 2015 when I photographed my friend's baby being born. For money. The same amount of money I had to pay the university monthly just so I could use their crappy little office space and feel alone. It was the birth of an idea. Five years later, I'm happily knee-deep in photography (sometimes literally wading through water or mud to do the stuff I do). My kids are older now, which means I can take more time away from home, to develop my career, attend workshops, retreats, and faraway weddings. Without trying to be cliche, wedding photography energizes me. I look forward to Saturdays and Sundays because I know that I'll be dead the next day, but in a good way. Because I give it my ALL. I relish the 'wedding hangover'. Crazy? I dunno. I take inspiration in photography, not from other wedding photographers. While there are a lot of brilliant photographers in this field, it's also full of trends and fads. It's nothing I want to be involved in. My favourite photographers of all time include Storm Thorgerson, Max Pinckers, Alain Laboile, Richard Billingham, and Elinor Carucci (whom I've been mentored by). Next year, I hope to be mentored by David Allan Harvey, who is another idol of mine. I believe that all people are beautiful and have become a sap in my older years (I'm 38). Maybe I've always been a sap. I get super emo while photographing weddings, and not always at the parts that you might expect. I love to see families rallying around the couple, helping them, sharing tenderness and love. This is why I love to photograph the getting ready & the dance party. I feel people are at their most genuine and care-free state during those parts of the day. [Kingston Wedding Photographer]

From entrancing Hollywood stars and celestial beauty queens to awe-inspiring super cars, from the over-the-top extravagance of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas to grand weddings in New York City – the photographic odyssey of Gihan De Silva has captured it all. Gihan’s odyssey which began on that fateful moment when as a young man he was enthralled by his father’s venerable Hasselblad camera has unfolded into a jet-setting lifestyle which very well could itself be the stuff of silver screen fantasy. But of course, though firmly ensconced at the starry zenith of his art, Gihan De Silva has not forgotten his roots. As the heir to Olga Studios which has a heritage of over 75 years in Sri-Lankan photography, Gihan has turned the gaze of his photography homewards with hope of imparting in the local photographic scene some of his hard-won lessons from Hollywood. In 2008, Gihan embarked on journey which – sans exaggeration – was entirely uncharted territory for a Sri-Lankan photographer – he moved to Hollywood, California. To make it in Hollywood, the centre of the entertainment universe, is for a photographer perhaps the ultimate litmus test of their abilities. This is precisely what Gihan did, and the testimony of this is to be found in the Hollywood stars and brands he has worked with. The most special day of your life deserves more from its photographs than the drab acknowledgement that you and your spouse were merely there. It deserves from them a celebration of the culmination of your love for each other through every shot and a crystallization of the joy & promise of that moment that will remain timeless. This is the promise of Gihan De Silva photography, that yours will not be just another formulaic album to prove that you had a wedding but rather that every once in a while when you open your wedding album, the memories of that day will come poignantly flooding back. To this end, Gihan – exemplifying his commitment to the utilization of new technology – has been at the vanguard of the use of both the 4D camera which lends dramatic effect to the backgrounds of pictures and a wedding album with a front page featuring a video screen to complement the still photos inside. Of course, as with all of Gihan’s work you can expect that his wedding photography too has been enriched by the cosmopolitanism of his photographic odyssey, and indeed true to form Gihan has shot weddings in locations as diverse from each other as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington DC, Texas, Florida, Sydney, Sri-Lanka & India. [Sri Lanka Wedding Photographer]