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Changing the way you shoot
Once an army sniper, now a wedding snapper, for pro photographer Robert Pugh taking photographs has been the key to making the most of civilian life S niper to snapper’ is not the most traditional route you can take to wedding photography, that’s for
sure. But when you hear Robert Pugh’s story it makes a lot of sense. Growing up in Kielder Forest, Northumberland, he hankered after a role in the British Army, but was told by his dad to first get some civilian qualifications under his belt before joining up, which he duly did, gaining diplomas in photography. After numerous tours of Northern Ireland, Belize, Iraq and Afghanistan, “I was blown up,” Robert explains, “and left the army on a medical discharge. After a few years living in Gibraltar, I decided it was time to go back to the UK and get back into photography. It was the only real thing that I knew, apart from being a sniper!” Starting out professionally, he photographed ITV’s The X Factor and Dancing on Ice , and was also assigned to the likes of Tom Cruise and Mariah Carey during UK visits. But it was the chance to capture a friend’s wedding where things really started to click. “One of my friends was getting hitched,” he explains, “so I said ‘you know what, I'll do your wedding,’ and I had a great time.” Part of the reason he came to love wedding and portrait photography was connecting with people, says Robert, which helped his return to civilian life. “I can’t talk too much about my role as a sniper,” he says, “but I wasn’t attached to a battalion, instead working alone or with a spotter. I’d be embedded for three or four days, so I was actually very used to my own company. Then when I came out of the army, I struggled to connect with people. It took me two years to adjust, and if I didn’t go back into photography and weddings, I’d probably still be struggling today. It
brought me out of my shell, this happy and fascinating environment, and I really found myself again.” Robert’s journey also meant adjusting to new technologies. “When I went out and bought a camera after the army, it was all digital, and my upbringing was film,” he explains. “I started to experiment with lighting and taught myself with speedlights. But I didn’t get Lightroom and Photoshop; I wanted to get everything right in camera and avoid too much editing. That’s what eventually led me to continuous lighting and LEDs, and specifically Rotolight’s Neo 2 lights.” “What I immediately liked about using LEDs,” he continues “was being able to set up the whole scene in front of me. Lighting it and seeing the image then and there, even before I took a shot – it’s more instinctual – and then, because the camera is exposing like it’s natural light, it’s pretty much a finished image, so I was putting stuff through Lightroommuch quicker than with flash.”
IMAGES Robert Pugh has embraced LEDs for lighting his pictures, finding it a more immediate, instinctual way to work
Issue 73 | Photography News 23
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