Want to meet the couple behind some of our best-looking Wellington features? Yeah, I thought you might like that. So let me introduce you to photographers
Tim Kelly and Nadine Ellen. And here's what they've shot for Fancy:
Precinct 35 - Wellington's newest design store, Wundaire, The Neighbourhood Studio, and
Eva Street (the inner-city home of Six Barrel Soda, Fix & Fogg and Wellington Chocolate Factory)
Tell us what you do and what lead you to this point?We are a photography duo based in Wellington who spend our time travelling around NZ and beyond capturing kick ass weddings. We tend to live in NZ over summer, and then in the NZ winter we venture overseas to other parts of the world where the sun is still shining and awesome weddings are happening.
We are high school sweethearts (I give you permission to wretch at that) and we’ve both always been obsessed with photography. But to be honest, we were never interested in pursuing wedding photography. Back before we started, the only wedding photography we had seen was cheesy, staged, and fake. That style of photography didn't interest us. So we never considered it until we were guests at a friend’s wedding, took photos for fun in the candid way we like, and as a result enquiries started coming in. So we took the leap, started our own business, and that was the beginning of this freaking awesome ride that has been the last 3 years of our life.
This job has taken us all over NZ and the world. It allows us to meet, work with, and become friends with insanely cool people from absolutely everywhere; and we get to creatively capture these ace people's awesome day in a natural, unobtrusive, and fun way. Being able to do photography this way is what makes us tick.
feels like the beginning of a wicked adventure...
Four eyes are better than two - what strengths and perspectives do each of you bring to a project?Tim brings a calmness to every project that I couldn’t bring if I tried. He is such a calm and considered person, stress isn’t really in his repertoire. This means that the projects we undertake always have a calm and welcoming atmosphere which helps put the couples and clients at ease.
One characteristic I (Nadine) bring to the scene is how much I love meeting new people and getting to know them... it is really important to us that the people we are working with feel as relaxed as a friend would in our company.
We are all about unobtrusively capturing moments as they actually happen. So having more than one of us means we are able to be in more than one place at a time to capture the story as it takes place.
That settles it. I need a do-over.
This one stops me in my tracks
When are you at your most inspired?We are most inspired when we are working with adventurous people in an environment that we have never worked in before. For us, this job is all about the people and the story.
moments from life
What was the most gratifying/rewarding project you've done recently?That would be living and working in a small town in Vietnam teaching English in public schools. The warmth, beauty, and generosity of the people there was absolutely astounding and incomparable to anything we have ever experienced before. We have been to Vietnam three years in a row because we have fallen in love with the people there. We took only a handful of photographs from our time there, but they are some of our favourite images.
Just a few of many images captured on recent travels
If you just got engaged and want to commemorate this time in your life, or you're planning your wedding, or you're a brand who needs to tell your story in an seriously good quality, real and engaging way, you should mos def get in touch with my pals Tim and Nadine. (Really really) good people, doing (really really) good work.
Tim Kelly and Nadine Ellen website / Facebook / Tim's Instagram / Nadine's Instagram
