Darren LeBeuf Photography: stolen moments

Forget fancy made up wedding photos on Pottinger Street! Canadian photographer Darren LeBeuf knows how pre-wedding photo shoots are a journey for you and your husband and – luckily – he’s here to help you along on your way with his years of expertise.

Darren has been married for six years (and about to become a new daddy!), but he’s still defying conventional grown up standards of success and is following his heart through photography. He was actually once a designer and has since pushed to develop his own beautiful style. He believes that while there is value in the technical side of photography, styling is truly what makes an image sing.

Darren’s not just a deft hand at photography, he’s also been sketching cartoons since he’s been able to hold a pencil. He used to think that at some point when you supposedly grow up, you have to venture into other more ‘mature’ creative outlets. That was until one day when he read an article on the five things successful people do before breakfast. It read: do one thing you love every morning for half an hour. That was all he needed to give himself permission to do just that and it’s allowed him to live a life that he loves.

He said, “If you love photography, you don’t have to quit your day job. It can still be a passion of yours no matter what, especially if it gives your life purpose.”

Darren gets that engagement shoots are very personal experiences, he aims to put his clients at ease by teaching the lucky brides and grooms about the process and how to best express themselves in photographs. He navigates couples into areas that they may not have explored on their own. Each of his shoots tell a romance story that would put The Notebook to shame and are deliberately arranged to emulate the past, present and future of the couple. By doing this, he captures beautiful moments as couples go on this short and meaningful journey.

“Your relationship is like the ocean and you’re just a little ship on it. You can go exploring all you want, but you’ll never see it all as long you live,” he philosophises.

His style is organic and natural, capturing genuine moments between the couples. Currently located at the Hive in Wan Chai, Darren always wants to hear each couple’s love stories and create mutual trust that results in photos sure to bring a tear to your eye. For any lucky couples who hire him for their wedding day, he wants them to have faith in him, rather than to worry about their photos being one more thing to juggle on the most stressful (yet beautiful) day of their lives. As a photographer, he wants to be seen as a part of the wedding by his clients as opposed to a guest simply attending a wedding.

People who work with him want naturalistic photos, rather than grinning and bearing a pose that eats away at their patience. Darren has this masterful talent for beautiful candid photographs and that’s all down to the amount of effort he puts in to make his clients feel comfortable. His passion lies with pre-wedding photoshoots as time is not of the essence and the focus is completely on the couple.

Darren’s got a bit of advice for couples on the wedding day: “Try to relax. If you look tense on your wedding day, there’s nothing you or I can do to change that and it’ll show in your photographs. A couple should be able to express themselves freely and fully immerse themselves in each moment – together.”

He even threw in a cheeky bit of advice for the grooms out there. “My dad always said that in a marriage, you should let your wife make the decisions 51% of the time. You’ll avoid a lot of problems!”

Darren LeBeuf, 6/F, Cheung Hing Industrial Building, 12P, Smithfield Road, Kennedy Road, Hong Kong, 6626-6927, www.darrenlebeuf.com

Planning a Hong Kong wedding? Check out our other wedding roundups on Sassy for some more insider advice! Darren LeBeuf actually snapped one our favourite That Brides, Jasmine Smith, so take a look at our That Bride interviews and see what other Hong Kong brides had to say!