Jay Doherty

Five life lessons from Irish wedding photographer Jay Doherty.

[ Jay Doherty ] I can give you two learnings - kindness and hard work. Kindness is the first one because we're in a job that is primarily associated with being around people and people react well to kindness. Someone once said a wedding photographer should be a calming constant in all the insanity of a wedding.


There is so much going on for the bride and groom and we've been there many, many, many times. We can help them in so many ways. Bring a sense of calm, simple wee things like bringing a bottle of water for a bride who has her mind on so many other things on the wedding morning that she's forgetting her own basic needs. Just be a lovely asset to the whole day. Just being kind. 

Maybe you went to events when the parents would tell you how the photographer used to be like a dictator and people were almost scared of the photographers. And when you're there with a gentle sense around you, people are just so grateful and you're likely to get better photographs.


I like to over-deliver. I give plenty of extras as standard with every wedding - extra pages in the wedding album, deliver the photos sooner. One thing I've started to do last year, I got an event printer and just the next day after the wedding, I print six or seven photos of the family photos and just send them to the bride's parents with a thank you letter: "Thanks very much for being so kind. Yesterday you hosted me in your home and thanks very much." And people don't expect this and they react very well.

I always bring a bottle of champagne to every bride's house in the morning as a gift to help them relax and show them that I am genuinely on their side. I'm here to party with you guys.


I was showing my accountant here's my bill for champagne for last year and he says no we can't write off your tax one year worth of champagne. But that's just a funny story. Be kind and do whatever you can because ultimately we have the best job in the world. We are treated so well. We're treated like royalty at a wedding so it's just nice to, it's nice to be as nice as you can to the people that need it. And it feels good and so we get better photos out of it.

In a business kind of marketing stance, it's good public relations, we get more bookings but ultimately it's good for self confidence. It's good for the self esteem. Everyone wins, I think, if you just attend the wedding with just a sense of kindness surrounding you and you'll do anything no matter how silly the request. If they want to do kind of crazy photos that you might have seen in the 1980s my answer is always "yes". Can I do a photo of me like double exposed inside a brandy glass? Of course. I will do anything you want me to do. I am just here for you because I live in the dreams. Sure, it's easy enough to help.

[ Jay ] It's a quote from a fellow called Thomas Edison. When I first read it, I thought "Great way to look at our job." 

There's plenty of opportunities out there, but we are self employed and we're entrepreneurs and no, as far as I can tell in the world of self-employment history, there's no one who has ever had success without working really, really, really hard.

So you just get your work boots on and get out there and labor hard. I've got this, I've got this book called "Good Shit and that's just full of quotes and that Thomas Edison one is in there. There's no substitute really for hard work. And I honestly believe that's really got me. 

Sometimes people say you've got great creative gift and you're a natural. But it's just doing the hard work. Everything I have, I worked for really hard. Sometimes in the height of wedding season, I work 60, 70 hours a week. I start in my office at half past seven in the morning and sometimes I'm there at 10 at night editing. 

We want something as audacious and rebellious as the ability to control our own destiny, we have to work really, really hard for that ultimate luxury. Hard work. There's no real substitute yet. I'm sorry folks. 


[ Huy ] What does your family think about you working so many hours a day or all the time? 


[ Jay ] We have a wee holiday retreat in the real extreme coast here by the sea. So I worked really, really hard, but then I can spontaneously take time away and we go away for two or three days at a time. Every month I take three days.


I take care to take a lot of time away and every month in the summer I cross off one week. That's family time. So there'll be three weeks of hard work plus days off in between. And I get up every morning to feed animals and be with my children and then we have a full week away together every month all summer and all winter we spend by the coast. 

I'm weary of working very hard cause that's what I did. I just learned that last night I did that maybe five, six years ago when my, that's necessarily starting to really take off. And I was, I photographed 65 weddings in one year and everyone suffered. And it was because I didn't really know why. I didn't know anything else. I've just learned the hard way of overworking and that's no fun for anyone.

[ Jay ] Maybe I worked too hard. Is that the common theme here? That's a quote from an inspiration of mine called Jim Rome. He's a great business leader and inspirational speaker. That's just self-development about trying your best to become the best version of yourself. Trying to self actualize.

I go to a lot of workshops. I just follow your books, take notes, drank and meet lots of people listen to people's stories. There's so much education right there and there's so much out there for free.

I do a lot of yoga. Last year I was training for my yoga teaching certificate and so I was just immersed in the yoga world for about two years. Yoga just nurtures the soul, nurtures the mind, maybe opens your outlook and helps helps you heal. It does so much for me.

I think yoga is one of the most important things for me as a business owner, as a parent and as someone that's trying to look after their health. Especially for your head. In these harder times around the world, I know a lot of people are finding solace and refuge on a yoga mat. I would definitely try and bring as many people into the yoga world as possible wherever I go. 

Anyone out there just having an openness and a mindset to invite new people into your life and be open to change, becoming a better version of yourself and maybe letting go of all the hurt and the pain and the fear that kept you small throughout your life.

I know all this stuff has been lifted off my shoulders over the last few years. I am a happier person and a better operator in all matters of life. Just being a better photographer, a better person, a better husband. So work harder on yourself than on your job. That's worked for me and it's great.

[ Huy ] So it's a never ending task.

[ Jay ] On to number 4. Ride the wave of change or you'll find yourself beneath it.

 For someone that's photographing weddings for a long time now I've kind of seen many different styles of photography or different attitudes to photography or different new technologies that have come to effect our industry as we know it and ultimately my job. Having an open mind to change whenever the market dictates is really, really important especially for people that maybe be fairly one track how they see the world - maybe especially as a man. I'm a man that's maybe a bit slow to change when necessary.

This industry is changing all the time. Last year was a year of big change for me. A few examples. For the first time, I embraced not supplying wedding albums to my clients. I basically supplied 550 wedding albums to clients over the last many years. And only at the end of last year, I finally gave in and started offering digital-only weddings, which maybe I was the last person in the planet to do that. But the thought of not supplying wedding album was just so foreign and so sad to me. I love giving over the album a few months after the wedding but I had to do it because that's what the market wanted, especially around here. People were starting to spend less and we were going to some kind of economic downturn.

I embraced that and it's working grand for me. Maybe 30% of my weddings are now digital only and it will allow me to thrive you for another few years. 

I've got some of my books here that I might just show you. These are just the books that I've read. I've got a load of self development books, but there was a lovely book that I read just when I really, really needed it called "Who Moved My Cheese?" And that's really about change. And that's a children's story really about two mice. Every day they went to find their cheese because they were hungry and every day the cheese was always there. It was always in the same place. But then one day the cheese wasn't there. It just tracks their adventures of what they did and how the two different attitudes affected the two mice.

One decided "I deserve the cheese that should be there. I am entitled to that cheese every day." I could kind of relate to you as a wedding photographer that had success for a long time. I almost felt like I'm entitled to lots of bookings and lots and lots of success, but the market doesn't really see it that way. So one mouse was entitled and one mouse decided "I'm going to change" and went to go out and try whatever I can to find this cheese. And they hunted and hunted and hunted and finally found the cheese while the first mouse almost starved to death. He could not embrace change and he was scared of change and he was angry at the thought of change. But he eventually the second mouse helped the first mouse to slowly come around to the idea that you got to change if you want to survive in this world.

Change is necessary. That for me was SO difficult. Some of the things that I do in my business now, I would have found impossible to comprehend a few years ago. I'm finding happiness now with supplying digital as well as integrating my business into Instagram every single day and embracing the Instagram stories - stuff that I would have been afraid of or angry at years ago. I've allowed it under my life. So, um, embracing change is the only way possibly for everyone, but more so for people that have been doing this for a long period of time.

Someone gave the book to me when I really needed it and it saved me. It helped to ensure that my family can eat for the next few years because of my photography. So it's as simple as maybe one conversation with the right person at the right time and maybe the right book. And it's difficult but it's so necessary.

[ Jay ] I'm sure you won't get this lesson from any other wedding photographer. So I thought I would end this conversation on a lighter note and maybe add a wee bit of fun. 



A few years back during a very busy wedding season, before we left the bride's house in the morning. It tends to be fairly traditional in Ireland - we go to the brides' house, we take photos of her getting ready and then we go to the chapel usually around one o'clock. It was about 10 minutes until one and I said, excuse me, I got to go to the bathroom because you never know when you're going to pee again. It might be three hours because you have photos to do and you got to go to the chapel. So I just make done. 

When I tried to get out of the bathroom, the key in the lock broke and it was really hot in the height of the summer and everyone from the family was outside. They didn't know I was there. They couldn't hear me. So I tried to climb out the window and the window was too narrow, I couldn't and I got stuck in the window and I was shouting out and no one, no one could hear me. And I was there just really having a panic attack and I was trying to shout out the keyhole "I'm in the bathroom!"

Eventually the bride's dad came along and he was: "Where the hell are you man? We're all waiting for you and we're going to be late for chapel." 

And I told them "Listen, I'm locked in this toilet. I can't get out. No could hear me because you guys were all doing it the other side of the garden." So the bride's father told me to stand back from the door and he just started to kick the door and kicked and made the hole in the door and he had a smile on his face when he saw me then. And they helped me right through the hole in the door.



We laughed about it and we went to the chapel and we took photos for the rest of the day. Everyone had a great fun story to tell about this idiot of a photographer that was locked in the toilet. But that's just a story. But I think maybe a teaching from that as sometimes try not to take ourselves so seriously. Surely we're wedding photographers, but that's nothing the world hasn't seen before. Laughter is good medicine. Maybe sometimes in the worst scenario, a bit of laughter will just help you through your trials. I think Irish people have that down to a fine art.

Laughter is good medicine. It's one of our great strengths. strengths. It might help endear us to people, but sometimes laughter is the only way to help yourself through the worst situations. Maybe that's unique to Ireland but it's certainly helped me in a lot of times in my life. Sometimes you just want to laugh and know things that are going to turn out for the best.

[ Huy ] Jay, thank you for talking with me.

[ Jay ] I's been such an honor. I hope, I hope that someday I can help you as much as you have helped me and my friends. I will try and join you yet another Fearless Conference. The next time something's happening, the Irish brigade will be there. Good luck in America. All are best of healing vibes from across the sea. Whatever we can do.

Maybe if any photographers out there just need to talk, send a message. Open up to your friends or open up to people in communities. Right now we need people more than ever. As simple as a conversation like this here can just have a great effect on anyone. Nothing profound - just a talk and a bit of chat and some laughs is maybe all we need sometimes.

[ Huy ] Thank you, Jay. Yeah, I feel like this is a really crucial time for all of us with what's going on here. And it's great that we can have each other for support. Thank you.

Watch the original unedited session:

Five Lessons with Jay Doherty from Fearless Photographers on Vimeo.