Planning
One call, a timeline that protects the light, and a short list of the photographs that matter most to you, agreed before the week of.
The studio
The person behind the enlarger.
Dry Down Studio is Mara Ellison: ten seasons of weddings, a commercial client list that rebooks, and a working darkroom the name comes from. A fibre print dries down richer and deeper than it looks in the tray. Good days do the same.
The camera stays quiet. No posing drills, no interruptions at dinner, no flash barrage during the vows. You get a photographer who watches, and a gallery that reads the way the day felt.
How a wedding runs
Planning, the day, and after.
The day
Coverage from the morning rooms to the last dance. Two photographers on full days, film running alongside digital the whole way.
After
Sneak peek inside 48 hours. Full gallery in six weeks. Albums in twelve. All of it in writing, none of it a surprise.
Silver gelatin
The kit and the room
35mm and medium format film alongside digital bodies, and fibre-paper printing done in-house. If a print from this studio says gelatin silver on the label, it was made in this room, in trays, by hand.
Test strip from the last print run. Five exposures to find the black.
As featured
The Print Annual · Field Notes Quarterly · Modern Vows