York Night Wedding Photography Workshop

York Night Wedding Photography Workshop

Twilight and after-dark wedding photography training in York

Monday 19th October 2026 6pm – Midnight. York City Centre

York provides an incredible backdrop for wedding photography after dark. For this evening workshop we’ll be working with bride and groom models around some of the city’s most recognisable locations, creating a range of dramatic twilight and night-time wedding photographs using simple, repeatable lighting techniques.

We’ll meet at 6pm, just as the sun is setting. Sunset in York on October 19th is approximately 5:58pm, giving us the opportunity to start with the final light of the day before moving through blue hour and into full darkness.The workshop will finish at approximately midnight.

Rather than simply demonstrating one finished photograph, I’ll talk through how I approach each scene, where I position and pose the couple, how I choose the background and how I build the lighting from the ambient exposure upwards.

The aim is to make night-time photography straightforward, quick and practical enough to use during a real wedding day.

What we’ll photograph

During the evening we’ll move around York city centre, using the streets, historic buildings and illuminated landmarks as backgrounds for our bride and groom. Locations will depend on conditions and access on the evening, but we’ll aim to work around areas including:

York Minster
The Shambles
Clifford’s Tower
The River Ouse
York’s historic streets and city walls
Illuminated buildings, street lighting and urban backgrounds

York works particularly well after dark because of the combination of historic architecture, narrow streets, warm lighting and illuminated landmarks – and if its not illuminated, we’ll light it!

LED lighting

Alongside flash, we’ll work with continuous LED lighting. LED lights can be particularly useful for fast portraits, working in very dark locations and allowing both photographer and couple to immediately see how the light is falling.

We’ll look at where LED lighting works best, how I position it and when I would choose continuous light rather than flash.

Balancing ambient light and flash

One of the most important parts of night photography is controlling the existing light before introducing flash.

I’ll demonstrate the method I use to quickly establish the ambient exposure and then build the flash lighting around it.

There’s no complicated formula involved — the aim is a simple and repeatable way of working that you can use under pressure during a wedding.

Our 6pm start has deliberately been timed around sunset.We’ll begin photographing as daylight disappears, working through twilight and blue hour before moving into full night photography.

This gives us the opportunity to look at how camera settings, white balance and artificial lighting change as the ambient light quickly drops.

Champagne spray photographs

We’ll create champagne spray photographs with our bride and groom models and look at how lighting direction, shutter speed and timing affect the finished image. You’ll have the opportunity to photograph the setup yourself rather than simply watching a demonstration.

Sparklers

Sparklers can create fantastic wedding photographs but need a slightly different approach to conventional flash photography. We’ll look at several ways of incorporating sparklers into portraits, including using them as foreground elements and combining them with off-camera lighting.

Smoke effects

We’ll also experiment with smoke to create atmosphere, depth and separation within night-time portraits. Used carefully, smoke can transform a fairly ordinary location once it is combined with backlighting or coloured light. We’ll look at positioning, lighting direction and how to avoid overpowering the photograph.

Working quickly

For me, this is one of the most important parts of the workshop. At a real wedding you rarely have unlimited time to construct a photograph.

The techniques I’ll demonstrate are designed to allow you to arrive at a location, assess the available light, position the couple and create the photograph quickly. We’ll look at a simple order of working that makes the whole process much easier.

Focusing accurately when there is very little available light can be surprisingly difficult. I’ll demonstrate the methods I use for achieving reliable focus and composition in dark locations without wasting time or frustrating the couple.

Often a location that looks fairly ordinary during daylight can become considerably more interesting after dark.

Equipment required

You don’t need a huge amount of specialist equipment for this workshop. I would recommend bringing:

Wide or standard zoom such as 24-70mm
Spare batteries
Memory cards
Tripod
Comfortable footwear, Warm and waterproof clothing

October evenings in York can obviously be cooler and the workshop involves walking between locations, so please dress appropriately.

I will provide the lighting equipment used off camera flash and LED lighting including triggers

Who is the workshop suitable for?

The York Night Wedding Photography Workshop is aimed primarily at wedding photographers who would like to become more confident photographing couples after dark.

It will also be useful if you already use flash but want to simplify your approach or introduce more creative twilight and night photographs into your wedding coverage. You don’t need to be an advanced flash photographer.

The techniques are deliberately kept straightforward and I’ll explain the complete process as we work through each setup.

Hands-on photography

This isn’t simply a demonstration evening. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to photograph our bride and groom models yourself and build a portfolio of images from the workshop.

Where possible I’ll create a setup, explain exactly what I’m doing and why, and then give everyone time to photograph it before we move onto the next location or technique.