Moose Jaw-based married wedding photographers Joey and Shannon Holoien will have their work featured in British Vogue’s “Match Made in Vogue” and Vanity Fair this summer, news they say was a welcome, exciting surprise.
Their photos appear in British Vogue in May, June, and July, and Vanity Fair in June, July/August, and September.
The couple have travelled across Canada for wedding shoots, but it was a recent wedding they photographed in the Northwest Territories that caught publisher Conde Nast’s attention.
“The wedding that we shot in Inuvik was for an Inuit slash Saskatchewan-y kind of wedding,” Joey explained. “The groom is from Saskatchewan, and the bride comes from Inuvik, and we went to high school with her for a little bit, so that’s how she found out about us, and then she’s been on the cover of Elle Magazine.”
The shoot put a spotlight on the Holoiens’ work that has increased their profile and given them a chance to show off their skill and unique style.
“We decided to feature her for the July issue, and we featured a couple people for May and June already, and coming up we have Vanity Fair for three months,” Shannon said. “We’ve been featured in Confetti Magazine, which is a pretty popular Canadian wedding and bridal magazine, and that was our first feature, but yeah, Vogue and Vanity Fair are pretty big for us.”
Joey and Shannon have been together since high school — in fact, they met in a high school photography class. They shot their first wedding together in 2016 and carried on from there, both as a couple and as business partners.
Their talents mesh nicely, they said, with the only problem being occasionally having too many ideas and having to narrow things down and compromise. Joey leans more toward the video side of things, and Shannon is chief editor.
“We try to make everything feel as natural as possible. We work a lot on our posing,” Joey said. “We try and make couples feel like they’re just having a good time. They don’t even feel like they’ve been posed for the whole session, and yet we’ve touched on every detail.
“We focus on warm tones, true to colour but very vibrant and bright.”
The Holoiens love capturing other people’s wedding days and said in some ways they get to relive their own wedding again and again.
“We’re just so grateful to have had Vogue and Vanity Fair reach out, because we live in a pretty small community, I would say, here in Saskatchewan,” Shannon added. “And these magazines are worldwide — it’s pretty crazy that they even found us and we’re really grateful for that.”
Check out Rockbamboo Photo & Film on their website at www.rockbamboophotofilm.ca.
