Warm-lit shop window reflection showing a framed line-drawing of two faces, a railing and a faint silhouetted figure.

Jarred
Eid

Melbourne photographer

Based: Melbourne, Victoria
Experience: 16 years photographing weddings. Nearly 600 weddings.
Selected work: Weddings, portraits, photo essays, painting.
Press: Published in all major wedding publications. Australasia Top Emerging Wedding Photographer 2 years in a row, but really hates the idea of award systems, so disengaged a long time ago.
Contact: Details here

Connection takes time and we’ve got just that. I set up a direct line of contact where you can reach me anytime with anything big or small, like a friend. When you book me, we start this journey together, and the work is the record of it.

A bearded photographer in a dark jacket stands on a park path with two cameras at his hips, city towers behind him. — Jarred Eid001

An elderly man and woman wave at the camera from a suburban driveway beside a letterbox numbered 17A. — Jarred Eid002

Handwritten note on lined paper recounting a bride crying and laughing during the groom's speech in 2009

Bride laughing as she holds the groom's hands on a rocky shoreline, a sunlit bay and spiky plants behind them.

Bride in veil with arms around the groom's shoulders, both close together in front of a blurred bay and hazy skyline.

Handwritten note on lined paper about heavy rain and wind nearly stealing the veil before couple ran for cover, 2016

Bride in a windblown gown and groom tossing his hat on a stone jetty in a rainstorm, city skyline across the water

Groom and bride stand on a balcony with a white bouquet, overlooking their wedding reception below.

Handwritten note on lined paper describing a father seeing his daughter as a bride and crying together, shot in 2014.

A bride in a veil gently holds a man's face in her hands as he closes his eyes, in black and white.

Bride in white stands behind a groom and an older woman seated at a dinner table with wine glasses in front of them.

Bride in a white one-shoulder rosette gown holding a red cocktail with mint in a dark reception room.

Close-up of two elderly hands resting on the back of a cream silk jacket during an embrace

Guest in a pale blue halter gown holds an instant photo and orange camera behind her back at a dim reception

You have a desire to be seen for who you are.

I think we all do but maybe sometimes some of us want to be framed in a greater light, but not you, you want to be seen.

You’re done with the over-commercialised state of the creative service industries and the ‘posers’ it attracts. (that came out a bit harsh) Simultaneously it drains your pockets and your soul of any inspiration.

I guess we’re all hoping to find someone who sees it the same way.

You didn’t settle in your search for true love and you need someone who understands how that feels.

Maybe I wouldn't get it if it wasn’t for my own experiences.

But I do.

So, I’ve been looking for you too. Lovers who moved too fast or very slow but either way with intention, reflection and a lot of heart

You overcame massive barriers to get here, not just the pressure society puts on finding the right partner but also the internal struggle of letting yourself fall into it.

I like sentimental people, courageous lovers and those who can surrender to the beauty and magic of love.

I want to make images you want to get lost in the more you look at them.

An ode to your heritage that expresses truth to those who will adore you, long after you’re gone.

My thoughts on why I shoot weddings

Experience doesn’t exceed the truth, but in combination it becomes invaluable.

16 years ago I went to my first wedding, it was a defining moment that shaped my outlook on what love is and how I found the importance of telling that story.

I wanted to see love up close, in all its forms. It has been an obsession.

I knew I wanted to be a photographer and I didn’t know what my subject would be but as soon as I went to a wedding I knew that there was so much depth to be explored there.

I have become very experienced in this work, it’s been 16 years and nearly 600 weddings. Experience means less time worrying and considering things like lighting or composition or anticipating an important moment. It means there is space and time for presence, to see clearly.

It’s a shared experience and professionalism is a weird word.

I am transparent unconsciously and keep an open heart in my work.

I try to be someone I would trust with documenting such important images.

So when you book me, we start this journey together. Connection takes time and we’ve got just that. I want to learn all about you, I want to start observing straight away, and I want to meet your families and your closest friends so we can break down the barriers before the day. I set up a direct line of contact where you can reach me anytime with anything big or small, like a friend. The more the better.

On the wedding day, I’m bringing my full creative expression. I’ll be there for you, working and present.

I regularly slow things down and help you pause when you need to. But ultimately this is so subtle that you may not realise.

My goal is to be invisible for most of the day, like white noise in a black outfit.

I’m not directing in a way that steals the show or shooting photos that simply tick the boxes. I’m constantly observing and trying to move gracefully. Everything I perceive is going in and forming an understanding of how the day feels, who plays certain roles and importantly where was the love? What was the evidence of what this couple made together?

With my entire being, I believe that art imbues magic when it is created and expressed honestly. So I think there is a certain importance of who the artist is and what they embody to consider when commissioning them for this work.

But I also think the work you commission me to do should give you a piece of me, my life’s experience and my own expressions of what life has been like for me. The images should have a certain transcendence upon observing them, they should speak of something I saw as much as they are something you experienced.

How did I get to here?

At first I kind of fell into it. A bit like any first love.

Very quickly I found myself in Noosa shooting my first celebrity wedding when I was 20. I won some awards and that didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. Nonetheless, I was on a high, flying around the world. Being the prodigy in the eyes of wedding planners and publications.

Within a few years, I had packed up everything and moved to QLD, after receiving an offer to work for my favourite photographer and my idol at the time. That was fire, but when I say that I mean it was a deeply refining and difficult time for me. I was thrust into the most prominent weddings in Australia and I learned some defining lessons in regards to the craft. I learnt techniques and knowledge that still are completely inaccessible and considered to be ‘gatekept’ information.

Anyway, life went on. I turned down a “Million Dollar Wedding’ that was going to be filmed by Channel 7, because I felt like I was lost within this wedding industry beast. I thought this was what I wanted but truthfully I just wanted to be around love. I packed up my life and went away for a while.

Personal tragedy struck, some existential realisations and I found some dark places eventually alone in London. I was on a break from weddings assessing what happened. I came home with nothing but the destruction of my former self.

Covid solidified some more misery but digging into my life and past became a defining turn in my work.

Art became my priority, as a philosophy and a way to be in life. I loosened up my style, emptied myself and focused on breaking all the rules I learned over the last 12 years of my career and started getting to the essence of why I even wanted to take photos in the first place.

I found my partner in the wildest of ways and I moved to Melbourne to start this new chapter.

Now presence and essence are the core of my expression. It’s been refined, I’ve been refined and after all of my reflection, this is something I can offer.