Jose Villa ยท Santa Barbara

About

Jose Villa is a fine art wedding photographer based in Santa Barbara, California, photographing weddings on film for couples around the world.

Approach

People usually ask how the style came about. The short answer is that it is fine art photography applied to a wedding day, which is a living, fast-moving thing that will not wait to be arranged. The pictures are made on film, in whatever light the day gives.

That means standing in the right place rather than staging the moment, and trusting film to hold colour and skin the way it does. The aim is a set of frames that feel as particular as the two people in them, and that will still read well in twenty years.

The work has been published in Martha Stewart Weddings, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue Italia, BRIDES, Inside Weddings and The Knot, and named among the top ten wedding photographers in the world by American Photo. Weddings are taken worldwide, from the studio in Santa Barbara.

A bride carried down lantern-lit sandstone steps beneath a red canopy, sparklers burning either side of the stair.
Procession
A toast at the head table, taken between candelabra and low bowls of blush roses.
Candlelight

Practice

  • Portraits01
  • Weddings03
Frames
04
Based
Santa Barbara
Weddings
Worldwide

Enquiries for weddings anywhere in the world are open.

Get in touch