Orange wedding photographer Kirsten Cunningham garners national honour

It was in 2017 when Ms Cunningham moved to the city from her Central Queensland home, just a year after starting up her own business.

What she found in the Central West was a void waiting to be filled.

"There's a lot of luck to be honest," she said when asked what goes into creating a successful business.

"The main wedding photographer - Seth Buchanan - left two weeks after I moved in. I realised pretty quickly that there was a huge gap that he'd left in the market."

With two kids under the age of two, she had "more work" than she could handle and subsequently went part-time for the first three years of Orange living.

But once the kids were old enough for day-care and she was able to transition back to full-time hours, the jobs came flooding in.

"I was fully booked," she said.

But what stood out above all else was the way those in the business treated each other.

"Orange is really unique in that in the wedding industry. There's this really strong sense of community over competition," Ms Cunningham said.

"We do all work together and because of that, our industry compared to other places is getting stronger and stronger because we're all growing together. We're not wasting our energy in that competitive space."

But while it's always nice to have the support of your peers, having the national spotlight shined on you doesn't hurt either.

For the past three years, Ms Cunningham has entered into the Capture Magazine-run Australia's Best Wedding Photographer's competition. It wasn't until this year - in which she featured in the top 20 for best single shot - that she placed high enough for her work to be published in the magazine.

"I couldn't believe it," she said of first hearing the result.

"It's always great to get some sort of recognition and to know that you're on the right track with what you're doing and that other people can see value in what you love.

"I obviously love those images, but art and photography can be really subjective. I try to enter awards to gauge where I'm at and also push myself creatively."

She also picked up a top 30 honour in the portfolio category as well as two highly commended awards.

Having been a photographer for more than a decade now, Ms Cunningham was asked what it felt like to take part in what many couples would consider one of their most memorable days in their life.

"It's absolutely incredible. The person that someone getting married spends the most time with on their wedding day is their photographer, sometimes even more so than their partner," she said.

"It's a real privilege to have that intimacy with my clients. I see everything; I see the relationship with their families, I see them getting dressed, I see the inside of their homes. I get to share all of these incredibly intimate moments with them when they're in a very vulnerable state.

"They're happy, they're excited, they're anxious and I never ever take that trust for granted. I'm there to capture one of the most important days of their life and I really try hard to focus on trying to tell their story. I want to document that in a really beautiful way."

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