Moesia Davis

Moesia Davis thinks of herself as “the uninvited guest to a party” when she approaches a wedding. Having already developed a personal relationship with her clients—that have led to maternity and newborn sessions with those couples—she aims to photograph every moment of the day, “from the early moments of getting dressed to the last call for Champagne,” as quietly and covertly as possible. She doesn’t make a production out of formal photos, and she doesn’t bring any distracting lights or equipment (she shoots both film and digital on Pentax and Canon cameras).

Davis knows herself as a wedding photographer now, but, she says, “there was a time when I hated myself as a wedding photographer.” Focusing too much on photographing like others to get work, she says that all changed when she moved to New Orleans. “I realized that there shouldn’t be any restraints on my creativity in order to satisfy other vendors and clients,” she says. “I started shooting everything I wanted, exactly the way I wanted to shoot it. I stopped worrying about social media followers and started focusing on fruition. It changed my life.”

Check out the official announcement of this year’s 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography, along with the editors’ observations on the list of 2020.