David Chater

For 17 years I wrote television previews for The Times, during which time I watched 20,000 programmes from beginning to end.

To avoid going completely insane, I would walk in the park every day with my dog, carrying a camera and photographing anything that moved. Squirrels. Birds. Trees. Flowers. Other dogs. Above all, people.

As a wedding photographer, I try to lurk in the background as unobtrusively as possible taking thousands – literally thousands – of photographs throughout the day, and afterwards I spend three days selecting and editing them. There is so much spontaneous love at weddings – such an outpouring of hope and optimism and goodwill – that I will do everything possible to capture those moments. It is more of a cheerful obsession than a job.