About Melissa Clark
Destination wedding photographer, based in Queenstown, New Zealand
I’m Melissa, a wedding and elopement photographer based in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Originally from the UK, I now call the mountains home, where life revolves around fresh air, slow mornings, and time outdoors with my partner Greg and our dog, Finn. You’ll usually find us hiking, camping, or discovering new places, the kind of environments that shape both how I live and how I photograph.
My approach is calm, considered, and unobtrusive. I work with intention, allowing weddings to unfold naturally while focusing on connection, composition, and the quiet details that give a day its texture. I’m there as a steady presence, observing, anticipating, and documenting moments as they happen, rather than directing them.
Photography has been part of my life since I was a teenager, and over time it has evolved into a deep appreciation for storytelling and honest imagery. Whether I’m photographing an intimate mountain elopement or a full wedding celebration, my aim is always the same: to create photographs that feel refined, grounded, and enduring.
I'M MELISSA - IT'S SO NICE TO MEET YOU
/ A visual, storyteller for loved-up souls. Documenting wedding days in Queenstown, New Zealand & International.
Photographing with intention
Weddings aren’t a performance, they’re a lived experience. My approach is rooted in presence, intuition, and trust, allowing the day to unfold naturally while I quietly document it as it happens.
I don’t believe in over-directing or turning your wedding into a photoshoot. Instead, I step back, observe, and respond — giving you the space to be fully immersed with the people you love. When it’s time for portraits, I offer gentle guidance and a calm hand, always leaving room for authenticity and emotion to lead.
Light, atmosphere, and connection are at the heart of everything I capture. Whether we’re standing on a windswept ridgeline or tucked away in an intimate celebration, my focus remains the same: honest moments, thoughtful composition, and images that feel timeless rather than trendy.
The result is a body of work that reflects not just how your wedding looked, but how it felt — quietly cinematic, deeply personal, and true to you.
My relationship with photography began quietly — with a small point-and-shoot camera and an instinct to document everything around me. At first it was my family and friends, then slowly the landscapes I grew up alongside — light, weather, and place becoming just as important as people.
Over time, those two passions naturally merged. Weddings became the space where human connection and environment exist together — fleeting, emotional, and beautifully unpredictable. It felt like home immediately.
I still feel a quiet excitement every time I open a new roll of film, never quite knowing what moments were captured. The in-between glances, the way someone reaches for a hand without thinking, the final light brushing across the mountains as the day fades — these are the details that continue to draw me back, again and again.
Photography, for me, is about noticing. About slowing down enough to see what matters, and preserving it with care. If you value meaning over perfection, and presence over performance, I’d love to tell your story.
Melissa is an extraordinary person and a superb and talented photographer. Overall a marvelous experience. If you choose Melissa, you get a professional photographer for whatever kind of wedding. But if you’re lucky, you made a friend too!
S&N
KIND WORDS
