Why having a real photojournalist
photograph your wedding makes a difference
As a photojournalist for over 25 years I’m trained to find the decisive moments. Often times I only had one shot to tell the entire story. This is what photojournalism is all about: Documenting stories as they unfold.
Weddings are all about emotions. People want to experience real life as it happens. They want to remember their wedding day, without someone asking them constantly to move or stand a certain way. They don’t want to remember the photographer making him dip her back like that. They want to remember the spontaneous moment — the real moment. Then they can say: “That’s what I look like when I’m really living my life. That’s who I really am.” Today’s “trendy” wedding photojournalism happens when a photographer takes photos that have become expected in the genre. Someone decided that it was photojournalistic to take a photo of the dress hanging on a hanger. Now every photographer takes a photo of the dress. That is not [wedding] photojournalism anymore.
Other, au currant photo poses to be wary of: dipping the bride; the jumping bridal party; tilted horizons. Tilting photos does not make you a photojournalist! And close-up detail shots? - Don’t just take a picture of the shoes, and then say, ‘OK, I got that.
We can look back at the 70s and 80s and say, ‘Oh that’s so passé,’ but we’re doing it again, just with a different set of pictures.
Recording instead of directing the wedding day
Brides and grooms need to understand the difference between real photojournalism and the trends some photographers are buying into.
The photojournalistic style is not about the experience of the photographer being in charge and directing the whole day; it’s about recording it.
Brides and grooms should be advised to do some research, and then ask themselves some questions — and be honest: Do you want your wedding photographer to have control of how you look? Do you want him or her to be directing you during the day? Or are you the type of people who would rather not worry about the photographer, but instead have someone who is there to document the day as it happens, free from interference? Are you confident enough to let the moments speak for themselves, or do you already know how you want the photographs to look, and you simply need a photographer to help you set them up and capture them?
There’s more to picking a photographer than simply picking a style. Each photographer brings characteristics to the job that will influence the photos. The traditional photographer is more apt to mingle with the crowd, talk to people, and interact. It's his or her personality. The documentary photographer is more of an observer, watching people react and interact.
Real moments... you can’t fake them
It’s that observing eye that captures the reality of a wedding — the real moments that you’ll remember years later when flipping through your photos. There is beauty and art in reality. It is a fad no more than a mother standing back in awe of her daughter's beauty is a fad, no more than a tearful father walking his daughter down the aisle is a fad, no more than life is a fad.
We have all flipped through well-worn wedding albums of parents, aunts and uncles, and even grandparents, chuckling at dated hairstyles, handlebar mustaches, peach taffeta bridesmaids dresses, and powder blue tuxes. Wedding photojournalists might contend that these photos wouldn’t seem so out of style if more emphasis had been placed on the un-styled, un-planned moments of the wedding day, rather than the prescribed agenda of highly organized groups of people staring at the camera.
On the contrary, naysayers insist wedding photojournalism is merely a trendy, passing fad that disrespects the venerable traditions of the classic posed shot. They point out that tradition, and true photographic quality, is often sacrificed for grainy, natural-light candids that claim to be art.
Others scoff at the idea that tears and laughter recorded forever will soon be going out of style. - When real life goes out of style, we’re all in trouble. When is that ever going to go out of style? Real moments – you can’t fake them.
Remember how you felt on your wedding day
When people look back at their wedding photographs, they’d like to remember what they felt at the time, not just what they looked like, which is surely to be out of date 20 years later. What really matters is the actual experience the photographer is documenting...