Over the last eight years their has been considerable change in the wedding photography industry. The driving change element has been the advent of digital photography. Six years ago, many of the digital cameras did not provide a consistent quality of color when photographing in environmental light. This was the reason for a resurgence of black and white wedding photography. If the image had poor color, the photographer simply converted it to black and white and presented it as artistic interpretation. Today, most of the professional cameras provide excellent and consistent results when photographing in mixed lighting situations.
Digital photography offers many tremendous opportunities. The greatest of which is the ability to photograph scenes instantly.
The cameras are getting better and the quality of color captured is excellent.
The automatic light meter can and is easily fooled. Less experienced photographers are easily lost when the camera cannot read the lighting for a scene.
Effective use of electronic flash and the use of available light are areas requiring expertise. It takes a trained eye to see the various qualities of light. When shooting for the quality of light, it is about the subject and the lighting on the subject.
About 8 years ago, Dennis Reggie introduced the concept of photojournalism. Reggie talked about the need to photograph the wedding unobtrusively, with a minimum of direction. The photographer was there to record the day, not make the day. It was about capturing the moment.
Dennis Reggie was a photographer of celebrities. His fee’s were expensive and he was more of a celebrity photographer. One image that jumps out at you is the picture of John Kennedy Jr and his wife in front of the chapel and John kissing his wife’s hand. A beautiful, unscripted moment that found it’s way into many a magazine. So you really think that Dennis Reggie didn’t call to John to kiss her hand? More often than not, those are moments that the photographer see’s and helps the couple to live.
Celebrities are used to being in front of a camera and do not like to pose for candids.
If you are photographing an event with someone of celebrity status, you will typically receive directives from the coordinator. There will be instructions, directing you to not ask the celebrities to look or pose for a candid. I found this to be the case when photographing Bill Cosby. He was a great guy to work with, but his directives were firm. No posing unless he asked for it.
Bill did ask to be photographed with a group of students and for those students, he did request and direct posed photography. But for the rest of the event, no posing and no direction from the photographer.
About 3 years ago, a number of really talented photographers from Australia were on tour in the US. Marcus Bell, Yervant and Jerry Ghionis were in Massachusetts. I had the opportunity of seeing all three of them. Each one held an all day seminar and each one presented a style of photography that was typical of what was in style in Australia.
Their approach was quite different to what American photographers were used to. It was loose; it had a nice relaxed look. There was a lot of spontaneity. And it had a very definite fashion component.
Each photographer provided a certain amount of direction to get the look. So it was more of a compromise style. Posing with direction but with a very relaxed approach. The Australians required a lot more time for photography. They featured both the groom as well as the bride, photographing the men and the women separately and together before the wedding. Their clients allocated several additional hours of time to photography before the wedding. And the photographers did provide a fair amount of direction at times during these sessions.
The finished product resulted in more scenes, more photographs and a wider selection of photography. The Australian photographers created wedding photography with a stylized, and looser look. Their photography also had a fashion and glamour component. In some instances the posing and lighting was much more dramatic.
Would the average American bride want all this extra attention? I think it really depends on the person. You really have to know your client and what they like and feel comfortable with.
All three Australian wedding photographers were accomplished film photographers who made the transition to digital and embraced the opportunities offered by digital photography. It was because of this understanding of photography that they were able to push the limits in posing, exposure and dramatic lighting.
Posted on November 6th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: about Wedding Photography
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