You’ll find many photographers who pigeon-hole their style of photography: Contemporary, traditional, reportage, fine art and so forth are all popular phrases for photographers. From the client’s perspective they usually do not really understand the differences –they simply see modern or old fashioned looking wedding pictures.
Particularly in wedding photography the important thing is to capture emotion, and one thing which clients really appreciate in wedding images is the natural look – they get that.
Wedding photographers are often in conflict with tradition in trying not to focus on ‘standard’ photographs. Such images are cliché and for a client comparing photographers – it can be very difficult to differentiate. Such tick-tock imagery is bound to lose its impact with clients, but clients still want these pictures regardless of the style they have booked for; the cliché lives on.
How to address this problem is one that more successful photographers have acknowledged. Shooting with a wide lens aperture for example gives a more modern ‘movie’ ‘3D’look to images, pulling the viewer to a particular component on the scene. Capturing candid expressions in this fashion can take cliché shots and present them in an incredibly natural fashion that is always a hit with the client.
Other photographers focus on timeless images. Being able to anticipate the action and be prepared to capture it is a valuable skill. Photographs that captures the mood of the moment as it unfolds appear timeless in that their emotional impact is just as vivid today as it will be 50 years on, and there is nothing in the picture that will seem overtly dated. Simplicity is a key tool for the professional photographer and the best images usually happen by themselves. Authenticity brings out the story in wedding photography. If the image is overcooked in post-production that purity is lost.
Use of colour or not is also a cliché. Spot colour (where a single element of a black and white image is given colour) is generally frowned upon by most modern wedding photographers, but clients still really like it (they probably will not in 10 years). Similarly pure black and white photography is traditionally regarded as artistic and well suited for portraits – colour is often a distraction in a busy photo, so a conversion brings back simplicity to the composition. Often in wedding photography, the use of colour is rarely artistic at source – but applied in post for clichéd effect.
Unfortunately there is a trend among most clients to expect as many pictures as possible from their wedding, but they also want to book their photographer for as few hours as possible. The result is that the photographer does not have time to capture much more than the cliché pictures. Simply herding guests together for a long list of ‘requested’ shots from the couple is a real time waster, and impatient guests make for pictures that are not natural in form. Similarly, a private portrait session with the bride and groom is also critical, but there is often little time to find scenic backdrops and explore poses and props that would really create memorable pictures that are not cliché.
Ultimately, wedding photography has moved on thanks to technology, but remains cliché due to expectations and tradition. Unless you are prepared to pay a premium and devote extra time on the day for the wedding photographer, that’s what the market decides.
This article is copyright of www.Visualsnap.co.uk – Kent wedding photography. Established and Professional Kent photographer and supporting wedding videography services for London, Surrey, Kent and the south east of England.
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