When couples start looking for wedding photographers (and to an extent all wedding vendors) they are overwhelmed by choices.   In the case of choosing a photographer one of the most important things to use in the narrowing down process is “photographic styles”.   The problem is most couples don’t have a really firm grasp on styles – and from spending a bit of time browsing photographer sites, I’m pretty darned sure there’s not shortage of clueless shutterbugs out there when it comes to styles as well.   It seems to my eye that a lot of “aspiring” – and a few established –  photographers think photographic styles is nothing other than another set of keywords to use for google searches.

Wedding Photography Styles versus Shooting Styles

One think to keep in mind is in my mind Wedding Photography Styles and Shooting Styles are two different things.   A wedding photography style is how I approach covering a wedding and presenting the results afterwards, whereas a shooting style is how I like to take pictures.

For example:

Shooting everything wide open at F1.2 to 2.8 is a shooting style – common to bokeh addicted photographers.

Available light photography is also a shooting style of someone who perfers not to (or more common these days – doesn’t know how to) take control of the light with artificial modifiers and flash units.

There is no RIGHT style

There is an important thing to remember, neither of these wedding photography styles are any better than the others.  There is no shortage of photographers who shoot each style nor clients who appreciate each style.   My personal bias might come out in my discussion of these style – but that doesn’t mean my bias should apply to everyone.

Overview of styles

I tend to break down current wedding photography styles into three areas.

1. Traditional
2. Photojournalstic
3. Illustrative

Traditional Wedding Photography

One of the major elements of traditional wedding photography is the emphasis on posed and setup looking pictures taken from the photographer.   In this style the photographer becomes somewhat of a wedding official, directing the flow of the wedding.  These type of photographers tend to work from shot lists and make sure every element is captured in the same way they usually capture it.  I know one photographer who even has each couple go through their cake cutting in the exact same way, right down to the groom taking a dab of frosting and touching it to the brides nose.   Key elements of the ceremony will likely be restaged to get various closeup and alternative angles of the ring exchange and kiss for example.

There are benefits to this type of photography style since the photographer is following the same routine they have followed many times before.   They have taken that cake cutting picture so many times they can nail it perfectly each time – to them it’s like shooting in the studio and the bride and groom are the models.  This type of photography is great for the couple who are most interested in those perfectly taken key posed photos.   They want the full run of family formals, posed wedding party shots along with the somewhat more cliche ones (now all the bridesmaids and groomsman jump, look shocked as the bride and groom kiss, etc) and of course table shots at the reception and are willing to design their timeline around the time this takes.

Now of course the the downside to this style is it can be very time consuming and the bride and groom will typically have less time with their guests and more time posing in front of the camera.   While the end results will likely look good they can be predictable and tell more of the story of how the photographer sets up the shots as opposed to any spontaneity of the day.

While this style is most often practiced by photographers who have been doing this for some time there seems to be a lot of newer photographers who do use this style – even if they don’t realize it.  They my pooh at the notion of “traditional” wedding photography yet have a portfolio filled with nothing but obviously posed bride and grooms.

An example of a nationally known photographer who in my mind is that best of the Traditional Wedding style is David Ziser.

You’ll most likely note the fact that while I offer many links for the styles listed after this I really only have one for this – and well that’s simply because it isn’t my favorite of styles.   I don’t like to browse traditional photographer styled websites and blogs as much so I just don’t have a bunch of links ready for them.   It is what it is.

Photojournalistic or Wedding Photojournalism

Wedding Photojournalism came about in the 90′s and is largely credited to Denis Reggie.  The idea being the photographer is there to capture the nuance and emotion of the wedding as it organically happens – to document the wedding as it unfolds – instead of a proactive and director of the wedding and wedding photos.  The emphasis is on story telling and capturing the moments instead of telling people where to stand and where to look.

This is a style suited for couples who don’t want to spend a lot of the day posing but rather want to an accurate capturing of the day to remember the day they planned, as they planned it and as it occurred.  They just want to savor their day and have photography that will capture the feel of their unique wedding and story.

There is a downside to this style as well in that since the photographer is capturing the day as it occurs the resulting images can be unpredictable and can vary a lot from wedding to wedding.   Since there tends to be less flash photography used in wedding photojournalism the results can also be poor in the hands of an inexperienced photographer without the proper cameras and lenses to shoot under those conditions.   It’s easy to be an “available light” photographer in a slightly overcast but bright day outside but it’s a different story when dealing with a dark church.

When it comes time to choosing images for albums some clients might regret not opting for a more traditional photographer and a stronger emphasis on posed and staged pictures, their parents often being the first to complain about the lack of traditional posed shots.   Famed wedding photojournalist Joe Buissink once said something like, “There is no perfect picture, only a perfect moment”, but honestly not every couple (or their parents) see it that way.

Some amazing wedding photojournalists (besides myself of course)

Denis Reggie

Joe Buissink

Jeff Ascough (his black and whites are a huge inspiration to me)

Illustrative or Fashion Inspired

Note: This style is also sometimes called Fine Art wedding photography – but I think “fine art” can be used to described wonderful pieces of photography from many different styles so I prefer the term Illustrative.

This style is the newest and growing in popularity due to no small fact that many wedding blogs love to showcase this style of work because it does look like a illustrative shoot from a fashion magazine in many aspects.

The illustrative photographer produces images that reflect design elements by placing subjects in settings and compositions with backgrounds – as well as lighting and post production work – to give it that fashion shoot type of feel.   The style is somewhat mixed between traditional and photojournalist in how the photographer acts with the clients, giving more direction and posing than the photojournalist yet encouraging a spontaneous feel in their posing rather than a formal look.   The resulting images bring out more of the photographers artistic creative and compositional skills rather than merely capturing the moment or setting up the perfect shot.

To an extent this may sound like the best of both worlds to many couples – and in some cases it is.  It’s not as posed nor as spontaneous as the other two styles.   But it does have it’s own disadvantages as well.   One of the problems with this style is since it revolves so much around the photographers “artistic” style – the resulting images could have an over photoshopped and dated look to them in just a few years.   Right now texture overlays and 70′s looking faded colors are all the rage – but will that style last forever and if not do you want your photos to feel dated on your 20th anniversary?   The other drawback when it comes to photographers who do a lot of post production work is that their style and image processing tends to evolve faster than the other two styles.   The post production you fell in love with in their portfolio might be something the photographer shot last year and the images from your wedding next year might not be done in the same way at all.

Photographer in this style as I see it:

Jose Villa – Since he shoots mostly film I really love his work even if it’s not entirely my style.

Jerry Ghionis

Yervant

Sallee Photography - emphasis on their artistic post production (photoshop) work

Styles and Photographers

In my opinion many photographers these days are slight blending of all of the above but with a preference to one style over the others.

For example I view myself as about 85% photojournalist – 10% illustrative and just a dash of traditional to round it out.   The vast majority of the day I’m working on my own capturing events organically as they unfold without my interference or direction.  When I do have to take control I prefer to set scenes and allow the clients to interact with each other (almost entirely how I do engagement sessions) and create that way – and when I absolutely have to resort to traditional posing for that few formal shots to keep mom happy and if the bride REALLY wants the shocked bridesmaids gasping at her garter picture before letting me go back to doing my own thing.

That doesn’t mean I think all photographers can shoot, at least not well, any of the styles.   When I see a photographer state how they’ll approach your wedding day coverage any way you want then I get the feeling what  I’m looking at is one desperate for work photographer who thinks being all things to all clients is the way to go.   If a photographer is that desperate for work it’s usually because they aren’t that good.

Couples – look at some of those sites above and get a feel for the differences of the styles and then look at the portfolios of the photographers you’re thinking about and not just whatever they call themselves, remember not every photographer even knows what their own style is or is using whatever name they think is currently trending to gather more clients (there’s that desperate photographer again).  Finding the photographer whose style you most want to see in your wedding photos the years following your wedding is vital to making sure you’re happy with the investment in wedding photography you make.

Photographers – be honest about your style and present it as it is.   Don’t worry there’s a lot of clients looking for everything and you’ll do better in business focusing on finding the right clients instead of just any client.  Stop thinking of style as nothing more than a google keyword to get more page views and focus on finding those clients that just love your style as it is.

The crescendo of the wedding ceremony is often, The Kiss.   This is the moment where every aunt, uncle and cousin is firing their cameras.  Now to help those pictures come out here’s a simple tip, don’t rush it.   That’s right just savor the moment, that first kiss as husband and wife.

I’ve seen a couple or two over the years just peck each other, snap – it’s gone.  Granted I still get my shot but I don’t have the luxury of a few shots to choose from and of course if your mom has a point and shoot she’ll never get it to focus and fire that quick.

So it’s your moment, just enjoy it, and don’t rush it.

Until next time,

Mark
View my portfolio site | Contact Mark Hayes for your upcoming wedding

The timing on these photos typically depends on if the couple is seeing each other before the service or not.   If seeing each other before the service then many of the formal setups, along with a “first look” set of photos, can be taken before most the guests start arriving for the service.  This is a great opportunity to knock these out of the way early and thus free up time between the ceremony and reception.

A few benefits of seeing each other early and doing the formals before the ceremony:

1. Everyone is at their freshest.   Makeup and hair has just been done and is perfect.
2. Relieves some of the stress off the rest of the day.  Getting that first look done early gives you a chance to spend some time with the most important person in your world this day before all the emotion of the ceremony hits.   This often helps relieve the stress that can build up during the waiting time before hand.
3. Limit time everyone has to spend between the ceremony and reception.   Once the ceremony is done most people are ready to go celebrate, this makes that happen faster.   Photos are also easier before hand since there isn’t a handful of family and friends doing the paparazzi part and slowing down the formals as they get their copies of every shot.

Typically for family and wedding party photos regardless of before or after the ceremony I’ll go for the basics such as:

• Groom w/ groomsman
• Groom w/ bridesmaids
• Bride w/ groomsman
• Bride w/bridesmaids
• entire wedding party
• B&G with brides extended family
• B&G with brides immediate family
• B&G with brides parents
• B&G with grooms extended family
• B&G with grooms immediate family
• B&G with grooms parents

Those are the core I alway try and knock out right away.   When schedules are tight these can be handled in usually under 15-20 minutes.

If there are requests and time available we then work on other combos, Groom and his dad, groom and best man, bride and her mom, bride and maid of honor, etc.

The key to making photos before the ceremony work however is having everyone at the location early enough to do these photos.  If doing family photos early don’t tell you brother it’s ok to show up just before the ceremony.    All it takes is one person not showing up until just before the ceremony to relegate an entire block of photos to after the ceremony and loosing some of the benefit of seeing each other early and knocking out the formals ahead of the rest of the activities.

Until next time,

Mark
View my portfolio site | Contact Mark Hayes for your upcoming wedding

Mixed Lighting

Tungsten balanced spots, fluorescent lighting in other general area, and that one funky light from the 70′s that defies color balance.  Mixed lighting is usually among the least noticeable at first glance but most noticeable in pictures.

Different types of light has a different kelvin “temperature” and in turn effects their shade of white.   Sunlight is one shade while bare bulb indoor lighting is another.  This is why in the old film days you had an outdoor film and a “Tungsten” film.   If you shot an indoor shot with an outdoor film it gave you that warm orange effect.

For the most part while we can see the different shades of a warm, green, or cool light, our eyes and brains tend to compensate for it and we simply see white as white with a casual observation.

Now all modern digital cameras have adjustable white balance, so they can compensate on the fly for the “color” of the light.   But even this can break down when multiple light types are used together.  Often the best solution is simply to balance the color properly on the most important or focus of the picture and let the rest shift if need be.  While this can lead to orange or greenish tones on a background this is often better than unusual skin tones on the bride and groom.

If flash is used it might be possible to filter the flash to match the background light, so then most of the tones will be more stable.  This works well if dealing with simple tungsten or florescent lighting – not so well with usual light sources and strong mixes of lighting.

Of course such mixed lighting images while making for color images with unpleasant tints often make for wonderful black and white prints.

Poor Lighting

This can be common both at churches and at many reception venues.   While candle lit ceremonies a wonderfully romantic they don’t always look that way in anybodies photos.   If your reception venue has that nice and dark nightclub feel your photos probably won’t be bright with few shadows.

With poor light the photographer typically has three options.

Flash - sometimes this is all you’ve got.   There’s a lot of options for providing your own light on camera, off camera, bounced, diffused, studio units fired by radio remotes, or even video hot lights.

Now how well the results will be will largely depend on the skill of the photographer in working under these conditions.   Using flash is a particular skillset and not every photographer who might pull off amazing outdoor shoots is skilled at this.

High ISO and fast lens.   Sometimes one of the newest generation of cameras that can give you a usuable image at ISO 1600 or better combined with a F1.2 fixed lens can let you shoot just about anywhere.  I’ve shot stuff in pool halls that was tack sharp hand held with no flash.

Photographers you best bet is going manual mode at times like this and let some of those areas go black, most other exposure modes will keep looking for that 18% gray and may wash out the shots.

Even with newer cameras high ISO’s can lead to a lot of color noise.   Now even when this noise gets to unacceptable levels you can usually still make a nice looking black and white or duatone print out of it.

Tripods.  When all else fails lock that camera down on a tripod.  In situations where nobody is moving fast, ceremonies, toasts, etc you’ll get some solid pictures.   If it’s during the dancing, you’ll get some interesting abstracts.

So brides and grooms, take a moment and think about what types of photos you’ve seen that appeal to you most.   Is it the bright and airy shots or the moody ones.   If you love bright and airy photos and have a nightclub feel for the reception hall, you may be disappointed in your dance shots.

Photographers, just make sure you communicate with your clients what to expect.   The biggest mistake you can make is not communicating with your clients what the lighting will do for their photos.

Ten years ago the model for wedding photography might have been to pay a base fee for the coverage, receive proof prints, and then order final prints and an album.   Chances are they had a package price offering giving you a slight discount if you committed to so many items up front.    But the client was totally dependent on prints from the photographer, after all they had the negatives.   Some studios might sell the couple the negatives after a set period of time, and you always had wanna be photographers charging budget brides a few hundred dollars to shoot the wedding and turn over the rolls of film – exposed with images of questionable quality.

Now in the digital age it’s about the image file and the majority of the clients want some type of option on a disc of images.   Either for their own personal backup to ensure they’ll have access to the images down the road, or so they can print their own proof images, or even for scrap-booking.   Heck with the things you can do with iPhoto these days and screen savers on your HDTV there’s a multitude or reasons to want the images on disc.

But the question is, what are you really getting on that disc of images?

Most photographers pricing models either allow for the images on disc to be purchased as an add-on or are included with the wedding coverage.  But besides the images there is also some variety in the size and “finish” of images.

With some camera’s shooting well over 20 megapixels just keep in mind that I obtained wonderful 8×10 prints from my first Canon digital SLR, with was 3.2 megapixels.  We tend to think that 300dpi is the magic number for printing, meaning that a 8×10 image would need to be 2400×3000 pixels, but many labs can print at 200dpi without noticeable differences and some from even smaller files.   As long as your images are at least 2000 pixels on the longest edge you will likely be able to get a reasonable quality print up to 8×10 in size.

Now the edit or “finish” of the files varies a lot from photographer to photographer.  Most commonly what I see are SOOC, Base edit, and full edits.

SOOC, straight out of the camera.   These are the digital equivalents of film negatives.   The image is there but lacks the fine tuning to get a top of the line print.  The difference is 10 years ago that fine tuning was done by the photo lab, now it’s done by someone before having the file printed.

Base Edits.   The image file has been adjusted for exposure and contrast.  This file should produce a good quality print on par with simple lab prints from yesteryear.

Full edits.  You’ve got the files edited fully and ready for fine prints.

Now despite what how it might appear full edits are not always better than base edits or even unedited SOOC files.   Much depends on the skill of the photographer and the quality of their equipment.

One of the problems is that too many fledgling photographers have a “I’ll fix it in photoshop” mindset.   They think they don’t need to get the exposure or even composition right, because they can fix it in photoshop.   Then often they proceed to butcher the files with poorly done glamour edits and cheap special effects.   Get the wrong photographer and your “fully edited files” might leave you with images looking like the entire wedding party had plastic skin.

On the other hand I’ve seen highly skilled photographers nail the shot so well that an unedited SOOC file of theres was far superior to the fully edited file of someone who “fixes it in photoshop.”

So which is better?   Neither.    This article isn’t about which is better or worse for the client to receive, it’s about making sure the client knows that not all digital files are created equal and the quality of your file will largely depend on the quality, skill and experience of your photographer.

In some ways from a clients perspective the no edits or base edits could be the “safest” option.   The problem with fully edited files is now they are locked into that  style of edit.   If you love the job that was done on the edit that might not be too bad, but with a SOOC or base edit you’ve got a lot closer to a negative that still has all it’s potential available to it.

All types of files can be valid depending upon a photographers business model.   Some photographers don’t edit anything that isn’t selected for an album or print directly from them.  That’s how their business workflow is built and that’s the product they offer.

The client just needs to make sure they fully understand what is and what isn’t on the image disc, and to understand that sometimes the more basic file might be more desirable.   Photographers, the best thing you can do is make sure your clients are fully informed during the initial meeting as to the files you may be providing to them.

Like I said, I think all options are valid – as long as everyone is one the same page and understands fully what to expect.  Most of the time when I see problems in this area it’s because of a lack of communication between client and photographer, which leads to expectations not being met and bad feelings.

Until next time,

Mark
View my portfolio site | Contact Mark Hayes for your upcoming wedding