Wedding Photojournalism

Add True Wedding Photojournalism Skills to tell a complete and unique story.

As photographers we pursue the technical. We love the equipment to the manual modes to the lighting. These pursuits push us and makes us better photographers and that is undeniably true. This allows us to make images that stand apart from the crowd and even allows us to enter into competitions improving our overall skill set and gain recognition among our peers. After the many years and the many weddings we have photographed, I would say invariably what couples tend to treasure the most are images that are uniquely theirs. Wedding images that tell a story, their story! This is often referred to as Wedding Photojournalism.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing images for competition or images that require a high degree of technical expertise. These are part of a photographers complete skill set and should be brought to every wedding.

I believe clients value and have a higher degree of attachment and intimacy with images that are unique to them….because those images always have a story behind them and it is ALWAYS their story…

In the images above we had a wedding where the journey to the actual event had been storied and deeply valued. Hence emotions were high as were the celebrations….The image in the upper left was shot while they were inside the car capturing the reflection of the couple in the mirror from outside the vehicle. The facial expressions in the 1st dance tell the story and the last image, what ended up being one of the final dances of the evening was full of emotion and movement, which I love and so did our couple…

In the image collage above you will see an image of the shoes and dress that were found in the hallway where someone had dropped a few rose petals….a quick rearrange and we had the shot. The image of the practice dancing in the getting ready room is full of spontaneity and joy.  The last image in this collage is one taken bounced from a mirror while the bride was deep in prayer just before the wedding.

For this collection of wedding photography we have a shot from and through some greenery from an outside service. The image beautifully depicts the joy of the bride as she watches her father give her away. The next image shows a terrific example of how you can get real emotion and reaction from the couples formals.

This image stands alone as one of our favorites. The grandmother had been ill but at the wedding her full spirit was on display. The bride has told us many times that this particular image means so much to them as they had not seen her grandmother like this in many years and could now always remember this moment…If you ever needed a reminder why our jobs are so important read this again…

The joy of celebration was all over this wedding and with a couple who loves classic black & white photography. This is a great example of how weddings do not have to be huge or over the top to be beautiful.  It is the size of the hearts in the weddings, not the size of the wedding that counts.

Sometimes all it takes is a single image to convey a beautiful moment. Another of our favorite images. This was shot on a 70-200 at around 3.5 then textured in Photoshop to relay how it felt, not just how it looked.

This was not a overly large wedding and the 1st look was fantastic as you can see here. One of the formals was shot with us guiding and asking how the couple felt as opposed to how they looked and it ended up being very classic and timeless.

The first look for Dad was a tearjerker for everyone around and the full tight hugs show the enormity of the moment. One of the last dances of the evening had the couple surrounded  with perhaps the best dancing by any wedding party ever in terms of emotion and staying power…

The getting ready image on the left was taken totally unnoticed by the bride yet purposely done to show her natural beauty and was a favorite of her husbands at our unveiling. It was a lasting testament to someone so humble on just how incredibly beautiful she is inside and out. The exit was picture perfect (pun intended!) and shows their individual personalities, relatively quiet reserved beauty and somewhat extreme spirited extrovert

This collage shows both great celebration and impromptu group posing and gathering that were instant classics…

For this Florida Beach Wedding we wanted to highlight lighter colors and a sense of beach air….the getting ready mirror bounce was totally non-staged and most of us would be smiling at our reflection if we looked that good. The balance of the images were from the couple after ceremony beach setting but shows wonderful interaction between the couple as they played in the sunset..the final star-kissed moment was nothing more than lining up the setting sun with a kiss.

One of my all time favorite images. During the ceremony I noticed the little girl kept peering around and between the bride and groom to see what was going on. On one of those times I caught her, curls, inquisitive expression and all for a timeless image of one of wedding photography’s little, small and beautiful back stories.

The getting ready often offers excellent opportunities especially with the girls, but the guys have their moments too as this image of father and son and the humor of tying the tie was priceless.

The last image shows the bride and groom reaction to their friends, who were NOT singers, belting out a version of ” Islands in The Sun” where some were holding their ears and others were holding their stomachs from the guffaws and laughter.

In closing, what I hope we have stressed here is to pursue technical excellence and bring it to your clients through wedding photojournalism. Speaking for ourselves, we have a long way to go to be where we want to be as photographers. What I do hope we stressed is to get to know your clients.  Love them. Know their story. Then write that story with light to the best of your ability.

While it may be true that there is no such thing as a  perfect image, there ARE perfect stories.

Keep shooting and may all your shooting be happy…practice to develop great timing and press “heart” on the shutter…