Real Wedding Photography
Real Wedding Photography, what does that mean?
I have spent the last 15 years educating myself , learning, perfecting my craft to make sure that my clients get the best wedding photographs I can produce. If you take a good look at my site you will see that emotions are very important to me and my understanding of what makes a powerful timeless wedding photograph. That is what I call real wedding photography.
Wedding photography is an art form, I am certainly not an artist, I actually hate the idea of wedding photographers referring to themselves as artists. We are photographers, simple as that. We photograph the most important day of our clients lives and every photographer needs to remember that it's the clients important day and not the photographers.
Education
My education has been ongoing since 2005 when I first went to a seminar by a leading wedding photographer in the UK. From there I have been to the US, Brazil and Spain, constantly seeking snippets of value that will help me with my work, and produce stronger and stronger images for my clients.
Even now I can see aspects of my work that I am not 100% happy with and need to improve on. The journey to being the perfect photographer is never ending and it reminds me of when I used to play a lot of golf. The minute you think you have the game of golf figured out is the minute you start shanking the ball all over the course. A photographer's journey in never ending.
Educating the general public on what makes a good photograph is getting harder and harder. Photographs are now everywhere, good and bad. They are a part of our everyday life. From celebrities being retouched to within an inch of their lives, to Instagram filters that can make a 30 year old look like a newborn. Trying to distinguish my photographs from my competitors in my eyes is easy. My images do not need a caption, I don't need to explain what's happening in the pictures, the narrative is already there.
I get so disheartened when I see wedding photographs on a website or online that don't contain a narrative. A wedding is story from the time it starts to near enough the time it finishes. A story is unfolding in front of the photographer and guests that needs to be told. A series of detail shots, whilst nice I'm sure do not tell the story of much if anything. Yes they say the bride wore a particular brand of shoe, or dress, but that's about it. These shots do not say much at all about what happened during the bridal prep.
Posed wedding photographs
Posed photographs are an essential part of any wedding collection, but again they don't really tell the story. It's nice to have them of course, and I provide them, but they are not my main focus. I see so many staged photographs of the bride and groom prep. Bride standing in a window, groom looking at his watch or touching his cufflinks. These are lazy shots that for a template of photography. They were taught back in the day when photographers mainly shot of film and when only a very few photographers had the skill to photograph the day as it unfolded.
My first wedding was shot on film and I was taught that the whole days photographs would be classically posed using building blocks and templates handed down from photographers who shot weddings in the 1980's.
Times have changed, technology has changed and there is really no need to orchestrate a wedding from start to finish anymore. The day should flow without interruption.
I'll leave you with this thought. A good friend of mine who is also a wedding photographer was asked last week if he did "spin and grin" shots like "XYZ" photographer. I can only imagine that this means interrupting the natural moments of the day to get what can only be described as cheesy momentless photographs. That's not a wedding photographer, that's someone with a camera and a website.
I have recently been voted one of the best wedding photographers in UK to view more of my work please follow the link below
