Wedding photography: moving on… Part I

It’s an amazing thing, though – wedding photography! The buildup of emotions that swirls around this genre is unmatched by any other photographic genre. Ranges from indignation to ecstasy: “Turdishness!! – No, art! – No, just a feeding trough for cynical scoundrels! – No, this is business! – And I’m an honest photographer and I don’t take much money!”, and so on, with varying degrees of pathos..

Wedding Photography is a brilliant queen and a bawdy stepdaughter at the same time: it is despised by veteran photographers for its conformism, but it is fantastically beautiful by the true masters of the genre.

Photo: Maria Petrova

“There’s nothing easier than quitting to shoot weddings! I’ve done this many times!” From a conversation between Mark Twain and an unknown wedding photographer. . It’s an amazing thing, though – wedding photography! The seething passion that swirls around this genre is probably unique to no other area of photography. The range of emotions is from indignation to ecstasy! – No, art! – No, it’s just a feeding trough for cynical scoundrels! – No, it’s business! – I’m an honest photographer and I don’t take a lot of money!” and so on, with varying degrees of pathos..

Wedding Photography is a brilliant queen and a bawdy stepdaughter at the same time: it is despised by veteran photographers for its conformism, but it is fantastically beautiful by the true masters of the genre.

Once I gave up on wedding photography, I always return to it for some reason. My interest in weddings doesn’t fit into the framework of just the photo cards. This is enormous material for psychologists, sociologists, and it makes a whole philosophy to work out of it, depending on which way you look at it.

To begin with I propose to analyze the big picture: how to classify wedding photography according to trends, and what a photographer looks for in it, and what a client. And where is the perfect point of contact between them, when everyone is happy and satisfied..

I would venture to say that wedding photography is an area where anything is possible! Everyone gets exactly the “dream come true” they are capable of. You can look for creative customers and do only what you like. It is possible to go the way of standards in response to the average “consumer of services” and shoot ninety weddings during the summer. You can get the status of the most expensive photographer of our time and shoot twice a month for a fee, which others earn in a season. In the end, it can be abandoned forever and in a couple of years you can go back to your old job..

It all depends on the goal or, if you like, the pipe dream, whichever is closer. A wedding photographer’s main motives tend to fall into three points: 1 to make money 2 to express themselves creatively 3 to find themselves which adds up the previous two points in arbitrary proportions .

Oh, and as a bonus, “respect and gratitude”! The label “photographer” is considered quite prestigious, and the possession of expensive equipment and formal affiliation to the world of art have a hypnotizing effect on some average citizens. Certain immature minds even prioritize this status.

“A man of photography” is given great opportunities for creative experimentation if he wants to do more than just make a little extra money during the season. And for those who will truly love it, wedding photography will reveal its most beautiful side.

Abroad will help us!

“Who you won’t find in our database are wedding photographers. We only support true art…”. From one press release . I wish I could get a fresh start in life and become a wedding photographer now! With a fresh head and a clean slate, so to speak… One of the great achievements of the available Internet is the opportunity to study, including “out there,” abroad. Depending on the opportunities to participate in workshops – in person or virtually. Sitting all day long on the Web, studying what they do, how they do it, bringing to life the precept to “learn, learn, and learn”.

I honestly envy those who are going to become wedding photographers: a lot of valuable information has become available and there is much to strive for. In addition, if a person is an aesthete, a lover of beauty and generally strives for perfection, he is sure to reach a level where no one offends him, does not point a finger: “Look, he’s shooting weddings!”and don’t spit chewed-up papers in the back.

A few years ago, wedding photography was seen by many professionals photographers and reporters alike as hackwork, the work of craftsmen. Confess to the fact that you shoot weddings, as if apologizing and shy eyes: “Yes, I’m here it is … well … weddings here …”. And you feel like a traitor to the motherland and an ideological subversive who traded in his God-given talent for a place in the sun, warm and soulless. Considering wedding photography as a form of creativity has never occurred to even the most independent of “photowomen”, and in general, what decent big artist will draw inspiration from positive emotions? “A decent person should feel bad!”This unspoken motto of the American creative intelligentsia allowed no compromises.

A lyrical digression

I recently learned an interesting thing. Many excellent photo reporters leave Australia for other parts of the world. It turns out that everything there is so good that there is almost nothing to shoot, there is no sharpness at all. It is customary for masters of “big” photojournalism to strive for conflict zones.

It’s a well-known fact that negative emotions are stronger. However, Australia is famous for its wedding photographers, many of whom work in the genre of journalism. It turns out that if the source of creativity is not black but white, and it is fueled by positive emotions, then the “rotten” welfare is also able to grow a masterpiece of world-class.

By the way, the culture and aesthetics of holidays “over there” was formed somewhat different, people are essentially more positive and do not think it shameful to draw inspiration from pleasure. Although if you compare the topic of weddings and conflicts, I do not see a fundamental disagreement: as practice shows, the wedding is often the very beginning of drama and conflict..

In the West, the best wedding photographers have the same status as superjournalists and fashion photographers. Our photographers and of ours I include not only America but the entire former Soviet Union over the past two or three years, also learned to shoot very well, and largely thanks to Western colleagues. Methods that are new for us Western photographers have been using for a long time, and we have only to adopt and implement their bourgeois experience as far as possible, adapting it to our specific soil.

A little further we will consider two of the most interesting trends that can change the attitude to wedding photography, but for now let’s try to draw yourself an image of an ideal wedding photographer.

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

Orchestral Man

Here is a sample “standard set” of which may consist of a wedding day: the bride gathering, redemption, limousine, registration, wedding ceremony, promenade, dinner, varying degrees of luxury including a show with or without the light effects . In the case of maximum saturation all of the above elements are present. There is also such a fashionable thing as a love story, but it’s usually filmed in advance, unless the script of the wedding involves a game of dating.

And now imagine what qualities should have a person who signs up to capture such a “standard set” from beginning to end..

In addition to pure physical endurance to ride all day with a weighty technique , requires a set of non-standard professional skills, for one narrow specialization is not enough. Each part requires its own approach and skill: to catch emotional, lively moments on the fly, to work with different kinds of light at least natural light, flash and accessories like a reflector , to create static compositions, blending people into an interior or a landscape. Skills in working in very low light conditions, concert shooting skills, the ability to combine billets with impromptu performances, and relaxed communication in the process are also useful.

The most problematic part, which causes the greatest amount of controversy and disagreement, is the walk. It is the most ambiguous and depends on what the meaning of the walk put the main actors.

The fashion for a wedding photo session suggests that customers have high expectations connected exactly with the photographer, regardless of whether they imagine what they want or not. What should a photographer do: direct the process, ruthlessly building everyone for a few hours, or leave the couple to enjoy life and, becoming the invisible man, unobtrusively catch the moments that the situation throws up??

Quite often, taking into consideration our reality both cultural and financial , an ideaually beautiful tradition turns into a farce, when people in a limousine are chasing between nearby sights, trying to “get everything out of life” in a few hours. Why you need a walkabout at all, most people never stop to think about it. We shall consider the reasoning of the clients later on, but for now let us accept the photographer’s point of view.

There are three main ways a photographer can go:

to use standard stamps

to shoot “live” reportage

Staging something a photo shoot a la a glossy magazine, a walk on the rooftops, an action scripted like a gangster movie shoot or something like that .

Photo: Maxim Nikolaev

Falcon, I’m a Woodpecker! Over, over, over!..

“Ugh!”Danilov said to himself. He was a dandy, sometimes risky, but he did not want to adopt the Maklak fashion. Fashion is only created in Paris or New York, but it lives in Fatezh and Maklakov. By the time she reaches Maklakov, over her head will turn over ten times and she ceases to recognize herself, so with the advent of her and begin to wear Maklakov pants flared by one meter with bells and bulbs on batteries near the shoes.” v. Orlov. “Altist Danilov.”.The problem of the chicken and the egg in artistic circles sounds something like this: for whom do artists make art – for the people or for other artists?? Everything is clear with arts and crafts: making spoons is a useful craft, we use them for meals. And what good is a picture on the wall, except to block a hole??

Wedding photography, born in the USSR, for a long time was considered something like a wooden spoon. A lucrative craft, but not one that pretends to be art. How many marriages are registered every month in one city registry office?? And in a year? And multiplied by the number of registries and palaces? And people seem to be different, but photos are like twin-brothers, reminding of the old joke that a good deed won’t be called a marriage.

Tricks of craftsmen, because of which wedding photography has collected the greatest number of bumps, are stamps – common vulgar patterns. Recall: the bride in the palm of his hand, “peek-a-boo, who’s there??” from behind the tree, doves-heart-rings around the frame, and other aesthetic wonders. In our country, they have long discredited wedding photography in the eyes of people with good taste and creative thinking.

One of the main principles of sales – if the fish prefer worms, it is stupid to go fishing with strawberries. I mean: money sells well for what the consumer eagerly consumes. Our consumer concepts of beauty are used to scoop mainly from the TV and the neighbors, so the results of his representations about the aesthetics of the wedding and photography could not claim to be highly artistic. Except as a conceptual project in the style of the exhibition which in the 1960s mortally “offended” the Soviet Union against Yves Montand for taking to France Soviet women’s underwear of those times – ugly and old-fashioned. The aesthetics of “carpets, crystal, chandelier, to-everything-as-people” completely crossed out any attempts to be creative and deviate from patterns.

Where do they come from, these templates?? Someone invented them? Most likely it was like this. The wedding photo of the times of building a bright future was reduced mainly to a photo in the registry office at the moment of registration serious representatives of the new cell of society, with three nails, carefully listening to the parting speech and signing their names , and then a general photo on the stairs. This was done by regular registry office photographers, “sharpened” for this very type of activity. There were many complaints about the price-quality ratio, but there was no alternative. And for decades, nothing has changed.

A bright future in the form of perestroika lifted the iron curtain and the wind of change blew us indiscriminately good and not so good. Everyone wanted a change for the better, and our photographers, as representatives of the creative profession, from their part tried their best to get away from the pattern “mural – general picture”. Wishing to add liveliness and informality to a conservative action, everyone expressed himself in accordance with his notions of romance.

Back then they shot on film, they didn’t have digital processing capabilities, but they used different filters and multiple exposures to get funny effects with blurring and superimposition. Tricks with the space and depth of field gave the famous “bride on the palm” effect, and the guests were made to jump in formation in order to somehow cheer people up in any case, I think that from the beginning the jumping was just to cheer up the audience and add dynamics . Then “Photoshop” came in and polished it all over with hearts and doves.

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

“Throwing in” a garter or bouquet is an essential part of almost every wedding. Such a subject, when successfully photographed, looks “sort of” simple. In reality, this is not the case. A lot depends on the location, the ability to choose a spot and the speed of reaction. Those who have ever shot a “bouquet” are well aware of the percentage of shots that end up in the trash.

Any technique which over time turns into a stamp is primarily an innovation technical or aesthetic and has only good intentions. If you have any kind of worthwhile fun idea, you can be sure that after a while it will cease to be your domain and will go into the public domain. What will happen to it afterwards and what kind of bells it will be turned into by the admirers, only God knows.

I vouch for the fact that when the “bride in the palm of my hand” idea was fresh, it looked really quite funny in the original! The photographer who invented this trick made fun and witty pictures using a simple spatial effect the distance to the subject and the poses are chosen so as to create the illusion of a bride standing on the groom’s palm or vice versa, she pats his shoe .

At first, I couldn’t even think of calling it banality or scolding it in any way, it was all very nice and original. And then many were delighted with such a creative move and began to replicate it. At the same time not taking into account that the author knew how to work with the bride and groom, and emotions to capture, and in general knew what he was doing. And when a stamp is thoughtlessly reworked, for the hundred and eighth time it turns into a mere “gimmick,” tears itself away from its meaning and, having been allowed to drift freely, acquires the modern, tasteless look for which it is so disliked.

So what happens: everything that was once a novelty and a gimmick, in the end always becomes a “commonplace” and a standard technique? Yes, almost always! What becomes too much tends to devalue and become meaningless.

But luckily, that’s the key to progress! Photographers simply have to go further and invent something new. In addition, their army is replenished not only to the detriment of art. Thanks to the simplicity of controlling equipment, artists who have all right taste and ideas come into photography. It’s just that the old technique was contraindicated to them because of humanitarian thinking.

And new stamps appear regularly, they just don’t look like that until they get boring. And the meaning of the word isn’t always a swear word… Rather, it’s called a “fashion” or a “trend,” where everything becomes similar. And things can fall under this category, both talented and mediocre. For instance, in the past it was fashionable to tone everything opportunely and inopportunely in sepia, but now, on the contrary, they colorize it to look like an old color slide.

Or a very effective way to make some fabric flutter half a frame and everything looks glamorous, like in a glossy magazine. Someday it will reach critical mass and get boring too, but for now it mostly looks beautiful. The main thing is that it has to be appropriate… Like a font in graphic design: taken out of context, it doesn’t say anything by itself, “in action,” i.e. e. It’s beautiful in some elaborate cases, but in others it’s completely out of place.

People often ask: where’s the line between just your own work and recognizable handwriting? One’s own workmanship is almost handwriting. Almost… Until it was released to the masses. If it’s gone and not come back, no longer recognizable, then it’s not handwriting. Handwriting is so individual that it cannot be replicated the buzzword is “modeled” !

Photo: Maxim Nikolaev

Close-ups and fragments in themselves are very expressive and convey the mood perfectly. And then there’s the roll call of textures and compositional solution wonderfully intertwined and wrapped into a whole. A very beautiful and telling photo. For a photographer is a good luck to make such a work.

A lyrical digression

I have quite a collection of identical terry clone stamps from completely different photographers. I carefully lay them out in binders “horizon-skewed,” “femme fatale,” “cloudy groom,” etc. d. Not because I like it disgusting, but just to clearly demonstrate to my students how not to do. But a recent Internet find put an end to my research in this area. One talented young fashion photographer has practically nullified this “work of my life”, venomously and very wittily parodied almost all kinds of wedding stamps. Type “Tima Sergeyev, the woman in white” in the search engine and find a link to his LiveJournal – have a lot of fun, honestly!

After exposing the clichés, we are left with two areas capable of making wedding photography art: wedding photojournalism and “glossy” production.

Their fundamental difference is that the first one is a kind of documentary photography and tells us what really happened and how it was, and implies that the photographer fixes what is happening right in the process. And the result of staging “for fashion” may not even have a direct indication that it was a wedding. This type of staged photo shoots in the style of pictures in glossy magazines, and the wedding in it gives out only the dress, and not always…

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

Sunny weather is half the battle. There are a few more tricks to make a picture shine through. More about how to achieve such “glorious” results in the next issue.

Trappers of emotions reportage approach

It is our goal to use photography to tell the story of your wedding day, not dictate it for you. From the statutes of the Wedding Photojournalists Association WPJA . Wedding photojournalism can be divided into two parts. The first of them is absolutely truthful-documentary, does not involve the interference of the photographer in the action he quietly and unobtrusively captures what he sees . Your eye and your camera are what determines the result. The second branch still supposes some direction from the photographer, as well as the use of additional lighting equipment more on this in the next issue .

But what comes out in the end, in both cases, looks absolutely authentic – like still images from a movie. Genuine sincere moments captured masterfully, and nothing gives away the presence of the photographer, only “natural product” and “as in reality”.

The key words here are happiness, emotions, dynamics, everything is real… No worse than in “global” photojournalism: the same techniques, language, expressive means. Depending on the talent of the photographer catching light, composition, subject the result may look like a work of art, or just like an ordinary newsreel. Of course, the organizational part entourage, photogenic characters and the overall budget of the event is also important, but the photographer, in spite of his inconspicuousness, is the main figure here. Someone will say, of course, an expensive wedding is easier to shoot! That’s not true, it’s not easier! And if you don’t know how to shoot, you can screw up any shoot at all.

Of western photographers working in this field I really like the work of British master Jeff Asko jeffascough.com . When I discovered his photos, I had no idea yet that he had repeatedly made it into the top ten wedding photographers in the world. I mean, my love for his work is devoid of any bias.

So, Jeff, in his approach to wedding photography, adheres to the key word “unobtrusive”. “Once the photographer starts directing what happens in front of the lens, the wedding becomes not what it really is, but the photographer’s idea of what the wedding should look like…” Jeff has made it his mission to use only natural, available light at the moment, and within that he builds a picture out of found rhythms and geometry.

And in a way that’s not only pleasing to the eye in the image as such, but also tells a little story that happens in the moment. In more than twenty years of work he has shot weddings of celebrities from the world of music and cinema, and small family celebrations. But in any of these cases, his approach remained the same.

He calls his style “documentary wedding photography”, that is, the goal is to create a historical document of the day. And regardless of the scale of the wedding, he does the best he can and puts himself out there completely. The Association of Wedding Photojournalists WPJA unites photographers who adhere to this very trend in their work: documentary wedding photojournalism, which is based on the principle “use photography to tell the story of the wedding day, not to dictate this story”.

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

“Elements of a Sweet Life”

“Krr-r-r-asota!”Ellochka the Ogre. The representatives of the “glamorous” trend take the exact opposite view. Australian photographer Jerryghionis jerryghionis.com , no less titled and also in the “top 10” of the world, believes that if a lot of money and effort has been spent on a wedding including a dress , it is strange in this situation to rely on chance. He takes everything into his own hands and fully directs the process, directing in the right direction. The result is fantastic, everything is extremely beautiful and “glossy”, as on the pages of expensive fashion magazines.

Actually, the word “glamour” translates to charm and glamour, a symbol of luxurious lifestyle and outward glitz. This is what our country has been deprived of for seventy years. Unsurprisingly, luxury has been thrown into the mix with the energy of Ellochka the ogress, without regard for the fact that any culture does not develop overnight, and needs to take root on a consistent basis.

“For weddings,” this style comes from staged photo shoots for glossy magazines. The picture is valued as a self-sufficient staged extravagance “the model” is inscribed in an environment, interior or landscape , but emotions are usually absent. A kind of cold detachment and confidence in a certain superiority over the world. A picture for the sake of a picture, a thing in itself… As already mentioned, it may have some relation to a wedding, because it is photographed as part of it, but there is no direct connection to the event. Playing a fashion shoot and a photo model. This involves the use of additional light sources and accessories e.g., video light and reflector , going into nature to parks and manor houses and other predetermined places . It is also desirable to have an assistant photographer.

In a shoot like this, the biggest challenge isn’t even the lighting or the entourage. In contrast to magazine “fashion”, the photographer has to work with non-professional models, and this style has developed a very unique style in our country as indeed is the case with everything connected with the concept of luxury . The problem is that not everyone who wants to shoot in this style is ripe for it not physically, no . The simple proletarian glamour which sometimes substitutes our notion of glamour sometimes resembles a fight between Ellochka and Vanderbilt: in the end the “glamourish” and the Mexican tightrope walker wins.

Our girls in the desire to view themselves as glamorous beauties are not always able to soberly assess their appearance and artistic ability in this context. “I want it like this!”and that’s all there is to it. But here, excuse me, a pedigree face with a correct makeup, and we have shadows with sequins, VIP version of the dress style “baba on the teapot” and for the entire “photo shoot” – an hour and a half between the registry office and the restaurant … The result? Technical quality, yes well-defined light, no question. Something is missing… I’m curious, for example, how to cope with such a situation. Very good test of how to make a pineapple pie from a rutabaga..

Conclusion: a decent photo shoot in this style requires a serious financial investment in the organization of the wedding and good preparation of the subject high-quality makeup is a must ! . And a good photographer, of course.

A little digression

I will return to the theme of stamps for a moment, now in the context of “glamor”. In my opinion, the main cliché of our time is the highest technical quality and the absence of meaning. My first reaction is, “Wow, this is great!”And on the hundredth photo you begin to guess that it is, apparently, not so very difficult, since so many people are producing the same chic pictures. As in cars: all shapes – sleek, all colors – metallic.

To be continued.

Photo: Edward Scherbakov

By combining reportage with staging, the photographer acts as a director and cameraman in one: he builds the picture and simultaneously shoots it, keeping it moving and not letting it get stiff. You don’t think that a shot is composed by a photographer, looking at the sincerity of the situation.

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

When people are really happy, they do not need to be entertained, they know what to do. The only thing for the photographer to do is to choose a good spot and not to miss anything, making the most of the situation.

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

Photo: Elena Dubrovina

Photo: Asya Gordeeva

An honestly spotted picture of a ‘master class’ – not a bit of interference from the outside. From the photographer “only” is the ability to see the light, catch the moment and manually correct the exposure.