When I got married thirteen years ago there really was no such thing as photojournalistic photography, just traditional; if I could turn back time, I would have loved to have my wedding photographs tell a story of my big day! Don’t get me wrong, I think you have to have some traditional photography included such as the family photographs, but for the most part photojournalistic photography truly captures your day with fun and your pictures reflect it.
So what is photojournalistic photography and what is the difference between traditional and photojournalistic photography?
Traditional wedding photography can be recognized as formal color photos where people are posed and looking toward the camera –say cheese! Traditional is characterized by lots of direction, involvement and control from the photographer. A typical photo shoot with pre-planned ideas and lots of direction or ‘magazine style’ posed images and artificially set-up ‘romantic’ fantasy images stems from the traditional, studio-type photography. Today any photography that requires setup and direction, (planned time for photos) stems from the traditional. Advantages: predictable & repeatable results (i.e. cookie cutter) pre-planned, easy to execute. Disadvantages: time consuming, uncomfortable posing; stressful imposition on event plan and timetable, can be fake looking, not real.
The dictionary has defined Photojournalism as telling a story with photos. In wedding photography today photojournalism has come to be known as documentary photos of wedding day events as they happen with little involvement, direction or control from the photographer. The photographer captures a moment as it happened without orchestrating it. The images are created by being more realistic.
Photojournalism is often marked by the photographer having little influence and manipulation of the event but only documenting what was naturally occurring without any input. The advantages of photojournalistic photography is the photographs are natural looking, there is much less stress, real memories of real moments instead of contrived ones, the photography happens around your event timetable rather than as an interruption of it. I see very little disadvantages to photojournalistic photography, but before deciding on whether your style is traditional or photojournalistic here are some things to think about when choosing photojournalism as your style for photography for your wedding day. There is some unpredictability, you won’t know beforehand what your favorite photo will be or even what will be taken, and you may not ‘look your best’ in every image as photojournalism is “capturing the moment, not creating the moment”. However, if the photographer you choose for your photography is great at what they do they will delete the images that do not represent you well!
Whenever a potential client comes over for an interview I truly think it is my responsibility to share with them how I shoot, the style of photography I do and the difference between traditional and photojournalism photography! Overall, I think it is critical to find a photographer that provides the style you are looking for and most importantly the personality that will make your day fun and enjoyable.
Here are some fun images that truly reflect photojournalism photography; these clients were such a joy to work with and their images reflect the fun we had together. Enjoy!
No Peeking!
