Photojournalistic Wedding Photography
Wedding days are approaching, you have a list of questions to answer to, and a list of struggles and concerns. Yet the biggest list of them all is your to-do list.
When you have chosen a date, it’s time for the proper selection of wedding venues. Once you’re done with the location, the rest may seem much easier. However, things start to complicate at this moment. The list is not linear anymore, and it expands with all the little details you need to take care of before the big day.
Choose a wedding dress, and don’t forget about entertainment. The last thing you want is bored guests. And then catering, florist, hair and beauty, wedding cake. It may seem like the list is endless. Our main advice for handling this situation is to surround yourself with professionals.
They know how to do their jobs. Couples tend to overlook this and to save a couple of bucks, or for some unknown reason. In the end up, they pay much more – with money and their nerves as well.
When it comes to wedding photography, this is the area of our expertise and safe ground. With a team of highly skilled individuals, we make the job of putting together your wedding album look like a fun game. Like your wedding party, we will be where you need us the most, to overcome your expectations, as we did for many previous customers.
On the other hand, our blog may serve you as a learning platform and may resolve all your doubts. Although photography is our key competency, here you will find a wide variety of different topics covered.
In this article, we are going to speak about photojournalistic wedding photography. You’ve probably heard about it – it’s one of the most popular wedding photography styles.
You’ll also be introduced to other wedding photography styles, and we will compare them. By the time you’ve read this article, you will know if photojournalistic wedding photography style is for you, and if not, where to look next. Enjoy it.
What are the different types of wedding photography?
Although we’ve already done a full article on different wedding photography styles, here we will mention the popular ones again.
An all-time classic and the regular choice for most of the soon to be newlyweds is the traditional wedding photography. This is the safest option among all wedding images, and the success is guaranteed. It comes with the set of rules and guidelines making it pretty difficult to mess up.
Poses are prepared in advance and the photographer is guiding the couple all the time. A formal portrait is a perfect example of this style. You’ll commonly see the family portraits and the other popular variations of posed portraits.
Dramatic and artistic wedding photography styles are among the most creative styles. What artistic style is about, you may already guess by its name. Photos are dreamy with mellow and bright colors, transferring gentle emotions.
These two are very related categories but are sending the complete opposite message. To add drama, within the photography world, it means to make strong lighting, with a lot of black and white color, and to make a strong focus on the subject. These are the wedding photos with a bold and powerful message.
We cannot speak about the modern approach to wedding photography without mentioning the drone camera and the beauty of an aerial photo. Capturing from the air is way more challenging, for obvious reasons.
Yet, as a reward, it gives you the best footage from the unique point of view. By filming with drones, you will not only capture the beauty of your wedding day, but you’ll explore the natural beauty of the surrounding area.
What is photojournalistic photography?
Photojournalistic wedding photography is realistic. It’s the unposed and authentic way of narrating the story of the wedding days, kind of like documentary style wedding photography.
We like to describe photojournalistic wedding photography as a block of breaking news with your wedding as the main topic. The idea is to transfer the scene, emotion and the message of the moment to the audience.
Photojournalism has a specific set of rules. To take a perfect shot, you need a very trained eye and a highly skilled photographer. This is because a specific emotion, touch, look or feel may last only for a second. There may be plenty of photographers declaring themselves as photojournalists, but only a few are good ones.
A big benefit of photojournalistic wedding photography is a subtle presence of a photographer. He will be somewhere in the background capturing moments. And you and your guests will be able to enjoy the moment of happiness. You won’t feel pressure to make a perfect photo. The guests won’t be left alone, without newlyweds, because they had to do a quick, 3-hour photo shooting.
Don’t get me wrong, photojournalists are more than willing to take all the formal shots. Including all the prearranged and posed portraits. But comparing to the other styles of wedding photography, this won’t take half a day. That’s not their primary focus. A couple that’s willing to transform their wedding into a photo shooting set is not going to hire a photojournalistic photographer. Or at least we hope so.
The photojournalistic approach includes all the supporting actors. That makes a huge benefit of photojournalistic wedding photography. While the narration is focused on the brides and grooms, several side scenes are happening around.
And exactly these side scenes have the power to turn the whole narration from good to great. As a star of the show, you will be too occupied, and a huge number of mini-stories will pass unnoticed. Luckily, your photojournalistic photographer will be there catching the whole beauty of the wedding day.
The day after, or a couple of days after, when you manage to go through all photos, you’ll have what to see. From your little nephew picking his nose, through all the little emotional conversations caught on camera. You’ll feel like the photos are talking. The quote saying “a photo is worth a thousand words” is not a coincidence – here you’ll truly understand that.
Who is photojournalistic wedding photography for?
Wedding photojournalism is for people who look at the world through objective and impartial lenses. You prefer to hear a story in a way it happened, and not through filters and effects, even if it seems more beautiful like that.
As a movie, you would rather have a good thriller or a documentary, than a sci-fi or fantasy. Maybe except for Harry Potter. Everybody loves Harry Potter.
What do you think about the idea of posing in front of the camera for hours, to get a perfect portraiture? Doesn’t seem like a perfect match? That means you may be considering the right wedding photography style right now.
Photojournalistic wedding photography is for all of you who don’t want to spend the entire day in front of the camera. A wedding photojournalist will capture the story from the distance, and you won’t be disturbed. You can also consider an optional photo booth with a photojournalistic style. This way you will have more time to enjoy and indulge at the moment.
Traditional vs photojournalistic wedding photography
Congratulations! If you’ve come to the point where you need to choose between different traditional and photojournalistic styles for your wedding day, it means you did your homework.
Before you decide between these two, we will need to find out what type of model are you. To achieve so, we want you to take a look at the photo album of the event where you’ve been to. Also, social media can help – we don’t need a printed copy of a photo for this. Now divide these photos into two categories. On one side, group the photos that are taken spontaneously.
On the other, select the regular, posed ones. Spontaneous ones are representing photojournalistic wedding photography. Posed photos stand for the traditional approach. After this, the result will be simple. Pick a side you find more suitable for yourself, and you will know which wedding photography style suits you the best.
Is it the same as documentary wedding photography?
Documentary photography and photojournalistic wedding photography may seem the same when you look at them in the first place. The same principles and rules apply to both. The goal is to capture the raw emotion of the moment, with no room for fake smiles and odd poses. They are narrating the story in the same way as it is happening.
The main difference lies in the width of the view. The documentary-style is building the best possible story from different candid fragments. Yet, photojournalism is aiming for the best transfer of the emotion of the moment.
Compare documentary movie with breaking news. A movie is long, with a big introduction, all the details, fine art, and lots of information. On the other hand, breaking news is strict to the point, with the immediate transfer of facts and emotion. Just like the photojournalistic wedding photography.
What should I look for in a wedding photographer?
Even more important than the photographer himself is the style of shooting. Since you already know the difference between wedding photography styles, you can tell which one suits you the most. From that point, you should find the best wedding photographer that works within the same style.
You and the photographer need to be on the same page to achieve the desired results. Therefore, style-match is a must. And this is the only advice we are going to give you. The other factors are more technical and you’ll get along with them.
How to get the best memories out of your wedding photography?
For most of you, a wedding day is the first time you’re dealing with a professional photographer. Once you picked the right style of wedding photography, you did the most of the job. Yet, to get the desired, perfect results, you will need to take care of a couple of things.
- Trust your photographers
You like what do they do, you like how do they do it, and this is why you hired them. Also, you have planned the course of events in advance. Leave them the ownership and the responsibility of doing things the right way. A huge detailed list of requirements can only kill the creative freedom of the photographer. You need to believe in their expertise.
Being worried and suspicious is alright, this is (probably) your fist wedding. You are confused – but they are not. Remember, they did this a hundred times. They don’t hear the words you are saying for the first time in their lives, and they are familiar with your (not so) specific situation.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to emphasize what’s important to you. Communication needs to exist. But don’t push it too much in detail – it will be counterproductive. This especially applies to photojournalistic wedding photography where they need to keep the flow of the story.
- Appreciate the natural light
Artificial lighting doesn’t mean better photos. Natural light is extremely important, especially in the morning, during the preparations. Transforming a room into a cave, and turning on the yellow light is not going to do a favor to anybody.
Pull away the curtains, open those windows wide and let the light come inside. Also, the makeup artists prefer natural lighting over artificial. It gives you a better overall result.
When you are picking the location for preparations, make sure they have big windows. You need the sun shining inside, especially during the morning. You don’t want to be in a basement with windows like mouse holes.
Also, if the wedding is indoors, it’s always better to have walls covered in light and pastel colors, comparing to the dark and vibrant ones. Think of photography as an art of playing with lighting and colors. If this is nonexistent, the final results will be just average.
- Restrain your guests during the ceremony
We are living in a world of smartphones, and everybody has one in their pockets. Nothing can harm photographers during the wedding like a bunch of people clicking with their phones and flashlights on. To prevent such problems from happening, ask your guests to keep the phones in their pockets and to feel and enjoy the moment instead. Especially during the main ceremony, cake cutting, and the first dance.
You can tell this on the microphone just before that moment so everybody is informed. In this way, photojournalistic wedding photography will stand out. Compare a photo of guests on their phones, to the scene where everyone is bursting with emotions during the sentimental moment. Huge difference. Right?
- Take care of the time
This may get the trickiest of all. Remember that everything is going to happen one time, and you will need to do a lot of balance. You want to shoot every little thing, yet you cannot miss anything important and need to fit everything in a time frame. That’s why you need a proper schedule for this.
During the first couple of hours, everything is about the preparations. Groom’s preparation, and the bride’s preparation. While the groom’s shooting may last an hour or two, a bride’s is usually much longer, lasting up to 4-5 hours. Shooting preparations is much more than taking photos of a suit, a wedding dress and a couple of portrait shots. Your day is much more than that. And for proper photojournalistic wedding photography, we need to start in the morning.
For the ceremony, you need to give enough time and space for photographers to prepare everything. This is an especially important moment, and the proper placement of equipment is essential. Photographers need to come to the location of the ceremony sometime before.
If you agreed on shooting on some different locations for your wedding or engagement photos, don’t forget to plan all of that properly. You don’t want to be late for your wedding.
- Have fun
Yes, we know about all the stress you’re going through. But in the ocean of tasks and obligations, we forget that the whole process is supposed to be fun, and we should enjoy it. Forget about all the details and the little imperfections.
This is your special day, and we are all here for you. You need to let go, and we will make sure to turn all your fun, candid moments into the best memories. This is why photojournalistic wedding photography is the best style of photography. It allows you to go there and do what’s natural to you.
