How would you describe my wedding photography style?
Light and airy? Dark and moody? Illustrative, Documentary, Artistic, Traditional or Classic? So many potential boxes to tick off but which one best describes the style of the wedding photographs that I take?
One of the challenges of being a creative person is to put into words an accurate description of my own work. Because I believe this is a question best answered by others, earlier this year I asked Brides and Grooms on Reddit to describe and define what style of wedding photography suits my work best.
Here is that thread...
How would you describe the “style” of my work?
How would you describe the “style” of my wedding photography shown on my site?
Examples: Dark ‘n moody, True to life, bright n’ airy, Illustrative, documentary, Artistic, Traditional/Classic, ect. ?
I’m struggling with trying to find the words to define my shooting/editing genre so I’m curious as to how you would describe my work.
Thank you very much for your help and cheers to an awesome 2019 wedding season :)
PS. Lol, you’d think that after 10 years of shooting I’d have a firm grasp on this concept but, argh I still struggle with this stuff. I just want to make sure that I am properly setting the right expectations for my prospective clients when they Google then view my work.
I think "authentic" is good. You capture emotion very well!
Thank you very much for your feedback. It’s super awkward for me to admit that I’m struggling with something like this :) “Authentic” is definitely something I’m striving for.
Thank you for responding! I’m happily surprised to hear the word “modern” in your description. Lol, I dislike posing people ( generally speaking ) so it’s good to see that you included “ photojournalistic” in your description too. I appreciate your thoughts :)
I think it’s a combination of things. I see documentary/photo journalistic and I see a lot of emotive shots.
You have good composure and good exposure.
Also please don’t fall into the trap of over-stylizing your work with presets. (Remember the crushed blacks/reduced contrast craze of 17/18?) Avoiding those trends allows your images to be (and stay) timeless.
If you want a certain style to show through, find a certain approach to b/w conversion - be it low contrast, high contrast, or a certain process you do, make a signature look out of it and use that. B/W will always be timeless and sophisticated.
Oh gosh, that is excellent advice about the black and white images. Ya, know I’ve admittedly not focused too much on my delivery of black and white photos. I do include a b&w copy of every color photograph that I deliver to my clients, but as crazy as it sounds, I’ve completely overlooked the emotional impact that a b&w brings to my overall portfolio.
Most of the pics that I highlight on my website are in color (BTW, ya, your absolutely correct, I don’t use stylized filters because I 100% agree with you on the “timeless” aspect of my edits ) but omg, I can’t believe that I’ve missed that quality of communicating my emotional/technical style of photography through B&W pics. I’ll make some changes this week to include more emotive b&w content to my portfolio.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your insights :)
You’re quite welcome.
One thing:
I do include a b&w copy of every color photograph that I deliver to my clients, but as crazy as it sounds, I’ve completely overlooked the emotional impact that a b&w brings to my overall portfolio.
I am not sure i would go to the trouble here to do every shot also in b/w. Not every photo works in that style and it takes away from my next point.
In my portrait sessions, I cull and post stuff for the client to select. A couple weeks later, I follow up with a note that goes something like this:
after going through your images, I’ve selected one of my favorites to apply my signature black/white process. It’s hand toned to bring out the depth and contrast of the image, while being constrained to the bounds of black and white. This signature image is now available in your gallery. (Provide the link)
So - it gives them another reason to come back and view more images. I also do a special thing with those where I only print them on Ilford True B/W or Fuji Deep Matte, and they come mounted. It elevates them to being something special that way.
Of course any image is available in black/white, but when I take my “hero” shot and spend extra time on it, it is pretty special.
You don’t have to follow that recipe and make an upcharge item out of it - but it’s something you can think about.
Check out the Nik Collection by DXO - it's a plugin for Lightroom/Photoshop that was originally a startup company, then was bought by Google, then dropped by Google and restarted again by this new company DXO. It has really awesome black and white processing called Silver Efex, and tons of other useful tools. We don't process every single black and white photo we deliver with Nik, but most of the time will for portfolio/blog/highlight photos.
Cool! I will definitely check that out. The SilverEfex processing sounds like a great way to put my creative signature style to work. Thank you!
You could say your work is dreamy yet timeless— really nice, true-to-life colors, and it doesn’t look like your editing is super stylized (so your work won’t be super dated by your editing style.)
Thank you very much for your comment! That is precisely what kind of message I’m trying to get across. I tend to avoid extensive stylized editing or the use of filters in favor of true colors found throughout the day. It’s awesome to know that you see this reflected in my work. Thank you so much for your input, I really appreciate it :)
Agreed with everyone’s comments! Very authentic moments and I love your natural tones! You do have a photojournalistic approach. Love your work! :) I too am struggling to describe my style so this was a great idea to get some feedback from others!
Thanks for your kind words! Ah, that’s awesome to hear that I’m not the only one out here trying to figure this stuff out. Glad that this thread can help you too :)
You don't appear to be following the trends of light/airy or dark/moody, so I would say you could use the world 'timeless.'
You are correct, I am avoiding the trends. Timeless definitely feels like a good term to use. Thank you for taking the time to help me out with this :)
Just want to thank everyone who’s taken the time to comment on this thread. Seriously, you guys are awesome :) Thank you.
This thread was tremendous assistance in helping me understand how you guys see me and perceive the qualities of the photographs that I produce. Now that I know what you think about the meaning of the style of my photos convey, it has been allot easier to focus my efforts as a professional wedding photographer to create the best work I can for my future couples to enjoy.
Here is a link to my portfolio where you can check out the my style of wedding photography for yourself..
https://sallysiko.zenfolio.com/candid/photojournalistic/raleigh/wedding/photography
:)