For years I rebelled against the wedding industry’s love of pigeon holing photographers into ‘types’. I squirmed when there was talk of reportage, vintage, classical, fine art etc. I resisted the need to join a club.
However, I think I am over it now. I still refuse to call myself x, y, or z but over the years my images (pics to normal folk) have been more and more in the photojournalistic (pretentious? Moi?) style.
I try to direct and interfere with my “subjects” as little as possible. Of course I am still more than happy to do group shots and I always love a bit of 1 on 2 time with my couples to get some great shots of them together on the big day. However, the rest of the time I am merely (nearly always) an observer.
My Ethos
I believe what couples want from their wedding photography is some shots of them looking great, and some nice group shots of friends and family. They then want to be able to look back and see that people had fun. They want to see folk laughing at speeches, crying at the vows and dancing their arses off when the band fires up. If you agree then I may just be the photographer for you. If not then you will probably be better off going for one of the photographers who claims to have met their life partner on a volcano and loves the smell of puppy breath.
As a general rule, when choosing your photographer, those who have a photo of themselves holding a camera on their website should be avoided. Any photographer who has images containing selective colour, you know them, black and white photo with colour flowers, needs to be reported to the United Nations for crimes against good taste.