WEDDING GUIDE

The Art in Wed...

Introduction by da...

By davidB/2exposures

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If you are looking around for a wedding photographer, this publication is crucial to understand the basics of the industry. It is aimed to help couples and amateur photographers in their aspirations and needs. This book is not a directory. You will find all you need to know about wedding photography from a Reportage point of view. You might also learn quite a few things about digital ! To buy wedding magazines is important in order to get inspiration for your layout, but maybe not the best way to find a professional photographer. Classifieds, websites, promotions, etc...it all looks the same nowadays. And what you are being shown isn't what you really get I am afraid. After reading this book you will approach your suppliers differently. I hope you will enjoy the not to exhaustive reading and photographs. To read it first before searching for suppliers is vital and will save you a fair bit of money.
The Art in wedding reportage is about people, real reportage photography and honesty.

Just click on the badge on top to be redirected to Blurb's website where it is on sale.

CAN YOU SPOT THE DIFFERENCE ?

DIGITAL and FILM

Today I am not going to write much, but I am going to show you pictures from two weddings. They have been shot at different times of the year, one in Summer and the other in Winter. I will display similar visuals by sequence of two shots. The first picture is always digital and refers to Kate and Tom's wedding. The second one is shot with film and presents Daniel and Segalit.


I have tried to keep the retouching as minimal as possible, meaning, I personally never, never change the mood and aim of the picture. I never add new elements or hide existing ones. My approach whether it's digital or film is to enhance the quality of the raw materials. This is retouching with a computer, like it was done manually before. You will never see me manipulating the picture in trying to make something decent from bad materials. Good materials have to be shot while on duty otherwise you are not a professional photographer. That being said, the aim of this new chapter is to make you "feel' the difference between digital and film. One is not better than the other, they are different in the result and are good mix in the process. I will not talk about the approach you take as a photographer, that is an other debate. So, look closely and try to put words and feeling on what each picture expresses.





















I hope you can tell the difference between the two. Technologies do not interfere with the act of doing Reportage. That is the photographer's responsibility to make sure he/she will keep his/her integrity in the act of capturing the actions correctly while they happen and not at a later stage with post-production and manipulations, transformation of the original information. If you wish to capture the emotion with a real dedication to the "moment" and manage to capture it properly, you are then definitely in the right direction. The camera or technology chosen has nothing to do with that. That is the author who decides the appropriate medium, not the other way around.
Now, I would personally describe the digital has being too perfect unfortunately. Why ? Because it does show an accuracy and surface which we don't actually understand as human beings. It's more than real and the technology goes further than our perceptions. It's a technological performance which aims to achieve a perfection that doesn't exist. I am not personally interested in that. Film remains the medium I feel like communicating more closely, more truly.

ENGAGEMENT PICTURES OR TRIAL ?

I am trying to understand the various ways photographers and customers respond to the economy and new offers. Sometimes couples decide to meet up with their wedding photographer prior to the wedding to produce some engagement pictures. It is fun, relaxed and a good way to know each other. The aim is to capture some staged, creative or very laid back shots that represent the two individuals the way they really are without the dress or suit. There is no pressure of formalities, backdrop and running order. It is a separate job from the wedding duty. Same applies to baby pictures, portraits, etc... It takes the photographer half a day to travel, chat with couple, shoot, process, edit, deliver. The couple may eventually use one picture for their invitations, order of service, cards, blog, website, etc...It is also a way to present the photographer' style to the guests and families. And somehow you become more part of it as if you were a guest.

Recently more and more people are asking me for trial session before the wedding day. "What do you mean ?" I ask them. They answer that it is a way for them to feel more confident with the photographer. It doesn't really make sense to me but I can understand where it comes from...


1/ with the recession all sorts of offers arise such as trial shots, last dress fitting shots, visiting the venue beforehand, etc...Those offers do not make things better or worse, it is simply psychological for the customer and a way for the freelance to get the job - fair enough. In fact, if you decide that such photographer will be the one based on the fact that he/she does trial shots, it simply shows that you don't trust him/her to do the job properly on the wedding day. That is a bad start. If you are looking for someone who does Reportage, you will hardly notice him/her on the day to be frank, except for the group and couple' shots. To do Reportage is the art of becoming invisible. If you are looking for traditional wedding posed photography, that's something else...

2/ from a photographer's point of view or I would say amateur one. To do trial shots is a way to promote yourself working for cheaper. It is also a way of producing pictures in a very reassuring atmosphere compare to the actual wedding day. Therefore, amateur photographers, using digital, build a collection of materials to be used on the websites to promote themselves. The trouble is that those pictures are not pictures from the wedding day as we talk. Those pictures are staged materials like fashion shoots. It is simply called a set-up. I have seen in the last two years so many websites with the couple only in the fields, on the beach, veil in the wind, wide angle, etc...what does it have to do with wedding reportage? - Simply nothing. You should actually ask them about the materials they usually deliver. Photography and photographers can sell you everything and anything with visuals, so does advertising.

3/ I also wonder why people want me to visit the venue months before the wedding day? I will spend a good 8 hours in the venue on the day, I will have plenty of time to visit the place before and during. If you visit the venue on a different day than the wedding day it will look completely different, that doesn't really help. People are concerned about the light. If you are a professional photographer you should have the required equipment to any kind of light conditions.

4/ Wedding photography is still a very grey area for people. It is regarded as the low point of Photography from as much outsiders than insiders. In the first case it is about trusting someone else, in the second it is about trusting yourself. To do wedding photography is a lot of pressure on your shoulders, and you have to be good at so many techniques and human flair.
I truly believe that a talented wedding photographer is worth spending money. Pictures will be the only physical things left years later.

5/ To be a good reportage style photographer is about adapting to all circumstances, be creative and discreet. A good photojournalist is firstly a good observer and then a story teller. All the offers promoted in the last couple of years just show how people and photographers are sceptical. Digital engendered by amateurism just lowered the standards, but hightened the dream of the clientele thanks to fake imagery. In Reportage there is no beauty coming from manipulation. In Reportage the beauty is just there, everywhere, around you, within you,...

DIGITAL LIFE EXPECTANCY

So, where do we start ? I am dealing with something taboo here - Digital ! Everybody wants it, everybody uses it, everybody praises by it. We live digital ! Do actually people know what digital is and what it means? Today, I will focus only on the life expectancy of a digital file.

First, a digital file is VIRTUAL - it does not exist. I don't really think it comes as a shock to most of us, but somehow we tend to avoid this fact. Each digital file is an encoding of 0 and 1. Because of its structure it can be processed by computer devices. What is a computer ? It is a tool composed of hardware pieces (real) which activates sofwares manipulations (virtual), which than can be transposed into various acts (real), such as prints, coffee table books, robots, transactions, etc...Therefore, a digital file is a transitional information. Thanks to its ultimate compression it can be processed by a computer device and produce goods. We can say that a computer is a transformer of virtually into reality. So digital aims and succeeds in making our lives easier. It converts, transforms, reshapes, open dimensions, etc... But for how long does a digital image live ?

One of the main concern for a photographer is the life expectancy of the materials produced. They are like babies to us. Without their reality we cannot simply exist as a photographer. The worse nightmare is to be exposed to a fire or leak. All the proofs and years of dedication can vanish in minutes whether you deal with films or digital. That is a huge concern. Nevertheless, let's see how we can reduce the risks of loss.

Digital is a very fragile thing...

LIGHT STORAGE

CD/DVD: 5 years maximum. They are formatted or burnt only once and cannot be reused for something else.
USB KEY: same thing it is a transitional device, very vulnerable.
MEMORY CARD or STICK: they receive digital datas and cannot be used for long. You need to format them constantly after backing-up safely, separately, on various formats. If used regularly they become slow, obsolete and unreliable after one or two years, that's normal.
For safety reasons, do not buy new cards with huge storage (except very particular need), if you managed to collect thousands of pictures and realized there is something wrong with the card , you are in big trouble. Use alternative smaller cards to reduce the risks.

HEAVY STORAGE

SEPARATE HARD DRIVE: vividly recommended to purchase one, or two. They are compact ones that you can take in your bag, they are bigger ones that you should always keep safe at home. It is as precious as a computer.

That's the basics, but most people do not really know what is what ? what is it for ? etc...Most people just use laptops for typing texts, internet, news and social networks - and they store their images without any external back-up. That's when you are looking for trouble...so many stories of computer crashes and thousands of wedding pictures lost - nightmare ! Well obviously, that's a pain but that is also your fault. Why?

Digital is very flexible, convenient but ephemeral too ! What do you want really ? As a wedding photographer I keep on having discussions with competitors and photographers in general about the digital medium. At weddings, guests ask me every week " Did you switch to digital, what do you prefer ?" In both cases, I am very surprised by the lack of reflection dedicated to such a technology that drives our modern lives. People are obsessed by what it can do, but are not interested about what it is by definition.

So, here is the story:

- Digital is a great medium to work with as it is very flexible, compact and transformable.
But digital doesn't exist. Digital captures from reality and TRANSFORMS the information into something else. Our world is in 3D. Digital transforms it into a non defined dimension, or called digital, or I would say VIRTUAL. And something virtual cannot last by definition. Virtual or digital involves a high ability to store and process informations. The trouble is that the genuine materials will vanish fast. Some people say they shoot RAW as it is a better quality and will be better on the long run. I do agree, you have more informations, details and originality in a RAW file, nevertheless that doesn't change its state as a non-existing document. You can also find the best devices to store and save your datas but somehow that will disappear too as we change and will keep on changing formats, devices and collect virus, corrupted files, etc...It's like having a bowl of wool in your hands, very seductive at first but you know it will finish as a single thread.

NOTE: Everything single time you work on you pictures, transform then, send them, etc...you loose pixels and therefore damages its quality. So, it is a non-existing data which degrades rapidly. What is the point then ? ........That is its strength, think about it as a commercial value - fast turnover, no storage problem (real space wise) No responsibility after a couple of years for the photographer - it's great, it's digital !!!

FILM & DIGITAL

I am not shooting only with digital or only with films, I use both. Because each technology is better in a certain area than the other. There is no ultimate in life, only alternatives. I use digital when the budget is small, when I cannot afford to have processing and printing. Or when the customer only needs quick materials especially with corporate jobs. Most shoots are used for urgent releases, internet updates or cheap editorial purposes. They are just there to illustrate safely interviews, tabloids or adverts. For quite a few years now magazines stopped working with freelancers and employed graphic designers who take themselves photographs and to play with them. So Digital is convenient only when it comes to work datas on computer, but also for providing materials with sharp deadlines, and it cuts the costs down all along the chain. In the real world we actually apply the system described at first.



MY USE OF DIGITAL FOR WEDDINGS

I always propose the alternative of shooting with films at weddings. Negatives will last for ever, at least a century, for future generations. And they can always be scanned for digital needs.
Digital is great as it concentrate a huge amount of informations of soft storage. From them you can produce coffee table books online, order reprints, make copies to hand over to friends and families (that last case saves you a lot of time and money). You can save the original negatives in a safe place and use the digital files instead for your first orders after the wedding day. And because the originals are films, your digital files will have the film feel ( see sample above). The best digital cameras on the market will never replace analogue camera. Their concept is just completely different. I personally think that film is the most appropriate to translate the reality and preciousness of a wedding day in a REPORTAGE sense.

WHAT DO YOU RISK BY SHOOTING FROM A DIGITAL CAMERA ?

1/ from you personal amateur camera you are always risking to have first electronic problems. Most small devices are made with cheap materials and ships. Few years ago, Sony produced a bad ship that many brands used. More that 100 different range of cameras were affected.
Brands do not sell films anymore, therefore they have to sell a lot of cheap cameras, which are obviously not meant to last more that a couple of years.
2/ risks with memory cards
3/ when in your computer it exposed to introduction of new formats, computer crash, bad storage, etc..
4/ even if backed-up, datas will vanish in few years.

WHAT DO WE RISK BY SHOOTING DIGITAL ONLY ?

To simply create a void in our visual memory of our generation. That has already started...
Think twice about you interest in Photography. Do you want it to be consumed quickly and disappear, or do you want to save those special moments for other generations ?

FINAL WORD

Digital is a real need in today's way of working and communicating like I am doing now. It is very flexible technology and a great tool to produce goods of high standards. The main trouble is that it is not durable by nature as it doesn't exist.
Today, digital is used for its trend and for its ability to produce few goods that look fake, or too good to be true, especially in the wedding industry. This kind of wedding photography as nothing to do with Reportage. You can still approach the Reportage style, as we call it, with a digital slr, but you will not be able to communicate your work to other generations as digital disappears by definition. To do reportage is to report. If you wish to report on the short run you are doing it for money and fame and therefore are more interested in using digital when asked to do weddings. If you care and think long run, you better use films. But obviously that requires more knowledge, experience and guts.
Digital is a medium and a mode of binary informations to communicate and transform datas
on a virtual place. Digital has nothing to do with quality, it is simply convenient and cheap.

FEW LINKS

www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/do-images-exist-in-the-real-world/

http://demo.co.uk/blog/MakingDigitalDurable

Themanualofphotography:photographicanddigitalimaging-googlebooksresults

wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=190423

TO CROP OR NOT TO CROP ?

original full frame 35mm / Jonathan and Natalia's wedding 16th May 2009

This new paragraph is dedicated to the Cropping Manipulation. To crop an image isn't new, and has in fact been used for a long time. You can find a famous example through the art of Rodchenko mixing various stills of events cropped and assembled for political propaganda means. Cropping has been continuously used by the advertising industry to enhanced its delivery - one image, one message. It is about the clarity of reading. Same with paparazzi photography. How many horrible quality pictures have we seen in newspapers of a tiny part of the image blown up 10 times and where sometimes we cannot even read the image! Watch again Antonioni's Blown Up. A lot of photographers will always crop the image for various reasons. The shoot didn't allow them to get the perfect angle, or the equipment wasn't appropriate, or an undesired element interfered with the right shot. That can happen as we all know and we try to make most of the original we had previously in mind.

cropped vertically.

Nevertheless, there is a branch of Photography which never really followed that path, and that is precisely Reportage photography. Their policy is to show the public exactly the whole picture as a statement. They would use the key line way of printing ( Search for american photographer James Nachtwey) The printer would file carefully the negative holder in order to print a little bit more that the picture. That tiny extra space would diffuse straight light and create a black line which then proved the authenticity of the full picture. 100% straight from the neg to the paper - no artificials ! I am pretty sure most people remember those prints. It was a question of honour and pride to be able to capture all the elements within a single frame, a single click. Nowadays softwares propose this framing option as an artifice, and you can pretend to present the original full image and knowing it is not true. This policy is not so used anymore and the pressure from the medias is too strong. That is why nowadays you won't see that many pictures from auteurs as their images would be given an other meaning because of this cropping business. Medias rely more on pictures librairies nowadays where everything look perfect. It is cheaper to buy and easier to organize their agenda and layout. There is no room for improvisation and genuine raw beauty anymore I am afraid.

cropped landscape.

Doing Reportage in its true sense is to deliver the original image the way you composed it at that time, as simple as that. But to achieve such a result requires knowledge and experience. Amateur photographers will eventually sometimes succeed either by luck or hard work. Nevertheless, doing it with consistency and regularity requires professional skilIs. I guess and hope that couples to be still expect to work with a good professional wedding photographer.
I welcome you to visit different wedding photographers' websites and search for the authenticity of the shots displayed. Most of them are cropped, meaning that they didn't get the right shot and try to make most of it. I personally feel it is a shame as you may want to get the full original quality of the materials for your families. Of course, you still can frame a cropped image but you can feel that something is missing, that there is something fake about it. The intention and quality matters here especially when you are dealing with weddings.


cropped square

Few ways of cropping always work and enhance a poor image such as landscape and square format. They invite you in an other dimension in space and time. They deal with nostalgia and wider space. Landscape or long strip photography has been used for many years and deals with our child imaginary vision of tales. Cinema format is going back to that wide concept, like the classics of the 60's or book illustrations of the the early XXth Century. Square is a bit more recent when most photographers would use Rolleiflex in the 50's and 60's. This format is perfect for portraiture for its lens beauty and distance with subject. It has been used obviously in various ways but it has something strong, direct, a one to one mental approach.

Conclusion: Reportage aims to deliver the real original picture. Bad Photography generally engenders the act of cropping. New online digital book layouts encourage it as it aims to be public friendly and show people that they also can be as good as professionals. Should we go with the easy way, or should we learn the hard way ? Do we need to rely on professional photographers anymore ? Is the quality going up or down thanks to digital ? That will be discussed in an other chapter...